Trivia: Raised in New Orleans' French Quarter, Ray Walston relocated to Houston, where he first set foot on stage in a community production of High Tor. Walston went on to spend six years at the Houston Civic Theater then three more at the Cleveland Playhouse. Moving to New York, he worked as linotype operator at the New York Times before landing small parts in theatrical productions ranging from Maurice Evans' G.I. Hamlet to The Insect Comedy. He won Theater World's "Most Promising Newcomer" award for his portrayal of Mr. Kramer in the original 1948 production of Summer and Smoke. In 1950, he was cast as "big dealer" Luther Billis in the touring and London companies of South Pacific, and it was this that led to a major role in Rodgers & Hammerstein's 1953 Broadway musical Me and Juliet. Two years later, he was cast in his breakthrough role: the puckish Mr. Applegate, aka The Devil, in the Adler-Ross musical smash Damn Yankees. He won a Tony Award for his performance, as well as the opportunity to repeat the role of Applegate in the 1958 film version of Yankees; prior to this triumph, he'd made his film debut in Kiss Them for Me (1957) and recreated Luther Billis in the 1958 filmization of South Pacific. A favorite of director Billy Wilder, Walston was cast as philandering executive Dobisch in The Apartment (1960) and replaced an ailing Peter Sellers as would-be songwriter Orville J. Spooner in Kiss Me, Stupid (1960). Having first appeared on television in 1950, Walston resisted all entreaties to star in a weekly series until he was offered the title role in My Favorite Martian (1963-1966). While he was gratified at the adulation he received for his work on this series (he was particularly pleased by the response from his kiddie fans), Walston later insisted that Martian had "ruined" him in Hollywood, forever typecasting him as an erudite eccentric. By the 1970s, however, Walston was popping up in a wide variety of roles in films like The Sting (1974) and Silver Streak (1977). For the past two decades or so, he has been one of moviedom's favorite curmudgeons, playing such roles as Poopdeck Pappy in Popeye (1980) and officious high school teacher Mr. Hand, who reacts with smoldering rage as his class is interrupted by a pizza delivery in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). He would re-create this last-named role in the weekly sitcom Fast Times (1985), one of several TV assignments of the 1970s and 1980s. In 1995, Ray Walston reacted with schoolboy enthusiasm upon winning an Emmy award for his portrayal of irascible Wisconsin judge Henry Bone on the cult-fave TVer Picket Fences.

Trivia: Straight out of Dartmouth College, Alan Hewitt made his Broadway bow in the 1935 Lunt/Fontanne production of Taming of the Shrew (which featured another newcomer, Cameron Mitchell). The wiry, sneering-voiced Hewitt appeared in several Theatre Guild productions of the 1930s and 1940s and later supported Ethel Merman in the 1950 musical Call Me Madam. He also served for many years as an official of the Actor's Union Council. During the 1960s, Hewitt became one of the Disney Studios' favorite actors, playing stereotypical self-important officials in such comedies as The Absent-Minded Professor (1960), Son of Flubber (1963) and The Misadventures of Merlin Jones (1967). Fans of 1960s sitcoms will remember Alan Hewitt as the ever-suspicious detective Bill Brennan on My Favorite Martian.

Trivia: Prior to his first TV appearance on a 1961 episode of Dobie Gillis, Bill Bixby had been a college student (he dropped out of UC Berkeley in his senior year), a lifeguard, a male model, and a regional stock-company actor. Bixby went on to play small roles in films like Lonely Are the Brave and Irma La Douce, and was featured in the Broadway comedy Under the Yum Yum Tree. In 1963, he graduated to TV stardom with the role of Tim O'Hara on the popular sci-fi sitcom My Favorite Martian. Anxious to change his "wholesome" image after Martian ended its three-year run in 1966, Bixby accepted a small but flashy role as a cowardly villain in the big-screen Western Ride Beyond Vengeance (1966). Like it or not, however, Bixby's future lay in sympathetic parts on episodic television. In each of his subsequent starring series -- The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1969-1972), The Magician (1973), The Incredible Hulk (1978-1982), True Confessions (1984), and Goodnight Beantown (1983) -- Bixby frequently did double-duty as actor and director. He also directed such made-for-TV movies as Barbary Coast (1974), Another Pair of Aces: Three of a Kind (1991), and the Roseanne/Tom Arnold vehicle The Woman Who Loved Elvis (1993). Long one of Hollywood's most eligible bachelors, Bixby finally took the marital plunge with actress Brenda Benet; the union ended tragically when Benet, distraught over the death of her son, Christopher, committed suicide. Bixby's second wife was Judith Kliban, daughter of magazine cartoonist B. Kliban. At the time of his death from prostate cancer, Bill Bixby was principal director of the TV series Blossom.

