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: Actor, producer, and director Tim Reid has committed himself to projects that show American blacks in a more positive light than are generally seen in Hollywood through his United Image Entertainment company. As an actor Reid is best remembered for playing cool disc jockey Venus Flytrap on WKRP and for his short-lived sitcom Frank's Place (1987-1988). Fans of the crime-drama Simon and Simon (1981-1988) will remember him for playing Lt. Downtown Brown. Reid first appeared on television in Frankie Avalon: Easy Does It (1976). He then worked on The Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Hour (1977) and The Richard Pryor Show (1977). He made his feature film debut in Dead Bang (1989) and since then his feature film appearances have been sporadic. As a director, Reid debuted with the acclaimed Once Upon a Time...When We Were Colored (1997). As a writer, Reid has penned scripts for a series of animated videos chronicling Frank Baum's Oz tales. He also produced the feature films Out-of-Sync (1995) and Spirit Lost (1996). On television, Reid starred in the sitcom Sister-Sister (1994). In 1999 he directed the moody thriller Asunder. Though he appeared on screens only intermittently as the 21st century got under way, he did appear in You Wish! And The Reading Room, as well as the gritty 2007 drama Trade.

Trivia: The roller coaster career of actress and singer Vanessa L. Williams provides an excellent example of fortitude, resilience, and real talent winning out over adversity. In 1983, Williams made history when she was the first black woman to be chosen Miss America. For a time she was the country's darling as she toured about, attending to her royal duties, but when Penthouse magazine published nude photographs that she had posed for years before, Williams lost her crown, two million dollars in product endorsements, and the lead in a Broadway show; suddenly, America's sweetheart found herself the subject of moral outrage, criticisms, and cruel jokes. But though her career and reputation were in shambles, Williams kept her dignity and faith, and continued on, first making her name as a successful R&B singer (one of her songs went gold, "Save the Best for Last") and then receiving considerable critical acclaim on Broadway for starring in Kiss of the Spider Woman. Williams made her feature film debut in The Pick-Up Artist (1987) and went on to forge a steady career as an actress. Notable subsequent film roles include one co-starring with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Eraser (1996) and the part of a career-obsessed wife in Soul Food (1997). After spending the early 2000s working on theatrical productions, including the Broadway Musical Revue Sondheim on Sondheim, Williams returned to the big screen for the award winning drama My Brother in 2007, and won rave reviews in 2006 for her portrayal of Wilhelmina Slater, the ruthless editor-and-chief of a fashion magazine on ABC's hit series Ugly Betty, and was praised for her portrayal of Renee Perry in the seventh season of Desperate Housewives. After Housewives ended, she starred in the short-lived series 666 Park Avenue. She then returned to the stage, appearing opposite Cicely Tyson in The Trip to Bountiful.

Trivia: Supporting actor Alan Rachins is best known for playing the insufferable legal eagle Douglas Brackman Jr. on the long-running drama L.A. Law (1986-1994), but he has also appeared in a few feature films. Born in Boston, Rachins studied at the prestigious Wharton School of Finance until he decided to be an actor in New York. While in the Big Apple, he studied under such acting teachers as William Ball, Kim Stanley, and Harvey Lembeck. Rachins made his professional debut on-stage and for ten years appeared frequently on and off-Broadway before leaving acting in 1972 to study writing and directing at the American Film Institute. From there he became a script reader and then a writer for shows ranging from The Fall Guy to Quincy to Hill Street Blues. He also occasionally directed television episodes. Rachins had his first major feature-film role in Henry Jaglom's Always (1985). Largely due to his work in this film, Rachins and his real-life wife, Joanna Frank, were cast as the Brackmans on L.A. Law. While on the series, Rachins occasionally branched out into television movies. He did not make another feature film until Heart Condition (1990). Since the demise of his series, Rachins continues to occasionally appear in feature films such as Leave It to Beaver (1997). On television, he was seen as a regular on the popular ABC sitcom Dharma and Greg and also continued to appear occasionally in regional theater.

