Trivia: The daughter of film star Robert Montgomery, Elizabeth Montgomery made her television bow on her father's popular 1950s anthology series. Her first film was 1955's The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell, for which she was generously reviewed as one of the most dynamic young actresses of her time. Often cast in hypertense roles, Montgomery won an Emmy for her portrayal of a conniving gun moll on a 1959 episode of TV's The Untouchables. She shifted to domestic comedy with ease in the role of Samantha Stephens, the attractive witch heroine of the long-running (1964-1973) TV sitcom Bewitched. After this project folded, Montgomery returned to dramatic roles with a vengeance, spending the next two decades starring as abused, beleaguered women in such TV movies as A Case of Rape (1974) and The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975). In her last made-for-TV project, Montgomery portrayed real-life reporter Edna Buchanan. Among Elizabeth Montgomery's husbands were actors Gig Young, producer/director William Asher, and Robert Foxworth.

Trivia: Actor Dick York started out as a child performer on radio, playing important roles in such airwaves favorites as Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy. In the early '50s, York began showing up in New York-based instructional films, including a now-infamous reel about proper dating etiquette. Establishing himself as one of Broadway's most versatile young character actors, he was seen in such major productions as Tea and Sympathy, Bus Stop, and Night of the Auk. In films from 1955, York's most famous movie role was schoolteacher Bertram Cates in Inherit the Wind, the 1960 dramatization of the Scopes Monkey Trial. Though a prolific TV guest star, he didn't settle down on a weekly series until 1962, when he co-starred with Gene Kelly and Leo G. Carroll in a short-lived video adaptation of Going My Way. Two years later, he landed his signature role: Darren Stephens, the eternally flustered husband of glamorous witch Samantha Stephens (Elizabeth Montgomery), in Bewitched. He remained with the series until 1969, when a recurring back ailment (the legacy of an on-set injury suffered while filming the 1959 feature They Came to Cordura) forced York to relinquish the role of Darren to Dick Sargent. Though he was for all intents and purposes retired from acting, York remained active on behalf of several pro-social causes. He was the founder of Acting for Life, an organization designed to help the homeless help themselves. Living a spartan existence in Grand Rapids, MI, an increasingly infirm Dick York tirelessly continued giving of himself for the benefit of others until his death from emphysema in 1992.

Trivia: Beefy, bulldog-visaged actor Robert Strauss was the son of a theatrical costume designer. Strauss tried his hand at a number of odd jobs before he, too, answered the call of the theater. His best-known Broadway role was the dimwitted, Betty Grable-loving Animal in Stalag 17, a role that he recreated for the 1953 film version, and was Oscar nominated for his efforts. Though he'd been seen onscreen as early as 1942, Strauss' film career didn't really take off until he garnered positive notices for Animal. He spent most of the 1950s at Paramount, working with everyone from William Holden to Jerry Lewis. In 1971, after several distinguished years in the business, Robert Strauss found himself the object of showbiz-column scrutiny when he agreed to co-star in the Danish "soft core" sex farce Dagmar's Hot Pants.

Trivia: American actor Steve Franken was the son of a Hollywood press agent, thus he grew up discoursing in the highly stylized trade-magazine lingo that every show-business functionary was required to learn in the '40s and '50s. Sustaining himself as a stage actor in 1960, Franken was appearing in a Los Angeles production of Say Darling when he was spotted by Rod Amateau, producer-director of the TV sitcom Dobie Gillis. Amateau was looking for someone to play the insufferable rich-boy nemesis of Dobie, a role recently vacated by Warren Beatty. Thus Franken's first assignment on a Hollywood soundstage was in the role of Chatsworth Osborne Jr., snotty young millionaire overachiever (the character had been called "Milton Armitage" when Beatty played it). The character's trademark was a pained look of condescension, which Franken attributed to an ulcer that he'd suffered since the age of 14, when his mother died. Not really a regular on Dobie Gillis, Franken found himself at the unemployment office between his "Chatsworth" stints, and understandably grew to resent the character he played so well. When he did receive an outside job, it was generally as a Chatsworth type, so when Dobie Gillis ended its run in 1963, Franken sought out as many villainous roles as possible--after another "rich buddy" stint on the short-lived series Tom, Dick and Mary. Some of the actor's best work can be caught in reruns of such '60s TV series as Perry Mason and The Wild Wild West. Still, Franken didn't work as often as he should, and it was his contention that Dobie Gillis had all but ruined his career. Steve Franken persevered into the '70s and '80s, notably as an actor/director on the popular religious TV anthology Insight, with frequent appearances on the Jerry Lewis Telethons and in occasional character roles in such films as Westworld (1973).