Trivia: David McCallum's parents were both members of the London Philharmonic; his mother was a cellist and his father was first violinist. The young Scots-born McCallum himself planned to pursue a musical career after serving with the Royal West African Frontier Force, but decided instead upon acting. Following his studies at the RADA, McCallum entered films in 1957, where he was usually cast as a troublemaking street punk or callow junior officer. His first American film (albeit lensed principally in England) was Freud (1962), in which he played a profoundly mother-obsessed mental patient. McCallum became the rage of the teeny-bopper set when he was cast as cool-headed Russian secret agent Ilya Kuryakin on TV's The Man From UNCLE (1964-68). At one point, McCallum was receiving far more fan mail than the series' ostensible star, Robert Vaughn; he took advantage of his celebrity to launch a brief singing career, duetting with Nancy Sinatra on the 1966 UNCLE episode "The Take Me to Your Leader Affair." He also wrote the music and lyrics and sang the title song of his 1967 movie vehicle Three Bites of the Apple. Following UNCLE, McCallum had a handful of solid dramatic film roles before returning to the small screen in the short-lived 1975 series The Invisible Man. He continued to appear primarily in episodic television, although he occasionally could be glimpsed on the big-screen as well. Highlights include The Watcher in the Woods, Matlock, The Wind, Murder She Wrote, and The A-Team. The nineties began with a major part in the sleeper Hear My Song, before continuing in Healer, Law and Order, and Cherry. McCallum became a fixture on television yet again at the beginning of the 21st century when he was cast as Donald "Ducky" Mallard on CBS' drama NCIS, which was for a time the top-rated scripted drama on network television.A man of sundry outside interests, McCallum's range of expertise includes computers and small-arms weaponry. Once wed to actress Jill Ireland, David McCallum has since 1967 been married to Katherine Carpenter.

Trivia: Though actor George Peppard could have succeeded on his looks alone, he underwent extensive training before making his first TV and Broadway appearances. The son of a building contractor and a singer, Peppard studied acting at Carnegie Tech and the Actor's Studio. His early TV credits include the original 1956 production of Bang the Drum Slowly, in which he sang the title song. He made his film debut in 1957, repeating his Broadway role in Calder Willingham's End As a Man, retitled The Strange One for the screen. His star continued to ascend in such films as Home From the Hill (1960) with George Hamilton, and Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) as the boyfriend/chronicler of carefree Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn). He was also effective as James Stewart's son in How the West Was Won (1962), a characterization that required him to age 30 years, and as the Howard Hughes counterpart in The Carpetbaggers (1963), in which he co-starred with the second of his five wives, Elizabeth Ashley. In 1978 he made a respectable directorial debut with Five Days From Home, but never followed up on this. A familiar television presence, he starred on the TV series Banacek (1972-1973), Doctors Hospital (1975), and The A-Team (1983-1987), and delivered a powerhouse performance as the title character in the 1974 TV-movie Guilty or Innocent: The Sam Sheppard Case. Forced to retire because of illness, George Peppard died of cancer in the spring of 1994.

Trivia: With muscle-bound arms bulging from his sleeveless tank tops, a mohawk, and enough gold jewelry to enrich a small nation, gruff, tough Mr. T was certainly one of the most recognizable television stars of the early '80s. Though more of a personality than a bona fide actor, he has appeared in several features, but is best known for playing no-nonsense ex-soldier B.A. Baracus on the hit action-drama The A-Team (1983-1987). Prior to that, Mr. T had played character roles in four feature films. Born Lawrence Tureaud in a tough southside Chicago project, he was the second youngest of 12 siblings. His father abandoned the family when Tureaud was five, leaving his mother to raise her huge family alone in a three-bedroom apartment on less than 100 dollars a month from welfare. Tureaud was devoted to his mother, and though he got into a little trouble during early adolescence, straightened himself out so as not to shame her by getting thrown in jail. Following graduation from Dunbar Vocational High School, Tureaud attended college. His football skills landed him a scholarship to Prairie View A & M University in Texas, but he was expelled after one year. Tureaud qualified for other sports scholarships and so continued his education until joining the Army and serving as a military policeman. Following his discharge, he was recruited by the Green Bay Packers, but suffered a serious knee injury and so became a bodyguard for stars such as Muhammad Ali, Michael Jackson, and Diana Ross. He also worked as a bouncer. In 1970, he changed his name to Lawrence Tero and shortly thereafter shortened it to Mr. T. In the mid-'70s, he worked as a gym teacher in Chicago. It was Sylvester Stallone who offered him his first acting job after Stallone saw the beefy black bouncer on the TV show Games People Play. Stallone was so impressed by Mr. T's agile strength that he cast him in Rocky III (1982). Mr. T was at his peak popularity, particularly with young boys, while on The A-Team. At one point a toy company even created a Mr. T action figure. He also had a breakfast cereal named after him. Following his series' demise, Mr. T's acting career has been sporadic. Over the course of the next few decades, small roles in film (Not Another Teen Movie) and television (Martin, Malcolm and Eddie) helped the amiable tough guy remain a recognizable pop culture icon, but in 2011 Mr. T began hosting World's Craziest Fools, an irreverent, clip-based show featuring criminal blunders and side-splitting mishaps captured on amateur video footage and CCTV.

Trivia: Movie and TV leading man Dirk Benedict was young, handsome, muscular and enthusiastic. These qualities were far more important than versatility in establishing Benedict as a dependable screen presence in the 1970s. His theatrical films include Scavenger Hunt (1979), Body Slam (1987), and Shadow Force (1992), their subject matter implicit in their titles. Far more successful on series television than in films, Dirk Benedict played Officer Gil Foley on Chopper One (1974), Starbuck on Battlestar Gallactica (1978), and master impressionist Templeton "Face" Peck on The A-Team (1983-87).

Trivia: Something of an old standby -- a stalwart -- whenever Hollywood needed to call on an Asian-American character actor during the '70s, '80s, '90s, and 2000s, James Saito made countless guest appearances on such blockbuster programs as M*A*S*H, The Fall Guy, and The A-Team, often without even so much as a character name. (The M*A*S*H appearances list him only as "South Korean" or "Korean Soldier.") From the early '80s onward, Saito's resumé started to incorporate a number of feature films; per the experiences of most character players, these pictures varied substantially in quality -- from the depths of Hot Dog... The Movie! (1983) to the heights of Buckaroo Banzai (1984) and Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995). In 2007, Saito landed one of his first regular series roles, as Dr. Chen on the spiritual drama Eli Stone.

Trivia: Though a fifteen-year show business veteran, Dwight Schultz was largely unknown until 1983. That was the year that the TV Addicts of America were introduced to Captain H. M. "Howling Mad" Murdock, the asylum-escapee airplane pilot for The A-Team. It is to Schultz's credit that he was able to portray a certifiable looney while still remaining personable and even lovable. On both sides of his A-Team obligations, Schultz appeared in films like The Fan (1981, as Broadway actress Lauren Bacall's director) and Fat Man and Little Boy (1989, as J. Robert Oppenheimer). In the late 1980s, Dwight Schultz could be occasionally seen as Lieutenant Barclay in TV's Star Trek: the Next Generation.