Trivia: Born in Germany to American parents, Rosemary Murphy was educated in Paris. When her family relocated to the U.S. in 1939, Murphy completed her schooling in Kansas City. After preparing for an acting career at Neighborhood Playhouse and the Actors Studio, she returned to Germany, where she made her film bow in Berlin Express (1948) and her stage debut in a 1949 production of Peer Gynt. The following year, she made her first Broadway appearance. Murphy's stage credits include Period of Adjustment (1961), Any Wednesday (1964) and A Delicate Balance (1966); she earned Tony nominations for all three, and was honored with the New York Critic's Poll award for her work in Balance. Her film and TV characterizations ranged from meek subservience to homicidal intensity. She spent several years as Loretta Fowler on the daytime soap opera Another World, and has played such "historical celebrity" roles as Sara Delano Roosevelet in Eleanor and Franklin (winning an Emmy for her work), Dorothy Parker in Julia (1977), Mary Ball Washington in the 1984 miniseries George Washington, and Rose Kennedy in the 1991 TV biopic A Woman Named Jackie. Rosemary Murphy has also been prominently featured in three recent Woody Allen productions: September (1987), Don't Drink the Water (1994), and Mighty Aphrodite. Her final film role was in the indie rom-com The Romantics. Murphy died in 2014, at age 89.

Trivia: British entertainer Anthony Newley began as a child star, passing for 10 or 11 even as the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist (1948), when in fact he was already of driving and shaving age. As a young leading man, Newley learned the ins and outs of self-promotion, chiefly the ability to convince the populace that he could do anything well. In 1959, he became a pop recording star thanks to his singing appearance in Idle on Parade, but this was only the beginning. Stop the World, I Want to Get Off was cowritten by Newley and Leslie Bricusse, but to the world at large Anthony Newley, who also starred in the play, was the whole show. This 1961 London-to-Broadway musical was a superbly written piece and a success. Newley followed up this production with another stage collaboration with Bricusse, 1965's The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd, this time sharing the spotlight (but not without a struggle) with veteran Cyril Ritchard. Few people can remember the plotlines of either of Newley's musical plays, but such song standards as "What Kind of Fool Am I," "Gonna Build a Mountain," "Look at That Face" and "Where Would You Be?" have become audition standards. Newley's overwhelming stage presence didn't translate that well to films, with Dr. Doolittle being the most obvious example of this (it is said that Newley and co-star Samantha Eggar kidded around on the set so much that Rex "Dr. Doolittle" Harrison had to resoundingly insist upon professional decorum). Since Doolittle, Newley has been content to merely write songs for other people's movies, occasionally stepping before the camera in such pictures as Mr. Quilp (1975) and It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (1976). And in 1969, Anthony Newley directed his then-wife Joan Collins in Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness, a woebegone attempt at "hip" which gained fame only through the embarrassed co-starring stints from Milton Berle and George Jessel, and the fact that many American newspapers refused (probably at the request of studio publicity flacks) to mention the film's slightly licentious title in their movie listings.

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: 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: Christopher Hewett spent much of his four-decade acting career toiling in roles into which he could melt -- it was only when he found a part, near the end of his career, into which he could inject a large part of himself, that he became a star. Born in England in 1922, he was the son of a former actress, and at age seven made his stage debut, in Ireland, in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. He attended Wimbledon College and served in the Royal Air Force from 1938 until 1940. Hewett became an actor after his discharge, joining the Oxford Repertory Company, where he spent the next few years learning his craft in repertory work, eventually playing over 100 roles. In 1951, at the age of 29, he made his first screen appearance in Pool of London, and he was seen as a police detective later that same year in the classic Ealing comedy The Lavender Hill Mob. Hewett left England in 1954 and moved to New York, where he made his Broadway debut in the original cast of My Fair Lady two years later. He was primarily associated with New York theater for the next 20 years, apart from a notable screen appearance in Mel Brooks' The Producers, portraying Roger DeVries, the flamboyantly gay (and transvestite) director chosen by Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) to direct his production of "Springtime for Hitler." Hewett dominated most of the scenes in which he appeared with his flamboyant, brilliantly comic performance, and his scenes included the side-splittingly funny audition of the various Hitlers, and the scene introducing Dick Shawn's character, L.S.D. The movie was a modest success on its original release, but has since become a major cult hit and something of a pop-culture phenomenon, partly owing to the immense success of Brooks' theatrical adaptation of the same story. Hewett was delightfully looney and very visible in the role, but it was such an outre screen credit, and the movie itself such a cult item in its first decade or so in release, that it led to little else in film or television for years after. Brooks subsequently used Hewett in The Elephant Man, and he started getting occasional television work, in series such as the original E.R. (1984), and as a regular on Fantasy Island (1983-1984) for one season. Hewett, by then in his sixties and somewhat overweight, had developed a persona that could be comical or villainous, yet always seemingly jovial. In 1985, he won the title role in the series Mr. Belvedere, loosely based on the film Sitting Pretty. As prissy, fastidious housekeeper/valet Lynn Belvedere, taking care of the family that had hired him, Hewett endeared himself to millions of viewers for four seasons, and was regularly covered in the television gossip columns, his ballooning weight at times eliciting public expressions of concern from his fellow cast members. He also worked in one-off appearances on Murder, She Wrote and other series. When the series finished its run in 1990, he had achieved television stardom and name recognition far beyond anything he had known -- modern viewers were often startled to realize, on seeing The Producers, that it was Hewett playing the director of the seemingly ill-starred play. He continued to make occasional television and movie appearances for the next decade. Hewett died from complications of diabetes at the age of 79.

