Trivia: The son of a California lumberman, actor Steve Cohran spent his youth in Laramie, Wyoming, where he graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1939. After learning his craft at the Barter Theatre and the Carmel (California) Shakespeare Festival, he went on to work at Detroit's Federal Theatre, and was co-starred in the touring companies of Without Love and My Sister Eileen before his Broadway debut in the eight-performance flop Hickory Stick. During the war, Cochran directed Army camp shows. From 1945 through 1948, he was under contract to Sam Goldwyn, mostly playing secondary roles as gangsters. He left Hollywood to co-star with Mae West in Catherine Was Great and Diamond Lil; perhaps as a reward for not being acted off the stage by the formidable West, Cochran was signed by Warner Bros., where from 1949 through 1952 he was seen in rugged leading roles. In 1953, Cochran formed his own production company, Robert Alexander Productions, but he would not be seen in another film until 1956's Come Next Spring, which he produced for Republic Studios. He then headed for Europe, where he was given a starring assignment in Michelangelo Antonioni's The Outcry. In 1965, after several years of unimpressive movie and TV appearances, Cochran revived his production company and headed for Central and South America to scout locations. He hired three women, ages 14 through 25, to work as assistants, then headed for Costa Rica aboard his forty-foot yacht. On June 25, 1965, the yacht drifted into Port Champerico, Guatemala; on board were the three very distraught women--and the body of Steve Cochran, who had died some ten days earlier of a lung affection. Steve Cochran's last film project, Tell Me in the Sunlight (which he had produced, directed, written, scored and starred in back in 1964), was reedited and released posthumously.

Trivia: American actor Ernest Truex fulfilled the dream of many a performer by playing Hamlet--at age six, in a kiddie talent show. A professional from adolescence onward, Truex appeared in several plays produced by the legendary David Belasco, including a "character juvenile" in The Good Little Devil, in which he supported Mary Pickford. Good Little Devil served as Truex's film debut in 1914, though it would be at least fifteen years and numerous plays later before he'd tackle the movies on a fulltime basis. During the '20s, Truex gained so much popularity in light domestic comedies that several writers concocted vehicles especially for him. Usually cast in wistful, milquetoast roles, Truex in real life was fiercely competitive, much to the chagrin of directors and writers who had to fight tooth and nail to keep Truex from hogging every scene he was in. Talking pictures allowed Truex a few leading roles, as in the first version of the comedy melodrama Whistling in the Dark (1933) (a role played in the remake by Red Skelton), but soon found his weight was more effectively felt in supporting parts. Many of these recycled his "downtrodden little man" routine, with such spectacular exceptions as The Warrior's Husband (1933), in which he played an outrageously campy "nance," and Roadblock (1939), where the actor went against the mild-mannered grain to play a scheming, demonic gang boss. Truex continued his stage work in the '30s and '40s, notably as the "back to the farm" homeowner in Kaufman and Hart'sGeorge Washington Slept Here (Jack Benny did the movie version). Becoming slightly more precious as he got older, Truex portrayed any number of "sly grandpop" roles in the '50s, with television providing fresh new outlets for the actor's talent. He had recurring roles in such sitcoms as Mr. Peepers, Jamie, Pete and Gladys; a potential long-lasting 1958 stint as a hotel manager on The Ann Sothern Show came to an abrupt end because Ms. Sothern, some say, was a tad intolerant of inveterate scene stealers. Like many veteran performers, Ernest Truex was given ample opportunity to shine on Rod Serling's anthology Twilight Zone, first as a prescient peddler in the 1959 episode "What You Need," then more memorably as a nursing home resident desperate to recapture his youth in 1962's "Kick the Can." Ernest Truex was married to actress Sylvia Field, herself an early-'60s TV favorite as Mrs. Wilson on Dennis the Menace.

Trivia: American actor Read Morgan chose his profession after two years at the University of Kentucky, where he starred on the basketball court. In 1950, Morgan went on a regular dietary and exercise regimen that earned him quite a few photo spreads in major American magazines like TV Guide. Thanks to his physique, Morgan was cast as an athletic mountaineer in the Broadway play Li'l Abner, which led to TV work in a similar vein: he played a wrestler on US Steel Hour, a ballplayer on Twilight Zone, a skindiver on Adventures in Paradise and a boxer on Steve Canyon. Thus it was that Morgan was more than prepared for the strenuous requirements of his role as cavalry sergeant Tasker on the Henry Fonda TV-western vehicle The Deputy (1960). Following the cancellation of this series, Read Morgan found himself on call for innumerable rugged character roles, usually as sheriffs, detectives or highway patrolmen. Among his many film credits were Fort Utah (1967), Easy Come, Easy Go (1968), Marlowe (1969), Dillinger (1971), The New Centurions (1972), Shanks (1967), and the made-for-TV movies Return of the Gunfighter (1967), Helter Skelter (1976), The Billion Dollar Threat (1979), Power (1980) and A Year in the Life (1986).

Trivia: The niece of musical comedy luminary Nanette Fabray, American actress Shelley Fabares was in show business almost as soon as she could walk. She was a model for children's fashions at age 3, a bit actress in the film The Bandit Queen at age 7, a peripheral character on the Annie Oakley TV series at 8, and Frank Sinatra's dance partner on a 1953 TV special. After doing the TV-anthology route from ages 10 through 13, Fabares was cast at age 14 as Donna Reed's daughter on The Donna Reed Show, a part she would virtually grow up in. Before the series' cancellation in 1966, Fabares had become a top recording artist, selling a million copies of "Johnny Angel" before quitting singing cold because she felt she had no talent in that endeavor. Except for co-starring stints in three Elvis Presley musicals, Fabares' employment outside Donna Reed was virtually nil, and from 1968 through 1970 she barely worked at all. She filmed six TV pilots before 1971, but none sold. Things began picking up in 1972 when she was signed for a Brian Keith series set in Hawaii, The Little People. This led to guest TV spots until the next sitcom hitch in 1977's The Practice, in which Fabares played Danny Thomas' daughter-in-law. Highcliffe Manor, a muddled TV satire of Gothic melodramas, followed in 1979, but lasted a scant four weeks. By this time, Fabares' characterizations were of the "snooty shrew" category, and in this capacity she was shown to good advantage as Bonnie Franklin's business partner on One Day at a Time in 1981. Off-camera, Fabares was very active in the prosocial and ecological activities of her new husband, former MASH star Mike Farrell--a far cry from her on-camera haughtiness and self-involvement. More recently, Shelley Fabares' acting career is alive and prospering via her continuing role as Craig T. Nelson's lady love, sportscaster Christine Armstrong, on the Emmy-winning sitcom Coach.