Trivia: Big-framed character actor (and sometime leading man) David Huddleston worked in virtually every film and television genre there is, from Westerns to crime dramas to science fiction. Born in Vinton, Virginia, he attended the Fork Union Military Academy before entering the United States Air Force, where he received a commission as an officer. After returning to civilian life, Huddleston enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He made his television debut in 1961, at age 31, in an episode of the Western series Shotgun Slade. Two years later, the actor made his first big-screen appearance with a small role in All the Way Home (1963). A year later, he showed up in Black Like Me; and in 1968, Huddleston was back on the big screen in the thriller A Lovely Way to Die. He got considerably busier in the years that followed, mostly on television series such as Adam 12, Then Came Bronson, and Room 222, in roles of ever-increasing size. These were broken up by the occasional film job, of which the most notable at the time was the part of the comically helpful town dentist in Howard Hawks' Western Rio Lobo (1970), which gave Huddleston some extended (and humorous) screen-time alongside John Wayne. At the time, his feature-film work was weighted very heavily toward Westerns, while on television Huddleston played everything from service-station attendants to teachers to devious executives, primarily in crime shows. With his deep voice and prominent screen presence, plus a sense of humor that never seemed too far from his portrayals -- even of villains -- Huddleston was one of the busier character actors of the 1970s. Indeed, 1974 comprised a year of credits that any actor in the business could envy: John Wayne used Huddleston in McQ, one of the aging star's efforts to get away from Westerns, but Huddleston was back doing oaters in Billy Two Hats and aided Mel Brooks in parodying the genre in Blazing Saddles (all 1974). As comical as Huddleston could be, he could play sinister equally well, as he proved in Terence Young's The Klansman (1974) -- and that doesn't even count his television roles. By the end of the 1970s, he had graduated to a starring role in the series Hizzoner (1979), about a small-town mayor; and in the 1980s he had recurring roles in series such as The Wonder Years. Huddleston's big-screen breakthrough came with the title role in Santa Claus: The Movie (1985), and he became a ubiquitous figure on the small screen with a series of orange-juice commercials. His subsequent big-screen appearances included Frantic (1988) and The Big Lebowski (1998), playing the title character, and he continued working into the first decade of the 21st century. In 2004, Huddleston essayed one of the most interesting and challenging roles of his screen career, in the short film Reveille. Working without dialogue alongside James McEachin (with whom he'd previously worked in the series Tenafly), he helped tell the story of a sometimes comical, ultimately bittersweet rivalry between two veterans of different armed services. Huddleston died in 2016, at age 85.

