Trivia: Portly, tight-jawed John McGiver had intended to become a professional actor upon graduating from Catholic University in Washington D.C., but he became an English teacher at New York's Christopher Columbus High School instead. One day in the mid-1950s, McGiver bumped into one of his old Catholic University classmates, who'd become an off-Broadway producer; the star of the producer's newest play had just walked out, and would McGiver be interested in taking his place? This little favor led to a 20-year career in TV and films for the balding, bookish McGiver. He was featured in such films as Love in the Afternoon (1957), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Mame (1974). McGiver's funniest screen portrayal was the thick-eared landscaper in The Gazebo (1959), who insisted upon referring to the title object as a "GAZE-bow". In 1964, John McGiver starred as Walter Burnley, supervisor of a department store complaint department, on the weekly TV sitcom Many Happy Returns.

Trivia: Orphaned as a child, Kansan Doro Merande grew up in boarding schools. She was in her early twenties when she impulsively decided to become a New York actress. Her skinny frame and wavering voice making her ideal for rural character roles, Doro went on to appear in 25 Broadway plays, most famously as the old lady who "loved weddings" in the original 1938 production of Our Town. This was the part that brought her to Hollywood in 1940. Though she preferred to remain in New York, Doro was seen in dozens of Hollywood-based TV and movie character roles, including the loudmouthed housekeeper in The Gazebo (1959) and the strident "victim" of Soviet "invaders" in The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966). In 1960, Doro was one of the stars of the TV sitcom Bringing up Buddy; reportedly, all chances for this series' success were sabotaged by the fact that Ms. Merande and her co-star, silent film veteran Enid Markey, openly despised one another. In her last professional years, Doro Merande was a frequent guest star of The Jackie Gleason Show.

Trivia: Charming, handsome, and easy-going, lead actor and megastar Burt Reynolds entered the world on February 11, 1936. He attended Florida State University on a football scholarship, and became an all-star Southern Conference halfback, but - faced with a knee injury and a debilitating car accident - switched gears from athletics to college drama. In 1955, he dropped out of college and traveled to New York, in search of stage work, but only turned up occasional bit parts on television, and for two years he had to support himself as a dishwasher and bouncer.In 1957, Reynolds's ship came in when he appeared in a New York City Center revival of Mister Roberts; shortly thereafter, he signed a television contract. He sustained regular roles in the series Riverboat, Gunsmoke, Hawk, and Dan August. Although he appeared in numerous films in the 1960s, he failed to make a significant impression. In the early '70s, his popularity began to increase, in part due to his witty appearances on daytime TV talk shows. His breakthrough film, Deliverance (1972), established him as both a screen icon and formidable actor. That same year, Reynolds became a major sex symbol when he posed as the first nude male centerfold in the April edition of Cosmopolitan. He went on to become the biggest box-office attraction in America for several years - the centerpiece of films such as Hustle (1975), Smokey and the Bandit (1977) (as well as its two sequels), The End (1978), Starting Over (1979), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), and The Man Who Loved Women (1983). However, by the mid-'80s, his heyday ended, largely thanks to his propensity for making dumb-dumb bumper-smashing road comedies with guy pals such as Hal Needham (Stroker Ace, The Cannonball Run 2). Reynolds's later cinematic efforts (such as the dismal Malone (1987)) failed to generate any box office sizzle, aside from a sweet and low-key turn as an aging career criminal in Bill Forsyth's Breaking In (1989). Taking this as a cue, Reynolds transitioned to the small screen, and starred in the popular sitcom Evening Shade, for which he won an Emmy. He also directed several films, created the hit Win, Lose or Draw game show with friend Bert Convy, and established the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater in Florida. In the mid-'90s, Reynolds ignited a comeback that began with his role as a drunken, right-wing congressman in Andrew Bergman's Striptease (1996). Although the film itself suffered from critical pans and bombed out at the box office, the actor won raves for his performance, with many critics citing his comic interpretation of the role as one of the film's key strengths. His luck continued the following year, when Paul Thomas Anderson cast him as porn director Jack Horner in his acclaimed Boogie Nights. Reynolds would go on to earn a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, and between the twin triumphs of Striptease and Nights, critics read the resurgence as the beginning of a second wind in the Deliverance star's career, ala John Travolta's turnaround in 1994's Pulp Fiction. But all was not completely well chez Burt. A nasty conflict marred his interaction with Paul Thomas Anderson just prior to the release of Boogie Nights. It began with Reynolds's disastrous private screening of Nights; he purportedly loathed the picture so much that he phoned his agent after the screening and fired him. When the Anderson film hit cinemas and became a success d'estime, Reynolds rewrote his opinion of the film and agreed to follow Anderson on a tour endorsing the effort, but Reynolds understandably grew peeved when Anderson refused to let him speak publicly. Reynolds grew so infuriated, in fact, that he refused to play a role in Anderson's tertiary cinematic effort, 1999's Magnolia. Reynolds's went on to appear in a big screen adatpation of The Dukes of Hazzard as Boss Hogg, and later returned to drama with a supporting performance in the musical drama Broken Bridges; a low-key tale of a fading country music star that served as a feature debut for real-life country music singer Toby Kieth. Over the coming years, Reynolds would also enjoy occasional appearances on shows like My Name is Earl and Burn Notice.

