Trivia: It might have been easy to write off American actor Warren Beatty as merely the younger brother of film star Shirley MacLaine, were it not for the fact that Beatty was a profoundly gifted performer whose creative range extended beyond mere acting. After studying at Northwestern University and with acting coach Stella Adler, Beatty was being groomed for stardom almost before he was of voting age, cast in prominent supporting roles in TV dramas and attaining the recurring part of the insufferable Milton Armitage on the TV sitcom Dobie Gillis. Beatty left Dobie after a handful of episodes, writing off his part as "ridiculous," and headed for the stage, where he appeared in a stock production of Compulsion and in William Inge's Broadway play A Loss of Roses.The actor's auspicious film debut occurred in Splendor in the Grass (1961), after which he spent a number of years being written off by the more narrow-minded movie critics as a would-be Brando. Both Beatty and his fans knew that there was more to his skill than that, and in 1965 Beatty sank a lot of his energy and money into a quirky, impressionistic crime drama, Mickey One (1965). The film was a critical success but failed to secure top bookings, though its teaming of Beatty with director Arthur Penn proved crucial to the shape of movie-making in the 1960s. With Penn again in the director's chair, Beatty took on his first film as producer/star, Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Once more, critics were hostile -- at first. A liberal amount of praise from fellow filmmakers and the word-of-mouth buzz from film fans turned Bonnie and Clyde into the most significant film of 1967 -- and compelled many critics to reverse their initial opinions and issue apologies. This isn't the place to analyze the value and influence Bonnie and Clyde had; suffice it to say that this one film propelled Warren Beatty from a handsome, talented film star into a powerful filmmaker.Picking and choosing his next projects very carefully, Beatty was offscreen as much as on from 1970 through 1975, though several of his projects -- most prominently McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) and The Parallax View (1974) -- would be greeted with effusive praise by film critics and historians. In 1975, Beatty wrote his first screenplay, and the result was Shampoo (1975), a trenchant satire on the misguided mores of the late '60s. Beatty turned director for 1978's Heaven Can Wait, a delightful remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan that was successful enough to encourage future Hollywood bankrolling of Beatty's directorial efforts. In 1981, Beatty produced, directed, co-scripted and acted in Reds, a spectacular recounting of the Russian Revolution as seen through the eyes of American Communist John Reed. It was a pet project of Beatty's, one he'd been trying to finance since the 1970s (at that time, he'd intended to have Sergei Bondarchuk of War and Peace fame as director). Reds failed to win a Best Picture Academy Award, though Beatty did pick up an Oscar as Best Director. Nothing Beatty has done since Reds has been without interest; refusing to turn out mere vehicles, he has taken on a benighted attempt to re-spark the spirit of the old Hope-Crosby road movies (Ishtar [1984]); brought a popular comic strip to the screen, complete with primary colors and artistic hyperbole (Dick Tracy [1991]); and managed to make the ruthless gangster Bugsy Siegel a sympathetic visionary (Bugsy [1992]). In 1998 he was able to breath new life into political satire with Bulworth, his much acclaimed film in which he plays a disillusioned politician who turns to rap to express himself. In 2001, Beatty rekindled memories of Ishtar as he starred in another phenomenal bust, Town & Country. Budgeted at an astronomical 90 million dollars and earning a miserable 6.7 million dollars during it's brief theatrical run, Town & Country was released three years after completion and pulled from theaters after a mere four weeks, moving critics to rank it among the biggest flops in movie history.Fiercely protective of his private life, and so much an advocate of total control that he will dictate the type of film stock and lighting to be used when being interviewed for television, Beatty has nonetheless had no luck at all in keeping his many amours out of the tabloids. However, Beatty's long and well-documented history of high-profile romances with such actresses as Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Diane Keaton, and Madonna came to an abrupt end upon his 1992 marriage to Bugsy co-star Annette Bening, with whom he later starred in 1994's Love Affair, his blighted remake of the 1957 An Affair to Remember.

Trivia: Texas native Paula Prentiss was the daughter of an Italian-born oil company labor relations man. Her reputation as a cut-up at Virginia's Randolph Macon School would haunt her in "I knew her when" magazine articles for the rest of her life. She buckled down long enough to study drama at Northwestern University, where she met future husband Richard Benjamin. In 1960, Prentiss was signed by MGM, which groomed her for stardom in such films as Where the Boys Are (1960), The Honeymoon Machine (1961), and The Horizontal Lieutenant (1963). Her unique comic gifts and offbeat personality would seem to make her more suited to screwball supporting parts than romantic leads, though she's certainly had her share of both. In 1967, Prentiss co-starred with husband Dick Benjamin in He and She, a TV sitcom which, despite low ratings, accrued a loyal cult following. She continued popping up in excellent film roles into the 1980s, as well as appearing in TV movies like MADD: Mothers Against Drunk Driving (1983). Paula Prentiss is the older sister of actress Ann Prentiss.

