Trivia: The son of a Canadian railroad executive, Glenn Ford first toddled on-stage at age four in a community production of Tom Thumb's Wedding. In 1924, Ford's family moved to California, where he was active in high-school theatricals. He landed his first professional theater job as a stage manager in 1934, and, within a year, he was acting in the West Coast company of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour. Although he made his film debut in 20th Century Fox's Heaven With a Barbed Wire Fence (1939), Ford was signed by Columbia, which remained his home base for the next 14 years. After an apprenticeship in such B-movies as Blondie Plays Cupid (1940), Ford was promoted to Columbia's A-list. Outwardly a most ordinary and unprepossessing personality, Ford possessed that intangible "something" that connected with audiences. The first phase of his stardom was interrupted by World War II service in the Marines (he retained his officer's commission long after the war, enabling him to make goodwill visits to Korea and Vietnam). Upon his return, Ford had some difficulty jump-starting his career, but, in 1946, he was back on top as Rita Hayworth's co-star in Gilda. While he insisted that he "never played anyone but [himself] onscreen," Ford's range was quite extensive. He was equally effective as a tormented film noir hero (The Big Heat [1953], Human Desire [1954]) as he was in light comedy (Teahouse of the August Moon [1956], The Gazebo[1959]). Nearly half of his films were Westerns, many of which -- The Desperadoes (1943), The Fastest Gun Alive (1956), 3:10 to Yuma (1957), Cowboy (1958) -- were among the best and most successful examples of that highly specialized genre. He was also quite effective at conveying courage under pressure: While it was clear that his characters in such films as The Blackboard Jungle (1955) and Ransom (1956) were terrified by the circumstances surrounding them, it was also obvious that they weren't about to let that terror get the better of them. In 1958, Ford was voted the number one male box-office attraction. Through sagacious career choices, the actor was able to extend his popularity long after the studio system that "created" him had collapsed. In 1971, he joined such film stars as Shirley MacLaine, Anthony Quinn, and Jimmy Stewart in the weekly television grind. While his series Cade's County ended after a single season, in the long run it was more successful than the vintage-like programs of MacLaine, Quinn, et al., and enjoyed a healthy life in syndication. Ford went on to star in another series, The Family Holvak (1975), and hosted a weekly documentary, When Havoc Struck (1978). He also headlined such miniseries as Once an Eagle (1976) and Evening in Byzantium (1978), and delivered a particularly strong performance as an Irish-American patriarch in the made-for-TV feature The Gift (1979). He continued showing up in choice movie supporting roles into the early '90s; one of the best of these was as Clark Kent's foster father in Superman: The Movie (1978).Although illness sharply curtailed his performing activities after that, Ford was still seemingly on call during the 1980s and '90s whenever a cable TV documentary on Hollywood's Golden Era required an eyewitness interview subject. In 1970, Ford published an autobiography, Glenn Ford, RFD Beverly Hills. His first wife was actress Eleanor Powell; He was also married to Kathryn Hays and Cynthia Hayward. His last film appearance was a cameo in 1993's Tombstone; after a series of strokes later that decade, he died in 2006 at the age of 90.

