Trivia: The son of an Oklahoma carpet layer, James Garner did stints in the Army and merchant marines before working as a model. His professional acting career began with a non-speaking part in the Broadway play The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (1954), in which he was also assigned to run lines with stars Lloyd Nolan, Henry Fonda, and John Hodiak. Given that talent roster, and the fact that the director was Charles Laughton, Garner managed to earn his salary and receive a crash course in acting at the same time. After a few television commercials, he was signed as a contract player by Warner Bros. in 1956. He barely had a part in his first film, The Girl He Left Behind (1956), though he was given special attention by director David Butler, who felt Garner had far more potential than the film's nominal star, Tab Hunter. Due in part to Butler's enthusiasm, Garner was cast in the Warner Bros. TV Western Maverick. The scriptwriters latched on to his gift for understated humor, and, before long, the show had as many laughs as shoot-outs. Garner was promoted to starring film roles during his Maverick run, but, by the third season, he chafed at his low salary and insisted on better treatment. The studio refused, so he walked out. Lawsuits and recriminations were exchanged, but the end result was that Garner was a free agent as of 1960. He did quite well as a freelance actor for several years, turning in commendable work in such films as Boys' Night Out (1962) and The Great Escape (1963), but was soon perceived by filmmakers as something of a less-expensive Rock Hudson, never more so than when he played Hudson-type parts opposite Doris Day in Move Over, Darling and The Thrill of It All! (both 1963).Garner fared rather better in variations of his Maverick persona in such Westerns as Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) and The Skin Game (1971), but he eventually tired of eating warmed-over stew; besides, being a cowboy star had made him a walking mass of injuries and broken bones. He tried to play a more peaceable Westerner in the TV series Nichols (1971), but when audiences failed to respond, his character was killed off and replaced by his more athletic twin brother (also Garner). The actor finally shed the Maverick cloak with his long-running TV series The Rockford Files (1974-1978), in which he played a John MacDonald-esque private eye who never seemed to meet anyone capable of telling the truth. Rockford resulted in even more injuries for the increasingly battered actor, and soon he was showing up on TV talk shows telling the world about the many physical activities which he could no longer perform. Rockford ended in a spirit of recrimination, when Garner, expecting a percentage of the profits, learned that "creative bookkeeping" had resulted in the series posting none. To the public, Garner was the rough-hewn but basically affable fellow they'd seen in his fictional roles and as Mariette Hartley's partner (not husband) in a series of Polaroid commercials. However, his later film and TV-movie roles had a dark edge to them, notably his likable but mercurial pharmacist in Murphy's Romance (1985), for which he received an Oscar nomination, and his multifaceted co-starring stints with James Woods in the TV movies Promise (1986) and My Name Is Bill W. (1989). In 1994, Garner came full circle in the profitable feature film Maverick (1994), in which the title role was played by Mel Gibson. With the exception of such lower-key efforts as the noir-ish Twilight (1998) and the made-for-TV thriller Dead Silence (1997), Garner's career in the '90s found the veteran actor once again tapping into his latent ability to provoke laughs in such efforts as Space Cowboys (2000) while maintaining a successful small-screen career by returning to the role of Jim Rockford in several made-for-TV movies. He provided a voice for the popular animatedfeature Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) and appeared in the comedy-drama The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002). Garner enjoyed a career resurgance in 2003, when he joined the cast of TV's 8 Simple Rules, acting as a sort of replacement for John Ritter, who had passed away at the beginning of the show's second season. He next appeared in The Notebook (2004), which earned Garner a Screen Actors Guild nomination and also poised him to win the Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award. His last on-screen role was a small supporting role in The Ultimate Gift (2007). In 2008, Garner suffered a stroke and retired acting. He died in 2014, at age 86.

Trivia: Though his official film debut was 1955's House of Bamboo, American actor Robert Quarry had been playing bit parts since at least 1943. In his mid-forties, Quarry finally attained stardom as the leading character in Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) and Return of Count Yorga(1971). Touted as the "new Vincent Price" (with whom he co-starred in 1973's Dr. Phibes Rises Again), Quarry went on to play such juicy roles as the mad guru in Deathmaster (1975, which he also produced) before inexplicably fading from films in the late 1970s. Except for a one-shot as Michael Anthony in a 1978 TV-movie revival of the old series The Millionaire, Quarry virtually disappeared, returning in the mid-1980s in a smattering of low-budget "regional" thrillers.

