Trivia: Steely jawed, hard bodied, terse in speech, Charlton Heston was an American man's man, an epic unto himself. While he played modern men, he was at his best when portraying larger-than-life figures from world history, preferably with his shirt off. He was born John Charles Carter on October 4, 1924 and originally trained in the classics in Northwestern University's drama program, gaining early experience playing the lead in a 1941 filmed school production of Peer Gynt. He also performed on the radio, and then went on to serve in the Air Force for three years during WWII. Afterwards, he went to work as a model in New York, where he met his wife, fellow model Lydia Clarke, to whom he remained married until his death. Later the two operated a theater in Asheville, North Carolina where Heston honed his acting skills. He made his Broadway debut in Katharine Cornell's 1947 production of Anthony and Cleopatra and subsequently went on to be a staple of the highly-regarded New York-based Studio One live television anthology where he played such classic characters as Heathcliff, Julius Caesar and Petruchio. The show made Heston a star. He made his Hollywood film debut in William Dieterle's film noir Dark City playing opposite Lizabeth Scott. Even though she was more established in Hollywood, it was Heston who received top billing. He went on to appear as a white man raised in Indian culture in The Savage (1952) and then as a snob who snubs a country girl in King Vidor's Ruby Gentry (1952). His big break came when Cecil B. DeMille cast him as the bitter circus manager Brad Braden in The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). In subsequent films, Heston began developing his persona of an unflinching hero with a piercing blue-eyed stare and unbending, self-righteous Middle American ethics. Heston's heroes could be violent and cruel, but only when absolutely necessary. He began a long stint of playing historical characters with his portrayal of Buffalo Bill in Pony Express and then Andrew Jackson in The President's Lady (both 1953). Heston's star burned at its brightest when DeMille cast him as the stern Moses in the lavish The Ten Commandments (1956). From there, Heston went on to headline numerous spectaculars which provided him the opportunity to play every one from John the Baptist to Michelangelo to El Cid to General "Chinese" Gordon. In 1959, Heston won an Academy Award for the title role in William Wyler's Ben Hur. By the mid-1960s, the reign of the epic film passed and Heston began appearing in westerns (Will Penny) and epic war dramas (Midway). He also did sci-fi films, the most famous of which were the campy satire Planet of the Apes (1968), The Omega Man (1970) and the cult favorite Soylent Green (1973). The '70s brought Heston into a new kind of epic, the disaster film, and he appeared in three, notably Airport 1975. From the late '80s though the '90s, Heston has returned to television, appearing in series, miniseries and made-for TV movies. He also appeared in such films as Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996) and 1998's Armageddon (as the narrator).Outside of his film work, Heston served six terms as the president of the Screen Actors Guild and also chaired the American Film Institute. Active in such charities as The Will Rogers Institute, he was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 1977 Oscar ceremony. Known as a conservative Republican and proud member of the National Rifle Association, Heston worked closely with his long-time colleague and friend President Ronald Reagan as the leader of the president's task force on arts and the humanities. He made two of his final film appearances in the disastrous Warren Beatty-Diane Keaton sex farce Town and Country (2001) (in a parodistic role, as a shotgun wielding arsonist who burns Beatty's cabin to the ground) and as himself in Michael Moore's documentary Bowling For Columbine (2002) (in which he stormed out of an interview after Moore pummeled him with gun-related questions). Heston died in the spring of 2008 at age 84; although the cause of death was officially undisclosed, he had revealed several years prior that he was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease.

