Trivia: Born John Sanford, this scratchy-voiced, bulldog-faced black comedian and actor entered show business while still in his teens; over several decades, he worked as a "blue humor" comic in nightclubs and theaters around the country. From 1951-55 he teamed with comic Slappy White. He made 54 "party records" (comedy records with plenty of four-letter words and blue humor, popular mostly in the black community) and established himself as the dean of blue comedy. In the '60s his audience expanded, and he got guest shots on a number of TV shows. After debuting onscreen in Ossie Davis's unexpectedly successful film Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) Foxx was signed to star in the TV series Sanford and Son the show was a hit and lasted from 1972-77, making him a household name. He went on to appear in the sitcoms Sanford, The Redd Foxx Show and in the variety show The Redd Foxx Comedy Hour and continued appearing regularly as a stand-up comic in Las Vegas.

Trivia: Though he spent most of his childhood in Japan and Europe, Joe Morton, along with his mother and remaining family, moved from Germany to New York after the passing of his father. While he hadn't given acting an incredible amount of thought during his adolescence, Morton decided to pursue a career in the performing arts during his first day at Hofstra University. After his first professional acting job in an off-Broadway production of A Month of Sundays, Morton was cast in Hair (1968), and subsequently became a well-known name within Broadway circles. Morton's role in Raisin, a musical version of A Raisin in the Sun, earned him a Tony nomination. Though he didn't manage to snag the award, the young actor nonetheless found work on several popular television shows of the time, including M*A*S*H and Mission: Impossible. By the late '70s, Morton had appeared in a variety of equally acclaimed films, such as The Outside Man (1973), Between the Lines (1977), and ...And Justice for All (1979).After continuing his work in television, Morton made his first leading-man feature-film appearance as "The Brother," an intergalactic escaped slave, in John Sayles' 1984 hit The Brother From Another Planet. A year later, Morton could be seen in a supporting capacity alongside Lori Singer and Keith Carradine in the post-noir romantic drama Trouble in Mind (1985). Though Morton found no small amount of work during the 1980s, it wasn't until 1991 that he would play one of the most recognizable roles of his career: the cyborg-components researcher in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. However, Terminator 2 was by no means the peak in his career -- that same year, he reunited with Sayles and played a frustrated city councilman in City of Hope. In 1994, Morton portrayed a police captain in Speed, and, after a recurring role on NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street, starred in two highly lauded films: The Walking Dead (1995), in which he played a deeply religious marine, and Lone Star (1996), another John Sayles film. By this stage in his career, Morton had developed a reputation for playing scientists and government officials, and his role as an explosives expert in Executive Decision (1996) was no exception. However, Morton was certainly not incapable of more emotional fare, as demonstrated in his performance in HBO's Miss Evers' Boys, which won three Emmy awards in 1997. In 1998, Morton further avoided typecasting with his role in Blues Brothers 2000 as Cabel Chamberlain, the son of music man Curtis (Cab Calloway) from the original film.The early 2000s proved an equally busy time for Morton, who, aside from participating in numerous documentaries and made-for-television features, continued his role as Leon Chiles in NBC's Law & Order, and began regularly appearing as Dr. Steve Hamilton on the WB's Smallville. During this time, he could also be seen in supporting performances for What Lies Beneath (2000), Bounce (2000), and Ali (2001). 2003 found Morton playing another government agent in Paycheck, while 2004 brought another opportunity altogether -- Morton took the director's seat for Sunday on the Rocks. Also that year, Morton joined director Rob Cohen to film Stealth. A recurring role on the Pentagon television drama E-Ring found the actor continuing on his impressive television run, with a supporting role in the 2006 feature The Night Listener serving well to keep Morton's feature credits expanding as well.A contributing narrator of the long-running PBS series The American Experience, Morton became a familiar voice to television viewers who refused to switch their brains off for prime-time viewing. But it was recurring roles in both The Good Wife and Eureka that helped to keep him a familar face to more casual TV fans.

