Trivia: Best known as the rumpled television detective Columbo, character actor Peter Falk also enjoyed a successful film career, often in association with the groundbreaking independent filmmaker John Cassavetes. Born September 16, 1927, in New York City, Falk lost an eye at the age of three, resulting in the odd, squinting gaze which later became his trademark. He initially pursued a career in public administration, serving as an efficiency expert with the Connecticut Budget Bureau, but in the early '50s, boredom with his work sparked an interest in acting. By 1955, Falk had turned professional, and an appearance in a New York production of The Iceman Cometh earned him much attention. He soon graduated to Broadway and in 1958 made his feature debut in the Nicholas Ray/Budd Schulberg drama Wind Across the Everglades.A diminutive, stocky, and unkempt presence, Falk's early screen roles often portrayed him as a blue-collar type or as a thug; it was as the latter in 1960's Murder Inc. that he earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, a major career boost. He was nominated in the same category the following year as well, this time as a sarcastic bodyguard in Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles. In 1962, Falk won an Emmy for his work in the television film The Price of Tomatoes, a presentation of the Dick Powell Theater series. The steady stream of accolades made him a hot property, and he next starred in the 1962 feature Pressure Point. A cameo in Stanley Kramer's 1963 smash It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World preceded Falk's appearance in the Rat Pack outing Robin and the Seven Hoods, but the film stardom many predicted for him always seemed just out of reach, despite lead roles in 1965's The Great Race and 1967's Luv.In 1968, Falk first assumed the role of Columbo, the disheveled police lieutenant whose seemingly slow and inept investigative manner masked a steel-trap mind; debuting in the TV movie Prescription: Murder, the character was an immediate hit, and after a second telefilm, Ransom for a Dead Man, a regular Columbo series premiered as part of the revolving NBC Mystery Movie anthology in the fall of 1971, running for seven years and earning Falk a second Emmy in the process. In the meantime, he also continued his film career, most notably with Cassavetes; in 1970, Falk starred in the director's Husbands, and in 1974 they reunited for the brilliant A Woman Under the Influence. In between the two pictures, Falk also returned to Broadway, where he won a Tony award for his performance in the 1972 Neil Simon comedy The Prisoner of Second Avenue. In 1976, Cassavetes joined him in front of the camera to co-star in Elaine May's Mikey and Nicky, and directed him again in 1977's Opening Night.After Columbo ceased production in 1978, Falk starred in the Simon-penned mystery spoof The Cheap Detective, followed by the William Friedkin caper comedy The Brink's Job (1978). After 1979's The In-Laws, he starred two years later in ...All the Marbles, but was then virtually absent from the screen for the next half decade. Cassavetes' 1986 effort Big Trouble brought Falk back to the screen (albeit on a poor note; Cassavetes later practically disowned the embarrassing film) and and in 1987 he starred in Happy New Year along with the Rob Reiner cult favorite The Princess Bride. An appearance as himself in Wim Wenders' masterful Wings of Desire in 1988 preceded his 1989 resumption of the Columbo character for another regular series; the program was to remain Falk's focus well into the next decade, with only a handful of film appearances in pictures including 1990's Tune in Tomorrow and a cameo in Robert Altman's The Player. After the cancellation of Columbo, he next turned up in Wenders' Desire sequel Far Away, So Close before starring in the 1995 comedy Roommates. Falk continued to work in both film and television for the next decade and a half, starring in various Columbo specials through 2003, appearing with Woody Allen in the made-for-TV The Sunshine Boys in 1997, and playing a bar owner caught up in mafia dealings in 1999's The Money Kings. Other projects included the Adam Sandler-produced gangster comedy Corky Romano (2001), the Dreamworks animated family film A Shark Tale (as the voice of Ira Feinberg), and the Paul Reiser-scripted, Raymond de Felitta-directed comedy-drama The Thing About My Folks (2005). In 2007, Falk starred opposite Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore in Lee Tamahori's sci-fi thriller Next. That same year, Falk announced to the public that he had Alzheimer's disease. He died in June 2011 at age 83.

