Trivia: Bronx-raised actor Martin Balsam was the oldest of three children of a ladies' sportswear salesman. "Actors are bums" was dad's reaction when Balsam announced his intention of going into show business; still, young Martin took full advantage of lunch breaks from his "real" jobs to rehearse for amateur theatricals. After World War II, Balsam joined New York's Actors Studio, supporting himself by waiting on tables and ushering at Radio City Music Hall. During his formative years he was briefly married to actress Joyce Van Patten; their daughter Talia Balsam would later become a successful film and TV performer. Working steadily if not profitably in nightclubs and TV, Balsam made his first film, the Actors Studio-dominated On the Waterfront, in 1954. Averaging a movie and/or a play a year starting in 1957 (among his best-known film roles were Juror #1 in Twelve Angry Men [1957] and the unfortunate detective Arbogast in Psycho [1960]), Balsam went on to win a Tony for the Broadway play I Know You Can't Hear Me When the Water's Running, an Obie for the off-Broadway production Cold Storage, and an Academy Award for his performance as Jason Robards' older brother in the 1965 film version of A Thousand Clowns. Unfortunately for Balsam, the Oscar was as much a curse as a blessing on his career, and soon he was playing little more than variations on his Thousand Clowns role. In 1979, he was engaged by Norman Lear to play "lovable bigot" Archie Bunker's acerbic Jewish business partner Murray Klein on the CBS sitcom Archie Bunker's Place; he remained with the series until 1981. In 1991, Balsam appeared in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear, the remake of a film in which Balsam had co-starred (in an entirely different role) in 1962.

Trivia: American comic character actor Allan Melvin worked on stage, radio, screen, and television, where he is best remembered for playing Sam the Butcher, the love interest of beloved housekeeper Alice on The Brady Bunch. He also appeared as Sergeant Bilko's right-hand man The Phil Silvers Show, and as Archie Bunker's best friend on All in the Family). Melvin also worked in commercials and voiced many animated cartoons. He died of cancer in January 2008 at age 84.

Trivia: Anne Meara started out and ended up a distinguished dramatic actress--and in between, scored high marks as a comedienne, playwright and screenwriter. Launching her career in summer stock in 1950, Meara won an Obie Award for her intensely dramatic performance in the 1955 off-Broadway production Maedchen in Uniform; during this period, she was also a semi-regular on the NBC TV daytime soaper The Greatest Gift. Auditioning for an opera in 1954, she met another struggling actor, Jerry Stiller; they were married the following year. Forming the comedy team of Stiller & Meara, The team skyrocketed to stardom via their many appearances on such 1960s variety series as The Ed Sullivan Show and The Steve Allen Show. One of their richest sources of material was the difference in their ethnic backgrounds, especially in their famous "Hershey Horowitz/Mary Elizabeth Doyle" routines (an Irish Catholic, Meara converted to Judaism upon her marriage to Stiller). They also appeared together on Broadway, in the supporting cast of the 1971 sitcom The Paul Lynde Show, and in an obscure 1975 syndicated TV comedy "filler" series Take Five With Stiller and Meara. On her own, Meara has provided comic and noncomic support to several films, including Lovers and Other Strangers (1970), The Out-of-Towners (1970) and Fame (1980). She starred in the 1975 TV lawyer series Kate McShane, and co-starred as tavern owner Mae on The Corner Bar (1973), divorced airline stewardess Sally Gallagher on the 1976-77 season of Rhoda, acid-tongued cook Veronica Rooney on Archie Bunker's Place (1979-83), and mother-in-law Dorothy Halligan on Alf (1987). In 1983, Meara won the Writers Guild "outstanding achievement" award for her script for the made-for-TV feature Another Woman, and ten years later was nominated for a Tony Award for her portrayal of Marthy in the Broadway revival of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie. Anne Meara is the mother of comic actor Ben Stiller and worked with her son in his directorial feature debut, Reality Bites (1994), Zoolander (2001) and Night at the Museum (2006). She recurred on Sex and the City, playing Miranda's mother-in-law, Mary, and later reprised the role in the feature film. Meara died in 2015, at age 85.