Trivia: For much of the early '50s, Ed Kemmer was one of the most popular leading men on television, at least among younger viewers, as a result of his portrayal of Commander Buzz Corry on the series Space Patrol. Born in Reading, PA, in 1921, Kemmer learned to fly while still in his teens and joined the U.S. Army Air Force when the United States entered World War II. A fighter pilot, he was shot down on his 47th mission, in June of 1944, just a few days after D-Day, and was imprisoned at Stalag Luft 3. He escaped on one occasion in the spring of 1945, was recaptured, and then was liberated a by American troops a few days later, during the final phase of the war. After leaving the service, Kemmer decided to take advantage of the G.I. Bill of Rights by studying at the College of Theater Arts at the Pasadena Playhouse. He finished the program in 18 months instead of the usual two years and began doing stage work, though some of that didn't take him too far from his background as a pilot -- in addition to such plays as John Loves Mary and Arsenic and Old Lace, Kemmer also acted in a production of the drama Command Decision, which dealt with bomber pilots and their commanding officers during World War II. Kemmer later auditioned for and was cast in the role of Commander Buzz Corry on Space Patrol, initially for eight dollars an episode in the 15-minute version of the show, which was broadcast locally in San Francisco. The money went up when the newly-organized ABC network picked up the series and it was expanded to 30 minutes. Space Patrol ran for five seasons, generating many hundreds of episodes, all of them done live and most of the network shows preserved on kinescope. Kemmer developed a serious following among the younger viewers who comprised its audience, even long past 1955, as the shows were re-broadcast under the syndicated title Satellite Police into the early '60s. With his clean-cut good looks, the early thirtyish Kemmer was the quintessential space hero, strong and authoritative, yet young enough to seem a bit more accessible, like an older brother, than the more distant, avuncular figure of Al Hodge in Captain Video. Kemmer was part of the first generation of actors to break through to stardom on the small-screen, but after more than 1,000 live broadcasts in a five-year period, he didn't want to remain in television. He moved into motion pictures in 1956 with Abner Biberman's prison escape drama Behind the High Wall. Over the next few years, Kemmer played leading roles in low-budget pictures such as The Hot Angel (which utilized his experience as a pilot), and Calypso Joe and Sierra Stranger, before he moved up to supporting parts in major studio films such as The Crowded Sky and the Barrymore family biography Too Much, Too Soon, in which he got to meet and work with Errol Flynn. Where Kemmer became an actual star with a following, however, was in the area of science fiction -- he played leading roles in such B-pictures as Giant From the Unknown (billed as Edward Kemmer), directed by Richard Cunha, and Earth vs. the Spider, made by Bert I. Gordon. Both of those movies became hits on the drive-in and neighborhood theater circuits to which they were released, and subsequently became cult favorites on television; indeed, Giant From the Unknown has even been issued on DVD in the 21st century. By the end of the 1950s, Kemmer had also started a second small-screen career, this time in soap operas, beginning with the West Coast drama Clear Horizon and continuing with Edge of Night, and then encompassing dozens of other daytime dramas, including The Doctors, Somerset, As the World Turns, The Guiding Light, and Ryan's Hope. He was also a frequent guest performer on dozens of prime-time series, including Lassie, Perry Mason, The Virginian, Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip, The Rebel, Combat, and Twilight Zone. Kemmer reportedly was still receiving fan mail over Space Patrol in 2001, a half century after the series went on the air.

Trivia: Today best known as a theatrical producer, Gene Persson has also produced motion pictures and spent 15 years, from the mid-'40s until the dawn of the 1960s, as an actor on television and the big screen. Of Swedish ancestry, Persson was born in Los Angeles, and at age eight began his entertainment career as a child actor on radio and in movies, and later on television. His earliest credit movie appearance was in 1946, at age nine, in Frank Tuttle's postwar drama Swell Guy. Working mostly at Universal over the next few years, he appeared in a string of Ma and Pa Kettle movies and in Nicholas Ray's brilliant film noir On Dangerous Ground, at RKO. He also appeared in numerous television dramatic anthology series, including Studio One, Kraft Theater, and the U.S. Steel Hour. Persson served in the army during the final phase of the Korean War, and it was there, in Special Services, that he got his first real exposure to theater production, which he mastered sufficiently to become a producer during his time in uniform, staging entertainment that was seen all over the Pacific theater. By the time his service ended, he had hosted the first American-produced television show ever broadcast in Korea. Initially on leaving the service, Persson was forced to take work simply for the sake of working, which is how he ended up playing the young male lead in Bert I. Gordon's Earth vs. the Spider -- though he was 23 years old when it was made, Persson was able to pass for a teenager; curiously, it was around this time that he was dating Aneta Corsaut, who had starred in The Blob, another, slightly earlier movie that mixed teenagers and monsters. That same year, Persson also appeared in Paramount's release of The Party Crashers, a somewhat more upscale teen exploitation effort, sort of that studio's answer to Rebel Without a Cause, which had the distinction of being the final film of 1930s screen and stage legend Frances Farmer. In 1959, Persson married Shirley Knight, a very promising and serious stage actress -- he also turned his talents toward theatrical production, first in Los Angeles and later in New York City, where he brought such works as Leroi Jones' The Slave, The Toilet, and Dutchman to off-Broadway stages; the latter, seen by film editor Anthony Harvey while he was in New York, was later adapted to the big-screen by Harvey (with Persson producing), in a scintillating film version starring Al Freeman Jr. and Shirley Knight. Apart from that one credit as a movie producer, Persson has confined most of his activities to the stage in the decades since -- his big hit in that venue was You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, which enjoyed a four-and-a-half-year run in New York and years more life on stages in other theaters and on the road (where Persson also directed it), turning Gary Burghoff into an off-Broadway star.