Trivia: Along with his sisters, performed in their family's song-and-dance troupe, the Daniels Family, in New York. In his teens, he debuted on Broadway in Life With Father. Portrayed John Adams in the Broadway version of 1776 and reprised the role in the 1972 film. Worked hard to lose his Brooklyn accent, adopting an accent closer to that of his Boston-based character from the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere. Won an Emmy in 1986 along with wife Bonnie Bartlett for St. Elsewhere, on which they portrayed Dr. and Mrs. Mark Craig. The couple also played husband and wife on the ABC sitcom Boy Meets World and the CBS drama Touched by an Angel. Elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1999, upsetting incumbent Richard Masur. Northwestern created the Willies—an annual awards ceremony for excellence in theater at his alma mater—in his name. The original voice of the talking car in NBC's Knight Rider, he reprised the voice of KITT for recordings on a Knight Rider GPS system created by Mio Technology.

Trivia: Walter McGinn spent the bulk of his acting career on Broadway. Beginning in 1974 with The Parallax View, he appeared in feature films and television movies. He was married to actress Robyn Goodman.

Trivia: Canadian-born actor Hume Cronyn was the son of a well-known Ontario politician. At his father's insistence, young Cronyn studied law at McGill University, but had by then already decided he wanted to be an actor; he made his stage bow with the Montreal Repertory Company at 19, while still a student. After taking classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and working with regional companies in Washington, DC and Virginia, Cronyn made it to Broadway in 1934. His first important role was as the imbibing, jingle-writing hero of Three Men on a Horse, directed and co-written by George Abbott. He remained with Abbott to work in Room Service and Boy Meets Girl - not only establishing himself as a versatile stage actor but also gleaning a lifelong appreciation of strict artistic discipline from the authoritarian Mr. Abbott. Cronyn went from one taskmaster to another when he made his film debut in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. The 32-year-old Cronyn quietly stole several scenes in the film as a fiftyish mystery-novel fanatic. Cronyn would remain beholden to Hitchcock for the rest of his career: He acted in Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944) and worked several times thereafter on the director's TV series; he adapted the stage play Rope and the novel Under Capricorn for Hitchcock's filmizations; and he sprang to the late director's defense when a dubious biography of Hitchcock was published in the mid-1980s. Though well-versed in Shakespeare and Moliere on stage, Cronyn was often limited to unpleasant, weasely and sometimes sadistic characters in films; one of his nastiest portrayals was as the Hitleresque prison guard Munsey in Brute Force (1947). A somewhat less hissable Cronyn appeared in The Green Years (1946), wherein he portrayed the father of his real-life wife Jessica Tandy, who was in fact two years older than he. Cronyn had married Tandy in 1942, a union that was to last until the actress' death in 1994. They worked together often on stage (The Fourposter, The Gin Game) and in films (Batteries Not Included), and delighted in giving joint interviews where they'd confound and misdirect the interviewer. Their daughter, Tandy Cronyn, matured into a fine actress in her own right. Seemingly indefatigable despite health problems and the loss of one eye, Cronyn remained gloriously active in films, television and stage into the 1990s, encapsulating many of his experiences in his breezy autobiography A Terrible Liar.

Trivia: Supporting actor Earl Hindman was best known among fans of the long-running ABC sitcom Home Improvement for playing the over-educated, enigmatic but wise neighbor Wilson. Ask those fans if they would recognize Hindman's face and they would be at a loss, for he never showed his full countenance upon the show. Hindman was a pipeliner's son and had a peripatetic upbringing that took him to various Southwestern locales. He attended high school in Tucson, AZ, where he was a natural athlete. At the same time, he became interested in drama and then still photography. Following time at Phoenix Junior College, he enrolled in the University of Arizona where he renewed his interest in drama. Hindman's first professional acting job was to perform in a Shakespearean play at San Diego's Globe Theatre. The experience was such that Hindman dropped out of school to become a full-time actor. He learned his craft as he went, performing in countless repertory theaters. Eventually, he made it to New York, where he appeared on and off-Broadway. He made his feature film debut in the obscure Two Into Three Won't Go (1969). Hindman's subsequent film appearances were sporadic. Hindman was a cast member on the daytime soap opera Ryan's Hope for several years before gaining prominence on Home Improvement. Four years after the hit sitcom left the airwaves, Hindman succumbed to lung cancer at the age of 61.