Trivia: One of the cinema's most enduring actors, Henry Fonda enjoyed a highly successful career spanning close to a half century. Most often in association with director John Ford, he starred in many of the finest films of Hollywood's golden era. Born May 16, 1905, in Grand Island, NE, Fonda majored in journalism in college, and worked as an office boy before pursuing an interest in acting. He began his amateur career with the Omaha Community Playhouse, often performing with the mother of Marlon Brando. Upon becoming a professional performer in 1928, Fonda traveled east, tenuring with the Provincetown Players before signing on with the University Players Guild, a New England-based ensemble including up-and-comers like James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, and Joshua Logan. Fonda's first Broadway appearance followed with 1929's The Game of Life and Death. He also worked in stock, and even served as a set designer. In 1931, Fonda and Sullavan were married, and the following year he appeared in I Loved You Wednesday. The couple divorced in 1933, and Fonda's big break soon followed in New Faces of '34. A leading role in The Farmer Takes a Wife was next, and when 20th Century Fox bought the film rights, they recruited him to reprise his performance opposite Janet Gaynor, resulting in his 1935 screen debut. Fonda and Gaynor were slated to reunite in the follow-up, Way Down East, but when she fell ill Rochelle Hudson stepped in. In 1936 he starred in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (the first outdoor Technicolor production), the performance which forever defined his onscreen persona: Intense, insistent, and unflappable, he was also extraordinarily adaptable, and so virtually impossible to miscast. He next co-starred with Sullavan in The Moon's Our Home, followed by Wings of the Morning (another Technicolor milestone, this one the first British feature of its kind). For the great Fritz Lang, Fonda starred in 1937's You Only Live Once, and the following year co-starred with Bette Davis in William Wyler's much-celebrated Jezebel. His next critical success came as the titular Young Mr. Lincoln, a 1939 biopic directed by John Ford. The film was not a commercial sensation, but soon after Fonda and Ford reunited for Drums Along the Mohawk, a tremendous success. Ford then tapped him to star as Tom Joad in the 1940 adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, a casting decision which even Steinbeck himself wholeheartedly supported. However, 20th Century Fox's Darryl Zanuck wanted Tyrone Power for the role, and only agreed to assign Fonda if the actor signed a long-term contract. Fonda signed, and Zanuck vowed to make him the studio's top star -- it didn't happen, however, and despite the success of The Grapes of Wrath (for which he scored his first Best Actor Academy Award nomination), his tenure at Fox was largely unhappy and unproductive.The best of Fonda's follow-up vehicles was the 1941 Preston Sturges comedy The Lady Eve, made at Paramount on loan from Fox; his co-star, Barbara Stanwyck, also appeared with him in You Belong to Me. After a number of disappointing projects, Fox finally assigned him to a classic, William Wellman's 1943 Western The Ox-Bow Incident. Studio executives reportedly hated the film, however, until it won a number of awards. After starring in The Immortal Sergeant, Fonda joined the navy to battle in World War II. Upon his return, he still owed Fox three films, beginning with Ford's great 1946 Western My Darling Clementine. At RKO he starred in 1947's The Long Night, followed by Fox's Daisy Kenyon. Again at RKO, he headlined Ford's The Fugitive, finally fulfilling his studio obligations with Ford's Fort Apache, his first unsympathetic character. Fonda refused to sign a new contract and effectively left film work for the next seven years, returning to Broadway for lengthy runs in Mister Roberts, Point of No Return, and The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. Outside of cameo roles in a handful of pictures, Fonda did not fully return to films until he agreed to reprise his performance in the 1955 screen adaptation of Mister Roberts, one of the year's biggest hits. Clearly, he had been greatly missed during his stage exile, and offers flooded in. First there was 1956's War and Peace, followed by Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man. In 1957, Fonda produced as well as starred in the Sidney Lumet classic Twelve Angry Men, but despite a flurry of critical acclaim the film was a financial disaster. In 1958, after reteaming with Lumet on Stage Struck, Fonda returned to Broadway to star in Two for the Seesaw, and over the years to come he alternated between projects on the screen (The Man Who Understood Women, Advise and Consent, The Longest Day) with work on-stage (Silent Night, Lonely Night, Critic's Choice, Gift of Time). From 1959 to 1961, he also starred in a well-received television series, The Deputy.By the mid-'60s, Fonda's frequent absences from the cinema had severely hampered his ability to carry a film. Of his many pictures from the period, only 1965's The Battle of the Bulge performed respectably at the box office. After 1967's Welcome to Hard Times also met with audience resistance, Fonda returned to television to star in the Western Stranger on the Run. After appearing in the 1968 Don Siegel thriller Madigan, he next starred opposite Lucille Ball in Yours, Mine and Ours, a well-received comedy. Fonda next filmed Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West; while regarded as a classic, the actor so loathed the experience that he refused to ever discuss the project again. With his old friend, James Stewart, he starred in The Cheyenne Social Club before agreeing to a second TV series, the police drama Smith, in 1971. That same year, he was cast to appear as Paul Newman's father in Sometimes a Great Notion.After a pair of TV movies, 1973's The Red Pony and The Alpha Stone, Fonda began a series of European productions which included the disastrous Ash Wednesday and Il Mio Nome è Nessuno. He did not fare much better upon returning to Hollywood; after rejecting Network (the role which won Peter Finch an Oscar), Fonda instead appeared in the Sensurround war epic Midway, followed by The Great Smokey Roadblock. More TV projects followed, including the miniseries Roots -- The Next Generation. Between 1978 and 1979, he also appeared in three consecutive disaster movies: The Swarm, City on Fire, and Meteor. Better received was Billy Wilder's 1978 film Fedora. A year later, he also co-starred with his son, Peter Fonda, in Wanda Nevada. His final project was the 1981 drama On Golden Pond, a film co-starring and initiated by his daughter, Jane Fonda; as an aging professor in the twilight of his years, he finally won the Best Actor Oscar so long due him. Sadly, Fonda was hospitalized at the time of the Oscar ceremony, and died just months later on August 12, 1982.

