Trivia: Michael Burns went from playing boyish male ingénues in the early '60s to a somewhat less successful career as a male lead in such offbeat movies as That Cold Day in the Park. Born in Mineola, NY, in 1947, he was raised in Yonkers, NY, and later in Beverly Hills, CA. His father, Frank Burns. had been a pioneering engineer in the field of television during the '30s and was later a director. It was through a chance encounter with the father of a classmate in his Beverly Hills school (who knew of an opening for a boy actor) that Michael Burns began a television career in August 1958 at the age of nine. His subsequent small-screen appearances included Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Loretta Young Show, The Twilight Zone, and G.E. Theatre before he landed the role of Barnaby West, a young orphan adopted by the crew of the wagon train, in the MCA-produced series Wagon Train. He later appeared in episodes of Bonanza and other dramatic series. In 1969, he graduated to adult roles in the drama That Cold Day in the Park, directed by Robert Altman, in which he was obliged to portray some sexual situations that would have been unheard of in movies at the time he entered the business. Despite pursuing his acting career into adulthood, Burns is best remembered for roles during his teenage years. He served in production capacities beginning in the '80s, notably as an executive producer of Monster's Ball in 2001.

Trivia: Robert Fuller spent his first decade in show business trying his best to avoid performing. After his film debut in 1952's Above and Beyond, Fuller studied acting with Sanford Meisner at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse but never exhibited any real dedication. He tried to become a dancer but gave that up as well, determining that dancing was "sissified." Fuller rose to nominal stardom fairly rapidly in the role of Jess Harper on the popular TV western Laramie (1959-63). Once he found his niche in cowboy attire, he stuck at it in another series, Wagon Train, turning down virtually all offers for "contemporary" roles. When westerns began dying out on television in the late 1960s, Fuller worked as a voiceover actor in commercials, earning some $65,000 per year (a tidy sum in 1969). On the strength of his performance in the Burt Topper-directed motorcycle flick The Hard Ride, Fuller was cast by producer Jack Webb as chief paramedic Kelly Brackett on the weekly TVer Emergency, which ran from 1972 through 1977. In 1994, Robert Fuller was one of several former TV western stars who showed up in cameo roles in the Mel Gibson movie vehicle Maverick.

Trivia: A longtime theater actress with a handful of movies to her credit and work in dozens of filmed and live prime-time television dramas, Frances Reid was best known for the last 44 years of her life for her portrayal of Alice Horton on the soap opera Days of Our Lives. From the show's first broadcast on NBC, on November 8, 1965, until her last on-air appearance in 2007, she was the matriarchal presence on the series -- a loving wife, mother, and grandmother (and, ultimately, great-great-grandmother), known for her wise counsel, patient nature, occasional bravery, and also for her homemade doughnuts. Reid was born in 1914, in Wichita Falls, TX, but was raised in Berkeley, CA, where her father was a banker. She trained at the Pasadena Playhouse, and in the 1930s appeared in a series of Broadway shows, as well as in a handful of movies, in small, uncredited roles (most notably in Gregory La Cava's Stage Door [1937], starring Katharine Hepburn). Reid made her television debut unusually early, in a 1939 production of Little Women in the role of Beth March, on NBC. As a New York-based actress in the late '40s and '50s, she worked regularly in television, mostly in dramatic roles and on anthology series, and Reid's East Coast presence also allowed her to get her voice into Alfred Hitchcock's New York-filmed production of The Wrong Man (1956). She also starred in two soap operas, Portia Faces Life and As the World Turns, in the 1950s and early '60s, and admitted to not appreciating the grind of the daytime drama format. During the 1950s, Reid was also busy primarily in theater, and won special praise for her work in the classics, most notably her Roxane, opposite José Ferrer, in Cyrano De Bergerac, which was described as "enchanting" by Brooks Atkinson, the New York Times critic. By 1965, however, Reid had turned 40 and discovered that roles for women in that age group were increasingly scarce. It was then that she took on the part of Alice Horton on Days of Our Lives. Her character's main issues in that more innocent age concerned her oldest son, Tommy, who had been reported as missing in action in the Korean War; and the empty nest left behind as her other children had grown up and moved out. In later decades, the plots involving Alice Horton and her doctor husband, Tom (played by Hitchcock alumnus MacDonald Carey), came to involve kidnappings and other, wilder notions, and even Alice's apparent death. She outlived Carey by 15 years, and continued in the role onscreen through 2007 -- long before that, even non-soap opera fans marveled at the love and devotion that Reid displayed in her long-running portrayal. The series' annual Christmas tree-decorating episode, in which Alice Horton was inevitably at the center, remained a beloved event, right into the 21st century. Reid received a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004 for her work on the series.

Trivia: Of Swedish-American heritage, Virginia Christine (born Virginia Kraft) grew up in largely Scandinavian communities in Iowa and Minnesota. As a high schooler, Christine won a National Forensic League award, which led to her first professional engagement on a Chicago radio station. When her family moved to Los Angeles, Christine sought out radio work while attending college. She was trained for a theatrical career by actor/director Fritz Feld, who later became her husband. In 1942, she signed a contract with Warner Bros., appearing in bits in such films as Edge of Darkness (1943) and Mission to Moscow (1944). As a free-lance actress, Christine played the female lead in The Mummy's Curse (1945), a picture she later described as "ghastly." Maturing into a much-in-demand character actress, Christine appeared in four Stanley Kramer productions: The Men (1950), Not as a Stranger (1955), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). Other movie assignments ranged from the heights of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) to the depths of Billy the Kid Meets Dracula (1978). To a generation of Americans who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, Christine will forever be Mrs. Olson, the helpful Swedish neighbor in scores of Folger's Coffee commercials.

Trivia: A versatile, commanding, leathery character actor, he learned to raise and ride broncos on his family's ranch during his youth. He attended college for two years, became a seaman, then began his performing career as a radio announcer; he became nationally known as an announcer on the "March of Time" broadcasts. Onscreen from the late '40s, he often portrayed law officers; he was also convincing as a villain. He was well-known for his TV work; he starred in the series Naked City and Wagon Train. He was married to actress Jeanette Nolan, with whom he appeared in Saddle Tramp (1950) and Two Rode Together (1961); they also acted together on radio, and in the late '60s they joined the cast of the TV series The Virginian, portraying a married couple. Their son was actor Tim McIntire.

Trivia: Redheaded leading man Robert Horton attended UCLA, served in the Coast Guard during World War II, and acted in California-based stage productions before making his entree into films in 1951. Horton's television career started off on a high note in 1955, when he was cast in the weekly-TV version of King's Row as Drake McHugh (the role essayed by Ronald Reagan in the 1942 film version). The series barely lasted three months, but better things were on the horizon: in 1957, Horton was hired to play frontier scout Flint McCullough in Wagon Train, which became the highest-rated western on TV. Horton remained with Wagon Train until 1962. He then did some more stage work before embarking on his third series, 1965's The Man Called Shenandoah. When this one-season wonder ran its course, Horton toured the dinner-theatre circuit, then in 1982 accepted a major role on the popular daytime soap opera As the World Turns. Horton continued acting until the late 1980s. He died in 2016, at age 91.