Trivia: Angela Lansbury received an Oscar nomination for her first film, Gaslight, in 1944, and has been winning acting awards and audience favor ever since. Born in London to a family that included both politicians and performers, Lansbury came to the U.S. during World War II. She made notable early film appearances as the snooty sister in National Velvet (1944); the pathetic singer in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), which garnered her another Academy nomination; and the madam-with-a-heart-of-gold saloon singer in The Harvey Girls (1946). She turned evil as the manipulative publisher in State of the Union (1948), but was just as convincing as the good queen in The Three Musketeers (1948) and the petulant daughter in The Court Jester (1956). She received another Oscar nomination for her chilling performance as Laurence Harvey's scheming mother in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and appeared as the addled witch in Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), among other later films. On Broadway, she won Tony awards for the musicals Mame (1966), Dear World (1969), the revival of Gypsy (1975), Sweeney Todd (1979) and, at age 82, for the play Blithe Spirit (2009). Despite a season in the '50s on the game show Pantomime Quiz, she came to series television late, starring in 1984-1996 as Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote; she took over as producer of the show in the '90s. She returned to the Disney studios to record the voice of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast (1991) and to sing the title song and later reprised the role in the direct-to-video sequel, The Enchanted Christmas (1997). Lansbury is the sister of TV producer Bruce Lansbury.

Trivia: Chicagoan Terry Kiser has been a member of the movie character-actor pool since 1968. Kiser hasn't exactly scaled the heights of fame with such films as Friday the 13th Part VII, but he has paid his bills on time. His TV work has included a stint as Dr. John Rice on NBC's The Doctors, a recurring role as reporter Al Craven on the popular sitcom Night Court, and a sojourn as a member of Carol Burnett's repertory players on 1990's Carol & Company. Terry Kiser's most memorably recent film assignment has been as the scene-stealing corpse (!) in the two Weekend at Bernie's comedies of the 1990s.

Trivia: The son of a San Francisco shoe factory owner, American actor Lloyd Nolan made it clear early on that he had no intention of entering the family business. Nolan developed an interest in acting while in college, at the expense of his education -- it took him five years to get through Santa Clara College, and he flunked out of Stanford, all because of time spent in amateur theatricals. Attempting a "joe job" on a freighter, Nolan gave it up when the freighter burned to the waterline. In 1927, he began studying at the Pasadena Playhouse, living on the inheritance left him by his father. Stock company work followed, and in 1933 Nolan scored a Broadway hit as vengeful small-town dentist Biff Grimes in One Sunday Afternoon (a role played in three film versions by Gary Cooper, James Cagney, and Dennis Morgan, respectively -- but never by Nolan). Nolan's first film was Stolen Harmony (1935); his breezy urban manner and Gaelic charm saved the actor from being confined to the bad guy parts he played so well, and by 1940 Nolan was, if not a star, certainly one of Hollywood's most versatile second-echelon leading men. As film historian William K. Everson has pointed out, the secret to Nolan's success was his integrity -- the audience respected his characters, even when he was the most cold-blooded of villains. The closest Nolan got to film stardom was a series of B detective films made at 20th Century-Fox from 1940 to 1942, in which he played private eye Michael Shayne -- a "hard-boiled dick" character long before Humphrey Bogart popularized this type as Sam Spade. Nolan was willing to tackle any sort of acting, from movies to stage to radio, and ultimately television, where he starred as detective Martin Kane in 1951; later TV stints would include a season as an IRS investigator in the syndicated Special Agent 7 (1958), and three years as grumpy-growley Dr. Chegley on the Diahann Carroll sitcom Julia (1969-1971). In 1953, Nolan originated the role of the paranoid Captain Queeg in the Broadway play The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, wherein he'd emerge from a pleasant backstage nap to play some of the most gut-wrenching "character deterioration" scenes ever written. Never your typical Hollywood celebrity, Nolan publicly acknowledged that he and his wife had an autistic son, proudly proclaiming each bit of intellectual or social progress the boy would make -- this at a time when many image-conscious movie star-parents barely admitted even having children, normal or otherwise. Well liked by his peers, Nolan was famous (in an affectionate manner) for having a photographic memory for lines but an appallingly bad attention span in real life; at times he was unable to give directions to his own home, and when he did so the directions might be three different things to three different people. A thorough professional to the last, Nolan continued acting in sizeable roles into the 1980s; he was terrific as Maureen O'Sullivan's irascible stage-star husband in Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). Lloyd Nolan's last performance was as an aging soap opera star on an episode of the TV series Murder She Wrote; star Angela Lansbury, fiercely protective of an old friend and grand trouper, saw to it that Nolan's twilight-years reliance upon cue cards was cleverly written into the plot line of the episode.