Trivia: James Coburn was an actor whose style allowed him to comfortably embrace drama, action, and comedy roles, and many of his best-known performances found him blending elements of all these styles in roles that overflowed with charisma and a natural charm. Born in Laurel, NE, on August 31, 1928, Coburn relocated to California as a young man, and first developed an interest in acting while studying at Los Angeles City College. After appearing in several student productions, he decided to take a stab at acting as a profession, and enrolled in the theater department at U.C.L.A. Coburn earned his first notable reviews in an adaptation of Herman Melville's Billy Budd, staged at Los Angeles' La Jolla Playhouse, which starred Vincent Price. In the early '50s, Coburn moved to New York City, where he studied acting with Stella Adler, and began working in commercials and live television. In 1958, Coburn won a recurring role on a Western TV series called Bronco, and scored his first film role the following year in Budd Boetticher's Ride Lonesome, starring Randolph Scott. For a while, Coburn seemed to find himself typecast as a heavy in Westerns, most notably in The Magnificent Seven, and later starred in two action-oriented TV series, Klondike (which ran for 18 weeks between 1960 and 1961) and Acapulco (which lasted a mere eight weeks in 1961). However, after a strong showing in the war drama Hell Is for Heroes, Coburn finally got to play a big-screen hero as part of the ensemble cast of 1963's The Great Escape. In 1964, Coburn got a chance to show his flair for comedy in The Americanization of Emily, and in 1965 he appeared in Major Dundee, the first of several films he would make with iconoclastic director Sam Peckinpah. In 1966, Coburn finally hit full-fledged stardom in Our Man Flint, a flashy satiric comedy which put an American spin on the James Bond-style superspy films of the period. Coburn's deft blend of comic cheek and action heroics as Derek Flint made the film a major box-office success, and in 1967 he appeared in a sequel, In Like Flint, as well as two similar action comedies, Duffy and the cult film The President's Analyst (the latter of which Coburn helped produce). Moving back and forth between comedies (Candy, Harry in Your Pocket), Westerns (Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), and dramas (The Last of Shelia, Cross of Iron), Coburn was in high demand through much of the 1970s. He also dabbled in screenwriting (he penned a script for his friend Bruce Lee which was filmed after Lee's death as Circle of Iron, starring David Carradine) and directing (he directed an episode of the TV series The Rockford Files, as well as handling second-unit work on Sam Peckinpah's Convoy). By the end of the decade, however, his box-office allure was not what it once was, although he remained a potent draw in Japan. Coburn remained busy in the 1980s, with supporting roles in theatrical films, larger roles in television projects, and voice-over work for documentaries. In 1979, Coburn was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and in the mid-'80s, when his illness failed to respond to conventional treatment, he began to cut back on his work schedule. But in the 1990s, a holistic therapist was able to treat Coburn using nutritional supplements, and he began appearing onscreen with greater frequency (he also appeared in a series of instructional videos on gambling strategies, one of Coburn's passions). He won a 1999 Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his intense portrayal of an abusive father in Paul Schrader's film Affliction, and the award kick-started Coburn's career. He would work on more than a dozen projects over the next two years, but Coburn then succumbed to a heart attack in 2002. Coburn was survived by two children, James H. Coburn IV and Lisa Coburn, his former spouse Beverly Kelly, and Paula Murad, his wife at the time of his death.

