Trivia: In the first ten years of his life, Raymond Burr moved from town to town with his mother, a single parent who supported her little family by playing the organ in movie houses and churches. An unusually large child, he was able to land odd jobs that would normally go to adults. He worked as a ranch hand, a traveling tinted-photograph salesman, a Forest service fire guard, and a property agent in China, where his mother had briefly resettled. At 19, he made the acquaintance of film director Anatole Litvak, who arranged for Burr to get a job at a Toronto summer-stock theater. This led to a stint with a touring English rep company; one of his co-workers, Annette Sutherland, became his first wife. After a brief stint as a nightclub singer in Paris, Burr studied at the Pasadena Playhouse and took adult education courses at Stanford, Columbia, and the University of Chunking. His first New York theatrical break was in the 1943 play Duke in Darkness. That same year, his wife Sutherland was killed in the same plane crash that took the life of actor Leslie Howard. Distraught after the death of his wife, Burr joined the Navy, served two years, then returned to America in the company of his four-year-old son, Michael Evan Burr (Michael would die of leukemia in 1953). Told by Hollywood agents that he was overweight for movies, the 340-pound Burr spent a torturous six months living on 750 calories per day. Emerging at a trim 210 pounds, he landed his first film role, an unbilled bit as Claudette Colbert's dancing partner in Without Reservations (1946). It was in San Quentin (1946), his next film, that Burr found his true metier, as a brooding villain. He spent the next ten years specializing in heavies, menacing everyone from the Marx Brothers (1949's Love Happy) to Clark Gable (1950's Key to the City) to Montgomery Clift (1951's A Place in the Sun) to Natalie Wood (1954's A Cry in the Night). His most celebrated assignments during this period included the role of melancholy wife murderer Lars Thorwald in Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954) and reporter Steve Martin in the English-language scenes of the Japanese monster rally Godzilla (1956), a characterization he'd repeat three decades later in Godzilla 1985. While he worked steadily on radio and television, Burr seemed a poor prospect for series stardom, especially after being rejected for the role of Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke on the grounds that his voice was too big. In 1957, he was tested for the role of district attorney Hamilton Burger in the upcoming TV series Perry Mason. Tired of playing unpleasant secondary roles, Burr agreed to read for Burger only if he was also given a shot at the leading character. Producer Gail Patrick Jackson, who'd been courting such big names as William Holden, Fred MacMurray, and Efrem Zimbalist Jr., agreed to humor Burr by permitting him to test for both Burger and Perry Mason. Upon viewing Burr's test for the latter role, Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner jumped up, pointed at the screen, and cried "That's him!" Burr was cast as Mason on the spot, remaining with the role until the series' cancellation in 1966 and winning three Emmies along the way. Though famous for his intense powers of concentration during working hours -- he didn't simply play Perry Mason, he immersed himself in the role -- Burr nonetheless found time to indulge in endless on-set practical jokes, many of these directed at his co-star and beloved friend, actress Barbara Hale. Less than a year after Mason's demise, Burr was back at work as the wheelchair-bound protagonist of the weekly detective series Ironside, which ran from 1967 to 1975. His later projects included the short-lived TVer Kingston Confidential (1976), a sparkling cameo in Airplane 2: The Sequel (1982), and 26 two-hour Perry Mason specials, lensed between 1986 and 1993. Burr was one of the most liked and highly respected men in Hollywood. Fiercely devoted to his friends and co-workers, Burr would threaten to walk off the set whenever one of his associates was treated in a less than chivalrous manner by the producers or the network. Burr also devoted innumerable hours to charitable and humanitarian works, including his personally financed one-man tours of Korean and Vietnamese army bases, his support of two dozen foster children, and his generous financial contributions to the population of the 4,000-acre Fiji island of Naitauba, which he partly owned. Despite his unbounded generosity and genuine love of people, Burr was an intensely private person. After his divorce from his second wife and the death from cancer of his third, Burr remained a bachelor from 1955 until his death. Stricken by kidney cancer late in 1992, he insisted upon maintaining his usual hectic pace, filming one last Mason TV movie and taking an extended trip to Europe. In his last weeks, Burr refused to see anyone but his closest friends, throwing "farewell" parties to keep their spirits up. Forty-eight hours after telling his longtime friend and business partner Robert Benevides, "If I lie down, I'll die," 76-year-old Raymond Burr did just that -- dying as he'd lived, on his own terms.

