Trivia: Fred Dryer has spent the bulk of his acting career on television, but he has also appeared in a few feature films, beginning with The Starmaker (1981). Prior to becoming a performer, Dryer had been a professional football player. On television, he is best remembered for two roles, that of Sam Malone's irritating buddy, Dave Richards, in three episodes of the NBC sitcom Cheers and as fearless Detective Sergeant Rick Hunter in the series Hunter (1984). Other film appearances include Cannonball Run II (1984) and Day of Reckoning (1994).

Trivia: Italian actor Cesare Danova came to prominence in such post-war European films as La Figlia del Capitano (1947) and Don Giovanni (1955), playing the title role in the latter film. In the American-made Man Who Understood Women (1959), Danova managed to be both funny and menacing as a murderous cuckolded husband. Few of his American films took full advantage of Danova's talents, tending to cast him as a "typical" hot-blooded Mediterranean, but there have been a few rewarding assignments along the way. As Appolodorus in the budget-busting Cleopatra (1963), Danova was one of the few actors whose part wasn't cut to nothing in order to favor the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton combo. Danova was one of the stars of the TV pilot-cum-theatrical movie Chamber of Horrors (1966), and he enjoyed a season's worth of regular TV work as Actor (that was the character's name, not the designation) on the weekly Dirty Dozen rip-off Garrison's Gorillas (1967). In the '70s and '80s, Danova seemed to take turns with Anthony Quinn in portraying Onassis-like Greek tycoons and Mafia bosses; in the latter capacity Danova was hilarious as Carmine DePasto in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). In the early years of the '80s, Danova could be seen as a regular on the ABC television daytime drama Ryan's Hope. Cesare Danova died suddenly during a 1992 meeting of the Motion Picture Academy's Foreign Film Committee.

Trivia: Supporting actor Charles Hallahan played character roles on stage, television and in feature films. Fans of the Stephen J. Cannell police drama Hunter will know Hallahan for playing Captain Charlie Devane between 1986 and 1991. A Philadelphia native, Hallahan earned an undergraduate degree at Rutgers and a master's from Temple University six years before heading to Los Angeles in 1977. Hallahan had little trouble finding acting jobs. His stage credits include playing the lead in a long-running San Francisco production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest during the late '90s, roles in plays ranging from Equus to The Threepenny Opera. In 1976, Hallahan toured the Soviet Union in two classic plays. On television, Hallahan guest-starred on over 200 episodes of shows ranging from Lou Grant to The Paper Chase. He made his feature film debut in Nightwing (1979). He made his last film appearance playing Paul Dreyfuss in Dante's Peak (1997). Hallahan died during a car crash in which he apparently suffered a heart attack on November 25, 1997. He was 54.

Trivia: The inimitable American actress Kathleen Freeman has been convulsing film audiences with portrayals of dowdy, sharp-tongued matrons since she was in her 20s. After stage work, Freeman began taking bit roles in major-studio features in 1948, seldom getting screen credit but always making a positive impression. The best of her earliest roles was in Singin' in the Rain (1952); Freeman played long-suffering vocal coach Phoebe Dinsmore, whose Herculean efforts to get dumb movie star Jean Hagen to grasp the proper enunciation of the phrase "I can't staaaand him" proved uproariously futile. Often cast as domestics, Freeman had a year's run in 1953 as the "spooked" maid on the ghostly TV sitcom Topper. Freeman was a particular favorite of comedian Jerry Lewis, who cast the actress in showy (and billed!) roles in such farces as The Errand Boy (1961), The Nutty Professor (1963) and Who's Got the Action?. As Nurse Higgins in Lewis' Disorderly Orderly (1964), Freeman weeps quietly as Jerry meekly scrapes oatmeal off her face and babbles "Oh, Nurse Higgins...you're all full of...stuff." Lewis so trusted Freeman's acting instincts that he sent her to the set of director William Wyler's The Collector (1965) in order to help build up the confidence of Wyler's nervous young leading lady Samantha Eggar. Throughout the '70s and '80s, Freeman took occasional "sabbaticals" from her movie and TV assignments to do stage work, enjoying a lengthy run in a Chicago production of Ira Levin's Deathtrap. Like many character actors of the '50s, Kathleen Freeman is frequently called upon to buoy the projects of baby-boomer directors: she was recently seen as an hysterical Julia Child clone in Joe Dante's Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990).

Trivia: Lead actress, onscreen from the late '80s.

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

Trivia: Made his Broadway debut in Tiger at the Gates in 1968. Made his movie debut in Last Summer in 1969. Has appeared with Ian McKellen in the films Six Degrees of Separation (1993), Apt Pupil (1998), X-Men (2000) and X2 (2003). Directed his first feature-length project in 2001, the Showtime movie Off Season. Is a volunteer/spokesperson for several AIDS organizations.

Trivia: Specializing in middle-aged characters even in his twenties, American actor Charles Cyphers has been a familiar face on the TV-movie landscape since the early '70s. Cyphers was particularly well served by director John Carpenter, who cast the actor in Assault on Precinct 13 (1975), Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), and Escape From New York (1981). Carpenter also featured Cyphers as Sam Phillips in the made-for-TV Elvis (1979). Perhaps it's coincidence, or perhaps a private joke between actor and director: Whatever the case, Cyphers' character names in his Carpenter films are often lifted from real life. For example, he played Dan O'Bannon in The Fog (screenwriter O'Bannon is Carpenter's most frequent collaborator) and Leigh Brackett in Halloween (Brackett, a female screenwriter, worked on such films as Rio Bravo, which Carpenter remade as Assault on Precinct 13). On TV, Charles Cyphers was seen on The Betty White Show (1975), as Hugo Muncy, White's cross-dressing stunt double.