Trivia: A leading lady of American plays and film, Neal studied drama in college and worked as a model before debuting on Broadway in The Voice of the Turtle (1946). Her performance in the play Another Part of the Forest got the attention of Hollywood, and she made her screen debut in the light farce John Loves Mary (1949); that same year she was impressive in The Fountainhead opposite Gary Cooper, whom she later said was the great love of her life. After marrying British writer Roald Dahl in 1953 she disappeared from the screen for several years, returning in 1957's A Face in the Crowd, after which she was more selective in choosing her film roles. For her performance in Hud (1963) she won the Best Actress Oscar. In 1965 she suffered a massive series of strokes that left her confined to a wheelchair, semi-paralyzed and nearly unable to speak; she made a remarkable recovery over several years, returning to the screen in The Subject Was Roses (1968), for which she received another Best Actress Oscar nomination. Also in 1968, she was presented by President Johnson with the "Heart of the Year" Award. Neal underwent two other tragedies in her life: as a baby, one of her children was hit by a cab and underwent eight brain operations, and another died of measles at age 13. Later in life, after divorcing Dahl, she underwent a much-publicized conversion to Christianity and published an autobiography, As I Am. Neal died at age 84 in the summer of 2010.

Trivia: Richard Thomas was seven years old when he made his first Broadway appearance in Sunrise at Campobello (1958). The wide-eyed, mole-cheeked, sensitive-looking Thomas soon found himself very much in demand for television roles. He was seen in the distinguished company of Julie Harris, Christopher Plummer and Hume Cronyn in a 1959 TV presentation of Ibsen's A Doll's House, worked as a regular on the daytime soap operas As the World Turns and Flame in the Wind, and co-starred with Today Show announcer Jack Lescoulie in the captivating 1961 Sunday-afternoon "edutainment" series 1-2-3 Go. While attending Columbia University, Thomas made his theatrical-film debut in Downhill Racer, then settled into a series of unpleasant, psychologically disturbed characters in films like You'll Like My Mother (1971) and such TV series as Bracken's World. In 1971, Thomas was cast as John-Boy Walton in the Earl Hamner-scripted TV movie The Homecoming. Though there would be a number of cast changes before The Homecoming metamorphosed into the weekly series The Waltons in 1972, Thomas was retained as John-Boy, earning a 1973 Emmy for his performance and remaining in the role until only a few months before the series' cancellation in 1981. During the Waltons years, Thomas starred in several well-mounted TV movies, including the 1979 remake of All Quiet on the Western Front. Ever seeking opportunities to expand his range, Thomas has sunk his teeth into such roles as the self-destructive title character in Living Proof: The Hank Williams Jr. Story (1983) and the amusingly sanctimonious Rev. Bobby Joe in the satirical Glory! Glory!. In 1980, Thomas made his first Broadway appearance in over two decades as the paralyzed protagonist of Whose Life is It Anyway. Notable later roles have included a turn as Bill Denbrough in Stephen King's It (1990), an appearance in Curtis Hanson's 2000 drama Wonder Boys, and a bit part as a reverend in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock (2009). Working through his own Melpomene Productions, Thomas has continued seeking out creative challenges into the 1990s. Richard Thomas has also served as national chairman of the Better Hearing Institute.

Trivia: Born in Oklahoma, African American actor Cleavon Little was raised in California where he attended San Diego College. Trained for a performing career at the American Academy of Dramatic Art, Little made his off-Broadway debut in the 1968 political satire MacBird In 1970, he won a Tony award for his work in the Broadway musical Purlie, and within a year was hired as an ensemble player (along with such luminaries as Jack Gilford and Marcia Rodd) on the syndicated TV variety weekly The David Frost Revue. Little's star turn as Dr. Jerry Noland on the network sitcom Temperatures Rising (1972-74) made him a "hot" enough performer to win the coveted lead role of Sheriff Bart in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974) -- beating out Richard Pryor, who had written the part for himself! Blazing Saddles was the high point of Little's career, which subsequently went into a slow decline. Cleavon Little's last major assignment was the role of Sal on the 1991 TV series Bagdad Café; one year later, he died of colon cancer at the age of 53.

