Trivia: Frank Overton was a New York theater actor who enjoyed a limited but productive career in feature films and a much busier one on the small screen. Although he often played thoughtful, compassionate, introspective characters, he could also exude an earthy side, or portray rule-bound authority figures, though one of his most memorable portrayals -- as General Bogan, the head of the Strategic Air Command, in Fail-Safe -- combined two of those sides. Born Frank Emmons Overton in Babylon, NY, in 1918, he gravitated to theater in the 1930s and participated in some experimental stage work -- including designing the sets for A Democratic Body, a production of Geoff and Mary Lamb at The New School in New York City -- at the outset of the 1940s. Overton's earliest screen work came not on camera, but as one of the voice actors (alongside Harry Bellaver and future producer Ilya Lopert) in the dubbing of the 1943 Soviet-made propaganda film Ona Zashchishchayet Rodinu (aka, No Greater Love). His on-camera screen career started in 1947 with an uncredited bit part in Elia Kazan's fact-based drama Boomerang! He appeared in two more feature films, John Sturges' Mystery Street and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's No Way Out (both 1950), but as an East Coast-based actor, he ended up a lot busier on television over the next few years, in between appearing in theater pieces such as the original stage version of The Desperate Hours, replacing James Gregory in the role of the deputy. Overton also worked with Lillian Gish in the original television presentation of Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful in 1953, and in the Broadway production that followed that same year. He also did a great deal of work in anthology drama series, such as The Elgin Hour, Armstrong Circle Theatre, The Alcoa Hour, and The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse. In the latter, he portrayed Sheriff Pat Garrett to Paul Newman's Billy The Kid in The Death of Billy The Kid, scripted by Gore Vidal and directed by Arthur Penn, which was later remade in Hollywood as The Left-Handed Gun (with John Dehner replacing Overton in the role of Garrett).By the end of the 1950s, however, more television was being done on film from the West Coast and Overton made the move to California. Most baby-boom viewers will remember him best for his performance in one of the finest installments of The Twilight Zone ever produced, "Walking Distance," as the father of the character portrayed by Gig Young. He returned to feature films around this same time in Desire Under the Elms (1958), The Last Mile (1959), and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960), in between appearances on episodes of Peter Gunn, Riverboat, The Rebel, The Asphalt Jungle, Lawman, Checkmate, Perry Mason, Route 66, The Fugitive, Wagon Train, The Defenders, and others. He also periodically returned to New York to work on series such as Naked City. His biggest movie roles came in the early '60s, in Robert Mulligan's To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) as Sheriff Tate, and Sidney Lumet's Fail-Safe (1964) as General Bogan.In 1964, he also took his first and only regular series costarring role, on the Quinn Martin-produced 12 O'Clock High, portraying Major Harvey Stovall, the adjutant for the 918th Heavy Bombardment Group commanded by Brig. Gen. Frank Savage (Robert Lansing). It was not an enviable assignment, as Dean Jagger had won the Oscar in the same role in the original 1949 feature film, which was still relatively fresh in people's minds as one of the best World War II aerial dramas; but Overton, with his rich, quietly expressive voice, succeeded in putting his own stamp on the part and got several episodes written around his character. He was also with the series for its entire three seasons, amid several major casting changes and was one of the key points of continuity on the show. When 12 O'Clock High went out of production in late 1966, Overton showed up in episodes of Bonanza and The Virginian in 1967. But his most widely rerun appearance, other than his Twilight Zone episode, was one of his last, as colonist leader Elias Sandoval in the first-season Star Trek episode "This Side of Paradise," which is regarded by many as one of the best shows in the run of the series. Overton died of a heart attack in April 1967, a month after the show first aired.

Trivia: Supporting actress Irene Tedrow spent most of her 60-year career on stage, but she also had considerable experience in feature films and on television. Slender and possessing an austere beauty, Tedrow was well suited for the rather prim and moral characters she most often played. After establishing herself on stage in the early '30s, she made her film debut in 1937. She gained fame during the 1940s playing Mrs. Janet Archer in the Meet Corliss Archer film series. She kept the role in the subsequent television series. She played Mrs. Elkins on Dennis the Menace between 1959 and 1963. In 1976, Tedrow earned an Emmy for her performance in Eleanor and Franklin.

