Trivia: Saturnine character actor Martin Landau was a staff cartoonist for the New York Daily News before switching to acting. In 1955, his career got off to a promising beginning, when out of 2,000 applicants, only he and one other actor (Steve McQueen) were accepted by Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. Extremely busy in the days of live, Manhattan-based television, Landau made his cinematic mark with his second film appearance, playing James Mason's henchman in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959). In 1966, Landau and his wife Barbara Bain were both cast on the TV adventure/espionage series Mission: Impossible. For three years, Landau portrayed Rollin Hand, a master of disguise with the acute ability to impersonate virtually every villain who came down the pike (banana-republic despots were a specialty). Unhappy with changes in production personnel and budget cuts, Landau and Bain left the series in 1969. Six years later, they costarred in Space: 1999 a popular syndicated sci-fi series; the performances of Landau, Bain, and third lead Barry Morse helped to gloss over the glaring gaps in continuity and logic which characterized the show's two-year run. The couple would subsequently act together several times (The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island (1981) was one of the less distinguished occasions) before their marriage dissolved.Working steadily in various projects throughout the next few decades, Landau enjoyed a career renaissance with two consecutive Oscar nominations, the first for Francis Ford Coppola's Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), and the second for Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Landau finally won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's 1994 Ed Wood; his refusal to cut his acceptance speech short was one of the high points of the 1995 Oscar ceremony. He would continue to work over the next several years, appearing in movies like City of Ember and Mysteria, as well as on TV shows like Without a Trace and Entourage.

Trivia: American actor Malcolm Atterbury may have been allowed more versatility on stage, but so far as TV was concerned he was the quintessential grouchy grandfather and/or frontier snake-oil peddler. Atterbury was in fact cast in the latter capacity twice by that haven of middle-aged character players The Twilight Zone. He was the purveyor of an elixir which induced invulnerability in 1959's "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" and a 19th century huckster who nearly sets a town on fire in "No Time Like the Past" (1963). Atterbury enjoyed steadier work as the supposedly dying owner of a pickle factory in the 1973 sitcom Thicker Than Water, and as Ronny Cox's grandfather on the 1974 Waltons clone Apple's Way. Malcolm Atterbury's best-known film role was one for which he received no screen credit: he was the friendly stranger who pointed out the crop-duster to Cary Grant in North By Northwest (1959), observing ominously that the plane was "dustin' where they're aren't any crops."

Trivia: Actress Jeanne Cooper entered films in 1953. Though she worked often, Cooper appeared in only a handful of memorable movies, including the rare Roger Corman social-protest film The Intruder (1961) and The Boston Strangler (1968). She was seen to better advantage on television, guesting in a wide range of roles on such series as The Twilight Zone and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. From 1969 to 1970, she was seen as Grace Douglas on the prime-time "inside Hollywood" series Bracken's World. She is best known for her ongoing characterization of Kay Chancellor on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless. Unlike many other daytime-drama actresses, who prefer to keep their onscreen characters and actual personalities separate, Cooper has invested many of her own life experiences in the role of Kay Chancellor. She harked back on her own bout with alcoholism to realistically portray Kay's recovery from a chronic drinking problem; and, when Jeanne underwent a facelift, so did Kay -- complete with in-progress shots of the actual operation. Jeanne Cooper is the mother of actor Corbin Bernsen. She passed away at age 84 in 2013.

Trivia: Raw-boned blonde leading man Doug McClure came to films in 1957, but it was television that made him a star. He played secondary roles on such MCA series as The Overland Trail (1960) and Checkmate (1961-62) before striking paydirt as Trampas on the long-running (1962-71) western series The Virginian. During his first flush of stardom, McClure played leads in two Universal remakes, Beau Geste (1966) and The King's Pirate (the 1967 remake of Errol Flynn's Against All Flags). He also dashed through a trio of British-filmed Edgar Rice Burroughs derivations, The Land That Time Forgot (1974), At the Earth's Core (1976) and The People That Time Forgot (1977). He perpetuated his athletic, devil-may-care image into his brief 1975 TVer, Search (1975). In the late 1980s, Doug McClure reemerged as an agreeable comic actor, playing an Eastwoodish movie-star-cum-small-town-mayor in the syndicated sitcom Out of This World (1987-88).

