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: "Everyman" American character actor Ross Elliot established himself on Broadway, served in World War II, returned to the stage, and made his film bow in 1948. Elliot's many movie appearances include minor roles in such science-fiction favorites as Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and Tarantula (1955). A prolific television performer, Elliot lost count of his video appearances after he passed the one-hundred mark. From 1967 to 1970, Ross Elliot was seen as Sheriff Abbott on the TV western The Virginian.

Trivia: The only child of a very young married couple, American actress Janet Leigh spent her childhood moving from town to town due to her father's changing jobs. A bright child who skipped several grades in school, Leigh took music and dancing lessons, making her public debut at age 10 as a baton twirler for a marching band. Her favorite times were the afternoons spent at the local movie house, which she referred to as her "babysitter." In 1946, Leigh's mother was working at a ski lodge where actress Norma Shearer was vacationing; impressed by a photograph of Leigh, Shearer arranged for the girl (whose prior acting experience consisted of a college play) to be signed with the MCA talent agency. One year later Leigh was at MGM, playing the ingenue in the 1947 film Romance of Rosy Ridge. The actress became one of the busiest contractees at the studio, building her following with solid performances in such films as Little Women (1949), The Doctor and the Girl (1950), and Scaramouche (1952) -- and catching the eye of RKO Radio's owner Howard Hughes, who hoped that her several RKO appearances (on loan from MGM) would lead to something substantial in private life. Instead, Leigh married Tony Curtis (her second husband), and the pair became the darlings of fan magazines and columnists, as well as occasional co-stars (Houdini [1953], The Vikings [1958], Who Was That Lady? [1960]). Even as this "perfect" Hollywood marriage deteriorated, Leigh's career prospered. Among her significant roles in the '60s were that of Frank Sinatra's enigmatic lady friend in The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Paul Newman's ex-wife in Harper (1966), and, of course, the unfortunate embezzler in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), who met her demise in the nude (actually covered by a moleskin) and covered with blood (actually chocolate sauce, which photographed better) in the legendary "shower scene." In the '80s, Leigh curtailed her film and TV appearances, though her extended legacy as both the star/victim of Psycho and the mother of actress Jamie Lee Curtis still found her a notable place in the world of cinema even if her career was no longer "officially" active.

Trivia: The son of an opera soprana, he studied drama at Columbia and voice at Juilliard. He began his career as a singer, then did some acting in stock. He moved to Hollywood in 1935, playing leads in a number of Fox musicals by the '40s, often opposite Alice Faye or Betty Grable. Frequently appearing bare-chested, he was very popular with female fans, and for a time he was the top male pin-up. In the '50s, still muscular but no longer boyish, he switched to medium-budget Westerns and action movies. In 1957 he retired from the screen to star in the TV series The Restless Gun and appeared in only two more films. He directed one of his last films, They Ran for Their Lives (1968). He finished his career in a 1973 Broadway revival of the musical Good News, appearing opposite Alice Faye. He became wealthy with shrewd real estate investments in southern California. From 1937-43 he was married to actress Anne Shirley; their daughter is actress Julie Payne. From 1944-50 he was married to actress Gloria DeHaven.

Trivia: Internationally acclaimed British stage star Maurice Evans is celebrated for his lyrical speaking voice and his great performances in the classics. The son of an amateur playwright, he sang professionally as a boy and later acted in his father's adaptations of Thomas Hardy's novels. In 1926 he made his professional stage debut, and first appeared on the London stage the following year. While establishing his reputation he supported himself by running a cleaning and dyeing establishment. In 1929 his triumphant performance in Journey's End allowed him to become a full-time actor. He appeared in a handful of British films from 1930-35, but otherwise remained exclusively a stage actor. He joined the Old Vic company in 1934, then moved to the U.S. in 1935, when he began a long and illustrious career on Broadway; he was most revered for his work in plays by Shakespeare and Shaw. In 1941 he became a U.S. citizen. During World War II he was put in charge of the Army Entertainment Section, Central Pacific Theater; with the rank of major, he toured Pacific military bases in a streamlined version of Hamlet. He returned to the screen in 1951 in Kind Lady opposite Ethel Barrymore, but again went on to make only a few films over the next two decades, none of which matched the stature of his stage productions. His best-known role was as the ape Dr. Zaius in Planet of the Apes (1968) and Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970). He also did much work on TV, most memorably on the sitcom Bewitched, in which he played Elizabeth Montgomery's warlock father.

