Trivia: A descendent of a long line of talented actors including father James and sister Tyne, boyishly handsome screen regular Tim Daly has endured to overcome a post Wings career slump with a successful series of film and television roles. The New York City native first took to the stage in summer stock while studying at Bennington College; he followed graduation with a few seasons at Providence's Trinity Square Repertory and then made his off-Broadway debut in 1984 with Fables for Friends. Daly's film career got off to a healthy start with his role as a young expectant father in Diner (1982), though in the years that followed, the fresh-faced star was relegated mostly to small-screen roles. A Broadway bow opposite Annette Bening in Coastal Disturbances proved that Daly did indeed have the talent to make it as an actor if casting directors could see past his youthful exterior, and with his upcoming role in Wings, the rising star would prove his worth not only at comedy but drama as well. Cast opposite Steven Weber as one of two brothers who own a small Nantucket airline, Daly stayed with Wings through the series' seven-year run (1990-1997). During that time, he also utilized the predictable production schedule as a means to experiment with dramatic roles in a series of memorable made-for-television features. If audiences had pigeonholed Daly as a small-screen lightweight, a role as cult leader David Koresh in In the Line of Duty: Ambush in Waco showed that the versatile actor was capable of much more. Some of Daly's other roles from the mid-'90s may have proved less than memorable, but his vocal contributions to the animated television series Superman (for which he voiced the Man of Steel himself) kept him busy before he landed the role of astronaut James Lovell in the acclaimed HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (1998). As audiences began to realize Daly's talent thanks to memorable parts in Storm of the Century (1999) and an updated version of the television classic The Fugitive, it seemed as if the veteran actor might have finally overcome his youthful outward appearance to command some respect. Though Daly would indeed impress with his role as Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive, the series lasted only one season and it would be two years before he would return to the screen in the made-for-television drama The Outsider. In the years that followed, Daly's film career experienced something of a revival when he was cast in such high-profile releases as Basic (2003) and Against the Ropes (2004). The longtime actor also made his directorial debut in 2004 with the mournful drama Bereft. Daly became well-known for his portrayal of a naturopathic doctor Pete Wilder on NBC's drama series Private Practice. After leaving the show at the end of the 5th season, Daly voiced the character of Superman in Justice League: Doom (2012). This wasn't the first time the actor voiced the legendary superhero; he also worked on the 2010 animated feature Superman/Batman: Apocalypse. Daly maintained his TV roots, with guest arcs on The Mindy Project and Hot in Cleveland, before taking a regular role on Madam Secretary in 2014.

Trivia: Mention the name Steven Weber to any television fanatic, and odds are their eyes will soon gloss over with fond memories of the popular early-'90s sitcom Wings. Despite the popularity of his small-screen past, though, the handsome actor has gone on to prove his versatility in a number of features, both made-for-television and otherwise. Born in Queens, NY, to a nightclub singer and a comic manager, Weber discovered his love of acting around the age of three while appearing in a series of television commercials. He followed up a stint at New York's High School of the Performing Arts with an education at New York's prestigious State University at Purchase, and after working a series of odd jobs, Weber made his film debut in the 1984 Matt Dillon comedy The Flamingo Kid. A role on the enduring daytime soap opera As the World Turns introduced Weber to his first wife, Finn Carter, a few short years later. After appearing as a rock star in Los Angeles and as John F. Kennedy in The Kennedys of Massachusetts (both 1990), Weber was more than ready to take the lead in his own sitcom. Cast as the half-owner, along with brother Joe (Timothy Daly), of a Nantucket-based airline, Weber's charisma and comic talents went a long way in supporting the show over the course of its enduring eight-year run. Of course, Weber wasn't content to simply sit back and enjoy the success of Wings; in addition to the popular show, the actor turned up in supporting roles in numerous features including Single White Female (1992), Jeffrey (1995), and Leaving Las Vegas (also 1995). By the time the show came to an end in 1997, Weber had divorced Finn Carter and married actress Juliette Hohnen, and was ready to find out what else he had to offer to the worlds of film and television. Though a role in the made-for-television adaptation of The Shining failed to erase the memory of Jack Nicholson's terrifying interpretation of the role, Weber did prove memorable in Seinfeld creator Larry David's bitter-flavored comedy Sour Grapes (1998). The following few years would find Weber playing things relatively low-key onscreen; he returned to the small screen to moving effect with the 1999 made-for-television drama Love Letters. In 2000, Weber essayed a supporting role in director Mike Figgis' experimental comedy drama Timecode, and that same year he would return to sitcom territory with the short-lived Cursed. Though that particular effort may not have quite lived up to potential, Weber did gain positive notice for his role in the little-seen independent thriller Sleep Easy, Hutch Rimes (2000). After appearing opposite Alan Alda in the made-for-television feature Clubland (2001), Weber joined the cast of the popular small-screen drama Once and Again later that same year.Weber's enduring appeal has led to a steady stream of recent television work, both as a guest star and in regular roles. After wrapping up on Once and Again, he appeared as Will's brother Sam on Will & Grace; chairman of the fictional NBS network on the surprisingly short-lived dramedy Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip; a flirtatious co-worker romancing Sarah Walker (Rachel Griffths) during a stint on Brothers & Sisters; a regular role on another short-lived show, 2010's Happy Town; and a recurring role on 2 Broke Girls as Caroline's (Beth Behrs) jailed father, Martin Channing.