Trivia: A character actor beloved particularly for playing villains, Bill McKinney was born in Chattanooga, TN, in 1931. After spending some time in Los Angeles while on leave in the Navy, McKinney decided to settle there following his discharge in order to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. He studied at the Pasadena Playhouse and Lee Strausberg's Actors Studio while paying the bills as a high-school teacher before he began landing TV roles on shows like The Monkees and I Dream of Jeannie. In 1972, McKinney was cast as a sadistic mountain man in the thriller Deliverance alongside Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight. His visage was soon synonymous with ominousness and violence, leading to a slew of roles as baddies in a wide variety of films over the coming years, like Cleopatra Jones, The Shootist, First Blood, and The Parallax View. McKinney also began collaborating with Clint Eastwood on a series of films, including The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Gauntlet, Every Which Way but Loose, Any Which Way You Can, and Pink Cadillac. By the 2000s, the actor, now in his seventies, was still going strong. He appeared in such films as 2007's Lucky You, 2008's Pride and Glory, and 2010's How Do You Know before passing away in December 2011 at age 80.

Trivia: Character actor Ted Gehring first appeared onscreen in the late '60s.

Trivia: Disdaining the "surfer" mentality of his California boyhood friends, Anthony Zerbe chose to head to New York to become an actor. He studied with Stella Adler and worked off-Broadway before achieving success in the mid-'60s. He made his film debut in 1967's Will Penny, after which he settled into a series of sharkish, saturnine villainous portrayals. An adherent of EST training, Zerbe preferred to work with people who allowed him "space" to develop a characterization; one such person was David Janssen, with whom Zerbe appeared on the mid-'70s TV series Harry O (in which he won an Emmy award for his portrayal of Lieutenant Trench). Active on-stage and in films and television into the 1990s, Anthony Zerbe has contributed some unforgettable acting moments to the big screen, notably as the shadow-enshrouded leper in 1971's Papillon and the "blowed up real good" secondary villain in the 1989 James Bond opus License to Kill.

Trivia: Over-the-top comic actor Kenneth Mars made an unbearably funny screen debut as the ex-Nazi playwright responsible for the smash miss "Springtime for Hitler" in Mel Brooks' The Producers (1968). He was just as exaggerated, though not quite as amusing, as the one-armed police inspector in Brooks' Young Frankenstein (1974). Mars seemingly never held anything back, a trait that was prized by his admirers but caused discomfort among his detractors: reviewing the actor's performance in Peter Bogdanovich's What's Up Doc? (1972), Jay Cocks noted, "As a pompous middle-European intellectual, Kenneth Mars mugs and drools in a manner that Jerry Lewis might find excessive." Still, Mars nearly always delivered the laughs -- especially on TV, where he was a regular on such programs as He and She and The Carol Burnett Show. Another of his screen appearances was as a remonstrative rabbi in Woody Allen's Radio Days (1986). Kenneth Mars has also provided voices for dozens of TV cartoon shows, where he sometimes fell prey to the indignity of having his name spelled Len Mars in the credits.

Trivia: Racking up a staggering number of small-screen credits over the course of his impressive 50-year career, Stacy Keach Sr. also appeared in countless television commercials in addition to feature roles in The Parallax View (1974), Pretty Woman (1990), and Cobb (1994), among many others. Born Walter Stacy Keach in Chicago, IL, in May of 1914, the future star earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from Northwestern and impressed teachers so much that he was appointed a Dramatic Arts instructor as a graduate student. Keach would subsequently teach at Armstrong College and founded the Savannah Playhouse, later relocating to the West Coast for a stint at the Pasadena Playhouse. It was there that Keach was signed by Universal Studios as an actor/director/writer, and though he would stay there for nearly five years he would eventually relocate to RKO as a producer. During his stint at RKO, Keach would produce and direct the popular radio series Tales of the Texas Rangers. Keach was widely recognized for his roles on such popular television series as The Lone Ranger, Mannix, and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. In addition to his work in the entertainment industry, Keach also founded Kayden Records, an award-winning education company, and proved an early developer of industrial films. The father of actors Stacy and James, Keach married Mary Cain Peckham in June of 1937 and remained wed until his death resulting from heart failure in early 2003. He was 88.