Trivia: The son of a wealthy California businessman, Robert Stack spent his teen years giving skeet shooting lessons to such Hollywood celebrities as Carole Lombard and Clark Gable; it was only natural, then, that he should gravitate to films himself after attending the University of Southern California. At age 20, he made his screen debut in Deanna Durbin's First Love (1939) in which he gave his teenaged co-star her very first screen kiss. Two years later he appeared opposite his former "pupil" Carole Lombard in the Ernst Lubitsch classic To Be or Not to Be (1942). After serving with the navy in WWII he resumed his film career, avoiding typecasting with such dramatically demanding film assignments as The Bullfighter and the Lady (1951), The Tarnished Angels (1957), and John Paul Jones (1959). He earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance as a self-destructive alcoholic in Written on the Wind (1956). In 1959 he gained a whole new flock of fans when he was cast as humorless federal agent Elliot Ness in TV's The Untouchables, which ran for four seasons and won him an Emmy award. He continued playing taciturn leading roles in such TV series as Name of the Game (1969-1971), Most Wanted (1976-1977), and Strike Force (1981), and from 1987 to 2002 was the no-nonsense host of the TV anthology Unsolved Mysteries. Not nearly as stoic and serious in real life, Stack was willing to spoof his established screen image in Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979) and Zucker-Abraham-Zucker's Airplane! (1980). The warmer side of Robert Stack could be glimpsed in the TV informational series It's a Great Life (1985), which he hosted with his wife Rosemarie, and in his 1980 autobiography, Straight Shooting. Though film appearances grew increasingly sporatic through the 1990s, Stack remained a familiar figure to television viewers thanks to syndicated reruns of Unsolved Mysteries well into the new millennium. Memorable film roles in 1990s included lending his voice to Beavis and Butthead Do America (1996) and appearing as himself in the 1999 comedy drama Mumford. In October of 2002 Stack underwent successful radiation treatment for prostate cancer. On May 14, 2003, Robert Stack's wife Rosemarie found the actor dead in their Los Angeles home. He was 84.

Trivia: According to her Rockford, Illinois, high-school yearbook, Barbara Hale hoped to make a career for herself as a commercial artist. Instead, she found herself posing for artists as a professional model. This led to a movie contract at RKO Radio, where she worked her way up from "B"s like The Falcon in Hollywood (1945) to such top-of-the-bill attractions as A Likely Story (1947) and The Boy With Green Hair (1949). She continued to enjoy star billing at Columbia, where among other films she essayed the title role in Lorna Doone (1952). Her popularity dipped a bit in the mid-1950s, but she regained her following in the Emmy-winning role of super-efficient legal secretary Della Street on the Perry Mason TV series. She played Della on a weekly basis from 1957 through 1966, and later appeared in the irregularly scheduled Perry Mason two-hour TV movies of the 1980s and 1990s. The widow of movie leading man Bill Williams, Barbara Hale was the mother of actor/director William Katt. Hale died in 2017, at age 94.

Trivia: The son of actors Bill Williams and Barbara Hale, curly-haired leading man William Katt is fond of noting that he made his movie "debut" while residing in his mother's womb during filming of Lorna Doone (1951). After attending Orange Coast College, Katt pursued a career as a musician. He then made his formal acting bow in summer stock and small TV roles. Among Katt's film credits are the role of the high-school jock date of telekinetic wallflower Sissy Spacek in Carrie (1977), and one-half of the title role in Butch and Sundance, The Early Days (1979). From 1981 through 1983, Katt played the reluctant-superhero protagonist (originally named Ralph Hinkley, redubbed Ralph Hanley after the '81 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan) on TV's Greatest American Hero. Beginning in 1987, Katt played the recurring role of detective Paul Drake Jr. in the periodic Perry Mason TV movies, co-starring with his mother Barbara Hale, who resumed her "Della Street" characterization from the original 1961-66 Mason run. Katt also worked on the scripts of several of these latter-day Masons. More recently, William Katt was a regular on the 1991 Farrah Fawcett-Ryan O'Neal TV sitcom Good Sports.

Trivia: Though a fifteen-year show business veteran, Dwight Schultz was largely unknown until 1983. That was the year that the TV Addicts of America were introduced to Captain H. M. "Howling Mad" Murdock, the asylum-escapee airplane pilot for The A-Team. It is to Schultz's credit that he was able to portray a certifiable looney while still remaining personable and even lovable. On both sides of his A-Team obligations, Schultz appeared in films like The Fan (1981, as Broadway actress Lauren Bacall's director) and Fat Man and Little Boy (1989, as J. Robert Oppenheimer). In the late 1980s, Dwight Schultz could be occasionally seen as Lieutenant Barclay in TV's Star Trek: the Next Generation.

Trivia: From her early days as a model to a memorable stint on the long-running soap opera All My Children and a successful film career, it seemed that Kim Delaney was destined for a life in the limelight -- never wandering far from the lens of the public eye. A Philadelphia native who began modeling in high school and soon set her eyes on the catwalks of New York, Delaney packed her bags to study acting in the Big Apple soon after graduation. A subsequent signing with Elite Modeling Agency resulted in cover shots for Glamour and Seventeen, and some acting coaching by Bill Esper proved essential in landing her a three-year stint on All My Children in 1981. Though she would later eschew the small screen in favor of feature work, a lack of desirable roles eventually found brought Delaney back to the small screen for an impressive run on the popular nighttime drama L.A. Law. Television success continued when Delaney received an Emmy for her work as alcoholic detective Diane Russell on the popular prime-time police drama NYPD Blue in 1997, and she would remain with the show until 2001. It seemed Delaney had finally hit her stride in the realm of television, and though she would make a momentary feature departure with a role in Brian De Palma's Mission to Mars (2000), subsequent television roles in the short-lived Philly (in which Delaney took the lead) and CSI: Miami served to prove that she had lost none of her dramatic intensity. In 2003, Delaney could be seen in the dramatic miniseries 10.5. Over the next several years, Delaney would continue to find success on the small screen, appearing on The O.C., Army Wives, and To Appomattox.

