Trivia: Best known as the rumpled television detective Columbo, character actor Peter Falk also enjoyed a successful film career, often in association with the groundbreaking independent filmmaker John Cassavetes. Born September 16, 1927, in New York City, Falk lost an eye at the age of three, resulting in the odd, squinting gaze which later became his trademark. He initially pursued a career in public administration, serving as an efficiency expert with the Connecticut Budget Bureau, but in the early '50s, boredom with his work sparked an interest in acting. By 1955, Falk had turned professional, and an appearance in a New York production of The Iceman Cometh earned him much attention. He soon graduated to Broadway and in 1958 made his feature debut in the Nicholas Ray/Budd Schulberg drama Wind Across the Everglades.A diminutive, stocky, and unkempt presence, Falk's early screen roles often portrayed him as a blue-collar type or as a thug; it was as the latter in 1960's Murder Inc. that he earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, a major career boost. He was nominated in the same category the following year as well, this time as a sarcastic bodyguard in Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles. In 1962, Falk won an Emmy for his work in the television film The Price of Tomatoes, a presentation of the Dick Powell Theater series. The steady stream of accolades made him a hot property, and he next starred in the 1962 feature Pressure Point. A cameo in Stanley Kramer's 1963 smash It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World preceded Falk's appearance in the Rat Pack outing Robin and the Seven Hoods, but the film stardom many predicted for him always seemed just out of reach, despite lead roles in 1965's The Great Race and 1967's Luv.In 1968, Falk first assumed the role of Columbo, the disheveled police lieutenant whose seemingly slow and inept investigative manner masked a steel-trap mind; debuting in the TV movie Prescription: Murder, the character was an immediate hit, and after a second telefilm, Ransom for a Dead Man, a regular Columbo series premiered as part of the revolving NBC Mystery Movie anthology in the fall of 1971, running for seven years and earning Falk a second Emmy in the process. In the meantime, he also continued his film career, most notably with Cassavetes; in 1970, Falk starred in the director's Husbands, and in 1974 they reunited for the brilliant A Woman Under the Influence. In between the two pictures, Falk also returned to Broadway, where he won a Tony award for his performance in the 1972 Neil Simon comedy The Prisoner of Second Avenue. In 1976, Cassavetes joined him in front of the camera to co-star in Elaine May's Mikey and Nicky, and directed him again in 1977's Opening Night.After Columbo ceased production in 1978, Falk starred in the Simon-penned mystery spoof The Cheap Detective, followed by the William Friedkin caper comedy The Brink's Job (1978). After 1979's The In-Laws, he starred two years later in ...All the Marbles, but was then virtually absent from the screen for the next half decade. Cassavetes' 1986 effort Big Trouble brought Falk back to the screen (albeit on a poor note; Cassavetes later practically disowned the embarrassing film) and and in 1987 he starred in Happy New Year along with the Rob Reiner cult favorite The Princess Bride. An appearance as himself in Wim Wenders' masterful Wings of Desire in 1988 preceded his 1989 resumption of the Columbo character for another regular series; the program was to remain Falk's focus well into the next decade, with only a handful of film appearances in pictures including 1990's Tune in Tomorrow and a cameo in Robert Altman's The Player. After the cancellation of Columbo, he next turned up in Wenders' Desire sequel Far Away, So Close before starring in the 1995 comedy Roommates. Falk continued to work in both film and television for the next decade and a half, starring in various Columbo specials through 2003, appearing with Woody Allen in the made-for-TV The Sunshine Boys in 1997, and playing a bar owner caught up in mafia dealings in 1999's The Money Kings. Other projects included the Adam Sandler-produced gangster comedy Corky Romano (2001), the Dreamworks animated family film A Shark Tale (as the voice of Ira Feinberg), and the Paul Reiser-scripted, Raymond de Felitta-directed comedy-drama The Thing About My Folks (2005). In 2007, Falk starred opposite Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore in Lee Tamahori's sci-fi thriller Next. That same year, Falk announced to the public that he had Alzheimer's disease. He died in June 2011 at age 83.

Trivia: The daughter of a former ship captain, Ruth Gordon knew what she wanted to do with her life after witnessing a performance by stage actress Hazel Dawn. Over the initial objections of her father, Gordon decided upon a stage career, studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After the usual deprivations and barnstorming (and a few extra roles in such films as Camille [1916]), she got her first positive newspaper notice for her Broadway debut in a 1915 production of Peter Pan. "Ruth Gordon was ever so gay as Nibs," wrote influential critic Alexander Woollcott, who became a valued and powerful friend to Gordon, and did what he could to encourage her and promote her career. With such stage hits as Seventeen, Serena Blandish, and Ethan Frome, Gordon was one of Broadway's biggest stars of the 1920s and '30s; privately, however, her life was blotted by the premature death of her first husband, actor Gregory Kelly. She remarried in 1942 to the brilliant playwright Garson Kanin, some 16 years her junior -- a union that lasted more than four decades.Combining stage work with appearances in such films as Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940) and Action in the North Atlantic (1943), Gordon began to collaborate with Kanin on writing projects, with such delightful results as the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn comedies Adam's Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952), as well as the Judy Holliday feature The Marrying Kind (1952). Long absent from movies, Gordon returned to the cameras for Inside Daisy Clover in 1966, before taking on the kinky role of an elderly witch in Rosemary's Baby (1968). Upon receiving an Oscar for her performance, the 72-year-old Gordon brought down the house by saying, "You have no idea how encouraging a thing like this can be." Although few of her subsequent film roles were as prestigious, Gordon managed to enter cult-film Valhalla with unforgettable roles in two films: Where's Poppa? (1970), in which she played the obscenely senile mother of George Segal, and Harold and Maude (1972), as the freewheeling soul mate of death-obsessed teen Bud Cort.