Trivia: He began performing in early childhood, going on to appear in tent shows, vaudeville, and stock throughout the Southwest. He formed Chill Wills and the Avalon Boys, a singing group in which he was the leader and bass vocalist, in the '30s. After appearing with the group in several Westerns, beginning with his screen debut, Bar 20 Rides Again (1935), he disbanded the group in 1938. For the next fifteen years he was busy onscreen as a character actor, but after 1953 his film work became less frequent. He provided the voice of Francis the Talking Mule in the "Francis" comedy series of films. In the '60s he starred in the TV series "Frontier Circus" and "The Rounders." For his work in The Alamo (1960) he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. In 1975 he released a singing album--his first.

Trivia: Intending to become a dentist like his father, American actor Edgar Buchanan wound up with grades so bad in college that he was compelled to take an "easy" course to improve his average. Buchanan chose a course in play interpretation, and after listening to a few recitations of Shakespeare he was stagestruck. After completing dental school, Buchanan plied his oral surgery skills in the summertime, devoting the fall, winter and spring months to acting in stock companies and at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. He was given a screen test by Warner Bros. studios in 1940, received several bit roles, then worked himself up to supporting parts upon transferring to Columbia Pictures. Though still comparatively youthful, Buchanan specialized in grizzled old westerners, with a propensity towards villainy or at least larceny. The actor worked at every major studio (and not a few minor ones) over the next few years, still holding onto his dentist's license just in case he needed something to fall back on. Though he preferred movie work to the hurried pace of TV filming, Buchanan was quite busy in television's first decade, costarring with William Boyd on the immensely popular Hopalong Cassidy series, then receiving a starring series of his own, Judge Roy Bean, in 1954. Buchanan became an international success in 1963 thanks to his regular role as the lovably lazy Uncle Joe Carson on the classic sitcom Petticoat Junction, which ran until 1970. After that, the actor experienced a considerably shorter run on the adventure series Cade's County, which starred Buchanan's close friend Glenn Ford. Buchanan's last movie role was in Benji (1974), which reunited him with the titular doggie star, who had first appeared as the family mutt on Petticoat Junction.