Trivia: Nature obviously intended for Sam Jaffe to spend much of his screen career playing eccentric scientists and peppery little old men. As a child, Jaffe appeared in Yiddish stage productions with his mother, a prominent actress. He gave up the theater to study engineering at Columbia University, then served for several years as a mathematics teacher in the Bronx. He returned to acting in 1915 and never left, despite efforts by the more rabid communist-hunters of the 1950s to prevent the gently liberal-minded Jaffe from earning a living. Jaffe's now-familiar shock of wild, white hair was first put on view before the cameras in 1934's The Scarlet Empress, in which he played the insane Grand Duke Peter (several critics compared Jaffe's erratic behavior and bizarre appearance to Harpo Marx). Still only in his mid-40s, Jaffe went on to play the centuries-old High Lama in Capra's Lost Horizon (1937). In 1939, he essayed the title character in Gunga Din, though Hollywood protocol dictated that top billing go to Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Jaffe was Oscar-nominated for his performance as Doc, the "brains" in the 1950 crime film The Asphalt Jungle. His resemblance to Albert Einstein (minus the bushy moustache, of course) led to Jaffe being cast in Einsteinlike roles in Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Jaffe was the lifelong best friend of Edward G. Robinson, with whom he appeared in the made-for-TV film The Old Man Who Cried Wolf (1971). TV viewers with long memories will recall Sam Jaffe as snowy-haired father-figure Dr. Zorba on the 1960s TV series Ben Casey, in which Jaffe was co-starred with his second wife, Bettye Ackerman.

Trivia: American actress Francine York commenced her theatrical career at age nine, in a play titled Keen Teens, or Campus Quarantine; she produced and directed it herself, had it staged at the Aurora (Minnesota) town auditorium, and used the proceeds from the admissions to finance a wienie roast for the local drama club. That was her story, as related in a 1963 TV Guide, and is as good a story as any. Active in high school sports, York bypassed college to become an airline stewardess, but didn't like the work and decided to become a fashion model in San Francisco. From there she headed to Hollywood, and worked steadily in many of the top TV programs of the early '60s, including recurring appearances on the 1964 weekly Slattery's People (she also later appeared on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives as Lorraine Temple). Usually cast in semi-villainous roles, York was also proficient at comedy, as proven by her many appearances on the anthology series Love American Style (1969-1972). A bit too tall to be a movie leading lady (many leading men would have felt self-conscious), Francine York did manage to make several memorable appearances in the '60s films of six-foot-plus comedian Jerry Lewis; perhaps coincidentally, Lewis appeared in an unbilled cameo of the Batman episode in which York played the "moll" of the Bookworm (Roddy McDowall). York continued acting through the 2000s; she died in 2017, at age 80.

Trivia: Comedian and consummate late-night talk show host Johnny Carson was a television institution on the Tonight Show for thirty years. With his natty style and acerbic wit, he became an American icon. He has appeared in only a couple feature films such as, Cancel My Reservation (1972); he also hosted several videos and has been the subject of numerous video anthologies.

Trivia: Mike Lally started in Hollywood as an assistant director in the early 1930s. Soon, however, Lally was steadily employed as a stunt man, doubling for such Warner Bros. stars as James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. He also played innumerable bit roles as reporters, court stenographers, cops and hangers-on. Active until 1982, Mike Lally was frequently seen in functionary roles on TV's Columbo.

