Trivia: Angela Lansbury received an Oscar nomination for her first film, Gaslight, in 1944, and has been winning acting awards and audience favor ever since. Born in London to a family that included both politicians and performers, Lansbury came to the U.S. during World War II. She made notable early film appearances as the snooty sister in National Velvet (1944); the pathetic singer in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), which garnered her another Academy nomination; and the madam-with-a-heart-of-gold saloon singer in The Harvey Girls (1946). She turned evil as the manipulative publisher in State of the Union (1948), but was just as convincing as the good queen in The Three Musketeers (1948) and the petulant daughter in The Court Jester (1956). She received another Oscar nomination for her chilling performance as Laurence Harvey's scheming mother in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and appeared as the addled witch in Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), among other later films. On Broadway, she won Tony awards for the musicals Mame (1966), Dear World (1969), the revival of Gypsy (1975), Sweeney Todd (1979) and, at age 82, for the play Blithe Spirit (2009). Despite a season in the '50s on the game show Pantomime Quiz, she came to series television late, starring in 1984-1996 as Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote; she took over as producer of the show in the '90s. She returned to the Disney studios to record the voice of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast (1991) and to sing the title song and later reprised the role in the direct-to-video sequel, The Enchanted Christmas (1997). Lansbury is the sister of TV producer Bruce Lansbury.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Loaned George Clooney $100 to pay for headshots when Clooney was still a struggling actor. Transitioned from being a character actor to behind-the-camera work in the early 2000s, receiving his first coproducer credit on the 2003 film Intolerable Cruelty. In 2005, he and his wife used their airline miles to purchase 16 plane tickets to evacuate survivors of Hurricane Katrina; they also opened their home to a family who had lost everything in the storm for five months while they put their lives back together. Cofounded the production company Smokehouse Pictures in 2006 with his longtime friend George Clooney.

Trivia: American supporting and occasionally leading actor Robert Lipton made his feature-film debut with his sister, Peggy Lipton, in Blue (1968). He went on to appear on television, notably as Dr. Jeff Ward in the daytime serial As the World Turns from 1978 through 1984.

Trivia: The son of an Austrian father and Swedish mother, Boston-born actor Barry Newman received a liberal education ranging from Latin to Hebrew to music. Graduating from Brandeis University with an anthropology degree, Newman decided upon becoming an actor when he chanced to wander into a class conducted by Actors Studio mentor Lee Strasberg. He was busy if not famously so on stage and in Manhattan-based TV (notably the daytime drama Edge of Night). His first film was the gangster potboiler Pretty Boy Floyd (1960), his breakthrough picture was The Lawyer (1969). Newman made an excellent impression in the role of a cocky gonzo attorney, a character reprised in the 1974 TV movie Night Games. This in turn led to the TV series Petrocelli, starring Newman as a compassionate big-city lawyer living and working in Tucson, Arizona. After Petrocelli was cancelled in 1974, Barry Newman showed up on stage, in several made-for-TV movies, and in the Aaron Spelling "jiggle" series Nightingales (1989).

Trivia: While growing up in Chicago, Tom Bosley dreamed of becoming the star left-fielder for the Cubs. As it turned out, the closest Bosley got to organized athletics was a sportscasting class at DePauw University. After additional training at the Radio Institute of Chicago and two years' practical experience in various dramatic radio programs and stock companies, he left for New York in 1950. Five years of odd jobs and summer-theater stints later, he landed his first off-Broadway role, playing Dupont-Dufort in Jean Anouilh's Thieves' Carnival. Steadier work followed at the Arena Theatre in Washington, D.C.; then in 1959, Bosley landed the starring role in the Broadway musical Fiorello!, picking up a Tony Award, an ANTA Award, and the New York Drama Critics Award in the bargain. In 1963, he made his film bow as Natalie Wood's "safe and secure" suitor Anthony Colombo in Love With the Proper Stranger. Occasionally cast as two-bit criminals or pathetic losers (he sold his eyes to blind millionairess Joan Crawford in the Spielberg-directed Night Gallery TV movie), Bosley was most often seen as a harried suburban father. After recurring roles on such TV series as That Was the Week That Was, The Debbie Reynolds Show, and The Sandy Duncan Show, Bosley was hired by Hanna-Barbera to provide the voice of flustered patriarch Howard Boyle on the animated sitcom Wait Til Your Father Gets Home (1972-1973). This served as a dry run of sorts for his most famous series-TV assignment: Howard Cunningham, aka "Mr. C," on the immensely popular Happy Days (1974-1983). The warm, familial ambience of the Happy Days set enabled Bosley to weather the tragic death of his first wife, former dancer Jean Elliot, in 1978. In addition to his Happy Days duties, Bosley was narrator of the syndicated documentary That's Hollywood (1977-1981). From 1989 to 1991, he starred on the weekly series The Father Dowling Mysteries, and thereafter was seen on an occasional basis as down-to-earth Cabot Cove sheriff Amos Tupper on Murder, She Wrote. Reportedly as kind, generous, and giving as his Happy Days character, Tom Bosley has over the last 20 years received numerous honors for his many civic and charitable activities.