Trivia: The great-grandson of a famous and influential 19th century Minnesota senator, actor William Windom was born in New York, briefly raised in Virginia, and attended prep school in Connecticut. During World War II, Windom was drafted into the army, which acknowledged his above-the-norm intelligence by bankrolling his adult education at several colleges. It was during his military career that Windom developed a taste for the theater, acting in an all-serviceman production of Richard III directed by Richard Whorf. Windom went on to appear in 18 Broadway plays before making his film debut as the prosecuting attorney in To Kill a Mockingbird. He gained TV fame as the co-star of the popular 1960s sitcom The Farmer's Daughter and as the James Thurber-ish lead of the weekly 1969 series My World and Welcome to It. Though often cast in conservative, mild-mannered roles, Windom's offscreen persona was that of a much-married, Hemingway-esque adventurer. William Windom was seen in the recurring role of crusty Dr. Seth Haslett on the Angela Lansbury TV series Murder She Wrote.

Trivia: American stage actress Dorothy Stickney attended Northwestern University, and upon graduation in 1921 studied acting for two years with Christine Brooks. Stickney made her Broadway bow in the 1926 play The Squall, and thereafter made at least one starring appearance per year. She seemed most comfortable in roles calling for brassy exuberance, though it took quite a while for director George S. Kaufman to get Stickney to say her entrance line -- "I've been looking for you bastards" -- in the original 1928 production of The Front Page. Married from 1927 to producer/playwright Howard Lindsay, Stickney appeared with her husband as Vinnie and Clarence Day in the 1939 Broadway classic Life With Father, which ended up the longest-running stage comedy in history. In 1948, Stickney re-created her role for a less lengthy but successful sequel, Life with Mother. Dorothy Stickney made a handful of film appearances: her best remembered were in 1934's Murder at the Vanities, as the deceptively meek maid of the villainess/murder victim, and in the 1943 ghost story The Uninvited. Stickney passed away at age 101 on June 2, 1998.

Trivia: After making her first film appearance at age 13, Josephine Hutchinson attended the Cornish School of Music and Drama. A leading Broadway actress of the late 1920s, Hutchinson was most closely associated with the title role in Eva Le Gailliene's Civic Repertory Company production of Alice in Wonderland. Her impeccable credentials notwithstanding, Hutchinson's earliest movie publicity emphasized the fact that hers was the longest name of any movie leading lady. She spent most of her first filmmaking decade at Warner Bros., acting opposite Dick Powell, Pat O'Brien, and, in The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), Paul Muni. At Universal, she played the wife of Basil Rathbone in The Son of Frankenstein (1939), an experience she cherished primarily because of the warm camaraderie between her co-stars Rathbone, Boris Karloff and Lionel Atwill. Josephine Hutchinson worked steadily in films and television into the 1970s, most often playing firm, forceful elderly women.

Trivia: Edgar Bergen was still in grammar school when he sent away for a 25-cent ventriloquism instruction book. By the time he was 11, Bergen was driving his family crazy with his prankish voice-throwing. While attending medical school at Northwestern University, Bergen paid his tuition by performing a small-time ventriloquist act; it wasn't long before he dropped out of college to hit the vaudeville and tent-show circuit. After a tour of Europe and South America, Bergen filmed a series of one-reel short subjects for Vitaphone between 1930 and 1935; even in these early efforts, top billing went not to Bergen but to his creation, the impish, top-hatted dummy Charlie McCarthy. From time-to-time Bergen would test out other wooden alter egos, including hayseed Mortimer Snerd and man-hungry Effie Clinker, but Charlie would remain his star attraction. After gaining nationwide fame through his appearances on Rudy Vallee's radio program, Bergen launched his own radio series, The Charlie McCarthy Show, a top-rated endeavor which ran from 1937 through 1955. Bergen and Charlie made their feature film debuts in The Goldwyn Follies (1938). They went on to appear together in eight more films between in 1938 and 1948; curiously, however, Charlie McCarthy came across better on radio than he did on screen--partly due to the inescapable fact that Bergen tended to move his lips while throwing his voice. At his peak, Bergen was pulling down $10,000 weekly from his radio series and an additional $100,000 from Charlie McCarthy toys and merchandise. He was also the recipient of the only wooden Academy Award in history, a special Oscar bestowed upon himself and the pine-headed Charlie. On his own, Bergen co-starred in I Remember Mama (1948) as the shy Norwegian suitor of spinster Ellen Corby; he also played supporting parts in Captain China (1949) and Don't Make Waves (1965). After the cancellation of their radio series, Bergen and Charlie played nightclubs, summer stock and state fairs. They also hosted the 1956 TV quiz show Do You Trust Your Wife?. Emerging from a long professional slump, Bergen made a triumphant Las Vegas comeback in 1978--the evening before his death at the age of 75. His last screen appearance was in Jim Henson's The Muppet Movie (1979), which was dedicated to his memory. Edgar Bergen was the husband of actress Frances Bergen, and the father of film and TV star Candice Bergen.

