Trivia: Commenting on his notorious on-set irascibility in 1977, Jack Klugman replied that he was merely "taking Peter Falk lessons from Robert Blake," invoking the names of two other allegedly hard-to-please TV stars. Klugman grew up in Philadelphia, and after taking in a 1939 performance by New York's Group Theatre, Klugman decided that an actor's life was right up his alley. He majored in drama at Carnegie Tech and studied acting at the American Theatre Wing before making his (non-salaried) 1949 stage-debut at the Equity Library Theater. While sharing a New York flat with fellow hopeful Charles Bronson, Klugman took several "grub" jobs to survive, at one point selling his blood for $85 a pint. During television's so-called Golden Age, Klugman appeared in as many as 400 TV shows. He made his film debut in 1956, and three years later co-starred with Ethel Merman in the original Broadway production of Gypsy. In 1964, Klugman won the first of his Emmy awards for his performance in "Blacklist," an episode of the TV series The Defenders; that same year, he starred in his first sitcom, the 13-week wonder Harris Against the World. Far more successful was his next TV series, The Odd Couple, which ran from 1970 through 1974; Klugman won two Emmies for his portrayal of incorrigible slob Oscar Madison (he'd previously essayed the role when he replaced Walter Matthau in the original Broadway production of the Neil Simon play). It was during Odd Couple's run that the network "suits" got their first real taste of Klugman's savage indignation, when he and co-star Tony Randall threatened to boycott the show unless the idiotic laughtrack was removed (Klugman and Randall won that round; from 1971 onward, Odd Couple was filmed before a live audience). It was but a foretaste of things to come during Klugman's six-year (1977-83) reign as star of Quincy, M.E.. Popular though Klugman was in the role of the crusading, speechifying LA County Coroner's Office medical examiner R. Quincy, he hardly endeared himself to the producers when he vented his anger against their creative decisions in the pages of TV Guide. Nor was he warmly regarded by the Writer's Guild when he complained about the paucity of high-quality scripts (he wrote several Quincy episodes himself, with mixed results). After Quincy's cancellation, Klugman starred in the Broadway play I'm Not Rappaport and co-starred with John Stamos in the 1986 sitcom You Again?. The future of Klugman's career -- and his future, period -- was sorely threatened when he underwent throat surgery in 1989. He'd been diagnosed with cancer of the larynx as early as 1974, but at that time was able to continue working after a small growth was removed. For several years after the 1989 operation, Klugman was unable to speak, though he soon regained this ability. He continued working through 2011, and died the following year at age 90.

Trivia: Actress and comedienne Brett Somers was best known to audiences for her turn as a panelist on The Match Game, from 1973-1982. Born in Canada as Audrey Johnston, Somers got her start acting in theater productions, which led to minor Broadway roles and appearances in theater-based television shows like Playhouse 90. Married to fellow actor Jack Klugman in 1953 (the couple separated in 1974 but never divorced), Somers acted in several low-budget films throughout the years, in addition to her long-running Match Game gig and numerous guest-starring roles on weekly television shows. She died of stomach and colon cancer in 2007.

Trivia: Having caught the theatrical bug early in life, Charles Nelson Reilly studied for his craft at the Herbert Berghof-Uta Hagen studio. While scrounging for acting jobs in the 1950s, Reilly supported himself as an usher, mail clerk and hospital orderly. In 1960 he was cast in a minor role in the Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie, understudying stars Dick Van Dyke and Paul Lynde. The following year, he played nasty "corporate nephew" Bud Frump in the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, a characterization that won him a Tony Award. In 1964, he received the New York Critic's Circle award for his work as juvenile lead Cornelius Hackel in Hello, Dolly. During this period, Reilly showed up in such Manhattan-based TV programs as The Steve Lawrence Show, and also performed a cabaret act with his friend Eileen Brennan. In 1968, he was cast as Cleymore Gregg in the network sitcom The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, a role that typed him ever after in fussy, snippy, sarcastic roles. He went on to appear in the comedy ensemble of the 1970s variety series Dean Martin Presents the Golddiggers; he starred in the Saturday morning kiddie shows Lidsville (1971-74) and Uncle Croc's Block (1975-76); and, along with Richard Dawson and Brett Sommers, he served as a semi-permanent panelist on the long-running quiz show The Match Game and as a staple on the game show The Hollywood Squares, where his flamboyant personality (he typically appeared wearing oversized glasses and a colorful ascot) became an audience favorite. Game shows, however, reportedly downgraded Reilly in the eyes of producers, and made it next to impossible for him to find a healthy amount of work. During the '80s and '90s, Reilly became active in the field of cartoon voiceovers, performing in such animated feature films as All Dogs Go To Heaven (1989), Rock-a-Doodle (1992) and The Troll in Central Park (1993), and in TV cartoons like Smurfs and Spacecats; he also appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson a record 95 times. On the theatrical scene, Reilly directed the one-person plays Belle of Amherst and Paul Robeson, and staged several operas throughout the U.S. Charles Nelson Reilly was the founder of The Faculty, a Los Angeles-based drama school.In the mid-2000s, Reilly headlined a one-man performance film, The Life of Reilly (2000). As co-directed by Barry Poltermann and Frank Anderson, the picture found the actor-comic sitting before an audience and expostulating at length on his long career in showbusiness, his open homosexuality, and - occasionally - how the two intersected in the early years by making it difficult for him to find work. The picture opened to critical raves but received extremely limited distribution in the U.S. Tragically, it marked Reilly's last major effort, and not one year later, the actor died from complications of pneumonia. He was 76.