Trivia: An actor-turned production assistant-turned-director, Michael Anderson had a relatively undistinguished record in motion pictures until the mid 1950s, when he directed The Dam Busters. One of the more successful British films about World War II, it involved mixed drama and special effects work in a combination that pointed the way toward Anderson's later career in international pictures. His mid 1950s version of 1984 received mixed notices but wide distribution, and Around The World In 80 Days brought him into international prominence, despite producer Michael Todd being the dominant personality involved in shaping the movie, and Anderson worked in the United States as often as he did in England over the next two decades. Operation Crossbow and The Shoes of the Fisherman were dramas featuring international casts and large canvases for their action, in which Anderson largely held the proceedings together, in spite of major script problems. His most popular movie, other than Around The World In 80 Days, is the science-fiction adventure Logan's Run, in which he once again overcame a weak script by getting some strong performances out of his actors and pulling them together around extremely impressive special-effects sequences.

Trivia: The niece of musical comedy luminary Nanette Fabray, American actress Shelley Fabares was in show business almost as soon as she could walk. She was a model for children's fashions at age 3, a bit actress in the film The Bandit Queen at age 7, a peripheral character on the Annie Oakley TV series at 8, and Frank Sinatra's dance partner on a 1953 TV special. After doing the TV-anthology route from ages 10 through 13, Fabares was cast at age 14 as Donna Reed's daughter on The Donna Reed Show, a part she would virtually grow up in. Before the series' cancellation in 1966, Fabares had become a top recording artist, selling a million copies of "Johnny Angel" before quitting singing cold because she felt she had no talent in that endeavor. Except for co-starring stints in three Elvis Presley musicals, Fabares' employment outside Donna Reed was virtually nil, and from 1968 through 1970 she barely worked at all. She filmed six TV pilots before 1971, but none sold. Things began picking up in 1972 when she was signed for a Brian Keith series set in Hawaii, The Little People. This led to guest TV spots until the next sitcom hitch in 1977's The Practice, in which Fabares played Danny Thomas' daughter-in-law. Highcliffe Manor, a muddled TV satire of Gothic melodramas, followed in 1979, but lasted a scant four weeks. By this time, Fabares' characterizations were of the "snooty shrew" category, and in this capacity she was shown to good advantage as Bonnie Franklin's business partner on One Day at a Time in 1981. Off-camera, Fabares was very active in the prosocial and ecological activities of her new husband, former MASH star Mike Farrell--a far cry from her on-camera haughtiness and self-involvement. More recently, Shelley Fabares' acting career is alive and prospering via her continuing role as Craig T. Nelson's lady love, sportscaster Christine Armstrong, on the Emmy-winning sitcom Coach.

Trivia: Born in New York City to immigrants from British Guiana, Godfrey Cambridge was raised in Nova Scotia. He returned to New York in time for high school, graduating from Flushing High in three years. While attending Hofstra University, Cambridge appeared in a student production of MacBeth; it was also at Hofstra that Cambridge, who was black, first encountered racial prejudice. After completing his education at CCNY, Cambridge held down many shows before his first theatrical break in the 1956 play Take a Giant Step. In 1961, Cambridge was one of several black performers whose career was given a booster shot by appearing in Jean Genet's play The Blacks: he won an Obie award for his portrayal of an African American gentleman who transforms into an elderly white woman. This led to a major role in Ossie Davis' satirical Broadway play Purlie Victorious. Thanks to his frequent appearances on Jack Paar's program, Cambridge was able to sustain a successful career as a nightclub comedian, using such hot-potato topics as bigotry and phony liberalism as objects of ridicule rather than anger. In films since 1959, Cambridge starred as Harlem detective Gravedigger Jones in Cotton Comes to Harlem (1969) and Come Back Charleston Blue (1972); and, in an interesting variation of his Blacks role, Cambridge portrayed a white businessman who turns black overnight in the bitter fantasy Watermelon Man (1969). Godfrey Cambridge was 43 years old when, while playing Idi Amin in the TV production Victory at Entebbe, he collapsed on the set, the victim of a fatal heart attack.