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: His father was a World War I flying ace, and his mother was a silent film actress. His name was Richard Cox until he changed it to Dick Sargent, fearing that casting directors of the 1950s would assume he was trying to capitalize on the success of then-hot TV star Wally Cox. In films since 1957's Bernardine, Sargent was also a regular on several one-season-wonder TV series of the '60s; his oddest gig was on the very short-lived The Tammy Grimes Show (1966), playing the star's twin brother. Sargent's latter-day fame rests with his five-season (1969-73) tenure as the "second Darrin Stevens" on the weekly sitcom Bewitched. "I don't know why (Dick York) quit the show" commented Sargent at the time he succeeded York as Darrin. "I just thank God that he did." At the peak of his popularity, Sargent listed a failed first marriage on his studio biography. This, however, was a subterfuge, calculated to keep the actor's homosexuality a secret. Many years after the cancellation of Bewitched, Sargent became incensed at California governor Pete Wilson's veto of a gay-rights bill. At this point, the actor deliberately put his career on the line by making public his own sexual orientation. Thus, Sargent was one of the first major Hollywood actors to voluntarily come out of the closet without the spectre of AIDS hanging over him. Dick Sargent died of prostate cancer at the reported age of 61.

Trivia: At age three Agnes Moorehead first appeared onstage, and at 11 she made her professional debut in the ballet and chorus of the St. Louis Opera. As a teenager she regularly sang on local radio. She earned a Ph.D. in literature and studied theater at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She began playing small roles on Broadway in 1928; shortly thereafter she shifted her focus to radio acting, becoming a regular on the radio shows March of Time, Cavalcade of America, and a soap opera series. She toured in vaudeville from 1933-36 with Phil Baker. In 1940 she joined Orson Welles's Mercury Theater Company, giving a great boost to her career. Moorehead debuted onscreen as Kane's mother in Welles' film Citizen Kane (1941). Her second film was Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), for which she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination; ultimately she was nominated for an Oscars five times, never winning. In films, she tended to play authoritarian, neurotic, puritanical, or soured women, but also played a wide range of other roles, and was last onscreen in 1972. In the '50s she toured the U.S. with a stellar cast giving dramatic readings of Shaw's Don Juan in Hell. In 1954 she began touring in The Fabulous Redhead, a one-woman show she eventually took to over 200 cities across the world. She was also active on TV; later audiences remember her best as the witch Endora, Elizabeth Montgomery's mother, in the '60s TV sitcom Bewitched. Moorehead's last professional engagement was in the Broadway musical Gigi. She died of lung cancer in 1974. She was married to actors John Griffith Lee (1930-52) and Robert Gist (1953-58).

Trivia: Character actor David White is best remembered for playing advertising executive Larry Tate on the popular '60s sitcom Bewitched (1964-1972), but he began his career as a movie actor in 1957 with The Sweet Smell of Success. White died of a heart attack in 1990. He was married to actress Mary Welch.

Trivia: Veteren performer Sandra Gould was probably best known for her recurring role as Gladys Kravitz on the popular TV series Bewitched. Gould started her acting career at the age of nine, appearing on stage and on radio. She was a very prolific presence on radio as an adult performer. When she made the switch to television, she was just as hardworking. Some of the many programs she was featured on include The Twilight Zone, The Flintstones (on which she voiced the character of Betty Rubble), and My Three Sons. Later in life, she made appearances on the Kirstie Alley sitcom Veronica's Closet, as well as on another, more popular NBC sitcom, Friends. She passed away from a stroke, in Burbank, CA, on July 20, 1999, shortly before her 83rd birthday.

Trivia: Average in looks but above average in talent, New York native George Tobias launched his acting career at his hometown's Pasadena Playhouse. He then spent several years with the Provincetown Players before moving on to Broadway and, ultimately, Hollywood. Entering films in 1939, Tobias' career shifted into first when he was signed by Warner Bros., where he played everything from good-hearted truck drivers to shifty-eyed bandits. Tobias achieved international fame in the 1960s by virtue of his weekly appearances as long-suffering neighbor Abner Kravitz on the TV sitcom Bewitched; he'd previously been a regular on the obscure Canadian adventure series Hudson's Bay. Though he frequently portrayed browbeaten husbands, George Tobias was a lifelong bachelor.

