Trivia: Working briefly as an actor in the late 1950s, American director Richard Donner first wielded the megaphone for a group of TV commercials, then graduated to the weekly western Wanted: Dead or Alive. Some of Donner's best early work was concentrated on the fantasy anthology Twilight Zone, including the imperishable 1963 episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." Donner also worked for Hanna-Barbera, directing several episodes of "Danger Island", a component of the 1968 kid's series The Banana Splits; there was, however, very little that was "kiddie" about "Mystery Island," a hallucinatory symphony of hand-held camerawork. A film director since 1961 Donner turned to movie work full time with 1968's Salt and Pepper. The Omen (1976), a demonic-possession opus, was Donner's first major moneymaker, leading to his directing assignment on the first Superman film in 1978. Superman was popular enough to inspire three sequels, the first of which contained so much uncredited Donner-directed footage that the director was compelled to sue. Donner has struck gold at the box office several times since 1978, notably with the three action-packed Lethal Weapon films starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, and more recently with another Gibson vehicle, Maverick (1994).

Trivia: A master of suspense and the bizarre, Rod Serling is best remembered for his groundbreaking sci-fi television anthology series The Twilight Zone (1959-1965). Born in Syracuse, NY, the son of a wholesale meat dealer, Serling had a life-long interest in science fiction and the supernatural. During WWII, he served as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army 11th Airborne Division. While in the military, Serling was also a noted boxer. Following an honorable discharge in 1946, the result of a shrapnel wound, he attended Antioch College and majored in physical education and then literature. While there, he began writing, directing, and acting in locally produced radio plays. In 1949, he sold his first television script, "Grady Everett for the People." He came to Hollywood to write teleplays full-time in the mid-'50s. Early on, Serling was noted for his intelligent and offbeat scripts. His teleplay Patterns earned him his first of five Emmys. With the Twilight Zone, Serling served as the host and oversaw each of the two stories presented per episode. He wrote many of the stories himself, most of which were known for their ironic twists. Serling also wrote a few screenplays, including Planet of the Apes (1968). Later, he returned to television to launch other anthology series such as Rod Serling's Night Gallery. He also was noted as the distinctive narrator of the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau documentaries. In addition to his television career, Serling often did cross-country college campus lectures and for a time was a professor at Antioch College. He died in 1975 during open-heart surgery.

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.