Trivia: Actor Stephen Caffrey is primarily a television actor who has been active since the mid-'80s and has appeared in series, miniseries, and made-for-TV movies. He had a recurring role as Andrew Cortlandt on the ABC daytime soap All My Children (1984-1986). He spent three years playing Lieutenant Myron Goldman on the television series Tour of Duty. Caffrey also directed a few episodes of this show.

Trivia: Tall, straight-laced American actor Robert Culp parlayed his appearance and demeanor into a series of clean-cut character roles, often (though not always) with a humorous, mildly sarcastic edge. He was perhaps best known for three accomplishments: his turn as a Southern California documentary filmmaker who decides, along with his wife (Natalie Wood) to suddenly go counterculture with an "open marriage" in Paul Mazursky's Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969); his iconic three-season role as an undercover agent in the espionage-themed series I Spy (1965-8); and his three-season run as Bill Maxwell on Stephen Cannell's superhero spoof series The Greatest American Hero (1981-3). Born in Oakland, California in 1930, Culp attended several West Coast colleges while training for a dramatic career. At 21, he made his Broadway debut in He Who Gets Slapped. Within six years, he was starring in his own Friday night CBS Western, Trackdown (1957-9) as Hoby Gilman, an 1870s era Texas Ranger. During the two-year run of this program, Culp began writing scripts, a habit he'd carry over to other series, notably The Rifleman and Gunsmoke. These all represented fine and noble accomplishments for a young actor, but as indicated, I Spy delivered a far greater impact to the young actor's career: it made Culp (along with his co-star, Bill Cosby) a bona fide celebrity. The men co-starred in the NBC adventure yarn as, respectively, Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott, undercover agents involved in globetrotting missions for the U.S. government. Both actors brought to the program a sharp yet subtle sense of humor that (coupled with its exotic locations) made it one of the major discoveries of the 1965-6 prime-time line-up. During the second of I Spy's three seasons, Culp made his directorial debut by helming episodes of Spy; he went on to direct installments of several other TV programs. The success of Bob & Carol at the tail end of the 1960s proved that Culp could hold his own as a movie star, and he later directed and co-starred in 1972 theatrical feature Hickey and Boggs, which reunited him with Cosby, albeit to much lesser acclaim. Unfortunately, as the years rolled on, Culp proved susceptible to the lure of parts in B-pictures, such as Sky Riders (1976), Flood! (1976) and Hot Rod (1979), though he delivered a fine portrayal in television's critically-acclaimed Roots: The Next Generations (1979). Culp rebounded further with the semicomic role of CIA chief Maxwell on American Hero, but many now-infamous behind-the-scenes issues (and external issues, such as the shooting of Ronald Reagan) beleaguered that program and ended its run after only three seasons. In the years that followed, Culp vacillated between exploitation roles, in tripe such as Big Bad Mama 2 and Silent Night, Deadly Night 3, and more respectable, mainstream guest turns in television series including The Cosby Show and Murder, She Wrote. He enjoyed one of his most prestigious assignments with a supporting role in the big screen John Grisham-Alan Pakula thriller The Parallax View (1993), opposite Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts. In the years that followed, Culp's on-camera presence grew less and less frequent, though he did make a cameo in the 1996 Leslie Nielsen laugher Spy Hard. Television continued to provide some of Culp's finest work: he rejoined old friend Cosby for a 1994 I Spy TV-movie reunion and made guest appearances in such series as Lonesome Dove, Law & Order and The Dead Zone. Following a period of semi-retirement, Culp died suddenly and rather arbitrarily, when he sustained a head injury during a fall outside of his Hollywood home in March 2010. He was 79 years old.

Trivia: Dependable American character actor Bill Lucking has seldom had any professional "down time" since his 1969 film debut. In 1980 alone, Lucking showed up in four movies, not to mention any number of TV programs. One of his more rewarding film assignments was in Doc Savage (1975) as the doc's trusted cohort Renny. In addition to his many TV-movie appearances (e.g. Brother Matthias in 1991's Babe Ruth) and guest spots, Bill Lucking has had regular weekly roles on Big Hawaii (1977, as ranch foreman Oscar Kalahani), Shannon (1981, as NYPD detective Norm White), The A-Team (1983-84, as the team's nemesis Col. Lynch), Jessie (1984, as Sgt. McClellan) and Outlaws (1986, as bank robber Harland Pike).