Trivia: By the time actor Thomas Haden Church earned an Oscar nomination for his unforgettable supporting role as a womanizing, has-been actor heading out on one last fling before tying the knot in director Alexander Payne's critically acclaimed road drama Sideways (2004), many film and television viewers may have assumed (and not without merit) that the former Wings star had all but abandoned his career in front of the cameras. It had, after all, been nearly a decade since Church had endeared himself to television viewers as lovably dunderheaded mechanic Lowell Mather on the aforementioned hit television series, and though he did remain fairly active onscreen after Wings went off the air in 1995, his career took something of a back seat to his familial commitments and life on his Texas cattle ranch. Coupled with a conscious decision to move away from acting and try his talents behind the camera, Church's fading devotion to acting still made his nomination at the 2005 Oscars feel like something of a comeback even though he had remained fairly active in show business all along. A Texas native whose early career included a stint as a radio disc jockey and voice-over announcer, Church first got a taste for acting with an appearance in the independent feature Gypsy Angels, and a move to Los Angeles followed shortly thereafter. It didn't take long for the handsome, young aspiring actor to land his defining role in Wings, and aside from supporting roles in the features Tombstone and Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight, it was his role in Wings and the subsequent television series Ned and Stacey for which he was best remembered for some time. Following the cancellation of Ned and Stacey, Church turned his attention primarily to feature films with supporting roles in One Night Stand, 3000 Miles to Graceland, Monkeybone, and Lone Star State of Mind serving to at least pay the bills. Dejected by a somewhat stifled acting career and determined to spend more time with his wife and children, Church opted to step behind the scenes to write and direct the independent comedy Rolling Kansas. A lighthearted road movie concerning a trio of brothers' quest to find a seemingly-mythical marijuana field in the sprawling plains of Kansas, Rolling Kansas made a brief appearance at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival before making its debut on Comedy Central the following year. Just when it seemed that the rest of Church's onscreen career may have been relegated to appearances in George of the Jungle sequels, acclaimed independent filmmaker Payne had recalled his auditions for his previous two films, Election and About Schmidt. Though Church hadn't quite made the cut on either of those films, Payne had taken note of his talent and thought the former Wings star the perfect candidate to play a formerly popular television star and down-on-his-luck actor having trouble adjusting to the prospect of marriage in Payne's upcoming comedy drama Sideways. Cast opposite American Splendor's Paul Giamatti, Church's alternately desperate and sad performance proved the heart of the film many considered to be the year's -- not to mention director Payne's -- best. The movie earned Church an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He followed up that success with appearances in the comedy Idiocracy and the western Broken Trail opposite Robert Duvall. In 2007 he was cast as one of the two-villains in Spider-Man 3, and the year after that he starred in the biting drama Smart People. His deep, recognizable voice led him to voiceover work in a variety of projects such as Aliens in the Attic, Charlotte's Web, and Over the Hedge. In 2010 he had a part in the sleeper hit Easy A, and he played Matt Damon's brother in Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo. In 2012 he was cast in the Disney flop John Carter.