Trivia: Burly American utility actor Gene Roth appeared in nearly 200 films, beginning around 1946. He was initially billed under his given name of Gene Stutenroth, shortening his surname in 1949. Most often cast as a hulking villain, Roth growled and glowered through many a Western and serial (he was the principal heavy in the 1951 chapter play Captain Video). He also showed up in several Columbia two-reel comedies, starting with the Shemp Howard/Tom Kennedy film Society Mugs (1946). A frequent foil of the Three Stooges, Columbia's top short-subject stars, Roth extended his association with the comedy trio into the 1962 feature The Three Stooges Meet Hercules. A ubiquitous TV actor, Roth was frequently cast as a judge or bailiff on the Perry Mason series and essayed two roles in the 1961 Twilight Zone classic "Shadow Play." An active participant on the nostalgia-convention circuit of the 1970s, Gene Roth died in 1976 when he was struck down by a speeding automobile.

Trivia: American singer and character actor Howard Wright was best known for starring in stage musicals following WWI. Much later, he began performing on radio, television, and in movies of the '50s and '60s.

Trivia: Hank Patterson is best known to audiences for his portrayal of farmer Fred Ziffel on Green Acres -- for five seasons, his laconic character and the antics of his pig Arnold helped make life hopelessly confusing for series protagonist Oliver Wendell Douglas (Eddie Albert). Patterson, along with his younger contemporary Arthur Hunnicutt, was one of a handful of character actors who cornered the market on portraying cantankerous old coots, usually in a rural setting, in movies and on television during the middle of the 20th century. With his deep, resonant voice, which could project even when he spoke in the softest tones, Patterson could also evoke menace and doom, an attribute that producers and directors sometimes utilized to great effect on programs like Twilight Zone. He was born Elmer Calvin Patterson in Springville, AL, in 1888, but by the 1890s his family had moved to Texas, and Patterson spent most of his boyhood in the town of Taylor. His main interest was music, and he studied in hope of a serious performing career, but was forced to enter showbusiness as a vaudeville pianist, playing with traveling shows. By the end of the 1920s, he'd made his way to California, and he entered the movie business as an actor -- despite his lack of formal training -- during the 1930s. Patterson's earliest identified screen work was an uncredited appearance in the Roy Rogers Western The Arizona Kid (1939). His first credited screen role was in the drama I Ring Doorbells, made at Producers Releasing Corporation. Patterson spent the next nine years working exclusively in Westerns, starting with Thomas Carr's The El Paso Kid, starring Sunset Carson. Among the best of the oaters that Patterson worked in were Edwin L. Marin's Abilene Town and Henry King's The Gunfighter, but most of the pictures that he did were on the low-budget side, and far less prestigious. He played a succession of blacksmiths, hotel clerks, farmers, shopkeepers, and other townsmen, usually bit roles and character parts. Beginning with Jack Arnold's Tarantula, Patterson moved into occasional modern character portrayals as well. Patterson also appeared on dozens of television series, ranging from The Abbott & Costello Show (where he played a very creepy mugger in "Lou Falls for Ruby") to Perry Mason. He was nearly as ubiquitous a figure on Twilight Zone as he was in any Western series, appearing in at least three installments, most notably as an old man in a modern setting in "Kick the Can," and as an ominous general store proprietor in "Come Wander With Me." It was the 19th century and rural settings, however, that provided his bread and butter -- he had appeared in several episodes of Gunsmoke, and in 1963 became a continuing character on the series in the role of Hank Miller, the Dodge City stableman. That same year, Patterson took on the semi-regular role of farmer Fred Ziffel in the rural comedy Petticoat Junction; and in 1965, that role was expanded into the series Green Acres -- eventually, he even portrayed Fred Ziffel in episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies as well. The association of his character with the utterly surreal (and extremely popular) porcine character of Arnold the Pig (also known as Arnold Ziffel) ensured that Patterson was one of the most visible supporting players on the series. Ironically, by the time he was doing Green Acres, Patterson was almost completely deaf, but the producers loved his portrayal so much, that they worked around this by having the dialogue coach lying on the floor out-of-shot, tapping at his leg with a yardstick when it was his cue to speak a line. Patterson passed away in 1975 of bronchial pneumonia at the age of 86. He was the great-uncle of actress Tea Leoni.

Trivia: A veteran stock company actor, long associated with California entrepreneur Oliver Morosco, distinguished-looking George Stanley (born Shepston) played numerous character roles for the pioneering Vitagraph company in the 1910s, remaining with that company well into the 1920s.