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: Actor Richard Beymer has been working steadily on television and in feature films for over four decades. Born in Avoca, IA, Beymer first went before cameras on a Los Angeles children's show at the age of 12, and two years later made his feature-film debut in Vittorio De Sica's Stazione Termini (Indiscretion of an American Wife) (1953). After appearing in several more films during the '50s, with only two major performances in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) and West Side Story (1961), Beymer had a significant role in The Longest Day (1962), sharing the film's unforgettable last scene with Richard Burton. Beymer enrolled in New York's Actor's Studio in 1963, but subsequently became an active participant in the struggle to allow African-Americans to register for the vote in Mississippi; during his time down South, he also helped to make a prize-winning documentary of the event. In 1974, Beymer directed his first feature film, The Innerview, an avant-garde effort he distributed to various international film festivals. During the '80s, Beymer became a supporting actor and is best remembered for his regular role as Benjamin Horne on David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks.

Trivia: Blonde, British-born leading lady Joanna Pettet was raised in Canada and studied acting at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse. Along with several other promising young actresses, Pettet made her movie debut in the 1966 filmization of Mary McCarthy's The Group. While most of that film's cast went on to dramatic or character roles, Pettet gravitated to sexpot characters, notably silky secret agent Mata Bond (the illegitimate daughter of Mata Hari and James Bond!) in Casino Royale (1967). Joanna Pettet's many TV-movie credits include The Weekend Nun (1972) and The Return of Frank Cannon (1980).

Trivia: Originally planned to be a schoolteacher. Spent two seasons with the New York City Opera Company, performing in such productions as Carmen and The Mikado. Performed as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Made her Broadway debut in 1960 in Do Re Mi. Played Maria in the 1962 Broadway production of The Sound of Music. Was an original cohost of Good Morning America. For five years, she headed the Ray Bolger Endowment for Musical Performances at UCLA. Regularly performs as a cabaret singer.

Trivia: Lanky American leading man Lawrence Pressman spent several seasons as one of the regulars on the CBS soaper Days of Our Lives. In the prime-time hours, Pressman was top-billed as Mike Mulligan on the weekly 1977 series Mulligan's Stew and as Alan Thackeray on the 1980 sitcom Ladies' Man. He also showed up in several made-for-TV movies, most notably as H. R. Haldeman in the 1977 multi-parter Blind Ambition. TV fans of the 1990s knew Lawrence Pressman best as chief of staff Dr. Canfield in Doogie Howser MD (1989-93).

Trivia: His father was a traveling salesman who did a lot of business in Europe, and Wilde spent much of his youth traveling in Europe with him, where he became fluent in several languages. For several years he studied medicine in college, but he gave it up to pursue acting; he also gave up a spot on the 1936 U.S. Olympic fencing team. He appeared in a number of plays in New York and on the road, playing everything from bit parts to leads. In 1940 he was hired as a fencing instructor and a featured player for the Broadway production of Hamlet with Laurence Olivier; some of the rehearsals were in Hollywood, where he landed a film contract. On-screen from 1940, Wilde played small roles as heavies in several films, then switched studios and began getting leads in B movies. His career took off after he played Chopin in A Song to Remember (1945), for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination. For several years he starred in major productions, such as the 1952 Best Picture winner The Greatest Show on Earth, then in the mid-late '50s he was back in B movies, often playing swashbucklers. In 1955 he formed his own company, Theodora Productions, to produce, direct, and star in his own films; he ultimately made 11 films in that capacity, but earned little critical respect for his work. Divorced from actress Patricia Knight, Wilde married his frequent costar, actress Jean Wallace.

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: American actress Joanna Barnes went from Southern-belle complacency to a contract with Warner Bros. studios. Joanna was generally cast as steely-eyed, truculent blondes in such films as Home Before Dark (1958) and (freelancing for director Stanley Kubrick) Spartacus (1960). She also held the dubious distinction of being the latest in a long line of "Janes" in the 1959 cheapie Tarzan of the Apes. Barnes worked a great deal on television in the 1950s and 1960s: she was detective Dennis Morgan's girl Friday on 1959's 21 Beacon Street; the ex-wife of pennyante attorney Peter Falk in the 1965 weekly drama The Trials of O'Brien; and the hostess of the 5-minute ABC gossipfest Dateline Hollywood. In 1973, Joanna gave up acting to pursue a career as a novelist, and to that end took a room in a Los Angeles office building leased exclusively to professional writers. While Joanna Barnes might not be remembered for her writings, she made an indelible impression as Vassar-educated socialite Gloria Upson, who spoke as though she had novacaine in her upper lip (the playwrights' description of the character) in the 1958 film comedy Auntie Mame.

Trivia: Former cheerleader for the Los Angeles Rams, Jenilee Harrison's blonde hair and bubbly personality made her a shoe-in to replace Suzanne Somers on the hit TV show Three's Company in 1983. Playing the equally blonde and adorable cousin of Somers' character, Harrison stayed with the show until it ended and then assumed the role of Jamie Ewing Barnes on the hit show Dallas. She stayed with the series until 1986, when her character was killed off for a second time (after the first turned out to be a dream sequence). Harrison then moved on to participate in various projects, like the horror flick Curse III: Blood Sacrifice in 1991 and Illicit Behavior in 1992, as well as numerous infomercials.