Trivia: If television and movie buffs with a keen eye suspect that they may have seen actress Amy Yasbeck somewhere before, it could be from her early roles on the long-running soap opera mainstay Days of Our Lives or a mid-'90s stint on Wings, but it's possible that Yasbeck's recognition factor reaches back even further into the pop culture public conscience. As a child, the pretty actress was featured on the box of the wildly popular Easy Bake Oven.Born and raised the daughter of a grocery store proprietor father and a homemaker in Cincinnati, OH, Yasbeck got her break in show business after moving to New York City, where she was discovered by an agent while working in a restaurant. Moving to Los Angeles shortly after she began auditioning for roles, the aspiring actress made her television debut on Love, American Style before taking a villainous turn as Olivia in Days of Our Lives. As her small-screen career began gaining momentum with roles in Dallas, Magnum P.I., and The Cosby Show, Yasbeck also appeared early on in such features as House II: The Second Story (1987), Pretty Woman, and Problem Child (both 1990), on the set of which she met future husband John Ritter. Her versatile ability to transform herself into a given character regardless of apparent physical disparities was later evidenced in Yasbeck's role as Maid Marian in Mel Brooks' zany parody Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Though her role description called for a buxom blond actress of British persuasion, the artifices of a wig, a phony accent, and some creative costume-stuffing won the actress the role while simultaneously winning the favor of director Brooks (who later cast Yasbeck opposite Wings co-star Steven Webber in Dracula: Dead and Loving It [1995]). Drifting between television (Alright, Already, I've Got a Secret) and film (Odd Couple II, Denial [both 1998]). Throughout the next decade she made regular guest appearances in various TV series including Just Shoot Me!, That's So Raven, and Hot in Cleveland.

Trivia: Despite over four decades in the industry, actress Peggy Lipton is best known for a role she played in 1968, that of undercover cop Julie Barnes in The Mod Squad (1968-1973). However, prior to life as Julie Barnes, Lipton had participated in The John Forsythe Show (1965-1966) and starred alongside Kurt Russell in Mosby's Marauders, a critically praised three-part tale from The Wonderful World of Disney series. After the finale of The Mod Squad (and the reunion in 1979's The Return of the Mod Squad), Lipton played supporting roles in Purple People Eater and Keenen Ivory Wayans' I'm Gonna Git You Sucka! (both 1988). Before long, another television role launched Lipton's name back into the mainstream -- David Lynch's surreal drama series Twin Peaks (1990-1991), which featured Lipton in the role of Norma Jennings.Lipton reprised her Twin Peaks role in 1992, though, unlike The Return of the Mod Squad, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was a feature-film prequel to the television series. Lipton continued to make sporadic appearances in film and television throughout the '90s -- she had decided to focus most of her attention on raising a family rather than pursuing acting full-time -- and played a small, supporting role in Kevin Costner's ill-conceived film The Postman in 1997. In 2000, Lipton worked with Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Jason Leigh in director Tamra Davis' coming-of-age drama Skipped Parts, and went on to perform in Michael and Mark Polish's Jackpot in 2001. She also turned up on the popular spy series Alias in 2004 as the duplicitous mother of the similarly deceptive government agent Lauren Reed (Melissa George). Peggy Lipton was married to composer/producer Quincy Jones from 1974-1989, and the former couple have two daughters together.