Trivia: American actress Pat Crowley was the daughter of a coal mine foreman. Pat' s older sister Ann took the plunge into acting first, and it was during Ann's appearance in a Chicago musical production that ten-year-old Pat was given a walk-on. Ann introduced her sister to a stock company producer, and from then on Pat was one of the busiest ingenues in New England, finally making her Broadway bow in Southern Exposure; Crowley was still only 16. Two years later, following a run on the live TV series A Date With Judy, Crowley was hired for a major role in Forever Female (1953), in which she and Ginger Rogers vied for the affections of William Holden. After becoming the center of much publicity at that time, Crowley then experienced a long spell of unemployment. When jobs became plentiful again, Crowley worked on both the stage and on TV, usually in one-shot guest roles; she had the distinction of being Robert Vaughn's first "leading lady" on the premiere episode of Man From U.N.C.L.E. in 1964. One year later, Crowley was cast as an unorthodox housewife on the NBC sitcom Please Don't Eat the Daisies. After two years of Daisies, Crowley's work load subsided; she did more supporting work until 1974, when she received a sizeable role on the Lloyd Bridges cop show Joe Forrester. Since that time, Patricia Crowley has confined her activities to TV character roles, notably a season's worth of appearances as Emily Falmont on the '80s nighttime serial Dynasty.

Trivia: Born in New York City while his father Noah Beery Sr. was appearing on-stage, Noah Beery Jr. was given his lifelong nickname, "Pidge," by Josie Cohan, sister of George M. Cohan "I was born in the business," Pidge Beery observed some 63 years later. "I couldn't have gotten out of it if I wanted to." In 1920, the younger Beery made his first screen appearance in Douglas Fairbanks' The Mark of Zorro (1920), which co-starred dad Noah as Sergeant Garcia. Thanks to a zoning mistake, Pidge attended the Hollywood School for Girls (his fellow "girls" included Doug Fairbanks Jr. and Jesse Lasky Jr.), then relocated with his family to a ranch in the San Fernando Valley, miles from Tinseltown. While some kids might have chafed at such isolation, Pidge loved the wide open spaces, and upon attaining manhood emulated his father by living as far away from Hollywood as possible. After attending military school, Pidge pursued film acting in earnest, appearing mostly in serials and Westerns, sometimes as the hero, but usually as the hero's bucolic sidekick. His more notable screen credits of the 1930s and '40s include Of Mice and Men (1939), Only Angels Have Wings (again 1939, this time as the obligatory doomed-from-the-start airplane pilot), Sergeant York (1941), We've Never Been Licked (1943), and Red River (1948). He also starred in a group of rustic 45-minute comedies produced by Hal Roach in the early '40s, and was featured in several popular B-Western series; one of these starred Buck Jones, whose daughter Maxine became Pidge's first wife. Perhaps out of a sense of self-preservation, Beery appeared with his camera-hogging uncle Wallace Beery only once, in 1940's 20 Mule Team. Children of the 1950s will remember Pidge as Joey the Clown on the weekly TV series Circus Boy (1956), while the more TV-addicted may recall Beery's obscure syndicated travelogue series, co-starring himself and his sons. The 1960s found Pidge featured in such A-list films as Inherit the Wind (1960) and as a regular on the series Riverboat and Hondo. He kicked off the 1970s in the role of Michael J. Pollard's dad (there was a resemblance) in Little Fauss and Big Halsey. Though Beery was first choice for the part of James Garner's father on the TV detective series The Rockford Files, Pidge was committed to the 1973 James Franciscus starrer Doc Elliot, so the Rockford producers went with actor Robert Donley in the pilot episode. By the time The Rockford Files was picked up on a weekly basis, Doc Elliot had tanked, thus Donley was dropped in favor of Beery, who stayed with the role until the series' cancellation in 1978. Pidge's weekly-TV manifest in the 1980s included Quest (1981) and The Yellow Rose (1983). After a brief illness, Noah Beery Jr. died at his Tehachapi, CA, ranch at the age of 81.