Trivia: Best remembered for his high-profile acting roles on two 1970s television sitcoms -- that of genial news writer Murray Slaughter on CBS's The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977) and that of sweet-natured Captain Merrill Stubing on ABC's The Love Boat (1977-1986), stage-trained actor Gavin MacLeod in fact began his career typecast as a villain. He landed parts in Hollywood features including The Sand Pebbles (1966), Deathwatch (1966), and The Comic (1969), and enjoyed a tenure as Joseph "Happy" Haines on the sitcom McHale's Navy from 1962 through 1964. After The Love Boat permanently laid anchor in the mid-'80s, MacLeod signed on as a spokesperson and pitchman for Princess Cruises and returned to regional theatrical work. He also tackled guest spots on programs including Touched by an Angel and (in a move that surprised everyone) the HBO prison drama Oz. Off-camera, MacLeod is an outspoken born-again Christian. He hosted a popular talk show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, along with his wife, Patti (whom he divorced in 1982 and remarried three years later), called Back on Course, and personally funded many of the Greatest Adventure Stories from the Bible animated videos for children.

Trivia: American actor Donald Briggs began his career on the radio in Chicago. He received national attention when he played the radio hero "Frank Merriwell" in California. During the mid-1930s he began appearing in films.

Trivia: More familiar for his radio work than his film appearances, American actor Ben Wright was active professionally from the early '40s. Dialects were a specialty with Wright, as witness his two-year hitch as Chinese bellhop Hey Boy on the radio version of Have Gun Will Travel. Most of Wright's film roles were supporting or bit appearances in such productions as A Man Called Peter (1955), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), My Fair Lady (1964), and The Fortune Cookie (1964). On TV, Wright was one of Jack Webb's stock company (including fellow radio veterans Virginia Gregg, Stacy Harris, and Vic Perrin) on the '60s version of Dragnet. Ben Wright's most frequently seen film appearance was as the humorless Nazi functionary Herr Zeller in the 1965 megahit The Sound of Music.

Trivia: James B. Sikking (the "B" stands for Barrie, as in James M. Barrie, his parents' favorite author) was active in student theatricals at the University of California-Santa Barbara, UCLA and the University of Hawaii. Sikking's first film was 1963's The Strangler; his subsequent movie work found him alternating between punkish villains and steely authority types. His earliest regular TV stint was as Dr. James Hobart, one of Rachel Ames' many amours, on the daytime drama General Hospital. If we bypass his brief stint as cosmetics executive Geoffrey St. James in the mercifully short-lived 1979 sitcom Turnabout, we can regard Lt. Howard Hunter on Hill Street Blues as Sikking's first recurring prime-time TV characterization. Looking like a cross between George C. Scott and Roy Scheider on both of their bad days, Lt. Hunter was Hill Street Station's gonzo SWAT team leader, eager to prove his worth by blowing a hole in anyone who looks at him cross-eyed. It is to Sikking's credit that he invested this initially two-dimensional character with depth and humanity, so much so that Hunter caused viewers' hearts to skip a beat or two when he attempted suicide in a 1984 episode. Sikking remained with H.S.B. until its cancellation in 1987, moving on to such assignments as "The Old Man" in the Jean Shepherd-inspired cable flick Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss (1989). From 1989 to 1993, Sikking co-starred as Dr. David Howser, father of 16-year-old medical genius Neil Patrick Harris, on the weekly sitcom Doogie Howser MD. James B. Sikking's recent film credits include the pompous Captain Styles in Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock (1984) and FBI chief Denton Voglers in The Pelican Brief (1994).

Trivia: American character actor Allen Jaffe is best known for playing villains in television series of the '60s such as Mannix, Gunsmoke, Get Smart, and Batman, but he also occasionally appeared in films such as Al Capone (1959) and Papillon.