Trivia: Soupy Sales wasn't the first kiddie show host to find a sub rosa appeal among adults, but he was the first to build a national following, and an entire career, on that foundation. His mix of wide-eyed, child-like wonderment, underscored by an awareness of the "adult" side of his humor -- which, in addition to a sharp satirical edge and an anarchistic component reminiscent of the Marx Brothers, also occasionally included some adult moments -- made him a unique presence on television and in American popular culture, and even allowed him to make the occasional jump into feature films.He was born Milton Supman in Franklinton, NC, in 1926. And because his family's last name was pronounced "soupman" by their neighbors, he adopted the nickname "Soupy" as a boy. He attended Marshall College in Huntington, WV, but it was performing, and especially comedy as embodied by the Marx Brothers and the Ritz Brothers, that appealed to him. Working initially as "Soupy Hines" -- which he later changed to "Soupy Sales" in honor of actor/comedian/author Charles "Chic" Sale -- he hosted dance shows on radio and television in the early '50s, mostly in Ohio, working out of Cincinnati and Cleveland, before making the jump to his own show, Lunch With Soupy, in 1953 on WXYZ-TV in Detroit. It was during this period that introduced such fixtures of his subsequent national show as Pookie The Lion, and he first worked with puppeteer and actor Frank Nastasi, who would work with him for more than a decade. Sales later moved to Los Angeles and had a show on the ABC network, before moving to New York City in the mid-'60s, where he got a show with Metromedia on WNEW-TV (Channel 5) in the fall of 1964, which was nationally syndicated by Columbia Pictures. That was the show that was most widely seen, and on which a lot of his reputation rested, with Pookie The Lion, Black Tooth and White Fang as puppet sidekicks; Hobart and Reba (the heads in the pot-bellied stove on his set), and his on-going Dick Tracy-style serial "Philo Kvetch," in which he played a private detective trying to track down his arch-enemy, "The Mask." The Soupy Sales Show appealed to youngsters, but it also had a lure for adults, who could see in his antics a satirical edge -- old detective thrillers ("Philo Kvetch" being an ethnic play on "Philo Vance") and of politics (when "The Mask" was finally unmasked, he was revealed as an actor wearing a not-too-convincing mask of then-Soviet premier Nikita Krushchev -- this at a time when the Cold War had hardly cooled at all), among numerous other "serious" subjects. Sales' show became the thing to do, much as the late Ernie Kovacs' show had been; it became a treat for celebrities, including Tony Curtis, Jerry Lewis, and, in one celebrated instance, Frank Sinatra -- along with Sammy Davis, Jr. and Trini Lopez, at a time when Sinatra and Davis were two of the biggest names in show business -- to go on the show, do a sketch, and get hit in the face with a pie. Sales had carved out a unique niche for himself as a national entertainer, his humor somewhere midway between Rocky & Bullwinkle, Ernie Kovacs, and Groucho Marx. It was also reportedly a very wild set; one of the running gags was the knock-at-the-door, in which Sales would interact with whoever or whatever was on the other side. But on at least one occasion, out of camera shot, there was a well-endowed topless female on the other side of the door, and all one saw was Sales' stunned reaction and ad-libs. The series was damaged, however, by a comic bit in which, on New Years' Day of 1965, Sales told his young audience to go through their parents' pockets and take those little pieces of paper with presidents' pictures and send them in. No one can say for sure how many children actually responded, but Metromedia was forced to take him off the air by the FCC over viewer complaints. This didn't stop his career momentum, however; he had a Top 10 hit record, as a single and LP in 1965, with "Do the Mouse," which he performed on The Ed Sullivan Show that year (the dance was a zany jump-and-sway with mouse ears, and probably helped put an end to the goofy dance crazes of the mid-'60s). He also made the leap to movies that year. Sales had previously appeared in a supporting role in the 1961 feature The Two Little Bears, but in 1966 he starred in the comedy Birds Do It, directed by Andrew Marton, about a NASA janitor who acquires the ability to fly. Sales' appeal to adults was codified by his appearances as a panelist on What's My Line?, and he had his own radio show in the 1980s as well. His later efforts at reviving his adult/kid show concept, however, never quite took off in the same way as his late '50s and '60s vehicles. The production values were higher (they couldn't have been lower; the Channel 5 set looked like it cost about $5 to decorate), and the shooting was in color, but the timing wasn't as tight, and he seemed to be trying too hard to do what he had done easily and effortlessly, and seemingly spontaneously, in earlier years. There were some clever bits, however, such as a sketch in which Sales is running from a security guard (played by Barney Martin) at a film vault and literally runs into and onto the action on a film strip (featuring Chester Morris, no less), with the guard still chasing him, now in black-and-white. He made a career over the 1980s, 1990s, and early 21st century simply by being Soupy Sales. He appeared as an occasional guest star, sometimes very effectively, on shows like Wings (where he played a champion Simon Says competitor), and also signed autographs at film conventions. He'd always had competitors, even in his prime; in the mid-'60s -- Sandy Becker and Chuck McCann had rival kids shows that also appealed to adults, though neither had Sales' satiric edge -- and in later years, there came successors, of whom the most well known is probably Floyd Vivino, aka Uncle Floyd, whose Uncle Floyd Show owed a huge amount to Sales' work. He remained active into the new century, and published an autobiography, Soupy Sez, co-authored with Charles Salzberg, in 2001. He died October 22, 2009, at the age of 83.