Trivia: Had he been born a decade earlier, American actor Denver Pyle might well have joined the ranks of western-movie comedy sidekicks. Instead, Pyle, a Colorado farm boy, opted for studying law, working his way through school by playing drums in a dance band. Suddenly one day, Pyle became disenchanted with law and returned to his family farm, with nary an idea what he wanted to do with his life. Working in the oil fields of Oklahoma, he moved on to the shrimp boats of Galveston, Texas. A short stint as a page at NBC radio studios in 1940 didn't immediately lead to a showbiz career, as it has for so many others; instead, Pyle was inspired to perform by a mute oilfield coworker who was able to convey his thought with body language. Studying under such masters as Michael Chekhov and Maria Ouspenskaya, Pyle was able to achieve small movie and TV roles. He worked frequently on the western series of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry; not yet bearded and grizzled, Pyle was often seen as deputies, farmers and cattle rustlers. When his hair turned prematurely grey in his early '30s, Pyle graduated to banker, sheriff and judge roles in theatrical westerns -- though never of the comic variety. He also was a regular on two TV series, Code 3 (1956) and Tammy (1966). But his real breakthrough role didn't happen until 1967, when Pyle was cast as the taciturn sheriff in Bonnie and Clyde who is kidnapped and humilated by the robbers -- and then shows up at the end of the film to supervise the bloody machine-gun deaths of B&C. This virtually nonspeaking role won worldwide fame for Pyle, as well as verbal and physical assalts from the LA hippie community who regarded Bonnie and Clyde as folk heroes! From this point forward, Denver Pyle's billing, roles and salary were vastly improved -- and his screen image was softened and humanized by a full, bushy beard. Returning to TV, Pyle played the star's father on The Doris Day Show (1968-73); was Mad Jack, the costar/narrator of Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (1978-80); and best of all, spent six years (1979-85) as Uncle Jesse Duke on The Dukes of Hazzard. Looking stockier but otherwise unchanged, Denver Pyle was briefly seen in the 1994 hit Maverick, playing an elegantly dishonest cardshark who jauntily doffs his hat as he's dumped off of a riverboat. Pyle died of lung cancer at Burbank's Providence St. Joseph Medical Center at age 77.

Trivia: Barton MacLane may have been born on Christmas Day, but there was precious little chance that he'd ever be cast as Santa Claus. A star athlete at Wesleyan University, MacLane won his first movie role in the 1924 silent Quarterback as the result of his football skills. This single incident sparked his interest in performing, which he pursued on a serious basis at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He performed in stock, on Broadway, and in bit parts in films lensed at Paramount's Astoria studios (notably the Marx Brothers' The Cocoanuts). In 1932, MacLane wrote a slice-of-life play titled Rendezvous, selling it to influential Broadway producer Arthur Hopkins on the proviso, that he, MacLane, be given the lead. The play was a success, leading to a lucrative film contract from Warner Bros. Most effectively cast as a swaggering villain ("who never spoke when shouting would do," as historian William K. Everson observed), MacLane played good-guy leads in several Warner "B"s: he played the conclusion-jumping lieutenant Steve McBride in the studio's Torchy Blaine series. Free-lancing in the 1940s, MacLane made an unfortunate return to writing in 1941, penning the screenplay for the PRC quickie Man of Courage; it is reported that audiences erupted in shrieks of laughter when MacLane, reciting his own lines, recalled his childhood days on the farm by declaring "Boy! Did I love ta plow!" He was better served in a brace of John Huston-directed films, beating up Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and being beaten up by Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. MacLane's TV-series work included a starring stint on The Outlaws (1960-62) and the recurring role of General Peterson on I Dream of Jeannie (1965-69). Having come into the world on a holiday, Barton MacLane died on New Years' Day, 1969; he was survived by his wife, actress Charlotte Wynters.

