Trivia: During his days of prominence in the '80s, handsome, powerfully built American actor Gregory Harrison became the unofficial poster boy of the Catalina Island chamber of commerce. As a native of that offshore isle, Harrison frequently guested on talk and variety shows, elucidating the natural wonders of both Catalina and the Avalon resort. A graduate of New York's Actors Studio, Harrison briefly supported himself as a nightclub doorman before securing small film and TV roles. Harrison's most memorable credits were for the small screen: He played Logan 5 on Logan's Run (1977), Michael Sharpe on the final 1989-90 season of Falcon Crest, and the title role in the brief 1990 sitcom The Family Man. Harrison's longest TV-series run was seven seasons (1979-86) as "Gonzo" Gates, the Vietnam-vet doctor on Trapper John MD (1979-86).

Trivia: British actor Timothy Dalton has excelled in roles calling for both panache and psychological complexity. His stage training has included stints at the National Youth Theatre, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and the star-making Birmingham Repertory. Dalton's extensive work in the classics with the Royal Shakespeare Company led to his being cast as King Philip of France in the film The Lion in Winter (1968). In 1971, Dalton appeared in Mary, Queen of Scots, simultaneously launching a lengthy romantic involvement with that film's star, Vanessa Redgrave. When Roger Moore quit the James Bond film series in 1986, it looked for a while as though his successor would be television star Pierce Brosnan; instead, the Bond producers made the eleventh-hour decision to cast Dalton as secret agent 007 in The Living Daylights. Though dashing in a tuxedo and more than willing to perform his own stunts, Dalton was more effectively felt in the role of the dastardly movie swashbuckler-cum-Nazi spy in the breezy sci-fi film The Rocketeer (1991).Dalton would find his niche in the 90's and 2000's appearing in several made-for-TV productions, like 1992's Framed, and 1994's Scarlett, a mini-series based on Gone with the Wind in which Dalton played Rhett Butler. He would go on to appear in several more TV movies, like Hercules and Marple: The Sittaford Mystery. Dalton's also taken on numerous stage roles, notably playing Lord Asriel in the theater production of His Dark Materials in 2004.In 2007 he spoofed his own persona ever so lovingly in the action comedy Hot Fuzz. He became part of the Pixar family by voicing one of the dramatically inclined plaything in Toy Story 3. That same year he had a major part in the infamous bomb The Tourist.

Trivia: Specializing in comedic roles, Lynn Redgrave made significant contributions to her illustrious family's five-generation-long reputation for producing fine British actors. The daughter of actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson and the sister of actors Corin and Vanessa Redgrave, the London-born Redgrave studied acting at the Central School of Music and Drama. She first appeared on-stage in a 1962 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Royal Court Theatre. She was next invited by Sir Laurence Olivier to become one of the first members in Britain's National Theatre. There she appeared in Hamlet opposite her father and Peter O'Toole for three years as well as in many other prestigious productions. Redgrave made her feature-film debut in Tony Richardson's ribald Tom Jones (1963). She then had a starring role in The Girl With Green Eyes (1964), but did not become an international star until she played the plump and pathetic protagonist in Georgy Girl (1966). Her work earned her an Oscar nomination and a Best Actress award from the New York Film Critics and led to her playing leading roles in a number of films on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1974, Redgrave immigrated to the U.S. She eventually lost a lot of weight and became a fine comic actress, noted for her unabashed naughty sense of humor. For a while, she was a popular guest on the television talk show/game show circuit as well as a popular spokesperson for the Weight Watchers diet organization. Her '70s film appearances ran the gamut from Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask (1972) to playing the title role in The Happy Hooker (1975). Redgrave also appeared in television movies and in the series House Calls (1979-1981), Teachers Only (1982-1983), and Chicken Soup (1989). In the late '90s, Redgrave staged a successful one-woman show, Shakespeare for My Father. In 1996, Redgrave won acclaim for her portrayal of the loving astrologer who married troubled pianist David Helfgott in Scott Hicks' Shine. Redgrave died of breast cancer at age 67 in May 2010.

Trivia: A college football star at the University of Iowa, Alex Karras turned professional in 1958, spending the next 14 years with the Detroit Lions. Karras went on to be selected All-Pro in 1960, 1961, 1963 and 1965. While still with Detroit, he made his first film appearance in Paper Lion (1969). His appetite for show business further whetted by his work in the announcing booth on ABC's Monday Night Football, Karras became a full-time actor in 1971. He displayed a keen sense of comic timing in such roles as Mongo in Blazing Saddles (1974) and gangster James Garner's gay henchman (who literally comes out of the closet) in Victor/Victoria (1981). He often appeared opposite his wife, actress Susan Clark. Mr. and Mrs. Karras co-starred in the TV biopic Babe (1975), the raunchy but successful Porky's, and the long-running (1983-87) TV sitcom Webster. In addition to his thespic activities, Karras co-authored several books, including Even Big Guys Cry (1977) and Alex Karras: My Life in Football (1979). Karras suffered from numerous health problems in his later years, including dementia and cancer, before ultimately succumbing to kidney failure at the age of 77 in 2012.

