Trivia: The product of a tough, impoverished upbringing, African American actor Robert Guillaume fought his way out of the St. Louis slums by virtue of talent, persistence and an unwillingness to bow down to anyone. After military service and college, Guillaume held down short-term jobs ranging from cook to streetcar conductor, all the while training his voice for potential musical comedy work--training that paid off with his first Broadway show, 1961's Kwamina. Among his many stage credits were the musical versions of Golden Boy (with Sammy Davis Jr.) and Purlie Victorious, and the long-running review Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. When New York stage work was scarce, Guillaume created his own opportunities by giving one-man concerts. After guesting in several of the black-oriented TV sitcoms of the 1970s, Guillaume was cast in 1977 as the imperious, outspoken family retainer Benson in the daytime-drama parody Soap (the actor would be first to admit that many of Benson's more contentious traits sprang from Guillaume's own prickly personality). The role won Guillaume a 1978 Emmy as "Outstanding Supporting Actor." In 1979, Guillaume carried over his Soap role into his own starring series, the now classic sitcom Benson, which ran until 1986 and which won Guillaume another Emmy, this time as "Outstanding Lead Actor." Robert Guillaume also headlined the appropriately titled 1989 series The Robert Guillaume Show, wherein for approximately five months he starred as divorced marriage counselor Edward Sawyer. In the several years to follow, Guillaume would star in shows like Sports night, as well as a number of films like Big Fish and Satin.

Trivia: The son of a Dallas wholesale coal dealer, American actor James Noble spent much of his youth attending pool halls and movie houses. Noble retained his expertise with a pool cue throughout his life, while his stronger interest in acting (fueled by movies) manifested itself in local stage productions and drama studies at Southern Methodist University. Following Navy service in World War II, Noble went to New York to study at the Actors Studio, then went on to a stage revival of Pygmalion wherein he met his future wife, actress Carolyn Coates. The actor appeared on such TV soap operas as As the World Turns, The Doctors, A World Apart and such Broadway productions as 1776, spending much of his spare time in psychotherapy to handle his ongoing feelings of self-doubt. In films from the mid '70s, Noble principally played small roles as authority figures and politicians (Being There, The Nude Bomb), with occasional larger roles such as Bo Derek's father in 10 (1978). In 1981 Noble was cast as the genially absent-minded Governor Gene Gatling on the Robert Guillaume sitcom Benson, a role in which he remained until the series' 1986 cancellation. Two years later, James Noble resurfaced on TV in the role of a Nebraska-based recording engineer on the very short-lived situation comedy First Impressions. Noble continued to act, sticking to mostly guest roles on shows like Perfect Strangers and Law & Order, through the 1990s, and then appeared only sporadically onscreen in the next decade, though he kept up his stage work during that time. Noble died in 2016, at age 94.

Trivia: Supporting actress, onscreen from 1961. She played the housekeeper in the TV sitcom Benson.

Trivia: A vaudeville and burlesque comedienne who went on to essay numerous film roles after being discovered at an orphanage at the age of eight, actress Billie Bird would later use her stage experience to entertain troops on 12 USO tours in the 1960s and '70s. Born Bird Berniece Sellen in Pocatello, ID, in February 1908, her chance discovery came when a traveling road show stopped to entertain the children at the orphanage in which she resided and immediately recognized her talent. Subsequently traveling with the troupe and studying with a tutor in her downtime, Bird went on to form a sister act and later appeared in such "light opera" works as Show Boat and New Moon. A move to Los Angeles in 1943 found Bird performing at such hot spots as Club Moderne and The Colony Club, and, from 1947 to 1955, she showed off her skills on the guitar, clarinet, vibraphone, and bagpipes in burlesque shows. Although Bird made her screen debut in the 1921 comedy Grass Widowers, it was the 1950s that found her edging away from the stage and toward television and film. Particularly active in movies in the '50s, Bird appeared in more than a dozen films, including Somebody Loves Me (1952) and The Joker Is Wild (1957). The actress remained relatively active in the '60s, as well, although her career slowed to a notable pace in the '70s with the exception of a featured role in the popular late-'70s sitcom Benson. However, her screen career later picked up momentum with such notable '80s comedies as Sixteen Candles (1984), One Crazy Summer (1986), and Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987), and Bird made a successful return to the world of sitcom television as an aged, but feisty, support-group member in Dear John. Roles in such films as Home Alone (1990) and Dennis the Menace (1993) followed. In 1995, she made her final screen appearance in the Pauly Shore comedy Jury Duty. Stricken with Alzheimer's disease in the '90s, Bird died in November 2002. She was 92.