Trivia: For those who grew up in the 1980s, many will remember hating actor William Atherton for his hissable characters in such films as Ghostbusters (1984) and Real Genius (1985). Specializing in heady, clueless bureaucrats who never cease to hinder the protagonist and who often get what's coming to them before the credits roll, Atherton is one of those busy character actors who audiences are not likely to forget, even if they can't remember where they know him from. A Connecticut native who got his start on the stage while still in high school, Atherton would subsequently move on to become the youngest member ever accepted into New Haven's Long Wharf Theater repertory. Studies at the Pasadena Playhouse and Carnegie Tech led Atherton to pursue more theater roles, and a few short years later the seasoned stage actor made his leap to the big screen with The New Centurions (1972). A role in Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express (1974) found Atherton's feature career getting off to a solid start, and the fledgling actor would continue career momentum with featured roles in The Hindenburg (1975) and Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977). In the 1980s Atherton would develop a convincingly weasel-like persona with roles as the popcorn-hating professor of Real Genius and a relentlessly obnoxious EPA agent who unleashes a nightmare upon New York in Ghostbusters. Following up with a memorably sleazy reporter in Die Hard (1988) and its sequel, Atherton would remain busy in the 1990s with roles in The Pelican Brief (1993), Bio-Dome (1996), Hoodlum, and Mad City (both 1997). The millennial turnover found Atherton appearing in such fare as The Crow: Salvation (2000) and Race to Space (2001), and as 2003 approached his feature career seemed to be having a bit of a resurgence with such major releases as Who's Your Daddy? and The Last Samurai.

Trivia: Learning the ropes at the Bucks County Playhouse and New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, Jessica Walter, born January 31st, 1949, made her Broadway debut in 1961's Advise and Consent. The raven-haired leading lady was then seen on a regular basis in several Manhattan-based TV programs, including the daytimer Love of Life and the 1965 nighttime series For the People. In films from 1964, Jessica was one of eight young female "newcomers" (Candice Bergen, Elizabeth Hartman, Joanna Pettet et. al.) who went on to greater things after appearing en masse in Sidney Lumet's The Group (1966). Her flashiest screen role was as the dangerously possessive "number one fan" Evelyn Draper in Clint Eastwood's Play Misty for Me (1971). Of her many weekly-TV assignments, Walter's title role in the mid-'70s cop series Amy Prentiss garnered her the most attention; that is, until recently, when Walter found late-career acclaim on the award-winning sitcom Arrested Development. As the insensitive, materialistic matriarch of the Bluth family, Walter garnered a plum comedic role, and Emmy attention to boot. Walter continued to remain active in television appearances following the cancellation of Arrested Development, and joined the cast of the Broadway revival of Anything Goes in 2011.

Trivia: The son of actress Eileen Bennett, Nicholas Hammond was 13 when he made his first movie appearance in Lord of the Flies (1963). Hammond's most visible screen role was as Friedrich von Trapp in the 1965 megahit The Sound of Music. After making the transition from juvenile to young leading man, he spent several seasons in daytime soaps. In 1978, a pumped-up Nicholas Hammond starred in the brief weekly TV adaptation of The Amazing Spider-Man.

Trivia: A psychology student in her native South Africa, slim, fragile-looking leading lady Alice Krige decided upon an acting career upon moving to London. Krige studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama (at 22, she was nearly the oldest student there), then established her reputation on stage. Her first film appearance was as Sybil, the casual lady friend of Olympic athlete Ben Cross, in the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire (1981). Next she co-starred in Ghost Story as the "avenging angel" who brings well-deserved grief to elderly Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and John Houseman. Her later film roles included Bathsheba in King David (1985) and Mary Godwin (aka Mary Shelley) in Haunted Summer (1988). Alice Krige has also been in more than her share of British and American made-for-TV movies, among them Baja, California (1984), Iran: Days of Crisis (1986) and Max and Helen (1990).

