Trivia: One of the greatest comic talents of his generation, Peter Sellers had an exceptional gift for losing himself in a character -- so much so that, beyond his remarkable skill as a performer and his fondness for the humor of the absurd, it's difficult to draw a connection between many of his best performances. While his fondness for playing multiple roles in the same film may have seemed like a stunt coming from many other actors, Sellers had the ability to make each character he played seem distinct and different, and while he was known and loved as a funnyman, only in a handful of roles was he able to explore the full range of his gifts, which suggested he could have had just as strong a career as a dramatic actor.Born Richard Henry Sellers on September 8, 1925, Sellers was nicknamed "Peter" by his parents, Bill and Agnes Sellers, in memory of his brother, who was a stillbirth. Bill and Agnes made their living as performers on the British vaudeville circuit, and Sellers made his first appearance on-stage only two days after his birth, when his father brought out his infant son during an encore. As a child, Sellers studied dance at the behest of his parents when not occupied with his studies at St. Aloysius' Boarding and Day School for Boys. Sellers also developed a knack for music, and in his teens began playing drums with local dance bands. Shortly after his 18th birthday, Sellers joined the Royal Air Force, and became part of a troupe of entertainers who performed at RAF camps both in England and abroad. During his time in the service, Sellers met fellow comedians Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, and Michael Bentine; after the war, they found work as performers with the British Broadcasting Corporation, and Sellers hoped to follow suit. After several failed auditions, Sellers struck upon the idea of calling Roy Speer, a BBC producer, posing as one of the network's top actors. Sellers gave Sellers an enthusiastic recommendation, and Speer gave him a spot on the radio series Show Time.After he signed on with the BBC, Sellers became reacquainted with Milligan, Secombe, and Bentine, and together they comprised the cast of The Goon Show, which upon its debut in 1949 became one of Great Britain's most popular radio shows; the absurd and often surreal humor of the Goons would prove to be the first glimmer of the British Comedy Movement of the '60s and '70s, paving the way for Beyond the Fringe and Monty Python's Flying Circus. The Goon Show provided Sellers with his entry into film acting, as he appeared in several short comedies alongside Milligan and Secombe, as well as the feature film Down Among the Z Men (aka The Goon Movie). Sellers also married for the first time during the height of Goon-mania, wedding Anne Howe in the fall of 1951. Sellers won his first significant non-Goon screen role in 1955, with the classic Alec Guinness comedy The Ladykillers, but his first international hit would have to wait until 1958, when he appeared in George Pal's big-budget musical Tom Thumb. In 1959, Sellers appeared in the satiric comedy I'm All Right, Jack, which earned him Best Actor honors from the British Film Academy; the same year, Sellers enjoyed a major international success with The Mouse That Roared, in which he played three different roles (one of them a woman). While a bona-fide international comedy star, Sellers had a hard time finding roles that made the most of his talents, and it wasn't until after a handful of unremarkable features that he received a pair of roles that allowed him to truly shine. In 1961, Sellers starred as an Indian physician in The Millionairess opposite Sophia Loren, based on a play by George Bernard Shaw (Sellers and Loren would also record a comic song together, "Goodness Gracious Me," which was a hit single in Britain), and a year later Stanley Kubrick cast him as Claire Quilty in his controversial adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita.1964 would prove to be a very big year for Peter Sellers; he would marry actress Britt Ekland in February of that year (his marriage to Anne Howe ended in divorce in 1961), and he starred in four of his most memorable films: Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, which reunited him with Stanley Kubrick and gave him star turns in three different roles; The World of Henry Orient, a comedy which won a small but devoted cult following; The Pink Panther, in which Sellers gave his first performance as the bumbling French detective Inspector Clouseau, and that film's first sequel, A Shot in the Dark. Sellers, who was described by many who knew him as a workaholic, maintained a busy schedule over the next ten years, but while the quality of his own work was consistently strong, many of the films he appeared in were sadly undistinguished, with a handful of exceptions, among them I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, The Wrong Box, and The Optimists. Sellers' appeal at the box office began to wane, and his love life took a beating as well -- he divorced Britt Ekland in 1968 and married Miranda Quarry in 1969, only to see that marriage end in 1971. But Sellers made a striking comeback in 1974 with The Return of the Pink Panther, in which he revisited his role as Inspector Clouseau. The film was a massive international hit, and Sellers would play Clouseau two more times, in The Pink Panther Strikes Again and The Revenge of the Pink Panther, though he became critical of the formulaic material in the films and would begin writing a script for a sixth Pink Panther film without the input of Blake Edwards, who had written and directed the other films in the series.In 1977, Sellers took his fourth wife, actress Lynne Frederick, and he managed to rack up a few moderate box-office successes outside the Pink Panther series with Murder by Death and The Prisoner of Zenda. But in 1979, Sellers gave perhaps his greatest performance ever as Chance, a simpleton gardener whose babblings about plants are seen as deep metaphors by those around them, in a screen adaptation of Jerzy Kozinski's novel Being There -- a project Sellers had spent the better part of a decade trying to bring to the screen. The film won Sellers a Golden Globe award and a National Board of Review citation as Best Actor, while he also received an Academy Award nomination in the same category. While Being There seemed to point to better and more ambitious roles for Sellers, fate had other plans; the actor, who had a long history of heart trouble, died of a heart attack on July 24, 1980, not long after completing The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu, a disastrous comedy whose direction was taken over by Sellers midway through the shoot (though the original director received sole credit). Two years after his death, Peter Sellers would return to the screen in a final Pink Panther adventure, The Trail of the Pink Panther, which Blake Edwards assembled from outtakes and discarded scenes shot for the previous installments in the series.

