Trivia: A leading light of network radio in the 1940s and 1950s, actor Parley Baer appeared on virtually every major program emanating from Los Angeles. Baer is most closely associated with the radio version of Gunsmoke, in which, from 1955 to 1961, he played Dodge City deputy Chester Proudfoot. Those who worked on Gunsmoke have had nothing but the kindest words for Baer, who endeared himself to his colleagues via his dedication, professionalism, and weekly purchase of donuts for the rehearsal sessions. The jowly, prematurely balding Baer began free-lancing in films around 1949. He played a number of small parts at 20th Century-Fox (his largest, and least typical, was the Nazi sergeant in 1957's The Young Lions), and later showed up in such films as Warner Bros.' Gypsy (1963) and Universal's Counterpoint (1993). On television, Baer portrayed Darby on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Mayor Stoner on The Andy Griffith Show (1962-63 season) and Mr. Hamble on the 1966 Red Buttons sitcom The Double Life of Henry Phyfe. Active into the 1990s--he was seen as the Senate Majority Leader in 1993's Dave--Parley Baer is most familiar to the public as the voice of commercialdom's Keebler Elf.

Trivia: Though frequently cast in Jewish roles, actor Michael Constantine was actually of Greek extraction. The son of a steel worker, Constantine studied acting with such prominent mentors as Howard DaSilva. The prematurely balding Constantine was playing character roles on and off Broadway in his mid-twenties (he was the Darrow counterpart in the original production of Compulsion), supplementing his income as a night watchman and shooting-gallery barker. In 1959, slightly weary of being ignored by callous Broadway producers and casting directors, Constantine appeared in his first film, The Last Mile (1959), thereby launching a cinematic career that has endured into the mid-1990s. Michael Constantine is perhaps best known for his extensive TV work, notably his four-season (1969-1974) stint as long-suffering high school principal Seymour Kaufman on Room 222 and his starring appearance as night-court magistrate Matthew J. Sirota on the brief 1976 sitcom Sirota's Court.

Trivia: A top athlete at Brown University, Don Haggerty performed military service and did stage work before his movie-acting debut in 1947. Free-lancing, Haggerty put in time at virtually every studio from Republic to MGM, playing roles of varying sizes in films like Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) The Asphalt Jungle (1951), Angels in the Outfield (1951) and The Narrow Margin (1952). Most often, he was cast as a big-city detective or rugged westerner. During the first (1955-56) season of TV's The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Haggerty showed up semi-regularly as Marsh Murdock. Don Haggerty was the father of Grizzly Adams star Dan Haggerty.

Trivia: Actor Stanley Andrews moved from the stage to the movies in the mid 1930s, where at first he was typed in steadfast, authoritative roles. The tall, mustachioed Adrews became familiar to regular moviegoers in a string of performances as ship's captains, doctors, executives, military officials and construction supervisors. By the early 1950s, Andrews had broadened his range to include grizzled old western prospectors and ageing sheriffs. This led to his most lasting contribution to the entertainment world: the role of the Old Ranger on the long-running syndicated TV series Death Valley Days. Beginning in 1952, Andrews introduced each DVD episode, doing double duty as commercial pitchman for 20 Mule Team Borax; he also became a goodwill ambassador for the program and its sponsor, showing up at county fairs, supermarket openings and charity telethons. Stanley Andrews continued to portray the Old Ranger until 1963, when the US Borax company decided to alter its corporate image with a younger spokesperson -- a 51-year-old "sprout" named Ronald Reagan.

Trivia: It is a fairly safe assumption that if not for a career change which, ironically enough, took him out of the motion picture industry, Ronald Reagan would not rank among Hollywood's best-known stars; a genial if not highly skilled actor, he made few memorable films, and even then he rarely left much of a lasting impression. Of course, in 1980 Reagan became the President of the United States, and with his political ascendancy came a flurry of new interest in his film career. His acting work -- especially the infamous Bedtime for Bonzo -- became the subject of much discussion, the majority of it highly satirical. Still, there is no denying that he enjoyed a long and prolific movie career. Moreover, he remains among the first and most famous actors to make the move into politics, a trend which grew more and more prevalent in the wake of his rise to power.Born February 6, 1911, in Tampico, IL, Ronald Wilson Reagan began his acting career while studying economics at Eureka College. He broke into show business as a sportscaster at a Des Moines, IA, radio station, and from there assumed the position of play-by-play announcer for the Chicago Cubs. By the mid-'30s, he relocated to Hollywood, signing with Warner Bros. in 1937 and making his screen debut later that year in Love Is on the Air. Reagan made over a dozen more films over the course of the next two years, almost all of them B-movies. In 1939, however, he won a prominent role in the Bette Davis tearjerker Dark Victory, a performance which greatly increased his visibility throughout the Hollywood community. It helped him win his most famous role, as the ill-fated Notre Dame football hero George Gipp in the 1940 film biography Knute Rockne: All American. At the film's climax he delivered the immortal line "Win one for the Gipper!," an oft-quoted catchphrase throughout his White House tenure.In 1940, Reagan married actress Jane Wyman, with whom he had two children. The following year, he co-starred in Sam Wood's acclaimed Kings Row, arguably his most accomplished picture. During World War II, he served as a non-combative captain in the Army Air Corps, producing a number of training films. Upon returning to Hollywood in 1947, he began a five-year term as president of the Screen Actors Guild, a position he again assumed in 1959. It was during this period that Reagan, long a prominent liberal voice in Hollywood politics, became embroiled in McCarthy-era battles over communism in the film industry, and gradually his views shifted from the left to the right. He also continued appearing in films and in 1950 co-starred in the well-received melodrama The Hasty Heart. A year later, Reagan accepted perhaps his most notorious role, in Bedtime for Bonzo, in which he portrayed a college professor who befriends his test subject, a chimpanzee; throughout his political career, the picture was the butt of a never-ending series of jokes. During the 1950s, Reagan freelanced among a variety of studios. Still, his film career began to wane, and in 1954 he began an eight-year stint as the host of the television series General Electric Theater. Among Reagan's final film appearances was 1957's Hellcats of the Navy, where he appeared with actress Nancy Davis, his second wife. He did not make another film prior to narrating 1961's The Young Doctors, and with 1964's remake of The Killers, he effectively ended his performing career. That same year he entered politics, actively campaigning for Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. In 1966, Reagan was elected Governor of California, and over the course of his eight-year gubernatorial stint emerged as one of the Republican party's most powerful and well-recognized voices. In 1976, Reagan ran against Gerald Ford in the Republican Presidential primary, but was unsuccessful; four years later, however, he defeated Jimmy Carter to become the nation's 40th President. The rest, as they say, is history.