Trivia: The younger brother of Gunsmoke star James Arness, American actor Peter Graves worked as a musician and radio actor before entering films with 1950's Rogue River. At first, it appeared that Graves would be the star of the family, since he was cast in leads while brother Jim languished in secondary roles. Then came Stalag 17 (1953), in which Graves was first-rate as a supposedly all-American POW who turned out to be a vicious Nazi spy. Trouble was, Graves played the part too well, and couldn't shake the Nazi stereotype in the eyes of most Hollywood producers. Suddenly the actor found himself in such secondary roles as Shelley Winters' doomed husband in Night of the Hunter (1955) (he was in and out of the picture after the first ten minutes), while sibling James Arness was riding high with Gunsmoke. Dissatisfied with his film career, Graves signed on in 1955 for a network kid's series about "a horse and the boy who loved him." Fury wasn't exactly Citizen Kane, but it ran five years and made Graves a wealthy man through rerun residuals--so much so that he claimed to be making more money from Fury than his brother did from Gunsmoke. In 1966, Peter Graves replaced Steven Hill as head honcho of the force on the weekly TV adventure series Mission: Impossible, a stint that lasted until 1973. Though a better than average actor, Graves gained something of a camp reputation for his stiff, straight-arrow film characters and was often cast in films that parodied his TV image. One of the best of these lampoonish appearances was in the Zucker-Abrahams comedy Airplane (1980), as a nutty airline pilot who asks outrageous questions to a young boy on the plane (a part the actor very nearly turned down, until he discovered that Leslie Nielsen was co-starring in the film). Peter Graves effortlessly maintained his reliable, authoritative movie persona into the '90s and 2000s, and hosted the Biography series on A&E, for which he won an Emmy; he also guest-starred on programs including Cold Case, House and American Dad. Graves died of natural causes in March 2010, at age 83.

Trivia: Fans of the original action /espionage series Mission Impossible (1966-70) may recognize black actor Greg Morris for playing electronics wizard Barney Collier. Morris spent most of his career on television, appearing on such shows as Ben Casey, The Dick Van Dyck Show and The Twilight Zone. During the 1970s, Morris was a regular on Vega$ (1978-81), playing police officer Lt. David Neslon. A native of Cleveland who spent part of his childhood in New York City, his mother worked as a secretary for black labor leader A. Phillip Reynolds. Before becoming a television actor during the early '60s, Morris attended Ohio State University and the University of Iowa. Morris passed away at the age of 61 on August 27, 1996. The cause of death was unreported.

Trivia: Actress Lynda Day George was quite busy on TV in guest-starring roles throughout the 1960s. Before she officially changed her professional name from "Day" to "Day George" -- to acknowledge her marriage to actor Christopher George -- Day George was a regular on The Silent Force, a 1970 Mission: Impossible clone. Ironically, one year later she was cast on the real Mission: Impossible as undercover operative Casey, a role she retained until the series' cancellation in 1973. While she has appeared in the occasional theatrical film, most of Day George's best work could be seen in such small-screen miniseries as Rich Man, Poor Man, Once an Eagle, and Roots. In the early '80s, Lynda Day George began turning down network roles to devote her energies to religious television, remaining active in this field long after the death of her husband in 1983.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the late '60s. For his portrayal of Motel the tailor in Fiddler on the Roof (1971) he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. He came to prominence as the character Harold in the stage and screen versions of The Boys in the Band (film, 1970). He died of AIDS.

Trivia: RADA alumnus Donald Moffat made his London stage debut in 1954, playing the First Murderer in MacBeth. On stage, the wiry, angular Moffat excelled in the plays of Ibsen and Moliere; on screen, he has since carved his niche in eccentric, unpredictable roles. He has also sparkled in authoritative characterizations, both bombastic (a tantrum-tossing LBJ in 1981's The Right Stuff, a fascistic Colonel Ruppert in the 1991 TV movie Babe Ruth) and cool-headed (the fictional U.S. president in 1993's A Clear and Present Danger, Kennedy in-law Hugh Auchincloss in the 1982 video presentation Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy). In addition, Moffat has brightened many a Robert Altman production, most prominently as the ubiquitous bike-riding tax collector in Popeye (1980). Donald Moffat's TV-series resumé includes such roles as an immigrant Scandinavian minister in The New Land (1974), a lovable android in Logan's Run (1977), and all-knowing Dr. Marcus Polk on the ABC daytimer One Life to Live.

Trivia: Dennis Cross began playing supporting roles on television in 1949 and eventually became a dialogue director for Spelling Productions. His son is professional football player Randy Cross.