Trivia: Hatchet-faced character actor Charles Lane has been one of the most instantly recognizable non-stars in Hollywood for more than half a century. Lane has been a familiar figure in movies (and, subsequently, on television) for 60 years, portraying crotchety, usually miserly, bad-tempered bankers and bureaucrats. Lane was born Charles Levison in San Francisco in 1899 (some sources give his year of birth as 1905). He learned the ropes of acting at the Pasadena Playhouse during the middle/late '20s, appearing in the works of Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Noel Coward before going to Hollywood in 1930, just as sound was fully taking hold. He was a good choice for character roles, usually playing annoying types with his high-pitched voice and fidgety persona, encompassing everything from skinflint accountants to sly, fast-talking confidence men -- think of an abrasive version of Bud Abbott. His major early roles included the stage manager Max Jacobs in Twentieth Century and the tax assessor in You Can't Take It With You. One of the busier character men in Hollywood, Lane was a particular favorite of Frank Capra's, and he appeared in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Arsenic and Old Lace, It's a Wonderful Life -- with a particularly important supporting part in the latter -- and State of the Union. He played in every kind of movie from screwball comedy like Ball of Fire to primordial film noir, such as I Wake Up Screaming. As Lane grew older, he tended toward more outrageously miserly parts, in movies and then on television, where he turned up Burns & Allen, I Love Lucy, and Dear Phoebe, among other series. Having successfully played a tight-fisted business manager hired by Ricky Ricardo to keep Lucy's spending in line in one episode of I Love Lucy (and, later, the U.S. border guard who nearly arrests the whole Ricardo clan and actor Charles Boyer at the Mexican border in an episode of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour), Lane was a natural choice to play Lucille Ball's nemesis on The Lucy Show. Her first choice for the money-grubbing banker would have been Gale Gordon, but as he was already contractually committed to the series Dennis the Menace, she hired Lane to play Mr. Barnsdahl, the tight-fisted administrator of her late-husband's estate during the first season of the show. Lane left the series after Gordon became available to play the part of Mr. Mooney, but in short order he moved right into the part that came very close to making him a star. The CBS country comedy series Petticoat Junction needed a semi-regular villain and Lane just fit the bill as Homer Bedloe, the greedy, bad-tempered railroad executive whose career goal was to shut down the Cannonball railroad that served the town of Hooterville. He became so well-known in the role, which he only played once or twice a season, that at one point Lane found himself in demand for personal appearance tours. In later years, he also turned up in roles on The Beverly Hillbillies, playing Jane Hathaway's unscrupulous landlord, and did an excruciatingly funny appearance on The Odd Couple in the mid-'70s, playing a manic, greedy patron at the apartment sale being run by Felix and Oscar. Lane also did his share of straight dramatic roles, portraying such parts as Tony Randall's nastily officious IRS boss in the comedy The Mating Game (1959), the crusty River City town constable in The Music Man (1962) (which put Lane into the middle of a huge musical production number), the wryly cynical, impatient judge in the James Garner comedy film The Wheeler-Dealers (1963), and portraying Admiral William Standley in The Winds of War (1983), based on Herman Wouk's novel. He was still working right up until the late '80s, and David Letterman booked the actor to appear on his NBC late-night show during the middle of that decade, though his appearance on the program was somewhat disappointing and sad; the actor, who was instantly recognized by the studio audience, was then in his early nineties and had apparently not done live television in many years (if ever), and apparently hadn't been adequately prepped. He seemed confused and unable to say much about his work, which was understandable -- the nature of his character parts involved hundreds of roles that were usually each completed in a matter or two or three days shooting, across almost 60 years. Lane died at 102, in July 2007 - about 20 years after his last major film appearance.

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: 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.