Trivia: Though early on, short, pugnacious American actor Gerald S. O'Loughlin dreamed of becoming a lawyer, the prohibitive cost of law school forced him to steer toward engineering as a career. O'Loughlin was deflected from this ambition by an increasing interest in the theatre. After a long stint with the Marines, O'Loughlin used his GI Bill money to finance his participation at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. Working steadily on stage and in live TV drama, O'Loughlin made an inauspicious debut as the romantic lead in the Manhattan-filmed turkey Lovers and Lollipops (1956); one year later, he was shown to better advantage re-creating his stage role in the filmization of Michael Gazzo's play A Hatful of Rain (1957). For many children of the '70s, Gerald O'Loughlin will always be the tough-but-tender Lt. Ryker on the long-running cop series The Rookies. Even in his subsequent TV series assignments (Automan [1983-1984], Our House [1986]) one half expected O'Loughlin to drop character and start barking out "Hey! Danko." Gerald O'Loughlin was married to casting director Meryl Abeles.

Trivia: Dennis Franz, David Caruso, and Gail O'Grady may be the best-known actors to achieve stardom out of the series NYPD Blue, but there are others who have moved into the spotlight during the program's run -- Bill Brochtrup is one of the latest. Playing Police Administrative Aide John Irvin since the late '90s, Brochtrup has brought a unique combination of wit and sensitivity to the rough-hewn crime series. Born in California in 1963, Brochtrup was raised in Tacoma, WA, and graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. His early stage credits included roles in D.H. Lawrence's The Fox (earning a DramaLogue Award) and Raft of the Medusa, and he earned rave reviews for his starring role in the off-Broadway production of Snakebit, which he also brought to West Hollywood. He made his television acting debut in the space-alien sitcom ALF in 1990, and did an episode of Diagnosis Murder in (1994) before being picked to play John Irvin in what was originally supposed to be a two-episode arc of NYPD Blue, as the temporary police administrative aide to the detective squad. The character ended up being kept on the series for much of that season, and producer Steven Bochco was sufficiently impressed with Brochtrup's work to ask him to move into the series Public Morals, playing the same role. After its cancellation, Brochtrup moved on to Total Security in the role of George LaSalle, and, after that series' end, returned to NYPD Blue as John Irvin, this time permanently as one of the co-stars. Brochtrup, who also appeared in episodes of Murder, She Wrote, Picket Fences, and Dharma & Greg, has cut a major figure as John Irvin, despite the fact that the character isn't even a police officer. Playing one of the first avowedly gay characters on a prime-time network police drama, Brochtrup walked a fine line, bringing sensitivity and a gentle, subtle wit to the role, which encouraged the writers to do more with the character. In particular, seeing what he could do with the role, the writers made it their business to put Brochtrup's John Irvin together with Dennis Franz's easily exasperated, not very enlightened Detective Andy Sipowicz, and they have used the relationship between the two to help evolve the detective's character. As a result of the series' high profile and the quality of the writing and acting that goes into the character, John Irvin has become something of a minor pop-culture icon among the gay community, while Brochtrup's work has become one of the highlights of the late run of the series. He has also appeared in a handful of movies, including Man of the Year and Space Marines, in between his television and theater roles.