Trivia: Born William Anderson, this brawny, blond second lead had the looks of a Viking god. He worked as a band vocalist and trombone player, then gained a small amount of stage experience before debuting onscreen in a bit part (as a corpse) in Wanderer of the Wasteland (1935). Billed by Paramount as Glenn Erickson, he began his screen career as a leading man in Westerns. Because of his Nordic looks he was renamed Leif Erikson, which he later changed to Erickson. He played intelligent but unexciting second leads and supporting parts in many films. Erickson took four years off to serve in World War II and was twice wounded. He made few films after 1965 and retired from the screen after 1977. Also working on Broadway and in TV plays, he played the patriarch Big John Cannon in the TV series High Chaparral (1967-1971). From 1934 to 1942, he was married to actress Frances Farmer, with whom he co-starred in Ride a Crooked Mile (1938); later, he was briefly married to actress Margaret Hayes (aka Dana Dale).

Trivia: Argentinian actress Linda Cristal made her first American film in 1956. Typecast by virtue of her accent and her exotic Latino features, Linda could usually be found in westerns, notably Comanche (1956), The Fiend Who Walked the West (1958), The Alamo (1960) and Two Rode Together (1961). She also showed up in such European sword-and-sandal affairs as The Pharoah's Woman (1961). In 1959, Linda was given a rare opportunity to display her comic know-how as a temperamental Hollywood starlet in the Tony Curtis/Janet Leigh vehicle The Perfect Furlough. From 1967 through 1971, Linda Cristal played Victoria Cannon on the TV western The High Chaparral.

Trivia: Not wishing to be typecast in Latino roles, actor Henry Thomas Delgado changed his professional name to Henry Darrow -- only to spend his first dozen or so years in show business playing Hispanics. Darrow gained nationwide attention when briefly cast as a Mexican lawyer on the ABC daytime drama General Hospital; he had previously been active in Spanish-language soap operas, and as a Hollywood voice-over artist, dubbing Hispanic films into English. While appearing in an L.A.-based stage play in early 1967, Darrow was spotted by TV producer David Dortort, who was then in the process of casting the upcoming Western series The High Chaparral. Dortort created the character of aristocrat-turned-ranchhand Manolito Montoya with Darrow specifically in mind; the actor remained in this role until High Chapparal completed its four-season run in 1971. Darrow was then seen in a handful of films (Badge 373, Maverick, etc.) and a whole slew of weekly TV programs, including The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1973-1974 season, as stage manager Alex Montenez) and Time Trax (1993). He also returned to the daily-serial grind as Rafael Castillo on Santa Barbara (1984-1992). In 1983, Henry Darrow was starred on the spoofish series Zorro and Son as Zorro Sr. (aka Don Diego de la Vega), a character he'd previously played via voice-over on the Saturday morning cartoon weekly The Tarzan/Lone Ranger/Zorro Adventure Hour (1981); and in 1989, he was seen as the title character's father on the Family Channel cable series Zorro.

Trivia: The son of a Pennsylvania minister, actor Cameron Mitchell first appeared on Broadway in 1934, in the Lunts' modern-dress version of Taming of the Shrew. He served as a bombardier during World War II, and for a brief period entertained thoughts of becoming a professional baseball player (he allegedly held an unsigned contract with the Detroit Tigers until the day he died). Mitchell was signed to an MGM contract in 1945, but stardom would elude him until he appeared as Happy in the original 1949 Broadway production of Death of the Salesman. He re-created this role for the 1951 film version, just before signing a long-term contract with 20th Century Fox. Throughout the 1950s, Mitchell alternated between likeable characters (the unpretentious business executive in How to Marry a Millionaire [1952]) and hissable ones (Jigger Craigin in Carousel [1956]); his best performance, in the opinion of fans and critics alike, was as drug-addicted boxer Barney Ross in the 1957 biopic Monkey on My Back. Beginning in the 1960s, Mitchell adroitly sidestepped the IRS by appearing in dozens of Spanish and Italian films, only a few of which were released in the U.S. He also starred in three TV series: The Beachcomber (1961), The High Chapparal (1969-1971), and Swiss Family Robinson (1976). Mitchell spent the better part of the 1970s and 1980s squandering his talents in such howlers as The Toolbox Murders, though there were occasional bright moments, notably his performance as a neurotic mob boss in 1982's My Favorite Year. A note for trivia buffs: Cameron Mitchell also appeared in the first CinemaScope film, The Robe (1953). Mitchell was the voice of Jesus in the Crucifixion scene.

