Trivia: Scion of a wealthy New York City family, Rick Jason managed to get himself expelled from eight different prep schools before finally graduating with acceptable grades from the Rhodes School. Following World War II service, Jason attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts on the GI Bill. He was discovered for the theatre by actor/director Hume Cronyn, who cast Jason as an Ecuadorian Indian in the brief Broadway production Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. After making his movie bow in 1952's Sombrero, Jason could be seen in lightweight second-lead roles in such films as The Lieutenant Wore Skirts (1955) and The Wayward Bus (1957). In 1960, he was cast as a tuxedoed secret agent on the syndicated TV series The Case of the Dangerous Robin. Two years later, he signed up for a five-season hitch as Lt. Gil Hanley on the popular TV war drama Combat. For the first time in his life, Jason found himself subjected to the fan-magazine publicity glare, raising eyebrows by marrying three women during a period of 19 months! Rick Jason's post-Combat career hasn't been quite so remarkable, with appearances in such second-echelon features as Color Me Dead (1969) and The Witch Who Came From the Sea (1976).

Trivia: Jack Hogan is a character actor and leading man best known for his work in television -- most notably as Private Kirby on the long-running 1960s series Combat! -- and in action films and dramas. Born Richard Roland Benson, Jr. in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1929, he briefly studied architecture at the University of North Carolina before entering the army in 1948, which took him to stations in the Far East. After leaving the service in 1952, he decided to try his hand at acting, and received training at the Pasadena Playhouse in California and the American Theatre Wing in New York. His screen career began in 1956 with the western in Man From Del Rio, starring Anthony Quinn and Katy Jurado. Two years later, he played "Guy Darrow" (sic), the film-a-clef stand-in for the notorious Depression-era bank robber Clyde Barrow in William Witney's The Bonnie Parker Story (1958), starring Dorothy Provine. And that same year, he co-starred with Michael Landon in Ted Post's The Story of Tom Dooley. Hogan appeared in episodes of Have Gun, Will Travel and Bonanza over the next few years, interspersed with occasional film work, until the series Combat! came along in 1962. Hired by director Robert Altman, who shepherded the series through its early stages, Hogan portrayed Private William Kirby in the middle of a strong cast headed by Vic Morrow and Rick Jason, and also including notable character actors Dick Peabody, Pierre Jalbert, and Conlan Carter. He still managed to stand out -- his Private William Kirby (nicknamed "Wild Man" back home) was a sometime screw-up, a skirt-chaser, and complainer, but also a top man with a BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) and exactly the kind of soldier any sergeant would want in a tight spot. Hogan was perfect in the role, completely convincing in the action scenes, yet also the valid butt of jokes from his comrades (when one too-young recruit is being shipped home at the end of one episode and promises to be back in two years, he adds that "you guys will probably have this wrapped up by then," to which Vic Morrow's Sgt. Saunders, looking at Hogan after the boy leaves, says, "With you on our side, Kirby, it might be ten.")Following the series' cancellation, Hogan continued to work in television, on programs such as Adam-12, and also had a short-lived series called Sierra. He retired from acting in the 1980s and moved to Hawaii, where he founded a construction business, also working as casting director on Magnum, P.I. and appearing on Jake And The Fat Man. And thanks to the release of Combat! on DVD, and the series' being rerun on ME-TV, he is finding a whole new generation of fans for his work on the series in the twenty-first century.

Trivia: Anjanette Comer, as a teenager, was one of those hyperkinetic types involved in every extracurricular activity available, including basketball, cheerleading and beauty contests. After attending Baylor University for a short period, 18-year-old Anjanette came to California. She planned to enroll in either UCLA or the Pasadena Playhouse; the Playhouse won. Toting up lots of TV credits on shows like Gunsmoke, Arrest and Trial, Anjanette made her first film appearance in 1965's Quick Before it Melts (1965), where she was exotically cast as a Maori girl. She then landed one of the most bizarre assignments of the 1965-66 season: in the jet-black comedy The Loved One, she played Aimee Thanatogenos, who commits suicide by embalming herself! Anjanette's movie activity dropped off in 1970 after she played Ruth in the film version of John Updike's Rabbit Run (1970); she later claimed she let her love life interfere with her work. Anjanette Comer's most recent films include Fire Sale (1977) and the made-for-TV The Long Summer of George Adams (1983).

Trivia: Actor Ted Knight dropped out of high school in order to enlist for World War II service. During the postwar years, Knight studied acting in Hartford, Connecticut. He became proficient with puppets and ventriloquism, which led to steady work as a TV kiddie-show host. Knight spent most of the 1950s and 1960s doing commercial voice-overs and essaying minor TV and movie roles (he was the nonspeaking cop who handed Norman Bates a robe at the end of Hitchcock's Psycho [1960]). Just barely making ends meet with TV guest spots and cartoon voices, Knight was rescued professionally in 1970 when he was cast in the role of vainglorious TV anchorman Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Three years into the series, Knight threatened to quit because of the one-note stupidity of his character. He was assuaged when the MTM producers "humanized" him with an understanding girlfriend (played by Georgia Engel) -- and it didn't hurt that the actor later won two Emmy awards for his portrayal of the clueless Ted Baxter. When MTM left the air in 1977, Knight attempted to headline a sitcom of his own. After a couple of false starts, he struck pay dirt in 1980 with Too Close for Comfort, playing a comic-strip artist with two nubile daughters. Too Close left the network for syndication in 1984, then matriculated into The Ted Knight Show in 1985. Though gravely ill, Ted Knight valiantly taped a years' worth of episodes before succumbing to cancer at the age of 62.