Trivia: The inimitable American actress Kathleen Freeman has been convulsing film audiences with portrayals of dowdy, sharp-tongued matrons since she was in her 20s. After stage work, Freeman began taking bit roles in major-studio features in 1948, seldom getting screen credit but always making a positive impression. The best of her earliest roles was in Singin' in the Rain (1952); Freeman played long-suffering vocal coach Phoebe Dinsmore, whose Herculean efforts to get dumb movie star Jean Hagen to grasp the proper enunciation of the phrase "I can't staaaand him" proved uproariously futile. Often cast as domestics, Freeman had a year's run in 1953 as the "spooked" maid on the ghostly TV sitcom Topper. Freeman was a particular favorite of comedian Jerry Lewis, who cast the actress in showy (and billed!) roles in such farces as The Errand Boy (1961), The Nutty Professor (1963) and Who's Got the Action?. As Nurse Higgins in Lewis' Disorderly Orderly (1964), Freeman weeps quietly as Jerry meekly scrapes oatmeal off her face and babbles "Oh, Nurse Higgins...you're all full of...stuff." Lewis so trusted Freeman's acting instincts that he sent her to the set of director William Wyler's The Collector (1965) in order to help build up the confidence of Wyler's nervous young leading lady Samantha Eggar. Throughout the '70s and '80s, Freeman took occasional "sabbaticals" from her movie and TV assignments to do stage work, enjoying a lengthy run in a Chicago production of Ira Levin's Deathtrap. Like many character actors of the '50s, Kathleen Freeman is frequently called upon to buoy the projects of baby-boomer directors: she was recently seen as an hysterical Julia Child clone in Joe Dante's Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990).

Trivia: Born in New Jersey, Sue Ane Langdon was raised in Michigan and 13 other states by her mother, former opera singer Grace Lookhoff. It was Grace who directed the 5-year-old Sue Ane in her stage debut as Tinker Bell in a semi-professional staging of Peter Pan. After attending North Texas State Teachers College and Idaho State, Langdon headed for New York, where she sang in the Radio City Music Hall chorus then danced in a Las Vegas production of The Ziegfeld Follies. In 1962, she was chosen by Jackie Gleason to play Alice Kramden in the "Honeymooners" sketches on Gleason's weekly TVer The American Scene Magazine. It was strictly "oil and water" time on the set, and within a few weeks Langdon and Gleason parted company by mutual agreement, whereupon Gleason jocularly took out a newspaper ad saying he was no longer responsible for his "wife's" debts. Much was made of Langdon's exposure of her attractive epidermis in Playboy magazine and (briefly) in the 1965 film The Rounders, but this sex-symbol image faded when she became firmly established as a comedienne. From 1969 through 1971, Langdon played Herschel Bernardi's wife on the TV sitcom Arnie, winning a Golden Globe for "Best Supporting Actress." Sue Ane Langdon's recent film assignments have included the forbidding task of playing Weird Al Yankovic's aunt in UHF (1989).

Trivia: Wacky comic actor Doodles Weaver started appearing in films in the late '30s, usually playing country-bumpkin bits. He rose to fame as a musician/comedian with the Spike Jones Orchestra, regaling audiences with his double-talk renditions of such tunes as "The Man on the Flying Trapeze" and "The Whiffenpoof Song." His most popular routine was his mile-a-minute parody of an overly excited sports announcer ("And the winnerrrrrrrr....Bei-del-baum!!!!). So valuable was Weaver to Jones' aggregation that Doodles was the only member of the group who was allowed to drink while on tour. This indulgence, alas, proved to be Weaver's undoing; though he'd scaled the heights as a radio and TV star in the 1940s and 1950s, Doodles had lost most of his comic expertise by the 1960s thanks to his fondness for the bottle. A bitter, broken man in his last years, Weaver died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound at the age of 71. Doodles Weaver was the brother of TV executive Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, and the uncle of actress Sigourney Weaver.

