Trivia: A former band clarinettist and vocalist, Hal Linden studied drama at the American Theatre Wing. His big Broadway break came in 1958, when he was engaged to understudy Sydney Chaplin in the musical comedy Bells are Ringing; Linden played Chaplin's character, Jeffrey Moss, a handful of times on Broadway and on a full-time basis in the touring company (reportedly, he also showed up in the 1960 film version of Bells are Ringing, though the "official" starting point of his film career was 1979's When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?) During the 1960s, Linden's time was occupied by his stage work in musicals like Wildcat, The Apple Tree and Illya Darling; from time to time, he'd pop up on a Manhattan-filmed TV series like Car 54 Where Are You? or The Defenders and was a regular on the CBS daytime drama Search for Tomorrow. In 1974, Linden won a Tony award for his work in the Broadway musical The Rothschilds. The next year, Barney Miller, a sitcom for which Linden had lensed a pilot in 1972, was picked up as a mid-season replacement by ABC. Linden would play harried Greenwich village police captain Barney Miller from 1975 through 1980, collecting five Emmy nominations, but-astonishingly -- no actual awards. Hal Linden's subsequent TV series work has included hosting stints on the ABC informational weeklies Animals, Animals, Animals and FYI, and top-billed starring roles on Blacke's Magic (1988), Jack's Place (1992) and One of the Boys (1994); he co-starred in the latter with another perennial Emmy Awards bridesmaid, Suzanne Pleshette.His less than extensive big-screen resume includes A New Life, Killers in the House, and Time Changer.

Trivia: Many remember actress Caroline McWilliams for the role of Marcy on the popular sitcom Benson. Born in Washington and raised in Rhode Island, McWilliams began her career on screen in the late '60s, taking on the role of Janet Mason Norris on the long-standing soap opera The Guiding Light in 1969. She'd stick with the series until 1975, and eventually moved into comedy, parodying the daytime TV world she was so familiar with on the series Soap from 1979 to 1981. She'd simultaneously appear on Benson and married actor Michael Keaton in 1982, giving birth to a son the following year. McWilliams would go on to spend the 1980s making frequent guest appearances on everything from Hill Street Blues to Cagney and Lacey. The next decade would begin on a bittersweet note for the actress. While she made a prominent appearance in the 1990 film Mermaids, this was also the year she and Keaton divorced. The actress remained on top of her game professionally, however, with a recurring role on Beverly Hills 90210, and later on the 2003 drama Judging Amy. McWilliams also found a tremendous niche as a director, staging critically lauded productions of Divorcons (Let's Get a Divorce) and The Smoke and Ice Follies. Tragically, the actress died in 2010 at the age of 64.

Trivia: Earthy Greek-American character actor Titos Vandis was well represented by his short but meaty roles in two Jules Dassin films, Never on Sunday (1960) and Topkapi (1964). Vandis was a familiar Broadway presence, appearing in such scene-stealing parts as a reincarnation expert in Alan Jay Lerner's On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1965). In American films, Vandis is best remembered for a brace of mid-1970s appearances. In Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (1972), Titos Vandis played the psychiatric patient with an unnatural attachment to his pet sheep, while in The Exorcist (1974), he was seen as the uncle of the unfortunate Father Karras (Jason Miller).

Trivia: Trivia buffs and diehard fans of Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront will know that the non-speaking cab driver in the film's famed 'taxicab scene between Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger was noted character actor Nehemiah Persoff. An American resident from age 9, the Jerusalem-born Persoff spent his early adulthood working for the New York subway system. Asked in later years why he chose acting as a profession, Persoff would comment that the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe compelled him to prove himself worthy of his "gift of life." On stage in community and non-professional productions from 1940, he studied with Stella Adler at the Actor's Studio before graduating to Broadway. His first film appearance, in 1948, was in the Manhattan-based The Naked City. After attaining prominence in the mid-1950s, Persoff alternated between villainy and sympathetic roles, utilizing his ear for dialects to depict a wide array of nationalities. He was often cast as a gangster, both serious (Johnny Torrio in the 1959 feature Capone, Jake Guzik on the TV series The Untouchables) and satiric (Little Bonaparte in 1959's Some Like It Hot). His credits in the 1980s included Stalin in the 1980 TV movie FDR: The Last Year, Barbra Streisand's father in Yentl (1983), and the robust voice of Papa Mousekewitz in the 1986 animated feature An American Tail.