Trivia: Making her stage bow at age five in a community production of Alice in Wonderland, Linda Lavin spent the next ten years studying piano under the watchful eye of her stage mother. After majoring in theater arts at William and Mary College, Lavin appeared in stock in New Jersey, then weathered the chorus-audition rounds in New York, making her off-Broadway debut in a 1960 revival of Oh, Kay (1960). Two years later, she reached Broadway in A Family Affair. She went on to play Lois Lane (a la Ethel Merman) in the short-lived 1965 Broadway musical It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman, and when that show folded she starred in the off-Broadway production Wet Paint, which earned her a Theatre World Award. The musicomedy review The Mad Show followed, then Lavin was selected by director Alan Arkin to play Patsy Newquist (one of her favorite roles, and one that earned her the New York Critics' Outer Circle Award) in Jules Feiffer's Little Murders (1968). She subsequently played all the female roles in 1969's Cop-Out (another of her favorites) and Elaine Navazio in Neil Simon's Last of the Red Hot Lovers. From 1968 onward, Lavin made periodic trips to Hollywood. Her work as detective Janice Wentworth during the 1975-76 season of TV's Barney Miller led to a supporting role in the pilot episode of the proposed series Jerry. CBS nixed Jerry but signed Lavin to a development deal, which of course developed into her ten-season (1976-85) hitch as waitress Alice Hyatt in the popular sitcom Alice. Recalling that her counterpart in the 1975 film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore was an aspiring singer, Lavin inked her Alice contract on the assumption that the producers would permit her to sing--which they did, on practically every other network program except Alice. Returning to Broadway after her series folded, Lavin won a Tony award for her performance in Neil Simon's Broadway Bound, and also starred in Gypsy and The Sisters Rosensweig. She also made a brief return to TV as Edie Kurland in the one-season comedy Room for Two (1992). Linda Lavin was at one time married to actor Ron Leibman.

Trivia: Born to a Syrian-Lebanese family in Brooklyn, Victor Tayback grew up learning how to aggressively defend himself and those he cared about, qualities that he'd later carry over into his acting work. Moving to California with his family, the 16-year-old Tayback made the varsity football team at Burbank High. Despite numerous injuries, he continued his gridiron activities at Glendale Community College, until he quit school over a matter of principle (he refused to apologize to his coach for breaking curfew). After four years in the navy, Tayback enrolled at the Frederick A. Speare School of Radio and TV Broadcasting, hoping to become a sportscaster. Instead, he was sidetracked into acting, working as a cab driver, bank teller and even a "Kelly Girl" between performing gigs. Shortly after forming a little-theatre group called the Company of Angels, Tayback made his movie debut in Door-to-Door Maniac (1961), a fact he tended to exclude from his resumé in later years. His professional life began to improve in 1967, when he won an audition to play Sid Caesar's look-alike in a TV pilot. Throughout the early 1970s the bulging, bald-domed actor made a comfortable living in TV commercials and TV guest-star assignments, and as a regular on the detective series Griff (1973) and Khan (1975). In 1975, he was cast in the secondary role of Mel Sharples, the potty-mouthed short-fused owner of a greasy spoon diner, in the theatrical feature Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. When the film evolved into the weekly TV sitcom Alice in 1976, Tayback was engaged to recreate his "Mel" characterization. He remained with the program for the next nine years. In contrast to his gruff, abusive screen character, Tayback was dearly loved by the rest of the Alice cast, who regarded him a Big Brother and Father Confessor rolled into one. Five years after Alice's cancellation, Vic Tayback died of cancer at the age of 61; one of his last screen assignments was the voice of Carface in the animated feature All Dogs Go to Heaven.

Trivia: Supporting actor Philip McKeon got his start as a child model appearing in magazines, newspapers, and television commercials. He is best remembered for playing Tommy, the son of the title character in the long-running sitcom Alice (1976-1985). His younger sister, Nancy McKeon, is a successful television actress.

Trivia: After eking out a modest living as a piano teacher in Alabama and Florida, Polly Holliday switched to acting, spending ten seasons with the Asolo State Theater in Sarasota. In 1973, Holliday headed for New York, where she was cast in Murray Schisgal's Broadway play All Over Town; her director was Dustin Hoffman. All Over Town led to the tiny but pivotal role as a testy secretary in the Dustin Hoffman-Robert Redford feature All the President's Men (1976)--which, in turn, led to Holliday's being cast as wise-cracking waitress Florence Jean "Flo" Castleberry in the TV sitcom Alice (1976-80). Rising to nationwide fame by virtue of her oft-repeated catchphrase "Kiss mah grits!", Holliday earned four Emmy nominations and one Golden Globe Award. In 1980, she was spun off into her own weekly series Flo, which lacked Alice's staying power and was cancelled after a single season. She went on to briefly replace Eileen Brennan on TV's Private Benjamin (1983), and to play Captain Betty in the pilot episode of Stir Crazy (1985). Her film roles of the 1980s included Gremlins (1984), in which she was eminently hissable as Margaret Hamilton clone Mrs. Deagle. Polly Holliday's more recent work has largely been confined to the Broadway stage; in 1989, she received a Tony nomination for her portrayal of Sister Woman in a revival of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Trivia: American comedian George Burns had a taste for show business from his youth on New York's Lower East Side, and by the time he was seven he and his buddies had formed a singing group called the Pee Wee Quartet. Amateur shows led to small-time vaudeville, where Burns faced rejection time and again, often gaining jobs from people who had fired him earlier through the simple expedient of constantly changing his professional name. Usually working as part of a song-and-snappy-patter team, he was in the process of breaking up with his latest partner Billy Lorraine in 1922 when he met a pretty young singer/dancer named Gracie Allen. The game plan for this new team was to have Gracie play the "straight man" and George the comic, but so ingenuous and lightheaded was Gracie's delivery that the audience laughed at her questions and not at George's answers. Burns realized he'd have to reverse the roles and become the straight man for the act to succeed, and within a few years Burns and Allen was one of the hottest acts in vaudeville, with George writing the material and Gracie garnering the laughs. George and Gracie married in 1926; thereafter the team worked on stage, in radio, in movies (first in a series of one-reel comedies, then making their feature debut in 1932's The Big Broadcast) and ultimately in television, seldom failing to bring down the house with their basic "dizzy lady, long-suffering man" routine. Though the public at large believed that Gracie had all the talent, show business insiders knew that the act would have been nothing without George's brilliant comic input; indeed, George was often referred to by his peers as "The Comedian's Comedian". Gracie decided to retire in 1958, after which George went out on his own in television and in nightclubs, to less than spectacular success. After Gracie's death in 1964, George concentrated on television production (he had vested interests in several series, among them Mr. Ed) and for a nervous few years tried using other comic actresses in the "Gracie" role for his club appearances. But it wasn't the same; George Burns would be first to admit there was only one Gracie Allen. Though he never retired, Burns was more or less out of the consciousness of moviegoers until he was hired at the last minute to replace his late friend Jack Benny in the film version of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys (1975). His performance as a cantankerous old vaudeville comic won him an Oscar, and launched a whole new career for the octogenarian entertainer as a solo movie star. Perhaps his most conspicuous achievement in the late 1970s was his portrayal of the Almighty Spirit - with distinct Palace Theatre undertones - in Oh, God! (1977). Even after reaching his centennial year, Burns remained as sharp-witted as ever. Less than three months after his 100th birthday Burns passed away. But fans can take comfort because Burns has gone beyond the realm of Show Business Legend; he is practically an immortal.