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 Chicago minister, actor David Soul actually launched his career as a folk singer. Born David Richard Solbert on August 28, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois, David moved to Mexico during his youth, when his father took a lengthy assignment as diplomatic advisor for the U.S. State Department. The experience (and the Mexican environment) engendered in young Solberg a permanent love of indigenous folk music. For the remainder of his youth, the whole world was Soul's backyard as his father was transferred from post to post during the 1950s and early 1960s. The blossoming performer could never quite shake either his inbred wanderlust (he attended Augustana College in South Dakota, the University of the Americas in New Mexico, and the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis) or his musical inclinations. After impulsively deciding to become a stage performer, and studying with the legendary Uta Hagen in New York, Soul definitively opted to embark upon a singing career. From 1966 to 1967, the performer turned up as the hooded "mystery singer" on the syndicated television talkfest The Merv Griffin Show. At about the same time, Soul also landed gigs opening for musical acts including Frank Zappa, The Lovin' Spoonful and The Byrds. The singer's decision, not long after, to finally remove his "mask" on television and reveal himself to the public backfired; it took away the novelty, and made it eminently more difficult for Soul to book concerts. Taking this as a cue, the actor returned to television, and was cast as Joshua Bolt on the 1968 TV adventure series Here Come the Brides, co-starring with another promising vocalist, Bobby Sherman. While Sherman became an instant teen idol, Soul would not truly hit it big until 1976, when he was cast as urban cop David Starsky and teamed with Paul Michael Glaser on the cop series Starsky and Hutch (1975-79). During the series and immediately following its cancellation, Soul attempted to trade off of his tube success by revitalizing his recording career, but did so with intermittent success; his syrupy ballad "Don't Give Up on Us" (parodied by Owen Wilson years later during a scene in the 2004 big-screen movie Starsky & Hutch) peaked at #1 in 1977 and became an FM and then AM radio staple for decades, but his albums charted much lower and did little to further his musical success.The actor went on to star in the TV weeklies Casablanca (1983, in the Bogart role!), The Yellow Rose (1983-84), Unsub (1989), and the telemovie adventure Pentathalon (1994). He also made a cameo alongside Glaser at the conclusion of the aforementioned Starsky & Hutch movie. Married several times, Soul's ex-wives include Karen Carlson, Lynn Marta, and Julia Nickson.

Trivia: John Rhys-Davies is one of modern cinema's most recognizable character actors. While best known for his work as Indiana Jones' (Harrison Ford) comic sidekick, Sallah, in two of Paramount's Indiana Jones adventure films, the actor has appeared in over 100 television shows and films since the early '70s. He has built an impressive onscreen career, especially for a stage actor who once swore that he would never perform in front of a camera. Born in Wales on May 5, 1944, Rhys-Davies grew up in England, Wales, and East Africa. He studied English and History at the University of East Anglia at Norwich, where he became interested in theater while reading classical literature. Upon graduating, Rhys-Davies earned a scholarship to study acting at London's prestigious Academy of Dramatic Art. He then worked briefly as a schoolteacher before joining the Madder-Market Theatre in Norwich. The actor, who eventually advanced to the Royal Shakespeare Company, performed in over 100 plays. His theatrical credits include starring roles in Shakespeare's Othello, The Tempest, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Henry the Fourth, Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, and Moliere's The Misanthrope. Rhys-Davies was 28 when he made his television debut in 1972 as Laughing Spam Fritter in the BBC's Budgie, a comedy starring former British pop star Adam Faith as an amusing ne'er-do-well. In 1975, he joined John Hurt in the cast of the television show The Naked Civil Servant, which chronicled the rich life of Quentin Crisp. One year later, Rhys-Davies re-teamed with Hurt, as well as Derek Jacobi and Patrick Stewart, for the BBC's unforgettable three-part adaptation of Robert Graves' I, Claudius and Claudius the God. Titled I, Claudius, the television miniseries appeared on PBS's Masterpiece Theater and gave American audiences their first glimpse of the actor. He subsequently starred as Vasco Rodrigues in NBC's adaptation of James Clavell's Shogun, which told the adventures of an English sailor stranded in Japan during the early 17th century. Rhys-Davies' performance earned him both an Emmy nomination and the attention of director Steven Spielberg. In 1981, Spielberg cast Rhys-Davies as the comic, fez-wearing Sallah in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first installment of the Indiana Jones movies. The film was an instant success and Rhys-Davies' comedic skill made Sallah an audience favorite. He went on to film Victor/Victoria (1982) with Julie Andrews, James Garner, Robert Preston, Leslie Ann Warren, and former pro-football player Alex Karras. For the next two decades, the actor worked on numerous films and television shows and made memorable guest appearances on ChiPs, The Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Murder, She Wrote, Perry Mason, Tales From the Crypt, Star Trek: Voyager, and The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne. In 1987, he portrayed Front de Boeuf in the television adaptation of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe that starred James Mason and Sam Neill. That same year, he played the evil Russian General Koskov in the Timothy Dalton-helmed James Bond film The Living Daylights. 1989 saw Rhys-Davies playing Joe Gargery in the Disney Channel's adaptation of Dickens' Great Expectations, starring in the miniseries version of War and Remembrance with Robert Mitchum, David Dukes, and Jane Seymour, and returning as Sallah in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In 1990, he wrote and starred in the safari adventure film Tusks. In 1991, he hosted the documentary Archaeology. In 1993, he signed onto the series The Untouchables, based on Brian De Palma's hit film. The show was short-lived and Rhys-Davies did not work on a successful television series until 1995's Sliders with Jerry O'Connell. The sci-fi venture accrued a rather large fan base: Audience members were openly upset when Rhys-Davies' character, the bombastic Professor Maximillian P. Arturo, left the series after only three seasons. After appearing with Damon Wayans in The Great White Hype (1996), Rhys-Davies recorded voice work for the animated films Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996) and Cats Don't Dance (1997). The actor has done additional voice work for Animaniacs, Batman: the Animated Series, Gargoyles, Pinky and the Brain, The Fantastic Four, and The Incredible Hulk. He has also branched out to other medias, starring in video games such as Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger, Dune 2000, and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, and the CD-ROM game Quest for Glory IV. In 1999, Rhys-Davies read for the minor character of Denethor in the second installment of Peter Jackson's highly anticipated three-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Jackson offered him the role of the warrior dwarf Gimli, a major figure in all three pictures. As Gimli, Rhys-Davies is utterly unrecognizable: The part required that he wear heavy facial prosthetics and perform on his knees in order to portray the 4'2" dwarf (the actor, himself, is over six feet tall). The three films -- The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of the King (2003) -- were shot simultaneously over an 18-month period in New Zealand, after which Rhys-Davies was asked to return to the set and record the voice of Treebeard, a computer-generated character in the second picture. In 2001, in the midst of attending press junkets for the release of The Fellowship of the Ring, Rhys-Davies began work on the Jackie Chan film Highbinders (2002) and the Eric Roberts B-picture Endangered Species (2002). Besides being an actor, Rhys-Davies is also a serious vintage car collector and a thriving investor. In the '80s, he invested heavily with his earnings and purchased a company that conducts genetic engineering feasibility studies. The actor resides in both Los Angeles and the Isle of Man.