Trivia: British character actor John Standing has a pedigree in performing that spans seven generations and includes his grandfather Sir Guy Standing, the son of actress Kay Hammond, and Sir Ronald George Leon. Considered one of his country's most important actors, he has appeared frequently on British television and also guest starred in many American television series, including L.A. Law, Murder She Wrote, and Civil Wars. He is a distinguished stage actor in both London and New York. Standing made his feature film debut in The Wild and Willing (1963). In film, Standing primarily works as a supporting actor. When not performing, Standing has earned a reputation as a fine painter.

Trivia: Ian Abercrombie achieved broadest recognition in the mid-'90s for his work in character roles, principally stuffy upper-crust types, including Mr. Pitt, Elaine's employer on Seinfeld, Alfred the butler in the series Birds of Prey, and the staid auctioneer in the climactic sequence of Mouse Hunt. Abercrombie was born in 1936 to a working-class English family, and he showed a natural interest in performing from an early age, taking up tap dancing as a boy. At 17, he left for New York and pursued the beginnings of a career on stage -- among his early engagements, he appeared in a 1955 production of Stalag 17 starring Jason Robards Jr., and he understudied Roddy McDowall in a stock production of Bell, Book and Candle that also starred Maria Riva, the daughter of Marlene Dietrich. He did a short stint in the army, in Special Services, where he directed plays as well as acting in them. A trip to California for a production of a play about W.C. Fields that never materialized ended up putting Abercrombie into movies, and over the next few years he played small roles in pictures like Von Ryan's Express, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, The Molly Maguires, and Young Frankenstein, as well as leading parts in theatrical productions of The Vortex and Crucifer of Blood. Abercrombie was working steadily for most of the 1980s and beyond, appearing in such movies as Army of Darkness, Wild Wild West, and The Lost World. It was with his portrayal on Seinfeld of Mr. Pitt -- lovably eccentric and just sufficiently full of himself to put Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Elaine on the defensive -- that Abercrombie became an actor whose name and face were remembered by the general public. He remained active on prime time television portraying Alfred the butler in the Warner Bros. television series Birds of Prey, while also doing a huge amount of voice-over and radio work, as well as a one-man show entitled Jean Cocteau -- A Mirror Image. Back on the big screen, Ambercrombie could be spotted in both the family comedy Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties and David Lynch's Inland Empire in 2006. Abercrombie died of kidney failure at age 77 in early 2012, not long after being diagnosed with lymphoma.

Trivia: Character actor Lester Fletcher was once a skiing champion and a figure skater. Born in Wales, Fletcher made his stage debut in 1937 and from there went on to have a long career in New York radio where he became known for his ability to imitate dialects. He later moved into films and, after 1961, began appearing on television.

Trivia: Began studying ballet at a very early age, but hurt her ankle when she was 18 and was forced to give it up. Appeared in David Lee Roth's video for "California Girls." Lived for a time with her best friend Faith Ford, whom she met in acting class. Cofounded the production company Bristol Cities with Frasier costar Peri Gilpin in 1998. Since her first pregnancy wasn't written into Frasier, her character, Daphne, was sent off to a fat camp and was said to have lost 9 pounds, 12 ounces---the weight of Jane's daughter when she was born. Made her Broadway debut in Cabaret as Sally Bowles in 2002. Reunited with Fraiser alum Wendy Malick to costar in the TV Land sitcom Hot in Cleveland.

Trivia: British supporting and sometimes lead actor Richard Johnson studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art as a teen, gained experience in John Gielgud's repertory company, and served in the British Royal Navy during WWII before becoming a professional actor. Dark and handsome, Johnson found steady employment on-stage, in films, and on television in the U.K. and the U.S. He often works with the Royal Shakespeare Company.