Trivia: With his unusual gaunt features and intense expression, William Lanteau made a career out of playing eccentrics and character roles. His role as town leader Chester Wanamaker on the Newhart show was the most visible part in a career of more than 30 years on stage, screen, and television. Lanteau's theatrical credits included productions of The Matchmaker, What Every Woman Knows, Mrs. McThing, The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker, Detective Story, and Catch My Soul -- he was also in the original stage production of On Golden Pond, playing Charlie Martin, a part he re-created in the film version with Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda, and Jane Fonda. His film credits date from 1959 and his portrayal of Available Jones in the screen version of the musical Li'l Abner. He began working in television around the same time, and one of his most memorable and poignant early appearances was in the Andy Griffith Show episode "Stranger in Town," portraying a mysterious new arrival in Mayberry who seems to know all there is to know about everyone in the town, gradually eliciting suspicion and panic on the part of all concerned -- in the end, the explanation for his character's behavior is not only harmless but very touching, and Lanteau pulled it off perfectly, moving from quirkily mysterious to vulnerable in the course of less than 20 minutes of screen time without any seams showing. Lanteau also played small parts in The Honeymoon Machine and That Touch of Mink, and slightly larger roles in Sex and the Single Girl and Hotel, but it was mostly on television that Lanteau kept busy when he wasn't working on the stage. On television, his work included one-shot roles on Naked City, Dr. Kildare, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Green Acres, The Mothers-In-Law, All in the Family, Here's Lucy, Perry Mason, Sanford and Son, Diff'rent Strokes, Coach, and Murder She Wrote during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, before the role on Newhart opened up. He became part of one of the most successful "double acts" on television, working alongside rotund actor Thomas Hill, who portrayed Chester, the other political leader of the town. Lanteau passed away in 1993, three years after the cancellation of the series, from complications arising out of heart surgery.

Trivia: Character actor Howard McNear made a name for himself on network radio in a vast array of characterizations, from snivelling murderers to dapper French detectives. McNear's best-known radio role was as Doc on Gunsmoke, which ran from 1955 to 1962; his spin on the character was slightly more ghoulish than the interpretation offered by Milburn Stone on television. In films from 1954, the bespectacled, mustachioed McNear was usually cast as a querulous fussbudget. He was spotlighted as Dr. Dompierre in Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder (1959), and was prominently featured in three Billy Wilder comedies, Irma La Douce (1963), Kiss Me Stupid (1964) and The Fortune Cookie (1966). He appeared with frequency on TV in the 1950s and 1960s, often as a foil to such comedians as Jack Benny and Burns and Allen. Howard McNear's most beloved TV characterization was as Mayberry barber Floyd Lawson on The Andy Griffith Show; when McNear suffered a debilitating stroke in 1967, Griffith kept him on the payroll, re-writing the scripts to allow "Floyd" to be seated and non-ambulatory without drawing undue attention to McNear's affliction.

Trivia: A gifted leading lady and character actress, Marge Redmond enjoyed a five-decade career that took her from the stage to television to feature films. Born Margery Redmond in Cleveland, Ohio in 1924 (some sources say 1930), Redmond became the first wife of future actor Jack Weston at the start of the 1950s, when both of them were working at the Cleveland Play House. They moved from regional theater to Hollywood, and were lucky enough to arrive in the film mecca just as television production was booming there. Redmond went on to appear in dozens of television shows, from My Three Sons to The Virginian, interspersed with the occasional feature film, of which The Trouble With Angels probably gave the actress her most notable role, as Sister Liquori, the best friend of the Mother Superior played by Rosalind Russell. That part pre-figured what became Redmond's most familiar small-screen portrayal, of Sister Jacqueline on The Flying Nun. The latter series only ran for two seasons, but thanks to the fact that Sally Field was its star, it has been seen in syndicated reruns for close to 50 years. She has since worked in virtually every genre of television show, right into the 1990s and Law And Order, and was still doing voice work for animated productions in the twenty-first century.

Trivia: Born Jack Weinstein, he began training for the stage at the Cleveland Playhouse at age ten. Weston dropped out of school at 15, working occasionally as a stage actor before serving in World War Two; during the war he often performed with the USO. At war's end he moved to New York and studied at the American Theater Wing, meanwhile working in odd jobs. In 1950 he began getting featured roles on Broadway and TV, then entered movies in 1958; with intermittent breaks, he remained busy in films throughout the next three decades. In the mid '70s he gained new popularity as the star of Neil Simon's play California Suite. He married actress Marge Redmond.

Trivia: British actor John Williams is noted for his suave, perfectly-mannered characters. He is best remembered for his portrayal as Inspector Hubbard on the stage, screen and television versions of Dial M for Murder. Born in Chalfon St. Giles, England, Williams began his career on the stage at 13. By the age of 21, he was playing leads and sophisticated characters in Broadway plays. Beginning in the mid '30s, he began appearing in British films. By the '40s he was playing in Hollywood productions; he continued in film until the late '70s.