Trivia: Texas born-and-bred musical legend Willie Nelson cracked into showbiz as a disc jockey in Fort Worth. He went on to join the Ray Price band, writing tunes for Price as well as a slew of other artists (Nelson's the man who penned Patsy Cline's signature tune "Crazy"). Fronting his own group, The Outlaws, Nelson played the tanktown and honky-tonk circuit before scoring with his 1975 hit "Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain." In 1979, he made a laudable film debut as Robert Redford's sidekick in The Electric Horseman; one year later, he starred in the C&W "Intermezzo" clone Honeysuckle Rose (1980), for which he also wrote the score, including the chartbuster "On the Road Again." Nelson's acting resumé includes several made-for-TV westerns, among them 1990's A Pair of Aces and its 1992 sequel, and a 1987 remake of Stagecoach; he also appeared as "himself"--and a very weather-beaten self it was--in a 1995 TV-movie biopic of country star Dottie West. Nelson has been awarded five Grammy Awards, and in the early 1980s he organized the annual Farm Aid Benefit, which earned him a Special Humanitarian Award.

Trivia: Actress Morgan Fairchild was born Patsy McClenny, the daughter of an engineer father and high-school teacher mother. At age 14, she competed for the Miss Teenage Dallas crown by performing a scene from St. Joan (she lost). After a brief marriage, McClenny set her cap on professional show business; she chose the stage name "Morgan" from the 1966 British film of same name and "Fairchild" because it sounded nice. After a few seasons on the New York stage, Morgan Fairchild was cast as the truculent Jennifer Phillips on the Manhattan-based TV serial Search for Tomorrow. From there, she headed to LA, where, despite not having an agent or any tangible connections, she landed a TV job in less than two months. Briefly cast as Jenna Wade on the prime-time series Dallas, Fairchild chose not to be tied down to dramatics (at least not yet) and polished her comedy skills with several sitcom guest spots. She then was cast in her first starring TV role, as Constance Semple on the 1981 series Flamingo Road. After the series ran its course, Fairchild delivered a well-received star performance in the 1982 Broadway play Geniuses. Later series-TV assignments included the role of testy model agency owner Racine on Paper Dolls (1984) and the scheming Jordan Roberts on Falcon Crest (1985-86). Fairchild's TV-movie and miniseries credits include Honey Boy (1982), North and South, Book 2 (1986), and a return to comedy in The Zany Adventures of Robin Hood (1985). Morgan Fairchild's theatrical film work has been by and large unremarkable, save for an amusing extended cameo in 1985's Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.

Trivia: Actress Katharine Ross was trained at the San Francisco Workshop, barely completing her apprenticeship before landing leading roles on television. She made her TV debut as a spoiled teenager implicated in a fatal auto accident in Are There Any More Out There Like You?, a 1963 installment of the NBC anthology Kraft Suspense Theatre. Ross was Oscar nominated for her second film role as Dustin Hoffman's amour in The Graduate (1967). After successfully teaming with Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, she became mired in a series of steadily worsening films. She staged a comeback as Francesca in the 1985 nighttime TV serial The Colbys. At that time, Ross was married to actor Sam Elliott. Together, Ross and Elliot scripted and starred in an above-average Western TV movie Conagher (1991).

Trivia: Cadaverous, hollow-eyed Royal Dano made his theatrical entree as a minor player in the Broadway musical hit Finian's Rainbow. Born in New York City in 1922, he manifested a wanderlust that made him leave home at age 12 to travel around the country, and even after he returned home -- and eventually graduated from New York University -- he often journeyed far from the city on his own. He made his acting debut while in the United States Army during World War II, as part of a Special Services unit, and came to Broadway in the immediate postwar era. In films from 1950, he received his first important part, the Tattered Soldier, in John Huston's 1951 adaptation of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. Thereafter, he was often seen as a Western villain, though seldom of the cliched get-outta-town variety; in Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar (1954), for example, he fleshed out an ordinary bad-guy type by playing the character as a compulsive reader with a tubercular cough. He likewise did a lot with a little when cast as Mildred Natwick's deep-brooding offspring in Hitchcock's The Trouble With Harry. With his deep, resonant speaking voice and intense eyes, Dano could make a recitation of the telephone book sound impressive and significant, and some of his non-baddie characters include the prophet Elijah, who predicts the destruction of the Pequod and the death of Ahab, in Huston's Moby Dick (1956), Peter in The King of Kings (1961) and Mayor Cermak in Capone (1975); in addition, he played Abraham Lincoln in a multipart installment of the mid-'50s TV anthology Omnibus written by James Agee. On the small screen, the producers of The Rifleman got a huge amount of mileage out of his talent in five episodes in as many seasons, most notably in "Day of Reckoning" as a gunman-turned-preacher. He also appeared in memorable guest roles in the high-rent western series The Virginian, The Big Valley, and Bonanza, and had what was probably his best television role of all as the tragically insensitive father in the two-part Little House On The Prairie episode "Sylvia." Toward the end of his life, Royal Dano had no qualms about accepting questionable projects like 1990's Spaced Invaders, but here as elsewhere, he was always given a chance to shine; one of Dano's best and most bizarre latter-day roles was in Teachers (1982), as the home-room supervisor who dies of a heart attack in his first scene -- and remains in his chair, unnoticed and unmolested, until the fadeout.

Trivia: Birmingham-born R.G. Armstrong attended the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he was active with the Carolina Playmakers. On the New York stage since the 1940s, Armstrong is best remembered for creating the role of Big Daddy in the original 1955 Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. In film since 1957, Armstrong appeared in more than his share of westerns, usually as an able-bodied sheriff or thick-necked land baron. A frequent visitor to television, R. G. Armstrong was a regular on the 1967 adventure series T.H.E. Cat.

Trivia: Sonny Carl Davis came to the movies from an earlier stint on the music scene in Austin, TX. His rock group, Sons of Coyote, appeared for a time in the 1970s before metamorphosing into the Sons of Uranium Savage. His entertainment career took an upward turn when director Eagle Pennell cast him as one of the two lead characters in the offbeat film The Whole Shootin' Match (1979). Thus began the actor's career of making memorable portrayals of the diverse character parts assigned to him. After playing a redneck entrepreneur in The Whole Shootin' Match, Davis performed in one more Pennell film. Turning in one of his most outstanding performances, Davis played the aging Don Juan character in Last Night at the Alamo (1983). One of the great scenes in film occurs when the handsome, suave, pick-up artist removes his cowboy hat only to reveal a balding head. The change in persona is so great that audiences gasped out loud at the contrast.Davis is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the businessman with attitude in the highly acclaimed film Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), in which Davis set the benchmark for how to make yourself heard at a fast-food restaurant. Davis also starred as Louise's restaurant co-worker in Thelma & Louise (1991).Throughout the '80s and '90s, Davis appeared in dramas and comedies in the theaters as well as made-for-television movies, often turning in performances that deserved a wider audience than these limited vehicles gave him. Notable among these were his portrayals in Nowhere to Run (1988); A Pair of Aces (1990); Bad Channels, Seedpeople, and Ned Blessing, all made in 1992; and Fair Game in 1995. Davis' next performances included his 2001 portrayal of a Santa Claus at the wrong place at the wrong time, in I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus; and in Big Time, made the same year.