Trivia: Jamaican-born Frank Silvera attended Northeastern Law School before inaugurating his acting career. One of the few black actors of the 1950s who was able to avoid being typecast by the color of his skin, Silvera played a wide variety of ethnic types, from Latin to Middle Eastern to Oriental. He made his film bow in 1952's Viva Zapata, and shortly thereafter was prominently cast in two of Stanley Kubrick's seminal films, Fear and Desire (1953) and Killer's Kiss (1955). Silvera was founder of The Theatre of Being, which was devoted to helping young African-American actors get started in show business; he also directed several stage plays in New York and Los Angeles. Frank Silvera was electrocuted in his home at the age of 56, while trying to repair an electrical appliance. At the time of his death, he was a regular on the TV series The High Chapparal.

Trivia: Kevin Hagen is a veteran character actor long associated with intense dramatic roles. He has portrayed everything from hitmen and rapists to prosecutors and police officers, but is perhaps best known to television audiences for his portrayal of the avuncular Dr. Baker on the long-running series Little House on the Prairie. Hagen was born and raised in and around Chicago, but moved to Portland, OR, during his teens. Following a two-year hitch in the United States Navy, he attended college on the G.I. Bill, majoring in international relations, and later worked for the U.S. State Department in Germany. Bored with that job, he considered a career in law but dropped out after one year. While trying to figure out what he wanted to do for a career, he auditioned for a production of the play Blind Alley and won a small role, despite the fact that he had never acted before. Within a year, Hagen had moved up to playing the lead in a production of James Thurber's play The Male Animal, and spent the next few years scraping out a living in small theatrical productions around Los Angeles in between studying with Agnes Moorehead, among other notables. His breakthrough came with his portrayal of stern patriarch Ephraim Cabot in a production of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms -- that led to his getting an agent and, in turn, led to his television debut in an episode of Dragnet. He appeared in various dramatic anthology shows and played important guest-star parts on programs such as Gunsmoke, Rawhide, Cheyenne, M-Squad, and The Untouchables -- in one episode of the latter, "Stranglehold," Hagen brought a startling degree of humanity and depth to the part of a professional killer. Hagen made his feature-film debut in 1958 in the Disney-produced The Light in the Forest, and that same year, he got his first regular role in a series when he was cast in the part of John Colton, the city administrator of post-Civil War New Orleans, in Yancy Derringer. The show only ran for one season, but Hagen had more work than ever following the conclusion of filming, on such series as Bonanza, Perry Mason, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Felony Squad, and Mission: Impossible. He also did some film work, most notably in Andrew V. McLaglen's Civil War drama Shenandoah (1965), in which Hagen played the scavenging deserter who murders James Stewart's son (Patrick Wayne) and rapes and murders Stewart's daughter-in-law (Katharine Ross). During this period, he also began a string of appearances in television series produced by Irwin Allen, guest starring in episodes of Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and Time Tunnel. Those roles led to Hagen's being cast as Inspector Kobick, the security officer pursuing the diminutive earthlings, in Allen's Land of the Giants. He brought a great deal of humanity and complexity to his portrayal of the character in the course of the series' two-season run. During the 1970s, Hagen made frequent guest appearances on series such as M*A*S*H, Quincy, and Knot's Landing. In 1974, Hagen was cast in the role for which he has become best known, as Dr. Baker in Little House on the Prairie. He portrayed the part for ten seasons and developed a serious fandom among the series' legions of viewers. Hagen left Hollywood for Oregon in the early '80s, and has continued his work in regional theater productions of such plays as West Side Story, Follies, and Oklahoma! He also performs his own one-man show, a mixture of songs, monologues, and prairie wit and wisdom drawn from his Little House persona.