Trivia: Known in turn as Henry Fonda's son, Jane Fonda's brother, counter-culture icon Captain America, and Bridget Fonda's father, Peter Fonda finally got his due as an actor for his superb performance as a Florida beekeeper in Ulee's Gold (1997). Snaring an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe for his work, Fonda was finally able to step out of his celebrated family's shadow, earning recognition for something besides his title as the black sheep of the Fonda clan.Born in New York City on February 23, 1940, Fonda, by his own accounts, grew up trying to live up to his famous father's expectations. An exceptionally bright young man, he entered the University of Omaha as a sophomore at the age of seventeen, without even finishing high school. In Omaha, he broke into acting, appearing in the Omaha Playhouse's production of Harvey. He then went to New York to pursue his acting career, first working with the Cecilwood Theatre and then debuting on Broadway at the age of twenty-one in a production of Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole. His early career took shape under the specter of his famous father, with the young actor incurring comparisons to the elder Fonda with everything he did. His onstage success led to a Hollywood screen test for the part of John F. Kennedy in PT 109. The role in the 1963 film ultimately went to Cliff Robertson, but Fonda made his film debut that same year in the Sandra Dee vehicle Tammy and the Doctor.Fonda continued to be consigned to romantic leads until he appeared in Roger Corman's The Wild Angels in 1966. A motorcycle enthusiast whom Corman cast after the film's original star, George Maharis, demanded a stunt double, Fonda seemed a natural for the role of a motorcycle gang leader. The film, which cast actual Hell's Angels and co-starred Bruce Dern, was a violent, drug-addled affair that catalyzed Fonda's reputation as his father's delinquent spawn and direct antithesis. This reputation was furthered by his starring role in Corman's The Trip, a 1967 film about the healing powers of LSD. Co-starring Dern and featuring a screenplay written by Jack Nicholson, The Trip, with its emphasis on sex, drugs, and societal estrangement, provided a preview of the film that would give Fonda both fame and notoriety.In 1969, Fonda starred in Easy Rider, a film that he also produced. Directed by Dennis Hopper, it starred Fonda, Hopper, and Nicholson as freewheeling, pot-smoking adventurers who find their counter-culture lifestyle threatened by the encroaching confines of the Establishment. One of the cultural landmarks of the late 1960s, tt was also an unexpected commercial success, grossing over $19 million at the box office, earning Fonda an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, and contributing to Hollywood's new interest in young audiences and socially relevant movies.Following the film's success, Fonda, now both a cult hero and a millionaire, went on to collaborate with Hopper again on 1971's The Last Movie. The film didn't enjoy the acclaim of their previous collaboration, and Fonda's subsequent efforts of that decade also failed to live up to the stature of Easy Rider. One possible exception was the 1974 sleeper Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, a film in which Fonda appeared to finance his directorial projects, one of which was Wanda Nevada, a 1979 film that featured his father. Increasingly, Fonda became better-known for his activities off-screen than on: his status as an anti-Establishment figurehead was enhanced when John Lennon wrote the song "She Said She Said" about him. Reportedly, it was inspired by a bad acid trip the musician had taken, during which Fonda repeatedly told him, "I know what it's like to be dead, man."Fonda's screen career continued its downward spiral during the 1980s, and towards the end of that decade it was once again overshadowed by that of a family member, in this case his daughter, Bridget. Fonda, who had exiled himself from L.A. in 1969 to live in Montana, seemed more aware of this than anyone: in an interview, he was quoted as saying, "I was Captain America and where....can you go with that? You can only ride so many motorcycles and smoke so many joints." But in the mid-1990s, Fonda's career began to get some much-needed resuscitation. After making a cameo appearance in Bodies, Rest & Motion, a 1993 film starring his daughter, he had a starring role in Michael Almereyda's Nadja (1994) and essentially parodied himself in John Carpenter's Escape From L.A. (1996). Fonda's true comeback was Ulee's Gold, Victor Nunez's 1997 exploration of loss and family ties. He won raves for his portrayal of the title character, and the Best Actor Oscar nomination he received for the film served as the industry's formal recognition of his re-emergence as a Hollywood player. The actor, always one to play by his own rules, next rejected mainstream Hollywood fare to star in Steven Soderbergh's The Limey in 1999, playing a shifty record producer, and earning uniformly excellent reviews. He also starred in The Passion of Ayn Rand as the author's long-suffering husband; the film premiered at that year's Sundance Film Festival. He branched out into kids films with a leading role in Thomas and the Magic Railroad in 2000, and appeared in The Laramie Project one year later. He continued to work steadily, often taking smaller parts in bigger movies like Supernova, Ghost Rider, and Wild Hogs. He was a fearsome, grizzled, and authentic Western presence in James Mangold's remake of 3:10 to Yuma in 2007. In 2011 he paid tribute to the man who helped launch his career by sitting down for interviews in Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel.

