Trivia: He debuted onscreen in The Blackbord Jungle (1955) as a sadistic high school student, and after several years he moved up to starring roles. He often played vicious bad guys. He starred in the '60s TV series Combat. In the mid '60s he directed several off-Broadway plays and a couple of short films, then directed, co-produced, and co-wrote the film Deathwatch (1966), adapted from a Jean Genet play; after directing another feature he returned to acting, having gone eight years between screen roles. In 1982 he was killed by the blades of a helicopter while filming an action sequence in the film Twilight Zone: The Movie. He was the father of actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Trivia: Jack Hogan is a character actor and leading man best known for his work in television -- most notably as Private Kirby on the long-running 1960s series Combat! -- and in action films and dramas. Born Richard Roland Benson, Jr. in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1929, he briefly studied architecture at the University of North Carolina before entering the army in 1948, which took him to stations in the Far East. After leaving the service in 1952, he decided to try his hand at acting, and received training at the Pasadena Playhouse in California and the American Theatre Wing in New York. His screen career began in 1956 with the western in Man From Del Rio, starring Anthony Quinn and Katy Jurado. Two years later, he played "Guy Darrow" (sic), the film-a-clef stand-in for the notorious Depression-era bank robber Clyde Barrow in William Witney's The Bonnie Parker Story (1958), starring Dorothy Provine. And that same year, he co-starred with Michael Landon in Ted Post's The Story of Tom Dooley. Hogan appeared in episodes of Have Gun, Will Travel and Bonanza over the next few years, interspersed with occasional film work, until the series Combat! came along in 1962. Hired by director Robert Altman, who shepherded the series through its early stages, Hogan portrayed Private William Kirby in the middle of a strong cast headed by Vic Morrow and Rick Jason, and also including notable character actors Dick Peabody, Pierre Jalbert, and Conlan Carter. He still managed to stand out -- his Private William Kirby (nicknamed "Wild Man" back home) was a sometime screw-up, a skirt-chaser, and complainer, but also a top man with a BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) and exactly the kind of soldier any sergeant would want in a tight spot. Hogan was perfect in the role, completely convincing in the action scenes, yet also the valid butt of jokes from his comrades (when one too-young recruit is being shipped home at the end of one episode and promises to be back in two years, he adds that "you guys will probably have this wrapped up by then," to which Vic Morrow's Sgt. Saunders, looking at Hogan after the boy leaves, says, "With you on our side, Kirby, it might be ten.")Following the series' cancellation, Hogan continued to work in television, on programs such as Adam-12, and also had a short-lived series called Sierra. He retired from acting in the 1980s and moved to Hawaii, where he founded a construction business, also working as casting director on Magnum, P.I. and appearing on Jake And The Fat Man. And thanks to the release of Combat! on DVD, and the series' being rerun on ME-TV, he is finding a whole new generation of fans for his work on the series in the twenty-first century.

Trivia: From adolescence on, Ben Cooper was an actor on both the stage and in radio. After attending Columbia University, Cooper began his film career with 1950's Side Street. A low-key actor, Cooper fluctuated between heroes and villains, mostly in westerns, until retiring from films in 1961. Ben Cooper also popped up in secondary roles on many TV anthologies of the so-called "Golden Era."

Trivia: Funnyman Jack Carter (as he is invariably billed) was a successful nightclub comedian when he decided to dive headlong into the infant medium known as television. In January of 1949, Carter was hired to host ABC's minstrel-show effort Pick and Pat. By the spring of that year, Carter presided over the ABC variety program Jack Carter and Company. Later that same year, he was the first emcee of the DuMont Network's Cavalcade of Stars, remaining with the series until being replaced by Jackie Gleason in 1950. His last "regular" TV assignment was as host of 1956's Stage Show, though he kept busy as a sitcom guest star into the 1980s, frequently playing abrasive con artists (e.g. "Friendly Freddie" on Gomer Pyle USMC). In 1971, Carter made his directorial debut with an episode of Lucille Ball's Here's Lucy. Jack Carter's movie roles have ranged from comedy relief to raffish villain in such pictures as The Extraordinary Seaman (1969), The Amazing Dobermans (1976) and The Funny Farm (1982). Carter continued to work steadily into his 90s, with guest appearances on shows like Desperate Housewives, Parks & Recreation, New Girl and Shameless. Carter died 4 days after his 93rd birthday, in 2015.