Trivia: While a prolific screen presence from the late-'60s onward, Barbara Hershey did not truly attain star status until two decades later, finally blossoming to become one of the most acclaimed American actresses of her generation. Born Barbara Herzstein on February 5, 1948, in Hollywood, CA, she studied drama during high school and in 1965 made her professional debut in the teen television romp Gidget. From 1966 to 1967, she was a regular on the series The Monroes and subsequently guest starred in a number of other programs. Hershey made her film bow in 1968's With Six You Get Eggroll, followed by the Western Heaven With a Gun and Last Summer. After a number of other lesser projects, she starred as the title heroine in 1972's Boxcar Bertha, the first major theatrical release from a then-unknown Martin Scorsese. David Carradine, Hershey's onscreen partner in crime, became her offscreen companion as well. Carradine directed them both in Americana (filmed in 1973 but not shown until eight years later), and together they had a child, Free.In another nod to the counterculture, Hershey rechristened herself "Barbara Seagull" and traveled to the Netherlands to film the 1973 drama Angela, winning Best Actress honors for her work at the Berlin Film Festival. Still, box-office success continued to elude her, and her resumé remained littered with undistinguished projects including the 1974 heist drama Diamonds, the 1976 comedy A Choice of Weapons, and the Western The Last Hard Men. By 1977, Hershey -- having dropped the "Seagull" surname -- turned to television, where she appeared in the Irwin Allen disaster production Flood! as well as the miniseries A Man Called Intrepid and the 1979-1980 weekly program From Here to Eternity. The 1980 comedy The Stunt Man, actually shot two years earlier, marked Hershey's return to feature films, and was followed by 1981's Take This Job and Shove It and the 1982 horror picture The Entity. By this point, Hershey -- once viewed as a rising star -- had been largely written off by the Hollywood powers-that-be. However, in 1983, she accepted a small role in Philip Kaufman's acclaimed The Right Stuff which garnered her considerable notice. She followed it with another small but pivotal role in Barry Levinson's 1984 baseball fable The Natural, and after a pair of well-regarded television projects -- the 1985 Errol Flynn bio My Wicked, Wicked Ways and 1986's Passion Flower -- Hershey's name was back on the map. After years of low-budget and low-brow projects, suddenly she was a fixture of high-profile features including Woody Allen's masterful 1986 effort Hannah and Her Sisters, David Anspaugh's Hoosiers, and Levinson's 1987 comedy Tin Men. Also in 1987, Hershey's turn in Andrei Konchalovsky's Shy People won Best Actress honors at the Cannes Film Festival, an award she again took home the following year for her performance in Chris Menges' A World Apart.Hershey also excelled in more mainstream affairs, appearing opposite Bette Midler in the weeper Beaches. In 1988, she and Scorsese reunited for the first time since Boxcar Bertha in The Last Temptation of Christ, in which she appeared as Mary Magdalene, winning a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. In 1990, Hershey returned to television to star in the movie A Killing in a Small Town, for which she won an Emmy. Back in the movies, she remained noted for her performances in offbeat fare like 1990's Tune in Tomorrow, 1993's Falling Down, and 1996's The Pallbearer. For her supporting performance in Jane Campion's 1996 adaptation of The Portrait of a Lady, Hershey also earned an Academy Award nomination. In 1998, the actress won further praise for her role as Kris Kristofferson's bohemian wife in A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries. The same year, she appeared as a struggling actress in Amos Poe's Frogs for Snakes, and then went on to play Bruce Willis' wife in the highly anticipated 1999 adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. She appeared in the drama Lantana in 2001, and had major parts in 11:14 and Paradise. She spent a few years away from the spotlight, but in 2007 she returned in Love Comes Lately and The Bird Can't Fly. She appeared as the title character in 2008's Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning, and played the mother to Natalie Portman in Black Swan.

Trivia: Mexican movie leading man Jorge Rivero has occasionally essayed character roles in North-of-the-Border productions. Rivero is best known to Howard Hawks buffs as Captain Pierre Cordona in Hawks' Rio Lobo (1969), in which the actor was afforded second billing, just below John Wayne. Though not confined to Latino roles, he has generally played such strongly ethnic types as Spotted Wolf, the principal Native American character in Soldier Blue (1970). Active into the 1990s, Jorge Rivero was most recently seen in 1993's Ice.

Trivia: Brando-esque leading man Michael Parks was one of five children of an itinerant laborer. Like the rest of his family, Parks drifted from job to job in his early teens, briefly marrying at 15. When he wasn't nickel-and-diming it as a migrant worker, Parks acted with amateur theater groups up and down the California coast. Discovered by an agent in 1960, Parks was signed to a Universal contract, spending most of his time on suspension due to his ornery outspokenness. He settled down long enough to play an au naturel Adam in John Huston's The Bible (1966) and to star as a young motorcyclist in search of the Real America on the 1969 TV series Then Came Bronson. Parks astonished his anti-establishment fans in 1968 when he supported George Wallace for the presidency. Parks' film appearances since then have been confined to second-string productions, though he managed to attract attention in 1977 by portraying Bobby Kennedy in The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover. In 1990, Parks co-produced as well as starred in Caged Fury, though it was his turn as Canadian mobster Jean Renault in David Lynch's Twin Peaks that offered him the most exposure that year. Numerous film and television roles followed, and in 1996 director Quentin Tarantino gave Parks a career-boost by casting him in the violent horror/crime hybrid From Dusk Till Dawn (a role that the actor would reprise in Kill Bill, Vol. 1, Death Proof, and Planet Terror). A turn as the volatile leader of a religious cult in Kevin Smith's Red State capitalized on Parks' intense onscreen charisma, and in 2012 he could be spotted in director Ben Affleck's Argo. And though the documentary Kevin Smith: Burn in Hell found the outspoken Clerks director jokingly chiding "View Askewniverse" veteran Affleck for "cherry-picking" Parks on the strength of his Red State performance, few would deny that the talented Parks would have likely won the role on his own merit. Parks died in 2017, at age 77.

