Trivia: Though actor George Peppard could have succeeded on his looks alone, he underwent extensive training before making his first TV and Broadway appearances. The son of a building contractor and a singer, Peppard studied acting at Carnegie Tech and the Actor's Studio. His early TV credits include the original 1956 production of Bang the Drum Slowly, in which he sang the title song. He made his film debut in 1957, repeating his Broadway role in Calder Willingham's End As a Man, retitled The Strange One for the screen. His star continued to ascend in such films as Home From the Hill (1960) with George Hamilton, and Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) as the boyfriend/chronicler of carefree Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn). He was also effective as James Stewart's son in How the West Was Won (1962), a characterization that required him to age 30 years, and as the Howard Hughes counterpart in The Carpetbaggers (1963), in which he co-starred with the second of his five wives, Elizabeth Ashley. In 1978 he made a respectable directorial debut with Five Days From Home, but never followed up on this. A familiar television presence, he starred on the TV series Banacek (1972-1973), Doctors Hospital (1975), and The A-Team (1983-1987), and delivered a powerhouse performance as the title character in the 1974 TV-movie Guilty or Innocent: The Sam Sheppard Case. Forced to retire because of illness, George Peppard died of cancer in the spring of 1994.

Trivia: Movie and TV leading man Dirk Benedict was young, handsome, muscular and enthusiastic. These qualities were far more important than versatility in establishing Benedict as a dependable screen presence in the 1970s. His theatrical films include Scavenger Hunt (1979), Body Slam (1987), and Shadow Force (1992), their subject matter implicit in their titles. Far more successful on series television than in films, Dirk Benedict played Officer Gil Foley on Chopper One (1974), Starbuck on Battlestar Gallactica (1978), and master impressionist Templeton "Face" Peck on The A-Team (1983-87).

Trivia: With muscle-bound arms bulging from his sleeveless tank tops, a mohawk, and enough gold jewelry to enrich a small nation, gruff, tough Mr. T was certainly one of the most recognizable television stars of the early '80s. Though more of a personality than a bona fide actor, he has appeared in several features, but is best known for playing no-nonsense ex-soldier B.A. Baracus on the hit action-drama The A-Team (1983-1987). Prior to that, Mr. T had played character roles in four feature films. Born Lawrence Tureaud in a tough southside Chicago project, he was the second youngest of 12 siblings. His father abandoned the family when Tureaud was five, leaving his mother to raise her huge family alone in a three-bedroom apartment on less than 100 dollars a month from welfare. Tureaud was devoted to his mother, and though he got into a little trouble during early adolescence, straightened himself out so as not to shame her by getting thrown in jail. Following graduation from Dunbar Vocational High School, Tureaud attended college. His football skills landed him a scholarship to Prairie View A & M University in Texas, but he was expelled after one year. Tureaud qualified for other sports scholarships and so continued his education until joining the Army and serving as a military policeman. Following his discharge, he was recruited by the Green Bay Packers, but suffered a serious knee injury and so became a bodyguard for stars such as Muhammad Ali, Michael Jackson, and Diana Ross. He also worked as a bouncer. In 1970, he changed his name to Lawrence Tero and shortly thereafter shortened it to Mr. T. In the mid-'70s, he worked as a gym teacher in Chicago. It was Sylvester Stallone who offered him his first acting job after Stallone saw the beefy black bouncer on the TV show Games People Play. Stallone was so impressed by Mr. T's agile strength that he cast him in Rocky III (1982). Mr. T was at his peak popularity, particularly with young boys, while on The A-Team. At one point a toy company even created a Mr. T action figure. He also had a breakfast cereal named after him. Following his series' demise, Mr. T's acting career has been sporadic. Over the course of the next few decades, small roles in film (Not Another Teen Movie) and television (Martin, Malcolm and Eddie) helped the amiable tough guy remain a recognizable pop culture icon, but in 2011 Mr. T began hosting World's Craziest Fools, an irreverent, clip-based show featuring criminal blunders and side-splitting mishaps captured on amateur video footage and CCTV.