Trivia: Marlene Clark, a black supporting actress and occasional lead, appeared on screen beginning in the '70s.

Trivia: Began his acting career at the age of 4 with an appearance in the Broadway play Green Pastures. Was drafted by the Army and served a tour of duty in Vietnam. Guest-starred on an Emmy-winning episode of All in the Family, which helped him earn a lead role on the popular sitcom Sanford and Son. Scaled back his acting work after experiencing a spiritual awakening and becoming a minister in 1983. Is also a writer whose works include several children's books and the memoir Second Banana: The Bitter Sweet Memoirs of the Sanford & Son Years.

Trivia: Howard Hesseman's early credits have sometimes been hard to trace, mainly because he often billed himself as "Don Sturdy." The mustachioed, prematurely balding Hesseman was a founding member of the San Francisco-based improv troupe The Committee. During his decade-long tenure with this aggregation, he was featured in such films as Petulia (1968) and A Session with the Committee (1970), and showed up on such TV series as The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Dick Cavett Show. Through the auspices of his Committee cohort Peter Bonerz, Hesseman played a recurring role on TV's The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78), playing the unsuccessful producer of such TV disasters as "The Nazi Hour." His screen roles in the 1970s included a showy part as a harried TV-commercial director in the opening sequence of The Sunshine Boys. In 1978, Hesseman achieved celebrity in the role of counterculture deejay Dr. Johnny Fever (aka Johnny Caravella) on the popular sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati. Following WKRP's cancellation in 1982, he spent two seasons playing Ann Romano's third (and presumably final) husband Sam Royer on the weekly One Day at a Time. From 1986 to 1990, he starred as urbane high school teacher Charlie Moore in TV's Head of the Class. During all this activity, Howard Hesseman continued showing up in feature films, playing such roles as smarmy promoter Terry Ladd in This is Spinal Tap (1984) and child star Patty Duke's manipulative manager/guardian John Ross in the TV biopic Call Me Anna (1989). Over the following several years, Hessman would remain active on screen, appearnig on shows like That 70's Show and Crossing Jordan, and in movies like The Rocker.

Trivia: A multi-talented actress/singer/comedienne, Philadelphia native Fritzi Burr's work spanned Broadway, film, and television. Maintaining a successful stint as an East Coast comedienne, the early '60s found the aspiring actress appearing frequently in vaudeville legends Smith & Dale's stage act before taking to the bright lights of Broadway in I Can Get it for You Wholesale and Funny Girl. Burr would land numerous film roles after relocating to Hollywood in the early '60s, appearing in such films as They Shoot Horses Don't They (1969), Chinatown (1974), and The Star Chamber (1983). In addition to her film work, Burr would also appear in such popular television shows as Seinfeld and Friends and frequently served as a hospital volunteer. On January 17, 2002, Fritzi Burr died of natural causes in Fort Myers, FL. She was 78.

Trivia: Born in Washington, PA, Bud Yorkin attended Carnegie Tech after service in the U.S. Navy beginning at age 16, and became a television engineer at NBC in 1949. He was already an established producer/director on television, specializing in variety shows featuring Martin and Lewis, Abbott and Costello, and George Gobel. He formed a partnership with producer Norman Lear in 1959, which yielded several Yorkin-directed films including Come Blow Your Horn (1965), Divorce American Style (1967), Inspector Clouseau (1968 -- starring Alan Arkin), and Start the Revolution Without Me (1970). In the early '70s, Yorkin and Lear created All in the Family, a groundbreaking topical situation comedy that completely redefined television comedy with its relatively realistic scripts and subject matter, for which Yorkin was executive producer. Since then his film career has resumed without exceptional success, including an appearance as an actor in 1990's For the Boys. He mostly retired from the industry in the mid-1990s, other than appearing in some TV documentaries. Yorking passed away in 2015, at age 89.