Trivia: Never the typical ingénue, American actress Mariette Hartley was distinguished by attractively offbeat facial features and a full, throaty voice -- acting tools that enabled her to play a wide spectrum of ages and personalities even when she was barely out of her teens. The granddaughter of behavioral psychologist John B. Watson, Hartley began her training at Carnegie Tech, then studied acting under Eva LeGalleine . Shakespeare was Hartley's forte in her salad days; thus, she was a full-blown professional before the age of 21. Hartley's first film, Ride the High Country (1961), may well have been her best; as the runaway bride of a mentally deficient mountain man, Hartley was permitted to forego cutesiness and glamour, spending most of the film in dusty male western garb. She was so good in this first appearance that MGM literally had no idea what to do with her; the solution was to cast her as a garden-variety damsel in distress in Drums of Africa (1963), which Hartley now regards as her worst film (and it is -- far worse than the more obvious candidate, 1971's The Return of Count Yorga). Then as now, Hartley was better served on TV than in films. Appearing with regularity on such programs as Twilight Zone and Bonanza, Hartley exuded an intelligence and versatility rare in so young an actress. She gained a following with her recurring role on the nighttime soapera Peyton Place (1965), then provided the only bright moments of the misfire satirical sitcom The Hero (1966), in which she played the wife of a bumbling TV cowboy (Richard Mulligan). Her TV work load increased in the '70s, during which time she appeared as futuristic heroine Lyra-a in Gene Roddenberry's TV pilot Genesis II, a role which gained a great deal of press attention due to Hartley's exotic midriff makeup (her character was endowed with two navels). She also won an Emmy for her appearance in a 1978 installment of The Incredible Hulk. A popular talk-show raconteur, Hartley was able to parlay her no-nonsense persona into a series of lucrative camera commercials, in which she co-starred with James Garner. Her easy rapport with Garner led many to believe that she was married to the Rockford Files star, compelling her to make public appearances wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the message "I am NOT Mrs. James Garner" (she was, in fact, married to producer/director Patrick Boyriven). Her high audience "Q" rating led certain TV producers to believe that Hartley would be ideally cast as a news reporter on the 1983 sitcom Goodnight, Beantown. The casting was good, the show wasn't. Nor were follow-ups in this vein, including a foredoomed hitch as co-host of the 1987 revamping of CBS Morning News titled The Morning Program and the very short-lived newsroom-oriented weekly drama WIOU (1990). That the actress took to kidding about her many TV failures only added to her upbeat public image -- an image which masked a surfeit of grief brought on by the alcoholism and suicide of Hartley's father, which formed the basis of her 1990 book Breaking the Silence. Audiences were able to see this serious side of Mariette Hartley in her frequent TV-movie appearances, notably her performance as grieving mother Candy Lightner in M.A.D.D.: Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Mariette Hartley remained busy on films and in television into the '90s; once again, the TV work was more rewarding than the movie assignments, which included such negligible entertainments as Encino Man (1992).

Trivia: Before making his career switch to acting, G.D. Spradlin had been a prosperous Texas business tycoon and a highly respected history teacher. In films from 1968's Will Penny, the actor is perhaps best remembered for his work as on-the-take Senator Pat Geary in The Godfather, Part 2 (1974). His regal, assured bearing made him a natural for such forceful characterizations as LBJ in the 1990 TV movie Robert Kennedy and His Times. Spradlin has also played his share of high-ranking military officers, most memorably in Apocalypse Now (1979). A somewhat more avuncular G. D. Spradlin was seen in the role of Baptist minister (and erstwhile movie producer) Reverend Lemon in Ed Wood (1994).

Trivia: Character actress, onscreen (after much stage experience) from 1968; usually in matronly roles.

Trivia: Lead actor Charles Frank first appeared onscreen in the late '70s.

Trivia: Character actress Shera Danese specialized in bit parts, initially ones of a slightly sultry nature. She landed one of her earliest big-screen roles as one of saxophone player Jimmy Doyle's (Robert De Niro) girlfriends in Martin Scorsese's revisionist musical New York, New York (1977), then drew attention away from Rebecca De Mornay as one of two prostitutes who accompany a high-school senior (Tom Cruise) out for a wild evening on the town, in Paul Brickman's satire on teen angst, Risky Business (1983). Subsequent projects included the 1987 Baby Boom (as a cloak room attendant), the 2002 John Q., and the 2006 Alpha Dog. Danese also appeared in numerous Columbo telemovies opposite longtime off-camera husband Peter Falk.

Trivia: Most of actor Stephen Elliot's film credits were piled up after he reached the age of fifty. The best of these include Hospital (1971), Death Wish (1974), The Hindenburg (1978) and Taking Care of Business (1988). Elliot was cast as Jill Eikenberry's bullying millionaire father in Arthur (1981), in which he pummeled prospective son-in-law Dudley Moore to a pulp when Moore balked at the altar; he repeated this ham-fisted characterization in Arthur 2, On the Rocks (1985). Stephen Elliot's acting contributions to television include patriarch Benjamin Lassiter on Beacon Hill (1975), Jane Wyman's ex-husband (not Ronald Reagan) on Falcon Crest (1981-82), and several years in the role of Paul Ailey on the daytime drama Love of Life.