Trivia: Actor Jim Antonio has spent the bulk of his career playing supporting roles on television both in films and as a guest star on series. He has also occasionally appeared in feature films. His brother, Lou Antonio, is an actor and director.

Trivia: Character actor Alan Fudge essayed an exhausting variety of roles while a member of New York's APA repertory troupe in the late 1960s. In films, Fudge has largely been limited to playing rule-bound corporate types, lawyers, doctors and urban detectives. He was prominently billed in The Natural (1984) as Ed Hobbs, father of baseball whiz Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford), but his appearance was confined to a non-speaking precredits bit, lensed in long-shot. He was far more visible in his many TV guest appearances on such series as MASH and Knight Rider, and in such made-for-TV movies as The Blue Knight (1973), Children of An Lac (1980), I Know My First Name is Steven (1989) and MANTIS (1994). Alan Fudge's weekly-series stints include the roles of C W Crawford in Man From Atlantis (1977), Det. Commissioner Kimbrough on Escheid (1979), Dr. Van Adams in Paper Dolls (1984) and Chief Frank Leland in Bodies of Evidence (1992).

Trivia: A native of New Rochelle, NY, character actor Steven Gilborn built his reputation on the basis of an extensive number of series appearances, on programs including The Wonder Years, The West Wing, Law & Order, The Practice, and particularly Ellen, as Ellen DeGeneres' sweet-natured though slightly mixed-up father. He typically specialized in portrayals of slightly distinguished everyman types, often with a professional angle. Prior to acting, Gilborn received his bachelor's in English from Swarthmore and his Ph.D. in literature from Stanford, then in 1970 decided to enter the dramatic sphere and never turned back. Alongside his series work, he made feature appearances in projects including the 1995 Brady Bunch Movie and the 2000 Nurse Betty (as a physician on a soap opera). He grew even more prolific on-stage, in regional productions including The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and Awake and Sing.

Trivia: The son of Broadway singer/actor Harry Stockwell, Guy Stockwell made his stage debut at age 5 in The Innocent Voyage. Also appearing in this 1943 Theatre Guild production was Guy's younger brother Dean Stockwell. Dean went on to fame as a child actor, specializing in sensitive roles; conversely, Guy did not truly achieve prominence until adulthood, playing rugged, outdoorsy types. More active on the stage than on screen, Guy nonetheless chalked up plenty of on-camera credits, including regular roles on such TV series as Adventures in Paradise (1961), The Richard Boone Show (1963), and the daytime drama Return to Peyton Place (1972; as Dr. Michael Rossi). Guy Stockwell's best big-screen assignment was the title role in the 1966 remake of Beau Geste.

Trivia: Mike Lally started in Hollywood as an assistant director in the early 1930s. Soon, however, Lally was steadily employed as a stunt man, doubling for such Warner Bros. stars as James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. He also played innumerable bit roles as reporters, court stenographers, cops and hangers-on. Active until 1982, Mike Lally was frequently seen in functionary roles on TV's Columbo.

Trivia: Character actor John Finnegan first appeared onscreen in the '70s.

Trivia: American actor Bruce Kirby made his Broadway bow at age 40 in the 1965 production Diamond Orchid. More stage work followed, and then movie assignments, commencing with the all-star Catch 22 (1970), and continuing into the 1980s with such productions as Sweet Dreams (1985) and Throw Momma from the Train (1987). Kirby's TV career has embraced both series successes (1989's Anything But Love, as Jamie Lee Curtis' father), ignoble failures (1976's Holmes and Yoyo, as Henry Sedford), and a few projects which never sold (Kirby was in two busted pilots for something called McNamara's Band). In 1984, Kirbyreturned to Broadway to understudy Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman in the revival of Death of a Salesman. Bruce Kirby, sometimes billed as Bruce Kirby Sr., was the father of actor Bruno Kirby, who formerly billed himself as B. Kirby Jr.