Trivia: A gifted musician as well as comic actor, diminutive British performer Dudley Moore made his mark as an American movie star with his hilarious turns as sensitive, bumbling libertines in the hit movies 10 (1979) and Arthur (1981). His stardom, however, had already ebbed before he was diagnosed with a degenerative brain disorder in 1997. Born with a clubfoot and withered leg, Moore endured a series of operations as a child to correct them. He found a refuge from his physical difficulties when he began studying the piano at age six, adding violin and organ to the mix as he got older. After a stint at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Moore attended prestigious Oxford University on an organ scholarship and began composing music for local shows. While at Oxford, Moore met Peter Cook, with whom he teamed up several years after graduation for the popular London musical and comedy revue Beyond the Fringe (1961). After the show's four-year run, Moore and Cook branched out into British TV and movies, including The Wrong Box (1966) and the original version of Bedazzled (1968), featuring Moore as the schlub who makes an absurd Faustian pact with Cook's Satan. Taking a brief break from his comedy partnership, Moore co-wrote, composed the score, and starred in the romantic comedy 30 Is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia (1968), opposite his then-wife Suzy Kendall. After spending the mid-'70s performing live in their hit revue Good Evening, Moore and Cook parted for good in 1977 (save for performances in the Amnesty International benefit shows immortalized on film in The Secret Policeman's Ball [1979]) and Moore headed to Hollywood for his first movie role since 1972. Though the part was small, Moore made the most of it with his outrageous performance as a swinging opera conductor in the Hitchcockian comedy Foul Play (1978). A summer hit, Foul Play inspired Blake Edwards to hire Moore to replace George Segal for the lead in 10. A sex comedy about 1970s hedonism, midlife crises, and the male search for female physical perfection, 10 made inept pursuer Moore and voluptuous fantasy girl Bo Derek into stars. After the woeful Biblical spoof Wholly Moses (1980), Moore had his greatest film success with the blockbuster romantic comedy Arthur. Starring Moore as a soused, piano-playing millionaire, Liza Minnelli as his working-class true love, and Sir John Gielgud as his long-suffering butler, Arthur managed to be as funny as it was charming, earning Moore his sole Oscar nomination and a marvelously dry Gielgud his one Oscar win.Following a dramatic performance in the unpopular weepy Six Weeks (1982), Moore returned to the frothy genre that had served him so well. Lovesick (1983), Romantic Comedy (1983), and Moore's remake of the Preston Sturges marital farce Unfaithfully Yours (1984), however, all failed to live up to Arthur's success. Whatever ground Moore regained with Blake Edwards' bigamy romp Micki + Maude (1984) was soon frittered away with Santa Claus: The Movie (1985) and Moore's entrant in the late '80s young/old body-swapping comedies, Like Father, Like Son (1987). The saccharine sequel Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988) failed to recapture the original's sparkle and flopped accordingly. His movie-star status further crippled by box-office duds Crazy People (1990), Blame It on the Bellboy (1992), and The Pickle (1993), Moore returned to TV in the early '90s. Neither of his sitcom vehicles, Dudley (1993) and Daddy's Girls (1994), made it past the first season. Still, through his movie heyday and decline, Moore maintained his parallel career as a musician, appearing as a concert pianist during the 1980s and '90s, as well as masterminding and performing in Showtime's documentary series Orchestra! (1991). The effects of Moore's disease became apparent, though, during a troubled 1996 concert tour in Australia, and he lost the lead in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) when he couldn't remember his lines. Already tabloid fodder when his then-fiancée filed domestic abuse charges in 1994, Moore's fourth marriage dissolved into an ugly divorce in 1997, the same year he was diagnosed with progressive, supranuclear palsy. Increasingly immobilized by the disease, Moore's public appearances became rarer; though not lethal, PSP left Moore susceptible to a fatal bout of pneumonia in March 2002.Moore's four wives also included American actress Tuesday Weld, and he had two sons.

Trivia: A distinguished actor of stage, television, and movies who is at home playing everything from menacing villains, big-hearted transsexuals, and loopy aliens, John Lithgow is also a composer and performer of children's songs, a Harvard graduate, a talented painter, and a devoted husband and father: in short, he is a true Renaissance man. Once hailed by the Wall Street Journal as "the film character actor of his generation," Lithgow is the son of a theater director who once headed Princeton's McCarter Theater and produced a series of Shakespeare festivals in Ohio, where Lithgow was six when he made his first theatrical bow in Henry VI, Part 3. His parents raised Lithgow in a loving home that encouraged artistic self-expression and took a broad view of the world. As a youth, Lithgow was passionate about painting and at age 16, he was actively involved with the Art Students League in New York. When the acting bug bit, Lithgow's father was supportive. After Lithgow graduated from Harvard, he received a Fulbright scholarship to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art; while in England, Lithgow also worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and for the Royal Court Theatre. He returned to the U.S. in the early '70s and worked on Broadway where he won his first Tony and a Drama Desk Award for his part in The Changing Room (1973). Lithgow remained in New York for many years, establishing himself as one of Broadway's most respected stars and would go on to appear in at least one play per year through 1982. He would subsequently receive two more Tony nominations for Requiem for a Heavyweight and M. Butterfly. He made his first film appearance in Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1972). The film itself was an inauspicious affair as were his other subsequent early efforts, though by the early '80s, his film roles improved and diversified dramatically. Though capable of essaying subtle, low-key characters, Lithgow excelled in over-the-top parts as the next decade in his career demonstrates. He got his first real break and a Best Supporting Actor nomination when he played macho football player-turned-sensitive woman Roberta Muldoon in The World According to Garp (1982). In 1983, he provided one of the highlights of Twilight Zone--The Movie as a terrified airline passenger and earned a second Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination in Terms of Endearment where he appeared with Shirley Maclaine and Jack Nicholson, as well as playing a fiery preacher in Footloose. That year, he won his first Emmy nomination for his work in the scary nuclear holocaust drama The Day After. In 1984, he played the crazed Dr. Lizardo in the cult favorite The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai. In Ricochet (1992), Lithgow proved himself a terrifying villain with his portrayal of a psychopathic killer hell-bent for revenge against Denzel Washington, the man who incarcerated him. In 1990, he made Babysong video tapes of his performing old and new children's songs on the guitar and banjo. Though he had already established himself on television as a guest star, Lithgow gained a large and devoted following when he was cast as an alien captain who, along with his clueless crew, attempts to pass for human in the fresh, well-written NBC sitcom Third Rock From the Sun (1996). The role has won him multiple Emmys and Golden Globe awards. When that show's run ended in 2001, Lithgow kept busy with roles in such high-profile features as The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004) (in which he essayed the role of comedy legend Blake Edwards), Kinsey, Dreamgirls, and Leap Year. Yet through it all the small screen still beckoned, and in 2010 the Lithgow won an Emmy for his role as Arthur Mitchell (aka The Trinity Killer) on the hit Showtime series Dexter. A poignant turn as a once-brilliant scientist stricken with Alzheimer's disease revealed a gentler side of Lithgow in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and in 2012 he reminded us that he could still get big laughs with roles in both This is 40 (Judd Apatow's semi-sequel to Knocked Up) and the Will Ferrell/Zach Galifianakis political comedy The Campaign. When not busy working on the show, in theater, or in feature films, Lithgow is at home playing "Superdad" to his children and his wife, a tenured college professor at U.C.L.A.

