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: Eccentric, high-voiced British comedienne/actress Elsa Lanchester started her career as a modern dancer, appearing with Isadora Duncan. Lanchester can be seen bringing unique and usually humorous interpretations to roles in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), opposite husband Charles Laughton; The Bride of Frankenstein (1934), where she appears both as a subdued Mary Shelley and a hissing bride; David Copperfield and Naughty Marietta (both 1935); Tales of Manhattan (1942) and Forever and a Day (1943), both with Laughton; Lassie Come Home (1943), in which she is unusually subdued as the mother; The Bishop's Wife (1947); The Inspector General and The Secret Garden (1949); and Come to the Stable (1949), for which she was nominated for an Oscar. She and Laughton are riotous together in Witness for the Prosecution (1957), for which she was also Oscar-nominated, and she also appeared in Bell, Book and Candle (1958) and the Disney films Mary Poppins (1964), as the departing nanny Katie Nanna, and in That Darn Cat (1965). One of her best late performances was in Murder by Death (1976). Lanchester was also an actress at London's Old Vic, an outlandish singer, and a nightclub performer; she co-starred on The John Forsythe Show (1965-66), and was a regular on Nanny and the Professor in 1971.

Trivia: British actor Arthur Malet came into prominence in the 1960s, playing old codgers while still relatively young. As banker Dawes Jr. in Disney's Mary Poppins (1964), he shared a funny musical moment with Dick Van Dyke; later on, he appeared on Van Dyke's television show, playing a doddering hotel plumber in the memorable episode wherein Laura Petrie (Mary Tyler Moore) gets her foot stuck in a bathtub faucet. Malet went on to play a village elder in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein (1974), and was frequently seen as butlers in both films (Heaven Can Wait) and TV (Dallas, Easy Street). And in the otherwise ponderous Peter Pan sequel Hook (1991), Arthur Malet has a delightful scene in which, as the aged "Lost Boy" Tootles, he regains his childhood flying skills and circles merrily around Big Ben.

Trivia: Active in Australian radio and stage productions from childhood, Sydney native Michael Pate made his first film in 1949 on his home turf. Pate then moved to Hollywood, where he settled into villainous or obstreperous roles. He is best remembered for his portrayal of Indian chief Vittoro in John Wayne's Hondo (1953), a part he recreated for the 1966 weekly TV adaptation of Hondo, which top-billed Ralph Taeger. Other career highlights include the 1954 TV adaptation of Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Casino Royale, wherein Pate became the first actor to play CIA agent Felix Leiter (though both the character's name and nationality were changed), and PT 109 (1963), in which Pate played the Australian mariner who harangued future President John F. Kennedy (Cliff Robertson).During his Hollywood stay, Pate occasionally dabbled in screenwriting, collaborating on the scripts of Escape from Fort Bravo (1953) and The Most Dangerous Man Alive (1961). In 1968 he returned to Australia where, with such rare exceptions as the weekly TVer Matlock Police, he curtailed his performing activities to concentrate on producing, writing and directing. He produced the 1969 feature film Age of Consent, and later was put in charge of production of Amalgamated Television in Sydney. He made his feature-film directorial debut with the TV movie Tim (1979), which boasted an impressive early starring performance by Mel Gibson. He also adapted the screenplay of Tim from the novel by Colleen McCullough, earning the Australian equivalent of the Emmy Award for his efforts. Michael Pate is the author of two instructional books, The Film Actor and The Director's Eye.

Trivia: Yale grad John Hoyt had been a history instructor, acting teacher and nightclub comedian before linking up with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre in 1937. He remained with Welles until he joined the Army in 1945. After the war, the grey-haired, deadly-eyed Hoyt built up a screen reputation as one of most hissable "heavies" around, notably as the notorious political weathervane Talleyrand in Desiree (1954). He was a bit kinder onscreen as the Prophet Elijah in Sins of Jezebel. Nearly always associated with mainstream films, Hoyt surprised many of his professional friends when he agreed to co-star in the softcore porn spoof Flesh Gordon; those closest to him, however, knew that Hoyt had been a bit of a Bohemian all his life, especially during his frequent nudist colony vacations. TV fans of the '80s generation will remember John Hoyt as Grandpa Stanley Kanisky on the TV sitcom Gimme a Break; those with longer memories might recall that Hoyt played the doctor who told Ben Gazzara that he had only two years to live on the pilot for the 1960s TV series Run For Your Life. Hoyt also holds a footnote in Star Trek history playing the doctor in the first pilot episode, "The Cage."

Trivia: Lanky, cleft-chinned William Smith was regularly employed on television in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, never quite a star but always in there pitching. At first billing himself as Bill Smith to avoid confusion with another actor, Smith was a regular in such TV series as The Asphalt Jungle (1961), Laredo (1966), and Hawaii Five-O (from the 1979 season onward). He also became a familiar presence in the many motorcycle pictures being ground out by American International and other such concerns. In 1976, Smith was cast as the unspeakable Falconetti in the TV miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man, an assignment that would assure him larger roles and better billing in all future endeavors. He even began showing up in top-of-the-bill pictures like Any Which Way You Can (1980), in which Smith and star Clint Eastwood participated in a display of friendly-enemy fisticuffs straight out of The Quiet Man. William Smith was finally awarded top billing on a TV series when he headlined the 1985 Western Wildside, playing veteran "shootist" Brodie Hollister.