Trivia: Character actor Art Batanides made a number of appearances in film and television, but will be best remembered for his work on the Police Academy franchise and on the extremely popular late-'70s/early-'80s television series Happy Days. Batanides died in early 2000, at age 77.

Trivia: Hissable movie heavy Dan Duryea was handsome enough as a young man to secure leading roles in the student productions at White Plains High School. He majored in English at Cornell University, but kept active in theatre, succeeding Franchot Tone as president of Cornell's Dramatic Society. Bowing to his parents' wishes, Duryea sought out a more "practical" profession upon graduation, working for the N. W. Ayer advertising agency. After suffering a mild heart attack, Duryea was advised by his doctor to leave advertising and seek out employment in something he enjoyed doing. Thus, Duryea returned to acting in summer stock, then was cast in the 1935 Broadway hit Dead End. The first of his many bad-guy roles was Bob Ford, the "dirty little coward" who shot Jesse James, in the short-lived 1938 stage play Missouri Legend. Impressed by Duryea's slimy but somehow likeable perfidy in this play, Herman Shumlin cast the young actor as the snivelling Leo Hubbard in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes. This 1939 Broadway production was converted into a film by Sam Goldwyn in 1941, with many members of the original cast -- including Duryea -- making their Hollywood debuts. Duryea continued playing supporting roles in films until 1945's The Woman in the Window, in which he scored as Joan Bennett's sneering "bodyguard" (that's Hollywoodese for "pimp"). Thereafter, Duryea was given star billing, occasionally in sympathetic roles (White Tie and Tails [1946], Black Angel [1946]), but most often as a heavy. From 1952 through 1955, he starred as a roguish soldier of fortune in the syndicated TV series China Smith, and also topped the cast of a theatrical-movie spin-off of sorts, World for Ransom (1954), directed by Duryea's friend Robert Aldrich. One of the actor's last worthwhile roles in a big-budget picture was as a stuffy accountant who discovers within himself inner reserves of courage in Aldrich's Flight of the Phoenix (1965). In 1968, shortly before his death from a recurring heart ailment, Duryea was cast as Eddie Jacks in 67 episodes of TV's Peyton Place. Dan Duryea was the father of actor Peter Duryea, likewise a specialist in slimy villainy.

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from the '50s; he often played military men, sheriffs, or policemen.

Trivia: One of show-businesses busiest grandfatherly figures, actor Bill Erwin has been appearing in film and television since the early '40s, and as of 2003, he's shown no signs of slowing. His consistently reliable performances in such high-profile efforts as Somewhere in Time (1980), Home Alone (1990), and Forces of Nature (1999) have found Erwin enduring to become one of the most in-demand supporting players around. A Honey Grove, TX, native who earned his bachelor's in journalism at the University of Texas in Austin in 1935, Erwin went on to California to complete his Masters of Theater Arts at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1941. Though a stint in World War II would momentarily put his acting career on hold, Erwin returned stateside to make his film debut in, appropriately enough, the 1941 Phil Silvers comedy You're in the Army Now. Throughout the years, Erwin has appeared in numerous stage productions on both coasts, and repeat performances on such television classics as Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone, Growing Pains, and Seinfeld have ensured Erwin's popularity with many generations of television viewers. His role in Seinfeld earned him an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1993. From high-profile releases like Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995) to edgy, low-budget sci-fi movies like Menno's Mind (1996), Erwin has done it all, and equally well. Outside of his film work, Erwin spends his time writing and illustrating cartoons in his North Hollywood home.