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: Model-turned-actress Dolores Donlon attracted the attention of producers from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s, but they seldom looked past her admittedly considerable physical attributes, to see if there was an actress there. Most of her film appearances were bits, however, which mostly focused on her exceptionally voluptuous figure. Born Patricia Vaniver in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she first began working as a model in the mid-1940s, working as Pat Van Iver. Her early screen work consisted of uncredited walk-on parts, in movies ranging from Dough Girls (1948) to Easter Parade (1948) -- Donlon was more set decoration than actress at that point. By 1954, however, she had moved up to credited roles in movies such as The Long Wait, Security Risk, and Flight To Hong Kong. She began doing television around this time as well, including appearances on The Jack Benny Program and westerns and adventure series such as The Texan and Richard Diamond, Private Detective. But Donlon's most prominent (and enduring, thanks to decades of reruns) small-screen appearance came on I Love Lucy in the episode "Don Juan And The Starlets," as herself -- introducing herself under her own name, she plays one of a bevy of young actresses assigned to surround Desi Arnaz's Ricky Ricardo in a photo shoot, during his sojourn to Hollywood in search of movie stardom. In August of 1957, Donlon achieved the height of her fame as a model when she was the Playmate of the Month in that issue of Playboy magazine. During the early 1960s, she also made a brief splash in Europe as the star of the drama Nude Odyssey (1961). Donlon gave up acting in 1962, following her marriage to New York Philharmonic violinist (and fellow Philadelphian) Robert de Pasquale.

Trivia: Actor Hans Conried, whose public image was that of a Shakespearean ham, was born not in England but in Baltimore. Scrounging for work during the Depression era, Conried offered himself to a radio station as a performer, and at 18 became a professional. One of his earliest jobs was appearing in uncut radio adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, and before he was twenty he was able to recite many of the Bard's lengthier passages from memory. After several years in summer stock and radio, Conried made his screen debut in Dramatic School (1938). Conried's saturnine features and reedy voice made him indispensable for small character roles, and until he entered the service in World War II the actor fluctuated between movies and radio. Given a choice, Conried would have preferred to stay in radio, where the money was better and the parts larger, but despite the obscurity of much of his film work he managed to sandwich in memorable small (often unbilled) appearances in such "A" pictures as Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942), The Big Street (1942) and Passage to Marseilles (1944). While in the army, Conried was put in charge of Radio Tokyo in postwar Japan, where he began his lifelong hobby of collecting rare Japanese artifacts; the actor also had a near-encyclopedic knowledge of American Indian lore. As big-time radio began to fade during the late 1940s and early 1950s, Conried concentrated more on film work. He was awarded the starring role in the bizarre musical 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. (1952), written by his friend Dr. Seuss; unfortunately, the studio, not knowing how to handle this unorthodox project, cut it to ribbons, and the film was a failure. Later he was engaged for a choice co-starring role in Cole Porter's Broadway musical Can Can; in addition, he became a favorite guest on Jack Paar's late-night TV program, popped up frequently and hilariously as a game show contestant, and in 1957 made the first of many special-guest visits as the imperishable Uncle Tonoose on The Danny Thomas Show. Cartoon producers also relied heavily on Conried, notably Walt Disney, who cast the actor as the voice of Captain Hook in the animated feature Peter Pan, and Jay Ward, for whom Conried played Snidely Whiplash on The Bullwinkle Show and Uncle Waldo on Hoppity Hooper. In 1963, Jay Ward hired Conried as the supercilious host of the syndicated comedy series Fractured Flickers. Conried cut down on his TV show appearances in the 1970s and 1980s, preferring to devote his time to stage work; for well over a year, the actor co-starred with Phil Leeds in an Atlanta production of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys. Just before his death, Conried was cast in a recurring role on the "realistic" drama series American Dream, where he was permitted to drop the high-tone Shakespearean veneer in the gruff, down-to-earth part of Jewish oldster Abe Berlowitz.

Trivia: A genuine westerner, Lane Chandler, upon leaving Montana Wesleyan College, moved to LA and worked as a garage mechanic while seeking out film roles. After several years in bit parts, Chandler was signed by Paramount in 1927 as a potential western star. For a brief period, both Chandler and Gary Cooper vied for the best cowboy roles, but in the end Paramount went with Cooper. Chandler made several attempts to establish himself as a "B" western star in the 1930s, but his harsh voice and sneering demeanor made him a better candidate for villainous roles. He mostly played bits in the 1940s, often as a utility actor for director Cecil B. DeMille. The weather-beaten face and stubbly chin of Lane Chandler popped up in many a TV and movie western of the 1950s, his roles gradually increasing in size and substance towards the end of his career.

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- ).