Trivia: American character actor Vito Scotti may not be the living legend as described by his publicity packet, but he has certainly been one of the most familiar faces to bob up on small and large screens in the last five decades. Scotti's father was a vaudeville impresario, and his mother an opera singer; in fact, he was born while his mother was making a personal appearance in San Francisco. Launching his own career at seven with an Italian-language commedia del arte troupe in New York, Scotti picked up enough improvisational knowhow to develop a nightclub act. When the once-flourishing Italian theatre circuit began to fade after World War II, Scotti began auditioning for every job that came up -- whether he could do the job or not. Without his trademarked mustache, the diminuitive actor looked like a juvenile well into his thirties, and as such was cast in a supporting role as a timorous East Indian on the "Gunga Ram" segment of the '50s TV kiddie series Andy's Gang. Once the producers discovered that Scotti had mastered several foreign dialects, he was allowed to appear as a comic foil to Andy's Gang's resident puppet Froggy the Gremlin. In nighttime television, Scotti played everything from a murderous bank robber (on Steve Canyon) to a misplaced Japanese sub commander (on Gilligan's Island). He was indispensable to TV sitcoms: Scotti starred during the 1954 season of Life with Luigi (replacing J. Carroll Naish), then appeared as gesticulating Latin types in a score of comedy programs, notably The Dick Van Dyke Show (as eccentric Italian housepainter Vito Giotto) and The Flying Nun (as ever-suspicious Puerto Rican police captain Gaspar Fomento). In theatrical films, Scotti's appearances were brief but memorable. he is always greeted with appreciative audience laughter for his tiny bit as a restauranteur in The Godfather (1972); while in How Sweet it Is (1968) he is hilarious as a moonstruck chef, so overcome by the sight of bikini-clad Debbie Reynolds that he begins kissing her navel! Vito Scotti was still essaying dialect parts into the '90s.

Trivia: An American-born actor reared in Ireland and England, McGoohan made a memorable impression on the American and English viewing audiences by playing essentially the same role in three different television series. He began his performing career as a teen-ager, eventually played Henry V for the Old Vic company in London, and made mostly unremarkable films in the '50s. His movies include the delightful Disney film The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964). Success came in 1961, when McGoohan played government agent John Drake in Danger Man, a role he continued on Secret Agent (1965-66). He created, produced and often wrote episodes of the nightmarish, surrealistic cult series The Prisoner (1968-69). This show featured a character assumed to be the same John Drake (although he was known as Number 6 and his real name was never mentioned), who had been kidnapped and taken to a strange community. McGoohan later starred in the TV series Rafferty (1977) and directed the film Catch My Soul (1974). He won an Emmy Award in 1975 for his guest appearance on Columbo with Peter Falk.

Trivia: Publicity notwithstanding, Lesley Ann Warren did not exactly burst fully grown into the world in 1966 to star in the Rodgers and Hammerstein TV special Cinderella. Trained at New York's Professional Children's School, Lesley Ann studied under Lee Strasberg before making her Broadway debut in 110 in the Shade, the 1964 musical version of The Rainmaker. On the strength of Cinderella, Lesley Ann was signed to a Disney contract; but after starring in The Happiest Millionaire (1966) and The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band, she rebelled against her studio-imposed sweetness-'n'-light image. Upon replacing Barbara Bain in the long-running espionage TVer Mission: Impossible in 1970, Warren publicly emphasized that her character, Dana Lambert, was a "now" person, wise in the ways of sex. She stayed with Mission for only a year, after which she established herself as a leading light in the made-for-TV movie field, frequently cast as an older woman involved romantically with a much-younger man. She earned an Academy Award nomination for her hilarious performance as bleach-blond gangster's moll Norma in Victor/Victoria (1981), then starred in a couple of intriguing Alan Rudolph-directed dramas, Choose Me (1984) and The Songwriter (1986). Her more recent roles include Molly, the homeless woman in Mel Brooks' Life Stinks(1991), who goes into a "death throes" act whenever she feels like it, and the barracuda booking agent for c-and-w star George Strait in Pure Country (1994). For nearly a decade, Lesley Ann Warren was the wife of producer/hairstylist Jon Peters.