Trivia: The son of a stage acrobat, American actor/dancer/singer Donald O'Connor was hoofing away as a child in his family's vaudeville act. He was discovered for films in 1938's Sing, You Sinners, spending the next few years in movies usually playing "the star as a child" -- that is, cast as the younger version of the film's leading man for prologue and flashback sequences. A 1941 Universal contract led to a string of peppy medium-budget musicals with such pure-forties titles as Get Hep to Love (1941) and Are You With It? (1949); O'Connor's most frequent costar was another teenage vaudeville vet, Peggy Ryan. In 1950, O'Connor was cast in the non-dancing role of a hapless army private who can't convince anyone that a mule can talk in Francis (1950). The film was a major moneymaker, leading Universal to inaugurate a Francis series starring O'Connor, Francis the Mule, and Francis' voice, Chill Wills. O'Connor bailed out before the final film in the series, Francis in the Haunted House (1956), complaining that the mule was getting more fan mail than he was. During the Francis epics, O'Connor was loaned to MGM for what is regarded as his finest film role, happy-go-lucky Cosmo Brown in Singin' in the Rain (1952). If he'd never made another film, O'Connor would be a musical-comedy immortal solely on the basis of his Rain setpiece, the athleticly uproarious Make 'Em Laugh (1952). When the sort of musicals in which he specialized went into a Hollywood eclipse, O'Connor concentrated on TV and nightclubs, save for a few less than satisfying cinematic assignments such as The Buster Keaton Story (1957) and the Italian-made curiosity The Wonders of Alladin (1961). When O'Connor returned to films for 1965's That Funny Feeling it was in support of the musical flavor-of-the-decade Bobby Darin. In 1967, O'Connor tried his hand at a syndicated talk-variety program, where he proved excellent as usual at performing but ill at ease as an interviewer. The 1970s were a maelstrom of summer theatre appearances, club dates and an on-and-off liquor problem for O'Connor; when he resurfaced briefly in 1981's Ragtime, movie audiences breathed a sigh of satisfaction that an old friend was back and seemingly as fit as ever. One of Donald O'Connor's most high profile later day film appearance was a cameo at the beginning of Barry Levinson's Toys (1992), wherein the verteran actor supplied a much-needed chunk of solid entertainment value to an otherwise ponderous project. A year after appearing as menacing witch Baba Yaga in the 1996 family fantasy Father Frost, O'Connor made his final film appearance in the Jack Lemmon/Walter Matthau ocean cruise comedy Out to Sea.In late September of 2003, legendary actor Donald O'Connor died of heart failure in Calabasas, CA. He was 78.

Trivia: Della Reese is one of the few performers to move easily between the religious community and the mainstream entertainment industry. Born in Detroit, MI, Reese started singing in gospel choirs at a very young age. In 1945, she joined a touring choir with legendary gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. As a student at Wayne State University, Reese former her own singing group called the Meditation Singers. After a regular gig at Detroit's Flame Showbar, she went on to sing with Erskine Hawkins & His Orchestra. During the '50s and '60s, she recorded pop vocal albums for Jubilee and RCA Victor, leading to several pop singles on the Billboard charts. She was also nominated for a Grammy award and is remembered as one of the first gospel singers to have a popular stage show in Las Vegas.Her television career started in 1969 as the guest host of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. She then made television history as the first black woman with her own prime-time variety show, Della. After singing on the nightclub circuit and making television guest appearances as herself, she joined the cast of Chico and the Man from 1976 to 1978. Despite her battle with illness in the early '80s, she continued acting steadily throughout the next few decades. Her other TV series appearances include Sanford and Son, It Takes Two, Charlie & Co., and The Royal Family. On the big screen, she played madam Vera in Eddie Murphy's Harlem Nights and Martin Lawrence's mother in A Thin Line Between Love and Hate. Her biggest television achievement is the CBS drama Touched By an Angel, which ran from 1994-2003. For her role of Tess, the wise guiding angel to Monica (Roma Downey), Reese won several Image Awards and Emmy nominations. Her other television work includes leading roles on the TV tearjerkers Miracle in the Woods, The Moving of Sylvia Myles, and Anya's Bell. She would appear in a number of projects in the years to come, like Expecting Mary and Me Again. An ordained minister, Reese helps to run the Los Angeles church association Understanding Foundation for Better Living.

Trivia: Character actor John Finnegan first appeared onscreen in the '70s.

Trivia: American actor Bruce Kirby made his Broadway bow at age 40 in the 1965 production Diamond Orchid. More stage work followed, and then movie assignments, commencing with the all-star Catch 22 (1970), and continuing into the 1980s with such productions as Sweet Dreams (1985) and Throw Momma from the Train (1987). Kirby's TV career has embraced both series successes (1989's Anything But Love, as Jamie Lee Curtis' father), ignoble failures (1976's Holmes and Yoyo, as Henry Sedford), and a few projects which never sold (Kirby was in two busted pilots for something called McNamara's Band). In 1984, Kirbyreturned to Broadway to understudy Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman in the revival of Death of a Salesman. Bruce Kirby, sometimes billed as Bruce Kirby Sr., was the father of actor Bruno Kirby, who formerly billed himself as B. Kirby Jr.

