Trivia: American actress Julie Newmar's father was a college instructor and her mother was a former Ziegfeld dancer. This odd mix may explain why Julie complemented her dancing and acting career with offscreen intellectual pursuits. A lifelong student of ballet, Newmar was accepted as a dancer by the Los Angeles Opera Comany at age 15, and before her UCLA enrollment was under way she'd left college to try her luck in films. A stint as a gold-painted exotic dancer in Serpent of the Nile (1954) was usually conveniently ignored by Newmar's biographers, who preferred to list Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) as her screen debut. From here it was on to Broadway for a featured dance in the musical Can-Can, then to the sizable but nonspeaking role of Stupefyin' Jones in Li'l Abner. It was for Newmar's performance as a Swedish sexpot in the genteel farce The Marriage-Go-Round that the actress attained true stardom - and also won a Tony Award. Recreating her stage roles for the film versions of Li'l Abner (1959) and Marriage-Go-Round (1961), Newmar spent the next few years dividing her time between stage work and TV guest spots (she played the Devil in the 1963 "Twilight Zone" episode "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville"). In 1964, Newmar was cast as a beautiful robot on the TV sitcom "My Living Doll," a series that languished opposite "Bonanza" and barely got through the season. According to Newmar, she accepted her best-remembered TV role, that of Catwoman on the weekly series Batman on the advice of her brother, a Harvard fellow in Physics who, along with his classmates, was a rabid Batman fan. Newmar played Catwoman for two seasons, but contractual committments kept her from appearing in the 1966 feature film version of Batman, wherein her role was taken over by Lee Meriwether. For diverse reasons, Newmar wasn't back as Catwoman for the final "Batman" season, so Eartha Kitt essayed the role. Newmar's film career peaked with MacKenna's Gold (1968) and The Maltese Bippy (1969), after which she was consigned to such deathless projects as Hysterical (1983), Nudity Required (1990) and Ghosts Can't Do It (1991). In 1995 she returned to the big screen playing herself in the cross-dressing comedy To Wong Foo, Thanks for everything, Julie Newmar. In the mid 1980s, Julie Newmar began making the personal-appearance rounds thanks to the publicity attending the 20th anniversary of the "Batman" series, and in 1992 Julie was again an interview subject as a byproduct of Michelle Pfeiffer's unforgettable Catwoman stint in the 1992 feature film Batman Returns.

Trivia: Dour, lantern-jawed character actor John Anderson attended the University of Iowa before inaugurating his performing career on a Mississippi showboat. After serving in the Coast Guard during World War II, Anderson made his Broadway bow, then first appeared on screen in 1952's The Crimson Pirate. The actor proved indispensable to screenwriters trafficking in such stock characters as The Vengeful Gunslinger, The Inbred Hillbilly Patriarch, The Scripture-Spouting Zealot and The Rigid Authority Figure. Anderson's many screen assignments included used-car huckster California Charlie in Psycho (1960), the implicitly incestuous Elder Hammond in Ride the High Country (1962), the title character in The Lincoln Conspiracy (1977) and Caiaphas in In Search of Historic Jesus (1980). A dead ringer for 1920s baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Anderson portrayed that uncompromising gentleman twice, in 1988's Eight Men Out and the 1991 TV biopic Babe Ruth. A veteran of 500 TV appearances (including four guest stints on The Twilight Zone), John Anderson was seen as FDR in the 1978 miniseries Backstairs in the White House, and on a regular basis as Michael Spencer Hudson in the daytime drama Another World, Virgil Earp in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955-61) and the leading man's flinty father in MacGiver (1985-92).

Trivia: After serving in World War Two he began acting, training at the Dramatic Workshop of the American Theater Wing and at the Actors Studio. He performed off-Broadway and in live TV drama; in 1955 he appeared to much acclaim in Broadway's Bus Stop. He began appearing in films in 1958, going on to a sporadic but intermittently busy screen career; he often played cowpokes and "good ol' boys." Meanwhile, most of his work was done on TV. From 1956-63 he was married to actress Peggy Ann Garner. In 1990 he was found dead next to the body of his estranged wife; a police investigation suggested that he had killed his wife and then himself.

Trivia: Bald, hook-nosed character actor John Harmon launched his film career in 1939. Harmon's screen assignments ranged from shifty-eyed gangsters, rural law enforcement officials and hen-pecked husbands. He was seen in films as diverse as Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux (1947) and the "B" horror flick Monster of Piedra Blancas. Star Trek fans will remember John Harmon for his supporting role in the 1967 episode "City on the Edge of Forever."