Trivia: One of the finest American actors of his generation, George C. Scott was born in Virginia and raised in Detroit. After serving in the Marines from 1945 to 1949, Scott enrolled at the University of Missouri, determined to become an actor. Though his truculent demeanor and raspy voice would seem to typecast him in unpleasant roles, Scott exhibited an astonishing range of characterizations during his seven years in regional repertory theater. He also found time to teach a drama course at Stephens College. By the time Scott moved to New York in 1957, he was in full command of his craft; yet, because he was largely unknown outside of the repertory circuit, he considered himself a failure. While supporting himself as an IBM machine operator, Scott auditioned for producer Joseph Papp. Cast as the title character in Papp's production of Richard III, Scott finally achieved the stardom and critical adulation that had so long eluded him. Amidst dozens of choice television guest-starring performances, Scott made his movie debut in 1959's The Hanging Tree. That same year, he earned the first of four Oscar nominations for his incisive portrayal of big-city attorney Claude Dancer in Anatomy of a Murder. Over the next few years, Scott appeared in a dizzying variety of roles, ranging from Paul Newman's mercenary manager Bert Gordon in The Hustler (1961) to erudite British detective Anthony Gethryn in The List of Adrian Messenger (1962) to ape-like General "Buck" Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove (1963). After turning down several TV series offers, Scott accepted the role of social director Neil Brock on the David Susskind-produced "relevance" weekly East Side/West Side (1963-1964). He left the series in a huff in early 1964, citing the censorial idiocies of the program's network and sponsors; he also vowed to never again appear in a TV series -- at least until 1987, when the Fox network offered him 100,000 dollars per episode to star in the nonsensical sitcom Mr. President. In 1971, Scott made international headlines by refusing to accept his Best Actor Oscar for his performance in the title role of Patton, deriding the awards ceremony as a "meat parade." Two years later, he turned down an Emmy for his work in the TV adaptation of Arthur Miller's The Price. Curiously, he had no qualms about accepting such honors as the Golden Globe or Canada's Genie Award for the 1980 film The Changeling. Gravitating toward directing, Scott staged both the Broadway and TV productions of The Andersonville Trial, and he also directed two of his films: Rage (1973) and The Savage Is Loose (1974). In 1976, he added singing and dancing to his accomplishments when he starred on Broadway in Sly Fox, a musicalization of Ben Jonson's Volpone. In the '80s, Scott played Fagin in Oliver Twist (1982), Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (1984), and Dupin in The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1987); he also starred in a 1987 TV biopic of Mussolini, and enacted one of the most excruciatingly drawn-out death scenes in television history in The Last Days of Patton (1986). Making his cartoon voice-over debut in the anti-drug TV special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue (1988), Scott served up more vocal villainy in the Disney-animated feature The Rescuers Down Under (1990). Not until his later years did he show signs of slowing down; in 1996, while appearing as Henry Drummond in the National Actors Theater production of Inherit the Wind, he suddenly took ill in mid-performance, excused himself, and left the stage, obliging director Tony Randall to take over the part for the balance of the show. He made one of his final appearances in an Emmy-winning performance in the all-star TV remake of 12 Angry Men with Jack Lemmon. Scott was married five times; his third and fourth wife was the distinguished actress Colleen Dewhurst, while wife number five was another stage and film actress, Trish Van Devere. Two of his children, Devon and Campbell, have also pursued acting careers. Scott died on September 22, 1999.