Trivia: American character actor Vito Scotti may not be the living legend as described by his publicity packet, but he has certainly been one of the most familiar faces to bob up on small and large screens in the last five decades. Scotti's father was a vaudeville impresario, and his mother an opera singer; in fact, he was born while his mother was making a personal appearance in San Francisco. Launching his own career at seven with an Italian-language commedia del arte troupe in New York, Scotti picked up enough improvisational knowhow to develop a nightclub act. When the once-flourishing Italian theatre circuit began to fade after World War II, Scotti began auditioning for every job that came up -- whether he could do the job or not. Without his trademarked mustache, the diminuitive actor looked like a juvenile well into his thirties, and as such was cast in a supporting role as a timorous East Indian on the "Gunga Ram" segment of the '50s TV kiddie series Andy's Gang. Once the producers discovered that Scotti had mastered several foreign dialects, he was allowed to appear as a comic foil to Andy's Gang's resident puppet Froggy the Gremlin. In nighttime television, Scotti played everything from a murderous bank robber (on Steve Canyon) to a misplaced Japanese sub commander (on Gilligan's Island). He was indispensable to TV sitcoms: Scotti starred during the 1954 season of Life with Luigi (replacing J. Carroll Naish), then appeared as gesticulating Latin types in a score of comedy programs, notably The Dick Van Dyke Show (as eccentric Italian housepainter Vito Giotto) and The Flying Nun (as ever-suspicious Puerto Rican police captain Gaspar Fomento). In theatrical films, Scotti's appearances were brief but memorable. he is always greeted with appreciative audience laughter for his tiny bit as a restauranteur in The Godfather (1972); while in How Sweet it Is (1968) he is hilarious as a moonstruck chef, so overcome by the sight of bikini-clad Debbie Reynolds that he begins kissing her navel! Vito Scotti was still essaying dialect parts into the '90s.

Trivia: An American-born actor reared in Ireland and England, McGoohan made a memorable impression on the American and English viewing audiences by playing essentially the same role in three different television series. He began his performing career as a teen-ager, eventually played Henry V for the Old Vic company in London, and made mostly unremarkable films in the '50s. His movies include the delightful Disney film The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964). Success came in 1961, when McGoohan played government agent John Drake in Danger Man, a role he continued on Secret Agent (1965-66). He created, produced and often wrote episodes of the nightmarish, surrealistic cult series The Prisoner (1968-69). This show featured a character assumed to be the same John Drake (although he was known as Number 6 and his real name was never mentioned), who had been kidnapped and taken to a strange community. McGoohan later starred in the TV series Rafferty (1977) and directed the film Catch My Soul (1974). He won an Emmy Award in 1975 for his guest appearance on Columbo with Peter Falk.

Trivia: Publicity notwithstanding, Lesley Ann Warren did not exactly burst fully grown into the world in 1966 to star in the Rodgers and Hammerstein TV special Cinderella. Trained at New York's Professional Children's School, Lesley Ann studied under Lee Strasberg before making her Broadway debut in 110 in the Shade, the 1964 musical version of The Rainmaker. On the strength of Cinderella, Lesley Ann was signed to a Disney contract; but after starring in The Happiest Millionaire (1966) and The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band, she rebelled against her studio-imposed sweetness-'n'-light image. Upon replacing Barbara Bain in the long-running espionage TVer Mission: Impossible in 1970, Warren publicly emphasized that her character, Dana Lambert, was a "now" person, wise in the ways of sex. She stayed with Mission for only a year, after which she established herself as a leading light in the made-for-TV movie field, frequently cast as an older woman involved romantically with a much-younger man. She earned an Academy Award nomination for her hilarious performance as bleach-blond gangster's moll Norma in Victor/Victoria (1981), then starred in a couple of intriguing Alan Rudolph-directed dramas, Choose Me (1984) and The Songwriter (1986). Her more recent roles include Molly, the homeless woman in Mel Brooks' Life Stinks(1991), who goes into a "death throes" act whenever she feels like it, and the barracuda booking agent for c-and-w star George Strait in Pure Country (1994). For nearly a decade, Lesley Ann Warren was the wife of producer/hairstylist Jon Peters.