Trivia: A former secretary, Julie Adams inaugurated her film career in a series of slapped-together westerns starring James Ellison and Russell Hayden. She billed herself under her real name of Betty Adams until she was signed by Universal in 1949; she then became Julia Adams, which was modified to Julie by the early 1950s. Fans of the 1953 horror film Creature From the Black Lagoon tend to believe that Julie became a leading lady on the strength of her role in this film as the imperiled--and fetchingly underclad--heroine. In fact, she had been cast in good parts as early as 1950, notably the wealthy fiancee of newly blinded GI Arthur Kennedy in Bright Victory (1951). Curiously, some of her largest roles of the 1950s, in films like The Private War of Major Benson (1955) and Away All Boats (1956), were her least interesting. She cut down on her film appearances in the early 1960s to concentrate on television, a medium that permitted her to hold out for meatier acting assignments. Though she still tended to be cast in such negligible roles as the star's wife in The Jimmy Stewart Show (1971), Julie was proud of her many powerful guest-star appearances on dramatic programs: she was particularly fond of her performance as a middle-aged pregnant woman on a 1969 installment of Marcus Welby MD. Julie Adams was at one time married to actor/director Ray Danton.

Trivia: The son of actress Nan Kelly Yorke, Jack Kelly was the younger brother of stage and film star Nancy Kelly. Like Nancy, Jack was a professional from an early age, acting in radio and on stage before the age of 10, and in films from 1937 (he is quite prominent in a brace of 1939 20th Century-Fox films, Young Mr. Lincoln and The Story of Alexander Graham Bell). He reemerged as a leading man in the early 1950s, appearing in such films as Forbidden Planet (1956, as the ill-fated Lieutenant Farnam). Signed by Warner Bros. in 1955, Kelly starred as Dr. Paris Mitchell in the weekly TV version of the 1942 film King's Row. He went on to play gamblin' man Bart Maverick on the longer-running Warners western series Maverick. Though his popularity never matched that of his co-star James Garner, Kelly still developed a fan following as Bart; he remained with the series from 1957 until its cancellation in 1962, appearing opposite such Garner successors as Roger Moore and Robert Colbert. Kelly dabbled in a little bit of everything after that: hosting the anthology series NBC Comedy Playhouse (1973), emceeing the game show Sale of the Century (1969-71), and playing hard-nosed Lt. Ryan on the Teresa Graves series Get Christie Love (1974) and Harry Hammond on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (1977-79). He revived the Bart Maverick character on 1978's The New Maverick and the 1990 TV movie The Gambler Returns: Luck of the Draw. Chances are that, had he lived, Jack Kelly would have been invited to co-star again with Garner in the 1994 Mel Gibson theatrical-feature version of Maverick.

Trivia: Recruited from the stage, Richard Webb was signed to a standard Paramount contract in 1941. After playing bits in such films as Among the Living (1941) Sullivan's Travels (1942) and I Wanted Wings (1942), Webb served as a Captain in World War II. Upon his return, he was briefly groomed for stardom. He played such sizeable supporting roles as Jim in Out of the Past (1947), Private Shipley in Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and Sir Galahad in A Connecticut Yankee in King's Arthur's Court, but his only top-billed assignment was the 1950 Republic serial The Invisible Monster. In 1952, Webb landed the role of Captain Midnight in the TV series of the same name, earning the hero worship of kids everywhere--and the animosity of the Captain Midnight producers when he refused to drink the sponsor's product, Ovaltine, in public (he hated the stuff!) Webb went on to star in the 1959 syndicated TVer US Border Patrol, then did guest spots on such series as Gunsmoke, Lassie and Get Smart. In the '70s Webb turned to writing, publishing four books on psychic phenomena, including the 1974 reincarnation study These Came Back. Suffering from cancer and a respiratory ailment, Richard Webb committed suicide in 1993.

Trivia: "Everyman" American character actor Ross Elliot established himself on Broadway, served in World War II, returned to the stage, and made his film bow in 1948. Elliot's many movie appearances include minor roles in such science-fiction favorites as Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and Tarantula (1955). A prolific television performer, Elliot lost count of his video appearances after he passed the one-hundred mark. From 1967 to 1970, Ross Elliot was seen as Sheriff Abbott on the TV western The Virginian.

Trivia: Pilar Seurat was an exotic beauty of Filipino descent who enjoyed a decade-long acting career in films and on television in America during the 1960s. Born Rita Hernandez in Manila in 1938, she was trained as an actress and dancer, and after arriving in Hollywood at the end of the 1950s, she began getting roles on a wide variety of television shows, as well as in a handful of movies, usually playing Asian characters. Seurat's youth and her good looks were also exploited in films such as Seven Women From Hell and Battle at Bloody Beach, both released in 1961. That same year, she gave a gripping performance in the best role of her entire career, as Louisa Escalante, the sister of the blind murder victim, in John Frankenheimer's The Young Savages. Most of Seurat's work was confined to television, however, where she played guest-starring roles in series such as Adventures in Paradise (which exploited her dancing ability in one episode, "Blueprint for Paradise"), Bonanza, Naked City, The Wild Wild West, The High Chaparral, The Fugitive, The F.B.I., The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Daniel Boone, Hawaii Five-O, and Star Trek ("Wolf in the Fold"), as well as a handful of TV movies, among them Loss of Innocence. Seurat married writer/producer Don Devlin. Their son is Dean Devlin, the producer of such hit thrillers as Universal Soldier and Godzilla, and the blockbuster Independence Day. The two divorced in the mid-'60s, and Seurat gave up acting after marrying teacher/writer Don Cerveris, whom she divorced in the early '80s. She died of cancer in 2001.