Trivia: Manila-born leading lady Cristina Raines began showing up in American movies and TV programs in the early 1970s. Raines was seen in the small part of Maria in Robert Altman's Nashville (1975), and was confined to flashbacks as the "late" Kate Hayden in the 1973 TV movie Sunshine. Her most memorable movie role was Alison Parker, unwilling gatekeeper of Hades, in the 1977 horrorama The Sentinel. From 1980 through 1981, Cristina Raines played casino singer Lane Ballou on the prime time TV soaper Flamingo Road.

Trivia: For those who grew up in the 1980s, many will remember hating actor William Atherton for his hissable characters in such films as Ghostbusters (1984) and Real Genius (1985). Specializing in heady, clueless bureaucrats who never cease to hinder the protagonist and who often get what's coming to them before the credits roll, Atherton is one of those busy character actors who audiences are not likely to forget, even if they can't remember where they know him from. A Connecticut native who got his start on the stage while still in high school, Atherton would subsequently move on to become the youngest member ever accepted into New Haven's Long Wharf Theater repertory. Studies at the Pasadena Playhouse and Carnegie Tech led Atherton to pursue more theater roles, and a few short years later the seasoned stage actor made his leap to the big screen with The New Centurions (1972). A role in Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express (1974) found Atherton's feature career getting off to a solid start, and the fledgling actor would continue career momentum with featured roles in The Hindenburg (1975) and Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977). In the 1980s Atherton would develop a convincingly weasel-like persona with roles as the popcorn-hating professor of Real Genius and a relentlessly obnoxious EPA agent who unleashes a nightmare upon New York in Ghostbusters. Following up with a memorably sleazy reporter in Die Hard (1988) and its sequel, Atherton would remain busy in the 1990s with roles in The Pelican Brief (1993), Bio-Dome (1996), Hoodlum, and Mad City (both 1997). The millennial turnover found Atherton appearing in such fare as The Crow: Salvation (2000) and Race to Space (2001), and as 2003 approached his feature career seemed to be having a bit of a resurgence with such major releases as Who's Your Daddy? and The Last Samurai.

Trivia: Like his brothers Bill Vint and Alan Vint, American actor Jesse Vint got his start in "regional" films lensed in the Southwest for the drive-in crowd. Jesse has played mainstream roles in Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974) and in the 1980 TV movie Belle Starr (as outlaw Bob Dalton). Occasionally wandering to the other side of the cameras, Vint has functioned as writer, producer and director, often under the auspices of another "good ole boy" actor-turned-producer, Max Baer. Jesse Vint wrote and directed Another Chance, and produced and wrote Hometown USA, both of which graced small-town cinemas by the end of the 1970s.

Trivia: American actor Cliff DeYoung began a stop-and-start film career with Pilgrimage in 1972; most of his work for the next several years was on stage and in television. DeYoung starred in the very brief 1975 TV series Sunshine, playing a widowed musician raising a young stepdaughter; the series was a spin-off of the 1973 TV movie of the same name, which also starred DeYoung. The actor also played the lead role of a blinded Vietnam vet in the Joseph Papp-produced CBS drama special Sticks and Bones (1973) which was blacked out by many affiliates due to its vitriolic antiwar stance. Three years later, DeYoung played Charles Lindbergh (to whom he bore a daunting resemblance) in the 1976 made-for-TV Lindbergh Kidnapping Case. After his attention-grabbing appearance in the 1983 horror film The Hunger, Cliff DeYoung concentrated on movie roles, with occasional returns to TV in such productions as the 1985 miniseries Robert Kennedy and His Times.