Trivia: While growing up in Chicago, Tom Bosley dreamed of becoming the star left-fielder for the Cubs. As it turned out, the closest Bosley got to organized athletics was a sportscasting class at DePauw University. After additional training at the Radio Institute of Chicago and two years' practical experience in various dramatic radio programs and stock companies, he left for New York in 1950. Five years of odd jobs and summer-theater stints later, he landed his first off-Broadway role, playing Dupont-Dufort in Jean Anouilh's Thieves' Carnival. Steadier work followed at the Arena Theatre in Washington, D.C.; then in 1959, Bosley landed the starring role in the Broadway musical Fiorello!, picking up a Tony Award, an ANTA Award, and the New York Drama Critics Award in the bargain. In 1963, he made his film bow as Natalie Wood's "safe and secure" suitor Anthony Colombo in Love With the Proper Stranger. Occasionally cast as two-bit criminals or pathetic losers (he sold his eyes to blind millionairess Joan Crawford in the Spielberg-directed Night Gallery TV movie), Bosley was most often seen as a harried suburban father. After recurring roles on such TV series as That Was the Week That Was, The Debbie Reynolds Show, and The Sandy Duncan Show, Bosley was hired by Hanna-Barbera to provide the voice of flustered patriarch Howard Boyle on the animated sitcom Wait Til Your Father Gets Home (1972-1973). This served as a dry run of sorts for his most famous series-TV assignment: Howard Cunningham, aka "Mr. C," on the immensely popular Happy Days (1974-1983). The warm, familial ambience of the Happy Days set enabled Bosley to weather the tragic death of his first wife, former dancer Jean Elliot, in 1978. In addition to his Happy Days duties, Bosley was narrator of the syndicated documentary That's Hollywood (1977-1981). From 1989 to 1991, he starred on the weekly series The Father Dowling Mysteries, and thereafter was seen on an occasional basis as down-to-earth Cabot Cove sheriff Amos Tupper on Murder, She Wrote. Reportedly as kind, generous, and giving as his Happy Days character, Tom Bosley has over the last 20 years received numerous honors for his many civic and charitable activities.

Trivia: MacKenzie Phillips is the daughter of "The Mamas & the Papas" lead singer John Phillips, the stepdaughter of actress Michelle Phillips,and the half-sister of another film performer, Chynna Phillips. MacKenzie was 13 years old when she essayed her first film role as underaged "cruiser" Carol in American Graffiti (1973). She then essayed a series of juvenile-delinquent TV guest spots, which ended in 1975 upon her being cast as Julie Cooper on the popular sitcom One Day at a Time. During the run of this series, MacKenzie accepted a few outside assignments, notably a cameo as Lillian Gish (whom she closely resembled) in the made-for-TV The Silent Lovers (1980). Drug problems and run-ins with the law compromised MacKenzie's ability to function on One Day at a Time, culminating in her being fired during the 1979-80 season. After going "cold turkey," MacKenzie Phillips briefly returned to the series in 1981, but her previous self-destructive lifestyle had taken its toll on her physical and emotional makeup; she left One Day for good in 1983, and has worked but little since.

Trivia: Lead actress, onscreen from the '70s.

Trivia: American actor George Murdock's uneven facial features enabled him to play many an offbeat part in his early professional years, none more offbeat than the ventriloquist's dummy come to life in the 1962 Twilight Zone episode "The Dummy." Murdock went on to play obnoxious and intrusive authority figures. He made Sammy Jackson's life hell as Captain Krupnick in the 1964 sitcom version of No Time for Sergeants, and fifteen years later did same for Hal Linden as an internal-affairs snoop on Barney Miller. In his later years, Murdock landed one of his best-known parts, as God in the disastrous Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

Trivia: The holder of a BA from New York's City College, actor Robert Walden began making the theatrical rounds in the early 1960s. Beginning with The Out-of-Towners (1970), Walden showed up in several film supporting roles, ranging from Donald Segretti in All the President's Men (1976) to a philosophical sperm (!) in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex... (1972). Having previously been a regular on the TV series The New Doctors (1972), Walden attained a measure of stardom as "Woodstein"-style investigative reporter Lou Rossi in the weekly Lou Grant (1977-82). Never one to back away from a creative challenge, Robert Walden signed on as co-star of the 1984 Showtime series Brothers, one of the first American sitcoms to feature openly gay characters. In the years to come, Walden would remain active on screen, appearing on the TV series Happily Divorced.

Trivia: Raised on a ranch near the Arizona border, American actress Lurene Tuttle took acting lessons in Phoenix while still a child. Feisty and naturally funny, she found work with Murphy's Comedians, a vaudeville troupe, then played traditional ingenues in a San Antonio stock company. Though she never appeared on Broadway, Tuttle was a busy stage actress throughout the '20s and '30s. When stock work dried up in the Depression, Ms. Tuttle entered radio, where she became one the busiest actresses in the business, playing everything from sugary high schoolers to hardbitten gun molls. Many of her fans feel that her best radio work was as Effie Perrine, the effusive and efficient secretary on The Adventures of Sam Spade, in which Howard Duff played private eye Spade. Concentrating on films and television as big-time radio faded, Tuttle played small character parts in several movies and was a regular on the TV sitcoms Life with Father, Father of the Bride and Julia. One of the actress' final performances was in the post-apocalyptic film drama Testament (1983), in which she was reunited with Leon Ames, her Life with Father and Father of the Bride costar. In private life, Lurene Tuttle was the wife of radio actor/announcer Mel Ruick, and the mother of musical comedy actress Barbara Ruick.

Trivia: American supporting and occasionally leading actor Robert Lipton made his feature-film debut with his sister, Peggy Lipton, in Blue (1968). He went on to appear on television, notably as Dr. Jeff Ward in the daytime serial As the World Turns from 1978 through 1984.