Trivia: Born R. Hanley Jaeckel (the "R" stood for nothing), young Richard Jaeckel arrived in Hollywood with his family in the early 1940s. Columnist Louella Parsons, a friend of Jaeckel's mother, got the boy a job as a mailman at the 20th Century-Fox studios. When the producers of Fox's Guadalcanal Diary found themselves in need of a baby-faced youth to play a callow marine private, Jaeckel was given a screen test. Despite his initial reluctance to play-act, Jaeckel accepted the Guadalcanal Diary assignment and remained in films for the next five decades, appearing in almost 50 movies and playing everything from wavy-haired romantic leads to crag-faced villains. Between 1944 and 1948, Jaeckel served in the U.S. Navy. Upon his discharge, he co-starred in Sands of Iwo Jima with John Wayne and Forrest Tucker. In 1971, Jaeckel was nominated for a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar on the strength of his performance in Sometimes a Great Notion. Richard Jaeckel has also been a regular in several TV series, usually appearing in dependable, authoritative roles: he was cowboy scout Tony Gentry in Frontier Circus (1962), Lt. Pete McNeil in Banyon (1972), firefighter Hank Myers in Firehouse (1974), federal agent Hank Klinger in Salvage 1 (1979), Major Hawkins in At Ease (1983) (a rare -- and expertly played -- comedy role), and Master Chief Sam Rivers in Supercarrier (1988). From 1991-92, Jaeckel played Lieutenant Ben Edwards on the internationally popular series Baywatch. Jaeckel passed away at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital of an undisclosed illness at the age of 70.

Trivia: Dark-haired actress Andrea Marcovicci first gained recognition as Betsy Chernak in the CBS TV soaper Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1967-73). Prime time audiences were bowled over by Marcovicci's innovative portrayal of a standard damsel-in-distress in the 1974 TV movie Smile, Jenny, You're Dead. Her many film assignments included the role of Woody Allen's activist girlfriend in The Front (1976). Andrea Marcovicci has also pursued a successful career as a Manhattan cabaret singer.

Trivia: Pencil-thin Canadian actress Lynn Carlin was Oscar-nominated for her very first film, the John Cassavetes-directed Faces. Ms. Carlin had some difficulty matching that early career peak in her subsequent roles, often taking pedestrian assignments; in one 1974 episode of Hawaii 5-0, she was killed off before the second commercial! The actress was better served with her top-billed portrayal of Buck Henry's "liberated" middle-aged wife in Milos Forman's Taking Off (1971). In 1977, Lynn Carlin was seen as the mother of mixed-up teenager Lance Kerwin on the critically praised TV series James at 15.

Trivia: Raised in New Orleans' French Quarter, Ray Walston relocated to Houston, where he first set foot on stage in a community production of High Tor. Walston went on to spend six years at the Houston Civic Theater then three more at the Cleveland Playhouse. Moving to New York, he worked as linotype operator at the New York Times before landing small parts in theatrical productions ranging from Maurice Evans' G.I. Hamlet to The Insect Comedy. He won Theater World's "Most Promising Newcomer" award for his portrayal of Mr. Kramer in the original 1948 production of Summer and Smoke. In 1950, he was cast as "big dealer" Luther Billis in the touring and London companies of South Pacific, and it was this that led to a major role in Rodgers & Hammerstein's 1953 Broadway musical Me and Juliet. Two years later, he was cast in his breakthrough role: the puckish Mr. Applegate, aka The Devil, in the Adler-Ross musical smash Damn Yankees. He won a Tony Award for his performance, as well as the opportunity to repeat the role of Applegate in the 1958 film version of Yankees; prior to this triumph, he'd made his film debut in Kiss Them for Me (1957) and recreated Luther Billis in the 1958 filmization of South Pacific. A favorite of director Billy Wilder, Walston was cast as philandering executive Dobisch in The Apartment (1960) and replaced an ailing Peter Sellers as would-be songwriter Orville J. Spooner in Kiss Me, Stupid (1960). Having first appeared on television in 1950, Walston resisted all entreaties to star in a weekly series until he was offered the title role in My Favorite Martian (1963-1966). While he was gratified at the adulation he received for his work on this series (he was particularly pleased by the response from his kiddie fans), Walston later insisted that Martian had "ruined" him in Hollywood, forever typecasting him as an erudite eccentric. By the 1970s, however, Walston was popping up in a wide variety of roles in films like The Sting (1974) and Silver Streak (1977). For the past two decades or so, he has been one of moviedom's favorite curmudgeons, playing such roles as Poopdeck Pappy in Popeye (1980) and officious high school teacher Mr. Hand, who reacts with smoldering rage as his class is interrupted by a pizza delivery in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). He would re-create this last-named role in the weekly sitcom Fast Times (1985), one of several TV assignments of the 1970s and 1980s. In 1995, Ray Walston reacted with schoolboy enthusiasm upon winning an Emmy award for his portrayal of irascible Wisconsin judge Henry Bone on the cult-fave TVer Picket Fences.

Trivia: Twenty-three-year-old actor Jay Robinson could not have asked for a better screen debut than the showcase role of the mad Emperor Caligula in The Robe (1953). Robinson followed this triumph by reviving Caligula for the 1954 sequel Demetrius and the Gladiators, and then -- by his own account -- became so full of himself that few producers wanted to have anything to do with him. After his 1957 arrest for narcotics possession, Robinson found himself persona non grata in Hollywood. Spending most of the next 13 years out of work, he was rescued by Bette Davis, who insisted that Robinson be cast in an important role in her 1971 feature Bunny O'Hare. Far humbler than in his salad days, Robinson made a slow, steady comeback in such gemlike supporting parts as "The Conscience" in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex... (1972), and Warren Beatty's demanding boss Norman in Shampoo (1975). Continuing to essay character roles into the 1990s, Robinson was seen as Vincent in 1992's Bram Stoker's Dracula. On television, Jay Robinson played Monte Dolan on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives, and revived many of his "Caligula" eccentricities as addled scientist Dr. Shrinker on the Saturday morning extravaganza Krofft Supershow (1976-77).