Trivia: Though a fifteen-year show business veteran, Dwight Schultz was largely unknown until 1983. That was the year that the TV Addicts of America were introduced to Captain H. M. "Howling Mad" Murdock, the asylum-escapee airplane pilot for The A-Team. It is to Schultz's credit that he was able to portray a certifiable looney while still remaining personable and even lovable. On both sides of his A-Team obligations, Schultz appeared in films like The Fan (1981, as Broadway actress Lauren Bacall's director) and Fat Man and Little Boy (1989, as J. Robert Oppenheimer). In the late 1980s, Dwight Schultz could be occasionally seen as Lieutenant Barclay in TV's Star Trek: the Next Generation.

Trivia: Rafael Campos moved from the Dominican Republic to New York City at the age of fourteen. After appearing in a handful of Spanish-language plays, Campos rose to fame portraying troubled Hispanic youths in such films as The Blackboard Jungle (1955), Trial (1955) and Dino (1957). His gift for comedy was seldom touched upon, save for his role as a college-bound busboy in 1957's This Could Be the Night. Campos both acted and directed on the New York stage, making his Broadway debut in Infidel Caesar. He also essayed important roles in the TV series Rhoda (as Ramon Diaz Jr.) and Centennial (as Nacho) and wrote articles for Manhattan-based Spanish publications. Rafael Campo's last film was 1985's Fever Pitch, directed by his Blackboard Jungle mentor Richard Brooks.

Trivia: Six feet tall by the time he was twelve, Richard Moll would eventually peak at 6'8". To ward off jokes about his height, Moll adopted the "class clown" pose in school, eventually developing a taste for play-acting. Moving from his hometown of Pasadena to Hollywood in 1968, Moll spent the next decade or so with various theatrical troupes, and for a while toured schools in the role of Abraham Lincoln. Whenever he made the movie and TV casting rounds, Moll was greeted with an astonished "What a monster!"; thus, a monster he became, playing a steady succession of "bikers and snake men and one-eyed mutants." He was one of the title characters in the 1972 TV movie Gargoyles, was seen as an abominable snowman in Caveman (1981), and played various and assorted hulking goons in such adventure flicks as Metalstorm (1982) and The Sword and the Sorceror (1984). He was finally allowed to exhibit his "human" side--not to mention his considerable flair for light comedy--as court guard Bull Shannon on the long-running (1984-92) TV sitcom Night Court. Back to monstrosities and villains again in the 1990s--this time by choice rather than necessity-- Richard Moll has continued appearing in sizeable (in more ways than one) TV guest-star roles, and has lent his vocal talents to the role of Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face, in Batman: The Animated Series.

Trivia: John Ashley should be a familiar name and face to anyone who attended a drive-in double feature in the 1950s. Ashley starred or co-starred in such passion-pit fodder as Hot Rod Gang (1958), How to Make a Monster (1958), Frankenstein's Daughter (1959) and High School Caesar (1960). In 1961, Ashley co-starred with future Flipper leading man Brian Kelly in the short-lived TV action series Straightaway. Ashley switched his base of operations to the Philippines in the 1960s and 1970s, frequently wearing several hats as actor, producer, director and scriptwriter. Films like Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969) may not have been cited at the annual Oscar ceremonies, but they paid the bills many times over for the peripatetic Ashley. In the 1980s, Ashley hooked up with television producer Stephen J. Cannell to work on such series as The A-Team. He later teamed with Frank Lupo to executive or co-executive produce such series as Walker, Texas Ranger (1983), Werewolf (1987) and Something is Out There (1988). In the mid-'90s, Ashley began working as an in-house producer for Tri-Star Television. On October 4, 1997, John Ashley was working on the film Scarred City in New York, when he suffered a fatal heart attack.