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

Trivia: If awards were bestowed for versatility, the graceful and congenial African-American actress Debbi Morgan would take first place. A veritable decades-long mainstay in the casts of A-list dramatic features, soap operas, acclaimed prime-time series dramas, big-screen exploitationers, sitcoms, and telemovies, Morgan has proven herself equally adept at each, while the number of roles she tackles each year suggests a die-hard craftswoman with no signs of slowing down. Born September 20, 1956, in Dunn, NC, Morgan moved with her family to New York City at the age of three. Despite the family's residence in a South Bronx housing project, they managed without difficulty. Five years into the move, Morgan's father died, which forced her mother, Lora, to support the two children (Debbi and younger sister Terry) as a secretary; she funded the girls' parochial educations through the end of high school. The photogenic Debbi sought out an entertainment career in her teens -- initially against the wishes of her mother. Lora issued stringent objections, terrified that Debbi -- a high-honors student -- would drift in with a bad element and engage in aberrant behavior. This never occurred; Debbi rapidly launched herself as an actress -- first in a series of commercials, then onto the Broadway stage (in the 1975 play What the Wine Sellers Buy) and in feature films (with a role in, regrettably, the Richard Fleischer-directed debacle Mandingo). After moving to L.A. in her early '20s, Morgan commenced series television work, with guest appearances on such ethnically oriented sitcoms as What's Happening!!, Good Times, and Sanford. Morgan's crowning network achievement arrived at the tail end of the '70s, with her acclaimed portrayal of Elizabeth (Alex Haley's aunt) in the smash miniseries Roots: The Next Generations. After a stint on the CBS series Trapper John, M.D. during the early '80s, Morgan discovered, through her agent, that the producers of the wildly popular daytime soap All My Children needed a young African-American actress to portray the romantic interest of the character Jesse (Darnell Williams). Morgan auditioned for the role and signed instantly, recurring on the series, intermittently, for 14 years. During the early to mid-'80s, Morgan also memorably essayed the part of Ruth Owens, the love interest of track star Jesse Owens (Dorian Harewood), in the critically praised epic telemovie The Jesse Owens Story (1984); in fact, Morgan's plaintive, emotionally charged protests regarding Owens' discriminatory treatment gave the film several of its most memorable scenes and images. Morgan continued her TV work throughout the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s, with guest appearances on a myriad of series programs -- everything from The Cosby Show to Boston Public and Charmed. During the late '90s, however, Morgan broke from the small screen and made two enduring contributions to A-list features. She played Aunt Mozelle in Eve's Bayou, actress-cum-director Kasi Lemmons' acclaimed, finely wrought gothic drama of Southern life, and Mae Thelma Carter, the wife of wrongfully accused and incriminated boxer Rubin Carter (Denzel Washington), in Norman Jewison's Oscar-nominated biopic The Hurricane (1999). More recently, Morgan portrayed Twana in director Michael Schultz's cinematization of T.D. Jakes' play, Woman Thou Art Loosed (2004).

Trivia: Made his Broadway debut in the play Slab Boys alongside Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn. Has appeared in three movies under director Oliver Stone: 1986's Platoon (his feature debut), 1989's Born on the Fourth of July and 1991's The Doors. Shared in 2005 and 2006 Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series with the cast of Desperate Housewives, on which he played Paul Young. Had a unique insight into his role as an ad man on the AMC series Mad Men because his father worked in advertising on Madison Avenue in the 1960s. With actor wife Annie LaRussa, is the parent of two sons.

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: 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: 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."