Trivia: African American character actor Glynn R. Turman was first introduced to the general public as Lew Miles, teen-aged son of Dr. Harry Miles (Percy Rodrigues) and his wife, Alma (Ruby Dee), during the 1968-1969 season of the prime-time TV soap opera Peyton Place. Turman went on to star as Chicago high schooler Leroy "Preach" Jackson in the 1975 film sleeper Cooley High. Settling into character roles in the 1980s, Turman was most often seen as judges, military officers, police detectives, and well-to-do patriarches. A departure from these "establishment" assignments was Turman's star turn in the 1981 TV-movie Thornwell, in which he portrayed real-life soldier James Thornwell, who accused the U.S. Army of subjecting him to illegal mind-controlling drugs. Turman's weekly series roles have included Secretary of State LaRue Hawkes in 1985's Hail to the Chief, and Colonel Bradford Taylor (aka "Dr. War") in the popular Cosby Show spin-off A Different World (1988-1993); he also appeared in the 1983 pilot episode of Manimal as Ty Earl, a role essayed by Michael D. Roberts in the series proper. In the 2000s, Turman played the memorable role of fictional Baltimore mayor Clarence V. Royce on the critically acclaimed HBO series The Wire. Also on HBO, he appeared in a few episodes of the psychotherapy drama In Treatment, winning an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his role as the tough, strict father of Blair Underwood's troubled fighter pilot. In the years to come, Turman would remain active on screen, appearing on shows like The Defenders and House of Lies.

Trivia: American actor Richard Crenna started out as a radio performer at age 11, demonstrating an astonishing range for one so young. The momentum of his career was unaffected by an army hitch and time spent earning an English degree at the University of Southern California. But even though he was by then in his twenties, Crenna found himself still playing adolescents, notably squeaky-voiced high schooler Walter Denton on the radio comedy Our Miss Brooks. That he was able to play characters of virtually any age was overlooked by movie and TV casting directors, who could see Crenna only in callow-juvenile roles. After making an excellent impression as ballplayer Daffy Dean in the 1953 film Pride of St. Louis, for example, Crenna wasn't cast in another film until the 1955 movie version of Our Miss Brooks--in which, at 29, he was Walter Denton once more. The following year, Crenna decided "to sorta let Walter Denton die," and took a decidedly mature role in the sleazy exploitation film Over-Exposed (1956). It was a fully grown Crenna who took on the role of Luke McCoy on the Walter Brennan TV series The Real McCoys, which ran from 1957 through 1963 and which gave Crenna his first opportunities as a director. After McCoys, Crenna found himself facing potential career standstill again, since it seemed that now he was typed as the rubeish Luke McCoy. This time, however, the actor had impressed enough producers with his dogged work ethic and the range displayed in guest-star appearances. In 1964, Crenna was cast in a prestigious TV drama For the People as assistant DA David Koster, and though the program lasted only one season, Crenna was firmly established as a compelling dramatic actor. Still, and despite solid Richard Crenna film performances in The Sand Pebbles (1966), Body Heat (1981) and The Flamingo Kid (1985), the actor has never completely escaped the spectre of Walter Denton. Crenna was able to conjure up the old adenoidal Denton voice on talk shows of the 1980s and 1990s, and in the action-film spoof Hot Shots: Part Deux, the actor, with an absolute straight face, portrayed Colonel Denton Walters!

Trivia: The son of actor Robert Keith (1896-1966), Brian Keith made his first film appearance in 1924's Pied Piper Malone, when he was well-below the age of consent. During the war years, Keith served in the Marines, winning a Navy Air Medal; after cessation of hostilities, he began his acting career in earnest. At first billing himself as Robert Keith Jr., he made his 1946 Broadway debut in Heyday, then enjoyed a longer run as Mannion in Mister Roberts (1948), which featured his father as "Doc." His film career proper began in 1952; for the rest of the decade, Keith played good guys, irascible sidekicks and cold-blooded heavies with equal aplomb. Beginning with Ten Who Dared (1959), Keith became an unofficial "regular" in Disney Films, his performances alternately subtle (The Parent Trap) and bombastic. Of his 1970s film efforts, Keith was seen to best advantage as Teddy Roosevelt in The Wind and the Lion (1975). In television since the medium was born, Keith has starred in several weekly series, including The Crusader (1955-56), The Little People (aka The Brian Keith Show, 1972-74) and Lew Archer (1975). His longest-running and perhaps best-known TV endeavors were Family Affair (1966-71), in which he played the uncharacteristically subdued "Uncle Bill" and the detective series Hardcastle & McCormick (1983-86). His most fascinating TV project was the 13-week The Westerner (1960), created by Sam Peckinpah, in which he played an illiterate cowpoke with an itchy trigger finger. Keith's personal favorite of all his roles is not to be found in his film or TV output; it is the title character in Hugh Leonard's stage play Da. Plagued by emphysema and lung cancer while apparently still reeling emotionally from the suicide of his daughter Daisy, 75-year-old Brian Keith was found dead of a gunshot wound by family members in his Malibu home. Police ruled the death a suicide. Just prior to his death, Keith had completed a supporting role in the TNT miniseries Rough Riders.