Trivia: When asked why he decided upon becoming an actor, Joe Santos tended to trot out the tried-and-true rationale "because I failed at everything else." While attending Fordham University, Santos excelled at football, but lost interest in the sport after a few semi-pro years. By the time he was 30, Santos had been remarkably unsuccessful in a variety of vocations, including railroad worker, tree cutter, automobile importer and tavern owner. While working a construction job in New York, Santos was invited by a friend to sit in on an acting class. This seemed like an easy way to make a living, so Santos began making the audition rounds, almost immediately landing a good part on a TV soap opera. This gig unfortunately led nowhere, and for the next year or so Santos drove a cab for 10 to 11 hours a day. The novice actor's first big break was a part in the 1971 film Panic in Needle Park, which he received at the recommendation of the film's star (and Santos' frequent softball partner) Al Pacino. With the plum part of Sergeant Cruz in the four-part TV drama The Blue Knight (1973), Santos inaugurated a fruitful, still-thriving career in "cop" roles, the best and longest-lasting of which was detective Dennis Becker on the James Garner series The Rockford Files (1974-80). Joe Santos' other series-TV credits include the top-billed part of deadbeat dad Norman Davis in Me and Maxx (1980), Hispanic nightclub comic Paul Rodriguez' disapproving father in AKA Pablo (1984), and Lieutenant Frank Harper in the 1985-86 episodes of Hardcastle and McCormick. One of his final roles was a recurring gig on The Sopranos. Santos died in 2016, at age 84.

Trivia: Oklahoma native Ted Shackelford is best known for the role of Gary Ewing, which he played on two different TV shows, Dallas and Knots Landing. The actor already had plenty of experience, having previously appeared on the daytime soap Another World, and even after the character of Gary Ewing was retired, Shackelford continued to become a regular fixture for TV audiences, joining the cast of The Young and the Restless to play the character of William Bardwell and his twin brother Jeffrey Bardwell.

Trivia: Though Rita Gam was her real name, the Pittsburgh-born actress was castigated in some ill-informed circles for dreaming up a "nom de film" that alluded to her legs. Perhaps in response, she went to great lengths seeking out roles that relied on her talent rather than her looks. After tallying up some impressive credits on Broadway and live television, Gam made her motion-picture debut in director/star Ray Milland's no-dialogue feature The Thief (1951). Her subsequent Hollywood roles were largely unrewarding, so Gam went to Europe in search of worthwhile assignments. Her performance in the 1962 filmization of Sartre's No Exit won the actress several festival awards. She returned to America, where she played small roles in such New York-based films as Klute (1971) and Law and Disorder (1974) before inaugurating a second career as a documentary filmmaker. At one time, Rita Gam was married to director Sidney Lumet and was also a bridesmaid at Grace Kelly's wedding to Prince Rainier. Gam passed away in 2016, at age 88.

Trivia: Stuart Margolin was a published writer and off-Broadway playwright before he was old enough to vote. The pinch-faced, curly-headed Margolin began showing up in character parts in 1966, in films like Women of a Prehistoric Planet and TV series like Occasional Wife. He was a staff writer and member of the acting ensemble on the popular sitcom anthology Love American Style, which ran from 1969 through 1974. In 1971, Margolin co-starred on the western series Nichols, launching his long friendship and professional association with actor James Garner. He went on to win two Emmy awards for his portrayal of mildly larcenous Angel Martin on Garner's long-running (1974-80) series The Rockford Files; played Philo Sandine on the 1981 retro Garner TV vehicle Bret Maverick; and guest-starred on the first episode of Garner's short-lived "dramedy" Man of the People (1991). Stuart Margolin turned to directing in the 1980s, beginning with (inevitably) a brace of James Garner TV movies, The Long Summer of George Adams (1982) and The Glitter Dome (1984)); he has since helmed two theatrical features, Paramedics and Donna d'Onore (both 1990).