Trivia: Born in California, actor Larry Wilcox was raised and educated in Wyoming. Wilcox's first important TV assignment was the role of ranchhand Dale Mitchell in the 1972-74 episodes of Lassie. He was elevated to teen-idol status when, in 1977 he was cast as Officer Jon Baker on TV's CHiPs; he left the series one year shy of its 1983 cancellation. Later on, Wilcox showed up on Murder She Wrote, playing four different parts on as many episodes. At last report, Larry Wilcox was heading a successful Southern California pharmaceutical corporation.

Trivia: Commanding African American actor Thalmus Rasulala launched his film career in such blaxploitationers of the 1960s and 1970s as Cool Breeze, Blacula, Bucktown and Friday Foster. He was prominently cast in the Emmy-winning made-for-TV feature The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, played Omro in the 1977 miniseries Roots, and was one of the nine stars of the 1981 multipart drama The Sophisticated Gents. Rasulala's series-TV manifest included the occasional role of Mabel King's ex-husband on What's Happening!! (1976-79), and a substantial run on the daytime drama One Life to Live. In the 1991 TV movie Above the Law, Rasulala played a character named Crowder, which happened to be his given name. Thalmus Rasulala died of heart failure and leukemia at the age of 51; his last film, Mom and Dad Save the World (1992), was released posthumously.

Trivia: The second son of actor Robert Mitchum, Christopher Mitchum began his own spotty film career in the late 1960s, after attending Dublin's Trinity College and earning a BA from the University of Arizona. Christopher looked and sounded nothing at all like his father, thereby avoiding unwarranted cries of "Nepotism!" from cynical critics. Like his brother Jim and his uncle John, Christopher found that his best screen opportunities were in westerns. He played supporting parts in a number of John Wayne pictures, including Rio Lobo (1969), Chisum (1970), Big Jake (1971). Though he prefers writing to acting, Christopher Mitchum continued showing up in theatrical and made-for-video action fare into the late 1980s; in 1993, he was nostalgically cast as a ranch hand in the all-star Wyatt Earp biopic Tombstone.

Trivia: Lead and supporting actor, onscreen from the '70s.

Trivia: From his screen debut in 1965 onward, Robert Donner has revelled in spooky, oddball roles of the street evangelist/undertaker/obsessive lawman variety. Most often spotted in Westerns, he has appeared in El Dorado (1967), The Undefeated (1969), Chisum (1970), High Plains Drifter (1973), The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973), and The Last Hard Men (1975). On TV, he was regularly featured as Yancy Tucker on The Waltons (1972-1979) and Mayor Chamberlain Brown in Legend (1995). Donner's crowning series-TV achievement was as the zoned-out Exidor, leader of an invisible cult called the Friends of Venus, on the popular sitcom Mork & Mindy (1978-1982). Robert Donner is married to producer/writer Jill Sherman.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the '70s.

Trivia: Charismatic character actor Sam Gilman first appeared onscreen in the '50s after much stage experience.

Trivia: A busy western actor from the 1940s onward, Riley Hill spent the better part of his career playing villains in formula "B"s. Occasionally, Hill would show up in some of Hollywood's costlier oaters, notably Howard Hawk s' Rio Bravo. His television work included several guest spots on the various series churned by Gene Autry's Flying A Productions, and the semi-regular Marshal Riley Roberts in Marshal of Gunsight Pass (1950), Hollywood's only live (as opposed to filmed) TV western. Riley Hill could later be seen in crusty character parts in films like The Trial of Billy Jack (1974) and When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? (1979).