Trivia: Lead actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Best known for playing Donovan on the mid-'70s television series Lou Grant, supporting actor Jack Bannon has only occasionally ventured into feature films. The son of actor Jim Bannon and actress Bea Benaderet, he got his start in the '60s, guest starring on such television series as Rat Patrol.

Trivia: A native of Englewood, NJ, Genie Francis would become one of the most recognizable soap opera actresses of all time because she portrayed Laura Webber Spencer on General Hospital. The character's relationship with Luke Spencer (Anthony Geary) enthralled millions, with their wedding drawing the largest rating for any soap opera episode ever up to that time. In addition to her work on General Hospital, Francis has been a regular at different times on other serials including Days of Our Lives and All My Children. She has done one-off appearances on numerous series including Fantasy Island, Murder, She Wrote, and 3rd Rock from the Sun.

Trivia: Sylphlike actress LeighTaylor-Young first came to the attention of televiewers in 1966, when she was cast as Rachael Welles on the nighttime soap Peyton Place. She rose to film prominence with a series of "flower child" characterizations, notably the hash-brownie baking heroine of I Love You, Alice B. Toklas. Previously wed to her Peyton Place co-star Ryan O'Neal, Taylor-Young began curtailing her acting appearance upon her 1978 marriage to Columbia Pictures executive Guy McElwane. She reemerged as a character actress in the early 1980s, essaying such meaty film roles as the surprise murder witness in The Jagged Edge (1985), and playing recurring characters on such series as The Devlin Connection (1982, as Lauren Dane), The Hamptons (1983, as Lee Chadway) and Dallas (1987-88 season, as Kimberly Cryder). In 1993, Leigh Taylor-Young won an Emmy award for her ongoing portrayal of Rachel Harris on the weekly TVer Picket Fences.

Trivia: In contrast to the insufferably intellectual characters he has played so often and so well, David Ogden Stiers wasn't much of a student while growing up in Eugene, Oregon. Like many another "underachiever," Stiers excelled at the things he was truly interested in, such as music (he played piano and french horn) and acting. After flunking out of the University of Oregon, Stiers stepped up his amateur-theatrical activities, and at age 20 was hired by the California Shakespeare Festival at Santa Clara, where he spent the next seven years performing the Classics. After briefly working with the famous San Francisco improv group The Committee, Stiers attended Juilliard, in hopes of improving his vocal delivery. Evidently his training paid off: in 1974, Stiers co-starred with Zero Mostel in the Broadway production Ulysses in Nighttown, then went on to appear opposite Doug Henning in the long-running musical The Magic Show. Despite his success, Stiers detested New York, and at the first opportunity he "ran screaming" back to the West Coast. He was cast in the short-lived sitcom Doc in 1975, and the following year played an important role in the 90-minute pilot for Charlie's Angels, though he passed when offered a regular assignment in the Angels series proper. Stiers' performance as a stuttering TV executive in a 1976 Mary Tyler Moore Show episode led to his being cast as the overbearing Major Charles Emerson Winchester on the ever-popular M*A*S*H; at first signed to a two-year contract, Stiers remained with the series until its final episode in February of 1983. Before, during and after his tenure on M*A*S*H, Stiers kept busy in made-for-TV films, lending his patented authoritativeness to such real-life characters as Dr. Charles Mayo (in 1977's A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story), critic and social arbiter Cleveland Amory (1984's Anatomy of an Illness) and President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1987's J. Edgar Hoover). He was also seen as pontificating DA Michael Reston in several of the Perry Mason TV-movies of the late 1980s. Disney animation devotees will remember Stiers for his voiceover work as Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast (1988) and Lord Ratcliffe in Pocahontas (1995). Stiers continued his work in film, voiceover work and television, appearing in projects like Woody Allen's The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), voicing Jumba in Lilo & Stitch (2002) and playing the recurring role of Oberoth on Stargate Atlantis in 2007. Parlaying his lifelong love of classical music into a second career, David Ogden Stiers has served as guest conductor for over 70 major U.S. symphony orchestras.

Trivia: Eminently distinguished, basso-voiced actor Percy Rodrigues used his vocal chords to great effect (and achieved his most enduring claim to fame) when he signed to narrate the famous Jaws (1975) promotional campaign -- thus striking fear and intrigue into the hearts of millions of prospective ticket buyers. Outside of this, Rodrigues' unique resumé weighed equally on television roles -- with occasional supporting roles on such series as Sanford and Benson, and guest bits on programs including Ironside, The Jeffersons, and The Fall Guy -- and film work in theatrical pictures including The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968) and Come Back, Charleston Blue (1972). Rodrigues died of kidney problems at age 89 in 2007.