Trivia: In films since 1949's White Heat, American actor Ford Rainey most often played judges, doctors and police officials. Rainey's weekly TV roles included small-town newspaper editor Lloyd Ramsey in Window on Main Street (1961), research director Dr. Barnett in Search (1972) James Barrett in The Manhunter (1974) and Jim in The Bionic Woman (1975). Undoubtedly his most rewarding TV-series assignment was The Richard Boone Show (1963), in which, as a member of Boone's "repertory company," he was allowed to essay a different role each week. When last we saw Ford Rainey, he was playing a big-time counterfeiter on Wiseguy (1987).

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from 1970.

Trivia: A veteran character actor whose five-year career spanned from the stages of Broadway to the shimmering light of film and television, Robert P. Lieb began his acting career as a dead man in the Broadway play Mr. and Mrs. North before his career sprang to life with small-screen appearances in Perry Mason and Hazel. A native of Pelham, NY, Lieb attended N.Y.U. before appearing on Broadway in Death of a Salesman and Harvey among numerous other productions. In addition to his stage work, Lieb made an impression on television audiences with appearances in Sgt. Bilko, Playhouse 90, and a memorable turn as a bemused police officer opposite Art Carney on a Christmas episode of The Twilight Zone. From the 1960s through the 1990s, Lieb could be seen frequently on television, and frequent feature roles in The Fortune Cookie (1966), Clambake (1967), and The Parallax View (1974) found him in steady demand. Following complications from intestinal surgery, Robert P. Lieb died in late September 2002. He was 88.

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

Trivia: Jim Davis' show business career began in a circus where he worked as a tent-rigger. He came to Los Angeles as a traveling salesman in 1940, gradually drifting into the movies following an MGM screen test with Esther Williams. After six long years in minor roles, he was "introduced" in 1948's Winter Meeting, co-starring with Bette Davis (no relation, though the Warner Bros. publicity department made much of the fact that the two stars shared the same name). He never caught on as a romantic lead, however, and spent most of the 1950s in secondary roles often as Western heavies. He starred in two syndicated TV series, Stories of the Century (1954) and Rescue 8 (1958-1959), and made at least 200 guest star appearances on other programs. Jim Davis is best known today for his work as oil-rich Jock Ewing on the prime time TV serial Dallas, a role he held down from 1978 to his unexpected death following surgery in 1981.

Trivia: In films from the mid-'60s, American actor Richard Bull was seen in The Satan Bug (1965), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Secret Life of an American Wife (1969), Newman's Law (1971), and several other major Hollywood productions. Many of these roles were bits or atmosphere characters: guards, policemen, and the like. Television afforded Bull larger character roles, especially in the sitcom field. Within a ten-year period (1964-1974), he guested on Gidget, Family Affair, Gomer Pyle, USMC, The Andy Griffith Show, My 3 Sons, Room 222, and Bewitched (as pilgrim John Alden in a "flashback" episode). He also had a recurring role as a ship's doctor on the mid-'60s fantasy weekly Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. From 1974 through 1982, Richard Bull played store proprietor Nels Oleson, the even-tempered, long-suffering husband of overbearing Harriet Oleson on Little House on the Prairie. Bull continued to appear in films and episodes of TV shows until his death in 2014 at age 89.

Trivia: The son of a drama teacher and dialogue director, American actor Stacy Keach began performing in college productions, then studied at the Yale Drama School. He spent a year at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art on a Fulbright scholarship, then acted in Shakespeare in the Park productions, where he first established his reputation; he soon worked both off and on Broadway, winning a Tony for his work in Indians. Keach debuted onscreen as a drunken drifter in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), then went on to play leads and supporting roles in a number of films; his screen appearances after 1982, however, have been infrequent. He wrote and directed the short film The Repeater (1972); he also directed a TV version of Pirandello's classic Six Characters in Search of an Author. In 1975 he starred in the short-lived TV series Caribe, and after starring in several TV movies, Keach assumed the title role of the TV series Mike Hammer in 1983. His career came to an abrupt halt in the mid-'80s when he was arrested and imprisoned in England for cocaine possession; after serving nine months and participating in drug rehabilitation, he returned to Mike Hammer. He is the brother of actor James Keach, with whom he co-starred in The Long Riders (1980), a film he also co-wrote and co-produced. He is married to Polish actress Malgosia Tomassi.