Trivia: Received a scholarship to UCLA but dropped out after just one semester to pursue a career in entertainment. Before embarking on her Hollywood career she was a featured member of the renowned performance troupe the Young Americans. Released her debut dance-pop album, Nothin' But Trouble, in 1988. Hosted a short-lived late-night musical variety show, The Party Machine With Nia Peeples, which was executive produced by Arsenio Hall. Volunteers for the American Heart Association and in 2011 participated in the AHA's "Go Red for Women Stiletto Strut" in Glendale, CA.

Trivia: Sturdy, reliable character player Kene Holliday specialized in portrayals of vociferous everymen, with a strong emphasis on television work. Holliday landed one of his first major roles in the small-screen blockbuster Roots: The Next Generations (as Detroit, one of the direct descendants of the iconic Kunta Kinte), and subsequently divided his time between occasional big-screen features (No Small Affair, The Philadelphia Experiment), series work (with many appearances on Matlock), and TV movies, such as the 1988 Dangerous Company. Holliday tackled a rare yet effective lead role in the much-anticipated 2007 drama Great World of Sound, as Clarence, a well-meaning record producer in training who discovers that his parent company isn't exactly all that it professes to be.

Trivia: Born in Missouri and educated at the University of Oklahoma, Alice Ghostley created a sensation in her first Broadway production, New Faces of 1952. In the company of such powerhouse co-stars as Paul Lynde, Robert Clary and Carol Lawrence, Ghostley stole the show with her plaintive renditions of the satirical ballads "The Boston Beguine" and "Time for Tea." Within a year of New Faces, she was headlined in the film version of that popular revue and was cast as a regular on the network-TV series Freedom Ring. Ghostley has been convulsing audiences ever since, playing a rich variety of man-chasing bachelorettes, overprotective mothers and dotty neighbors. While most of her film appearances have been in comedies (Viva Max!, The Graduate, Grease), Ghostley proved quite effective in the comparatively straight role of Stephanie Crawford in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). In 1965, she won a Tony award for her performance in the Broadway seriocomedy The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window. In addition, Ghostley has been a regular or semi-regular on a multitude of TV series: The Jackie Gleason Show, Car 54 Where Are You, Captain Nice, The Jonathan Winters Show, The Golddiggers, Designing Women and a host of others. She is most fondly remembered for her portrayal of bumbling witch Esmerelda on the long-running (1964-72) sitcom Bewitched. On both this series and 1972's Temperatures Rising, Alice Ghostley was reunited with her old New Faces cohort, Paul Lynde. Ghostley died of colon cancer at age 81 in September 2007.

Trivia: Betsy Jones-Moreland is best remembered today as a statuesque actress and leading lady of the late 1950s and early 1960s, especially in the films of Roger Corman. Yet she was always a somewhat reluctant actress, even as she pursued a career in the field. Born Mary Elizabeth Jones in Brooklyn, New York, in 1930, she seems never to have considered a career in entertainment, or any particularly "public" profession, while growing up. She was an office worker and secretary, her sole contact with the entertainment business being the fact that the company she worked for owned the rights to several children's shows of the 1950s. She began taking acting lessons as a way of overcoming her basic shyness, and that led her to getting work as a showgirl, which resulted in her earning a role in a touring company production of The Solid Gold Cadillac. She ended up in Hollywood, starting with bit roles in major releases, such as The Brothers Rico and The Garment Jungle. She soon became part of Roger Corman's stock company, starting with The Saga of the Viking Women And Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957) and culminating with the title role in The Last Woman on Earth (1960) and the female lead in Creature From the Haunted Sea (1961). In between these quickie productions and some small-screen work, Jones-Moreland also appeared in one notable Western: André de Toth's Day of the Outlaw (1959). Her television appearances included episodes of Perry Mason, McHale's Navy, Have Gun, Will Travel, My Favorite Martian, and Ironside. Her most memorable television appearance was in the Outer Limits episode "The Mutant", in which she appeared as part of a space expedition that's endangered when one of their number encounters deadly radiation. Corman later used her in his first big-budget movie, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967), and she followed this up with small roles in theatrical films such as The Hindenburg and Gable and Lombard. She closed out her career as a trial judge in a handful of episodes of the 1990s revival of Perry Mason.