Trivia: By the time she first appeared as Grandma Walton in 1971, American actress Ellen Corby had been playing elderly characters for nearly thirty years--and she herself was still only in her fifties. The daughter of Danish immigrants, Ellen Hansen was born in Wisconsin and raised in Philadelphia; she moved to Hollywood in 1933 after winning several amateur talent shows. Her starring career consisted of tiny parts in low-budget Poverty Row quickies; to make a living, Ellen became a script girl (the production person responsible for maintaining a film's continuity for the benefit of the film editor), working first at RKO and then at Hal Roach studios, where she met and married cameraman Francis Corby. The marriage didn't last, though Ellen retained the last name of Corby professionally. While still a script girl, Ellen began studying at the Actors Lab, then in 1944 decided to return to acting full time. She played several movie bit roles, mostly as servants, neurotics, and busybodies, before earning an Oscar nomination for the role of Trina the maid in I Remember Mama (1948). Her career fluctuated between bits and supporting parts until 1971, when she was cast as Grandma Walton in the CBS movie special The Homecoming. This one-shot evolved into the dramatic series The Waltons in 1972, with Ms. Corby continuing as Grandma. The role earned Ellen a "Best Supporting Actress" Emmy award in 1973, and she remained with the series until suffering a debilitating stroke in 1976. After a year's recuperation, Ellen returned to The Waltons, valiantly carrying on until the series' 1980 cancellation, despite the severe speech and movement restrictions imposed by her illness. Happily, Ellen Corby endured, and was back as Grandma in the Waltons reunion special of the early '90s.

Trivia: Born in Indiana and raised in Texas, Andrew Duggan attended Indiana University on a speech and drama scholarship. He was starred there in Maxwell Anderson's The Eve of St. Mark, which was being given a nonprofessional pre-Broadway tryout; on the basis of this performance, Duggan was cast in the professional Chicago company of the Anderson play. Before rehearsals could start, however, Duggan was drafted into the army. After wartime service, Duggan began his acting career all over again, working at his uncle's Indiana farm in-between Broadway and stock engagements. In Hollywood in the late 1950s, Duggan was co-starred in the Warner Bros. TV series Bourbon Street Beat and was featured in such films as The Bravados (1958), Seven Days in May (1964) and In Like Flint (1967). He also was starred on the 1962 TV sitcom Room for One More and the 1968 video western Lancer. Because of his marked resemblance to Dwight D. Eisenhower, Duggan was frequently cast as generals and U.S. presidents. Andrew Duggan's last screen appearance was in The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover.

Trivia: Many remember Kami Cotler as little Elizabeth from TV's The Waltons, which Cotler appeared on from 1972 to 1981. The actress also appeared in the short-lived Me and the Chimp in the 1970s, but otherwise retired from acting following the Waltons conclusion, returning only to reprise the role of Elizabeth for subsequent TV movies, like 1982's A Wedding on Walton's Mountain.

Trivia: The cum laude holder of a B.A. in literature from Washington and Lee University, Fielder Cook continued his education as a major in Elizabethan Drama at the University of Birmingham (England, not Alabama). With these lofty credentials, Cook could have pursued a career as a theatrical director; instead, he chose to get in on the ground floor of the fledgling medium of television, beginning with Lux Video Theater in 1950. He functioned as producer and director on most of the prestigious live anthologies of TV's Golden Age, including The Kaiser/Aluminum Hour, Kraft Theater, and Playhouse 90. His direction of the original 1955 telecast of Patterns led to his being assigned the 1956 film version of the Rod Serling teleplay. Cook's subsequent film efforts were variable, to say the least: for every winner like A Big Hand for the Little Lady there was a failure like How to Save a Marriage (And Ruin Your Life) (1968). He fared far better in his periodic returns to television, helming such superior made-for-TV movies as The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (the 1971 pilot film for The Waltons), Judge Horton and the Scotsboro Boys (1976), A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story (1977), Gauguin the Savage (1980), and Will There Really Be a Morning? (the 1982 Frances Farmer TV biopic). Fielder Cook has twice been honored with the Emmy award, first for his 1967 TV staging of the Broadway musical Brigadoon, then for the 1970 telecast of Arthur Miller's The Price.