Trivia: Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Sada Thompson grew up in New Jersey, where her magazine-editor father had been transferred. Active in high school plays, she was all of 16 when she first appeared at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, playing Nick's Ma in a campus production of The Time of Your Life. Graduating from Carnegie with a BFA in 1949, Thompson launched her professional career, playing mature and sometimes elderly women at a time when she herself was barely old enough to vote. While working at New York's 92nd Street YMHA, a Jewish cultural center, she participated in the first-ever reading of Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood, which led to her off-Broadway debut in the 1955 staging of that same piece. She spent the next decade in regional theatre, returning to New York for her first real breakthrough performance in the Lincoln Center's production of Tartuffe. A few years later, Thompson won an Obie Award for her work in Paul Zindel's The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, and in 1971 she copped the Tony award for her interpretation of four different women in the Broadway production Twigs. On the strength of this success, she was signed to play the Bunker Family's free-spirited neighbor Irene Lorenzo on All in the Family. After a single taping session, it was obvious that Thompson and producer Norman Lear would never see eye to eye, and she was replaced by Betty Garrett (one unnamed source close to both sides of the argument later claimed that "Sada had too much genuine class and didn't yell loud enough for a Norman Lear show"). While she continued appearing in television specials like Our Town and The Entertainer and miniseries like Sandburg's Lincoln, Thompson would not consider a weekly program until she was personally asked by executive producer Mike Nichols to play matriarch Kate Lawrence on his seriocomic series Family. She remained with Family from its debut in 1976 until its cancellation in 1980, winning a 1978 Emmy Award in the process. Thompson spent her later years occasionally co-starring in such made-for-TV films as 1985's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the controversial Indictment: The McMartin Trial (for HBO). Her last major assignment was a turn as Jackson Pollock's mother in Ed Harris's Pollock (2000). Thompson died 11 years later, of lung disease. She was 83.

Trivia: Authoritative American character actor James Broderick is best known to filmgoers of the flower-power generation for his performance as Alice's husband in the 1969 film Alice's Restaurant. It was but one of many incisive film characterizations for Broderick, who was equally effective in such films as The Group (1966), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1973) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975). From 1976 through 1980, Broderick played lawyer/patriarch Doug Lawrence in the weekly TV drama Family; he had previously starred in the detective series Brenner, playing the rookie-cop son of Edward Binns (who wasn't that much older). James Broderick was the father of contemporary film star Matthew Broderick, who paid homage to his dad by prominently displaying the elder Broderick's photograph in the 1990 film The Freshman.

Trivia: Lead and former juvenile actress McNichol is the daughter of a former actress. At age six she began appearing in commercials and was in TV shows by age nine. At 12 she became a regular on the TV series Apple's Way; after that show was canceled she was soon signed to the cast of Family, for which she went on to win two Emmy Awards. She began appearing onscreen in the late '70s, and looked to be on her way to a good film career with her costarring role in Little Darlings (1980), a popular teen-oriented comedy; however, most of her subsequent films were either low-quality or unsuccessful, and she never established herself as a screen actress. In the late '80s and early '90s she costarred on the TV sitcom Empty Nest.

Trivia: Character actress Shera Danese specialized in bit parts, initially ones of a slightly sultry nature. She landed one of her earliest big-screen roles as one of saxophone player Jimmy Doyle's (Robert De Niro) girlfriends in Martin Scorsese's revisionist musical New York, New York (1977), then drew attention away from Rebecca De Mornay as one of two prostitutes who accompany a high-school senior (Tom Cruise) out for a wild evening on the town, in Paul Brickman's satire on teen angst, Risky Business (1983). Subsequent projects included the 1987 Baby Boom (as a cloak room attendant), the 2002 John Q., and the 2006 Alpha Dog. Danese also appeared in numerous Columbo telemovies opposite longtime off-camera husband Peter Falk.

Trivia: A standup comedian turned agent, Marty Ingels is also an occasional film actor. He made his feature-film debut in Armored Command (1969). Ingels also appeared on television and has done voice characterizations for animated television shows. He continued to make TV show appearances in the latter part of his career, including guest spots on shows like ER, CSI and New Girl. In 1977, Ingels married actress Shirley Jones. They remained married until Ingels death in 2015, at age 79.

Trivia: Supporting actress, onscreen from the '70s. She is most active on TV.