Trivia: Charles Horvath entered films in the immediate postwar years as a stunt man. From 1951 onward, Horvath began receiving speaking roles, most often in westerns. He occasionally accepted contemporary parts, playing rednecks and toughs in such films as Damn Citizen (1957). Charles Horvath spent his last decade playing featured roles in films like A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and The Domino Principle (1977).

Trivia: A favorite of producer/director Jack Webb, character actor Ralph Moody was a familiar face to viewers of Dragnet in both its 1950s and 1960s incarnations -- but that would be an unfair (as well as inaccurate) way to describe an actor who amassed hundreds of film and television appearances in barely 20 years of movie and television work. Born in St. Louis, MO, in 1886, Moody didn't make his screen debut until 1948, with a small role in Man Eaters of Kumaon. Already in his sixties, he always looked older than he was, and his craggy features could also impart a fierceness that made him threatening. Although Moody was known for playing kindly or crotchety old men, he occasionally brought that fierceness to bear, as in the Adventures of Superman episode "Test of a Warrior", in which he played the sinister medicine man Okatee. But in between that and dozens of other one-off television assignments, Moody also managed to work in scenes as the coffin-boat skipper in Samuel Fuller's Pickup on South Street and one of the rescue workers in Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole. Moody was one of those actors who could work quickly and milk a line or a scene for all its emotional worth. What's more, he could do it without over-emoting. He was the kind of character player that directors and producers in budget-conscious television of the 1950s needed. In an episode of Circus Boy, he played a touching scene with a young Micky Dolenz, as an aging railroad engineer introducing the boy to the world of locomotives and trains. After that, Moody got called back to do three more episodes. But it was Jack Webb who really put him to work in Dragnet and many of his other productions, in radio and feature films as well as television. His more memorable appearances on Dragnet included "The Big Producer", as a once-famous movie producer who is reduced to selling pornographic pictures to high-school students, and "The Hammer", from the 1967 revival of the series, in which he portrayed the neighbor of a murder victim. Moody continued working regularly in television until a year before his death in 1971, at age 84. His final appearance was in the Night Gallery episode "The Little Black Bag".

Trivia: Oates first acted in a student play while attending the University of Louisville. He moved to New York in 1954, hoping to find work on the stage or TV; instead he had a series of odd jobs. Eventually he appeared in a few live TV dramas, and when this work slowed down he moved to Hollywood; there he became a stock villain in many TV and film Westerns. Over the years he gained respect as an excellent character actor; by the early '70s he was appearing in both unusual, unglamorous leads and significant supporting roles. His breakthrough role was in In the Heat of the Night (1967). He played the title role in Dillinger (1973).

Trivia: Stuntman and occasional supporting actor Troy Melton spent most of his career on television and appeared on numerous series, from the 1960s through the mid-'70s. Melton also worked on numerous films of the 1960s and 1970s, beginning with Davy Crockett and the River Pirate (1956).

Trivia: Chuck Roberson was a rancher before serving in World War II. Upon his discharge, he sought out film work as a stunt man. While under contract to Republic Pictures, Roberson doubled for John Wayne in Wake of the Red Witch (1948). Thereafter, he worked in virtually all of Wayne's films as stunt double, action coordinator, second-unit director and bit actor. His best speaking part was Sheriff Lordin in the Duke's McClintock (1963). Chuck Roberson's career served as the inspiration for the Lee Majors TV series The Fall Guy (1981-86).