Trivia: Originally a newspaper reporter, Burgess Meredith came to the screen in 1936, repeating his stage role in Winterset, a part written for him by Maxwell Anderson. Meredith has had a long and varied film career, playing everything from George in Of Mice and Men (1939) to Sylvester Stallone's trainer in Rocky (1976). He received Oscar nominations for The Day of the Locust (1975) and Rocky. As comfortable with comedy as with drama, Meredith also appeared in Idiot's Delight (1939); Second Chorus (1940), with Fred Astaire; Diary of a Chambermaid (1942), which he also wrote and produced; The Story of G.I. Joe (1945); and Mine Own Executioner (1947). He also directed Man on the Eiffel Tower (1949). On television, he made countless guest appearances in dozens of dramatic and variety productions, including one of the first episodes of The Twilight Zone, the touching Time Enough at Last, and as host on the first episode of Your Show of Shows. He was a regular on Mr. Novak (1963-64) and Search (1972-73), hosted Those Amazing Animals (1981), co-starred with Sally Struthers in Gloria (1982-83), and made classic appearances as the Penguin on Batman (1966-68). He won an Emmy in 1977 for Tailgunner Joe and has done voiceover work for innumerable commercials, notably Volkswagen. Meredith made his final feature film appearance playing crusty Grandpa Gustafson in Grumpier Old Men (1995), the sequel to Grumpy Old Men (1993) in which he also appeared. In 1996, he played a role in the CD-rom video game Ripper. He was briefly married to Paulette Goddard in the 1940s. Meredith died in his Malibu home at the age of 88 on September 9, 1997.

Trivia: English supporting actress Judy Cornwell first appeared on screen in the '60s.

Trivia: British comic actor Melvyn Hayes appeared in a number of films during the '50s and '60s. He started acting on stage during adolescence. During the 1970s, Hayes became a popular figure on television series and game shows.

Trivia: Irish-born character actor, onscreen from the '60s.

Trivia: French-born Jeannot Szwarc is one of the more competent action film directors to emerge in the '70s. Beginning with the William Castle-produced Bug (1975), Szwarc has shown a good commercial edge, which was only enhanced by regular work as a director on the television series Kojak during the mid '70s, where the director's style was finely honed. Jaws 2 (1978), although nowhere in league with Steven Spielberg's original, was the most respectable and appreciated of the many sequels to that original, and Somewhere in Time (1980) was one of the most thoughtful science-fiction/fantasy films of the period, and has developed a considerable cult following. Supergirl (1984) was a step backward, but Santa Claus: The Movie (1985) was reasonably successful.