Trivia: A respected actress of the stage, screen, and television, Angela Bassett has been one of the few African-American actresses to break Hollywood's color boundary. She has specialized in playing strong women familiar with adversity and has worked in genres from "chick flick" (Waiting to Exhale) to sci-fi action (Strange Days) to biography (What's Love Got to Do with It?), the last of which featured her in a star-making performance as Tina Turner.Born in New York City on August 16, 1958, Bassett was raised in St. Petersburg, Florida by her mother. Growing up in a household where money was tight, she was taught determination and independence. These values were called into service after an eleventh grade Upward Bound trip to Washington, D.C., when Bassett saw James Earl Jones in a Kennedy Center production of Of Mice and Men. Deciding that acting was her calling, she became involved in a number of local productions in St. Petersburg. She continued to act at Yale University, where she earned a scholarship; after completing a B.A. in African-American studies, she also spent three years at the Yale School of Drama. One of Bassett's mentors at Yale was the drama school's dean, stage director Lloyd Richards, who was so impressed with her talent that he cast her in two of his productions, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Joe Turner's Come and Gone. Although she enjoyed relative success on the stage, Bassett, like other African-American actors, had a difficult time finding roles in television and film.In 1986, Bassett made her screen debut in the cult favorite F/X. Following supporting roles in Kindergarten Cop (1990) and John Sayles' City of Hope (1991), she had her first significant screen role in John Singleton's acclaimed Boyz 'N the Hood, playing a struggling single mother. Two years later, after playing the wife of civil rights leader Malcolm X in Spike Lee's biopic and the Jackson Family matriarch in the made-for-TV The Jacksons: An American Dream, Bassett had her screen breakthrough as Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do with It?, a performance that earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe. As her newfound status allowed her to expand her range of work, Bassett went on to star in a series of diverse films. In 1995, a foray into futuristic action in Strange Days was complemented by a lead in the successful women's ensemble drama Waiting to Exhale (based on the novel by Terry McMillan), in which Bassett starred alongside Whitney Houston, Lela Rochon, and Loretta Devine. In 1998, she starred as the title character in another McMillan adaptation, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, playing a divorcee whose discontent is ably assuaged by a hunky twenty-year-old (Taye Diggs). The following year, she had a supporting role in Music of the Heart and again tried her hand at action in Supernova, a sci-fi thriller. Starring in former Orson Welles collaborator and blacklisted director John Berry's critically panned swansong Boesman and Lena in 2000, Bassett (along with co-star Danny Glover) earned praise for their sensitive performances as a troubled South African couple striving to seek stability in the face of Apartheid.Her career continued to evolve with a part in The Score in 2001. The next year she executive produced and starred in a biopic about civil rights figure Rosa Parks. She was part of the large ensemble John Sayles brought together for Sunshine State, and co-starred opposite Bernie Mac in the sports comedy Mr. 3000. In 2006 she played the mother in the spelling bee drama Akeelah and the Bee, and she continued to land parts in big-budget blockbusters such as Green Lantern and This Means War.Since 1997, Bassett has been married to actor Courtney B. Vance, whom she had known since their days at Yale.

Trivia: African American actor James McEachin was a stage actor until signed to a Universal contract in the mid-1960s. Though relatively young, McEachin projected a middle-aged, "solid citizen" image that perfectly suited his title character in the Universal television series Tenafly (1973). McEachin was cast as private eye and loyal family man Harry Tenafly, one of the few TV detectives who relied more on brains than movie-star charisma. Since that time, James McEachin has usually been cast as a cop; he played Sergeant (and later Lieutenant) Brock on virtually every Perry Mason TV movie of the 1980s and 1990s-a notable exception being the 1987 entry The Case of the Scandalous Scoundrel, in which he was cast as "Harry Forbes."

Trivia: Singer and lead actor, onscreen from the late '70s.

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.