Trivia: Rough-hewn American leading man Richard Boone was thrust into the cold cruel world when he was expelled from Stanford University, for a minor infraction. He worked as a oil-field laborer, boxer, painter and free-lance writer before settling upon acting as a profession. After serving in World War II, Boone used his GI Bill to finance his theatrical training at the Actors' Studio, making his belated Broadway debut at age 31, playing Jason in Judith Anderson's production of Medea. Signed to a 20th Century-Fox contract in 1951, Boone was given good billing in his first feature, Halls of Montezuma; among his Fox assignments was the brief but telling role of Pontius Pilate in The Robe (1953). Boone launched the TV-star phase of his career in the weekly semi-anthology Medic, playing Dr. Konrad Steiner. From 1957 through 1963, Boone portrayed Paladin, erudite western soldier of fortune, on the popular western series Have Gun, Will Travel. He directed several episodes of this series. Boone tackled a daring TV assignment in 1963, when in collaboration with playwright Clifford Odets, he appeared in the TV anthology series The Richard Boone Show. Unique among filmed dramatic programs, Boone's series featured a cast of eleven regulars (including Harry Morgan, Robert Blake, Jeanette Nolan, Bethel Leslie and Boone himself), who appeared in repertory, essaying different parts of varying sizes each week. The Richard Boone Show failed to catch on, and Boone went back to films. In 1972 he starred in another western series, this one produced by his old friend Jack Webb: Hec Ramsey, the saga of an old-fashioned sheriff coping with an increasingly industrialized West. In the last year of his life, Boone was appointed Florida's cultural ambassador. Richard Boone died at age 65 of throat cancer.

Trivia: American actress Peggy Rea began gaining notice in the 1960s as a member of Red Skelton's TV stock company. In the 1970s, she was seen as Olivia Walton's cousin Rose Burton in The Waltons and on an irregular basis as man-chasing Lulu Hogg in The Dukes of Hazzard. Later seen in maternal roles, Peggy Rea was featured on Step By Step (1991) as Ivy Williams, the mother of Suzanne Sommers' character, and as Brett Butler's mom Jean Kelly in Grace Under Fire (1993- ).

Trivia: A top athlete at Brown University, Don Haggerty performed military service and did stage work before his movie-acting debut in 1947. Free-lancing, Haggerty put in time at virtually every studio from Republic to MGM, playing roles of varying sizes in films like Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) The Asphalt Jungle (1951), Angels in the Outfield (1951) and The Narrow Margin (1952). Most often, he was cast as a big-city detective or rugged westerner. During the first (1955-56) season of TV's The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Haggerty showed up semi-regularly as Marsh Murdock. Don Haggerty was the father of Grizzly Adams star Dan Haggerty.

Trivia: Bald, moon-faced character actor George Cisar kept busy in a 22-year Hollywood career with roles in well over 100 film and television productions, starting in 1948 with an uncredited bit as a policeman in Henry Hathaway's Call Northside 777. Perhaps it was his rough-hewn yet genial features, coupled with an unaffected working-class accent and demeanor, but he was frequently put into police uniforms; and, in fact, many baby boomers may instantly recognize Cisar's face, if not his name, for his recurring role as the long-suffering Sgt. Mooney on the series Dennis the Menace, a part he portrayed in over two dozen episodes between 1960 and 1963. He worked in every genre from romantic comedies to Westerns, horror, and science fiction. In 1956 alone, Cisar was a barfly in Fred F. Sears' Teenage Crime Wave; a bartender in Sears' The Werewolf; and the somewhat disingenuous father of a vengeful teenager, who tries to sponsor and then derail a controversial rock & roll show, in Sears' Don't Knock the Rock. Cisar was obviously reliable, as director Sears and producer Sam Katzman -- who made those three movies -- were known for efficient filmmaking on a notoriously low budget.Cisar worked a lot for them at Columbia Pictures (which also produced Dennis the Menace), but he also did a lot of work at Ziv TV, on series such as Highway Patrol and Bat Masterson, in addition to regular appearance in Dragnet, where Jack Webb apparently liked keeping him busy and employed. Cisar could be funny or sinister, and some of his appearances were limited to a single line or two of dialogue, as in The Giant Claw (1957), where he provided a moment of comic relief (indeed, in that movie, his scene was one of the rare intentionally amusing moments). He also turned up in tiny roles in high-profile pictures such as Jailhouse Rock (1957) and Some Came Running (1958). Typically, Cisar would go from a co-starring part in a low-budget exploitation picture, such as Bernard Kowalski's Attack of the Giant Leeches, to a bit in, say, Don Siegel's Edge of Eternity, and then right on to an episode of The Untouchables (all 1959). Cisar retired at the start of the 1970s and passed away in 1979.

Trivia: Well-muscled former 1935 New York City heavyweight boxing champ Mickey Simpson was typically cast as a villain in numerous low-budget actioners, adventures, and Westerns of the '40s, '50s, and '60s. Before making his screen debut with a bit part in Stagecoach, Simpson had been Claudette Colbert's personal chauffeur. He served with the military during WWII and then returned to Hollywood to continue his busy onscreen career.