Trivia: Inextricably associated with the 1980s for her memorable, seven-season portrayal of bookish teen Carol Seaver on the family-oriented sitcom Growing Pains (1985-1992), actress Tracey Gold grew up in a show-business family. The older sister of Missy Gold (Benson), Brandy Gold (Wildcats), and Jessie Gold (A Crime of Passion), Tracey signed for her first part at the age of seven in the miniseries Captains and the Kings. Major projects during the early '80s included a key supporting role in Alan Parker's critically acclaimed, divorce-themed psychodrama Shoot the Moon (1982, as one of the central couple's daughters) and a stint on the short-lived sitcom Goodnight, Beantown as the daughter of single working mom Mariette Hartley. Growing Pains, of course, represented Gold's major career break. She experienced difficulty around the end of the program by enduring and surviving a well-publicized bout with anorexia nervosa. After the sitcom wrapped, Gold began tackling parts in occasional telemovies that would come to shape and define her career in the years to follow. These included For the Love of Nancy (1994, which dramatized the story of a girl suffering from anorexia), Lady Killer (1995), Dirty Little Secret (1998), and Wildfire 7: The Inferno (2002). Gold made television headlines in 2004 when cast in the fourth season of the reality series The Mole, which featured celebrity participants.

Trivia: Prior to Growing Pains, his only acting experience was in TV commercials. His breakthrough performance as Ben Seaver on Growing Pains earned him two Young Artist awards: Best Young Supporting Actor in a New TV Series and Exceptional Performance by a Young Actor in a Comedy. For one season of Growing Pains, worked with then child actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Was the voice of Linus van Pelt in several Charlie Brown movies and TV shows. Is a spokesman for Fresh Start Recovery of Santa Ana, a group that helps individuals address alcohol abuse.

Trivia: Supporting actor Seales is best known as Dexter Stuffins in the TV sitcom Silver Spoons.

Trivia: The son of a patent medicine manufacturer, American actor Alan Hale chose a theatrical career at a time when, according to his son Alan Hale Jr., boarding houses would post signs reading "No Dogs or Actors Allowed." Undaunted, Hale spent several years on stage after graduating from Philadelphia University, entering films as a slapstick comedian for Philly's Lubin Co. in 1911. Bolstering his acting income with odd jobs as a newspaperman and itinerant inventor (at one point he considered becoming an osteopath!), Hale finally enjoyed a measure of security as a much-in-demand character actor in the 1920s, usually as hard-hearted villains. One of his more benign roles was as Little John in Douglas Fairbanks' Robin Hood (1922), a role he would repeat opposite Errol Flynn in 1938 and John Derek in 1950. Talkies made Hale more popular than ever, especially in his many roles as Irishmen, blusterers and "best pals" for Warner Bros. Throughout his career, Hale never lost his love for inventing things, and reportedly patented or financed items as commonplace as auto brakes and as esoteric as greaseless potato chips. Alan Hale contracted pneumonia and died while working on the Warner Bros. western Montana (1950), which starred Hale's perennial screen cohort Errol Flynn.

Trivia: Oklahoma native Danny Cooksey moved with his mother to Los Angeles to pursue a country music career in 1980, when he was just five years old. Not long after arriving, a talent scout took note of Cooksey's precocious charm and asked him to audition for the show Diff'rent Strokes. Cooksey soon won the role of Sam McKinney on the series and played the character for three years, with more roles to follow. He made a brief appearance toward the beginning of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and played red-headed bully Bobby on the Nickelodeon series Salute Your Shorts. Cooksey also got involved in voice acting, lending his talents to such animated shows as Xiaolin Showdown and Pepper Ann.

Trivia: One look at Alan Hale Jr. and no one could ever assume he was adopted; Hale Jr. so closely resembled his father, veteran character actor Alan Hale Sr., that at times it appeared that the older fellow had returned to the land of the living. In films from 1933, Alan Jr. was originally cast in beefy, athletic good-guy roles (at 6'3", he could hardly play hen-pecked husbands). After the death of his father in 1950, Alan dropped the "Junior" from his professional name. He starred in a brace of TV action series, Biff Baker USA (1953) and Casey Jones (1957), before his he-man image melted into comedy parts. From 1964 through 1967, Hale played The Skipper (aka Jonas Grumby) on the low-brow but high-rated Gilligan's Island. Though he worked steadily after Gilligan's cancellation, he found that the blustery, slow-burning Skipper had typed him to the extent that he lost more roles than he won. In his last two decades, Alan Hale supplemented his acting income as the owner of a successful West Hollywood restaurant, the Lobster Barrel.