Trivia: While his name might suggest a birthplace somewhere in France -- or at the very least Quebec -- actor Rene Auberjonois was born in New York City. However, his well-to-do parents were of noble European blood, thus French was the language of choice in his household. Despite his first-born-American status, Auberjonois was shunned by many of his schoolmates as a foreigner, and teased for having a "girl's" name. As a defense mechanism, Auberjonois became the class clown, which somehow led naturally to amateur theatricals. The influence of such neighborhood family friends as Burgess Meredith and Lotte Lenya solidified Auberjonois' determination to make performing his life's work. He was cast in a production at Stratford (Ontario)'s Shakespeare company by John Houseman -- another neighbor of his parents' -- and after moving with his family to England, Auberjonois returned to complete his acting training at Carnegie-Mellon University. There he decided to specialize in character parts rather than leads -- a wise decision, in that he's still at it while some of his handsomer and more charismatic Carnegie-Mellon classmates have fallen by the wayside. Three years with the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. led Auberjonois to San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre, of which he was a founding member. Movie and TV work was not as easy to come by, so the actor returned to New York, where he won a Tony for his Broadway role in the musical Coco. An introduction to director Robert Altman led Auberjonois to his first film, M*A*S*H (1970), in which he introduced the character that would later be fleshed out on TV as Father Mulcahy (with William Christopher in the role). He worked in two more Altman films before he and the director began to grow in opposite directions. More stage work and films followed, then TV assignments; Auberjonois' characters ranged from arrogant dress designers to snooty aristocrats to schizophrenic killers on film, while the stage afforded him more richly textured roles in such plays as King Lear and The Good Doctor. In 1981, Auberjonois was cast as Clayton Endicott III, the terminally fussy chief of staff to Governor Gatling on Benson. Like so many other professional twits in so many other films, Auberjonois' job was to make life miserable for the more down-to-earth hero, in this case Robert "Benson" Guillaume. Blessed with one of the most flexible voiceboxes in show business, Auberjonois has spent much of his career providing voice-overs for cartoon characters in animated projects like the Disney's The Little Mermaid, The Legend of Tarzan, Justice League, and Pound Puppies. In 1993, Rene Auberjonois assured himself a permanent place in the hearts of "Trekkies" everywhere when he was cast as Odo (complete with understated but distinctive "alien" makeup) on the weekly syndicated TV show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which he appeared on until 1999.Auberjonois would remain extremely active on screen in the years to come, appearing in movies like The Patriot, and on shows like Boston Legal.

Trivia: During his first professional "life," Wisconsin-born John Matuszak was a football player. Actually, that's an understatement: as Houston's number one pick in the 1973 NFL draft, as a wildly unpredictable defensive lineman for the Raiders, and as a veteran of two Super Bowls, Matuszak was a FOOTBALL PLAYER. Like many of his calling, Matuszak decided to try the movies, beginning with a good part in the football-oriented North Dallas Forty (1979). In his case, acting "took," and Matuszak became a successful film and TV performer after his 1982 retirement from professional sports, playing character roles in fantasy films like Ice Pirates (1984) and Goonies (1986) and making regular appearances on the TV series Hollywood Beat and First and Ten. Sadly, John Matuszak died suddenly in 1989 at the age of 38.