Trivia: Though he spoke most of his movie dialogue in a slow Western drawl, actor Slim Pickens was a pure-bred California boy. An expert rider from the age of four, Pickens was performing in rodeos at 12. Three years later, he quit school to become a full-time equestrian and bull wrangler, eventually becoming the highest-paid rodeo clown in show business. In films since 1950's Rocky Mountain, Pickens specialized in Westerns (what a surprise), appearing as the comic sidekick of Republic cowboy star Rex Allen. By the end of the 1950s, Pickens had gained so much extra poundage that he practically grew out of his nickname. Generally cast in boisterous comedy roles, Pickens was also an effectively odious villain in 1966's An Eye for an Eye, starting the film off with a jolt by shooting a baby in its crib. In 1963, director Stanley Kubrick handed Pickens his greatest role: honcho bomber pilot "King" Kong in Dr. Strangelove. One of the most unforgettable of all cinematic images is the sight of Pickens straddling a nuclear bomb and "riding" it to its target, whooping and hollering all the way down. Almost as good was Pickens' performance as Harvey Korman's henchman in Mel Brooks' bawdy Western spoof Blazing Saddles (1974). Slim Pickens was also kept busy on television, with numerous guest shots and regular roles in the TV series The Legend of Custer, B.J. and the Bear, and Filthy Rich.

Trivia: American actor Sterling Hayden was a Hollywood leading man of the '40s and '50s who went on to become a character actor in later years. At age 16 he dropped out of school to become a mate on a schooner, beginning a life-long love affair with the sea; by age 22 he was a ship's captain. Extremely good looking, he modeled professionally to earn enough money to buy his own vessel; this led to a movie contract with Paramount in 1940. Within a year he was famous, having starred in two technicolor movies, Virginia (1941) and Bahama Passage (1942); both featured the somewhat older actress Madeleine Carroll, to whom he was married from 1942-46. With these films, Paramount began trumpeting him as "The Most Beautiful Man in the Movies" and "The Beautiful Blond Viking God." Shortly after making these two films he joined the Marines to serve in World War II. After the war he landed inconsequential roles until a part as a hoodlum in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) demonstrated his skill as an actor. After this his career was spotty, marked for the most part by inferior films (with some notable exceptions, such as Dr. Strangelove [1964]) and frequent abandonment of the screen in favor of the sea. It was said that Hayden was never particularly interested in his work as an actor, vastly preferring the life of a sailor. His obsession with the sea and his various voyages are described in his 1963 autobiography, Wanderer, in which he also expresses regret for having cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Commission during the early '50s McCarthy-Era "witch trials." He published a novel in 1976, Voyage: A Novel of 1896; it was named as a selection of the Book of the Month Club.

Trivia: Leading lady Tracy Reed received her first major professional break when she was hired as one of the ensemble players for the 1969 TV anthology Love, American Style. This led to Reed's being cast as Corey Bratter in the all-black, weekly-series version of Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1970). Two decades later, she co-starred as Charlotte Anderson in Knot's Landing (1990-91). In between her series assignments, Tracy Reed appeared in several theatrical and made-for-TV movies; she owns the dubious distinction of having played opposite both Bill Cosby (in 1978's Top Secret) and O.J. Simpson (in 1983's Cocaine and Blue Eyes). Tracy Reed should not be confused with the British actress of the same name.

Trivia: James Earl Jones is a distinguished African American actor instantly recognizable for his deep, resonant Shakespearean voice and wide smile. The son of prizefighter and actor Robert Earl Jones, he was raised on a farm. In college, he briefly studied medicine but switched to drama. After serving with the Army he enrolled at the American Theater Wing in New York. He made his Broadway debut in 1957, then went on to appear in many plays before spending several seasons with Joseph Pap's New York Shakespeare Festival. Jones' biggest success onstage was as the star of The Great White Hope on Broadway (1966-68); for his work (portraying heavyweight champion Jack Jefferson) he received a Tony award. He had a small part in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964), but did not begin to appear onscreen much until the '70s. In addition to stage and occasional film work, he also appeared as an African chieftain in the TV series Tarzan and was one of the first black actors to be cast as a regular on the soap opera The Guiding Light in 1967. Reprising his stage role, he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe award for his work in the screen version of The Great White Hope (1970) and went on from there to have a busy screen career. He starred in the TV series Paris in 1979-80. Beginning in 1977, he provided the melodiously wicked voice of the villainous Darth Vader in the three Star Wars films. Since then he has continued to appear on screen (over 40 films to date), stage, and television. He also continues to provide voiceovers (he can frequently be heard on the CNN television network). His portrayal of the grouchy, reclusive writer opposite Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams (1989) is among his most notable turns. In 1987 he won another Tony Award, this time for his portrayal of a frustrated baseball player in August Wilson's Fences. Most recently, Jones provided the voice for Mufasa, the regal patriarch in Disney's animated film The Lion King (1994).