Trivia: Gig Young started his movie career billed under his birth name, Byron Barr. He made his debut in You're in the Army Now (1941). The following year, he played in The Gay Sisters playing a larger supporting role, a character called Gig Young. While he would he would still continue going by Byron Barr for a while, he would eventually change it to Gig Young because there was an actor named Byron Barr already in Hollywood. When not going by his birth name, Young sometimes billed himself as Bryant Fleming. During WWI, Young was part of the Coast Guard. Upon his discharge, he returned to his movie career. Dashing and witty, Young often played second bananas and was frequently cast as a carefree bachelor who was more interested in fun than commitment. He also played guys who were always unlucky in love in romantic comedies. Occasionally Young would win the lead in B-movies. In 1969, Young earned an Oscar for his performance in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? On television, Young occasionally guest starred on series and movies. In 1976, he starred in the short-lived series Gibbsville. In 1978, Young and his bride of three weeks (he had been married four times before) were found dead of gunshot wounds in his Manhattan apartment. In Young's hand was the pistol and police surmised that he had shot her and then himself. His wife was Kim Schmidt, a 31-year-old German actress.

Trivia: One of show-businesses busiest grandfatherly figures, actor Bill Erwin has been appearing in film and television since the early '40s, and as of 2003, he's shown no signs of slowing. His consistently reliable performances in such high-profile efforts as Somewhere in Time (1980), Home Alone (1990), and Forces of Nature (1999) have found Erwin enduring to become one of the most in-demand supporting players around. A Honey Grove, TX, native who earned his bachelor's in journalism at the University of Texas in Austin in 1935, Erwin went on to California to complete his Masters of Theater Arts at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1941. Though a stint in World War II would momentarily put his acting career on hold, Erwin returned stateside to make his film debut in, appropriately enough, the 1941 Phil Silvers comedy You're in the Army Now. Throughout the years, Erwin has appeared in numerous stage productions on both coasts, and repeat performances on such television classics as Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone, Growing Pains, and Seinfeld have ensured Erwin's popularity with many generations of television viewers. His role in Seinfeld earned him an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1993. From high-profile releases like Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995) to edgy, low-budget sci-fi movies like Menno's Mind (1996), Erwin has done it all, and equally well. Outside of his film work, Erwin spends his time writing and illustrating cartoons in his North Hollywood home.

Trivia: In the 1959 Twilight Zone episode "Walking Distance," Gig Young comments that he thinks he's seen drugstore counterman Byron Foulger before. "I've got that kind of face" was the counterman's reply. Indeed, Foulger's mustachioed, bespectacled, tremble-chinned, moon-shaped countenance was one of the most familiar faces ever to grace the screen. A graduate of the University of Utah, Foulger developed a taste for performing in community theatre, making his Broadway debut in the '20s. Foulger then toured with Moroni Olsen's stock company, which led him to the famed Pasadena Playhouse as both actor and director. In films from 1936, Foulger usually played whining milksops, weak-willed sycophants, sanctimonious sales clerks, shifty political appointees, and the occasional unsuspected murderer. In real life, the seemingly timorous actor was not very easily cowed; according to his friend Victor Jory, Foulger once threatened to punch out Errol Flynn at a party because he thought that Flynn was flirting with his wife (Mrs. Foulger was Dorothy Adams, a prolific movie and stage character actress). Usually unbilled in "A" productions, Foulger could count on meatier roles in such "B" pictures as The Man They Could Not Hang (1939) and The Panther's Claw (1943). In the Bowery Boys' Up in Smoke (1957), Foulger is superb as a gleeful, twinkly-eyed Satan. In addition to his film work, Byron Foulger built up quite a gallery of portrayals on television; one of his final stints was the recurring role of engineer Wendell Gibbs on the popular sitcom Petticoat Junction.

Trivia: Vaudeville and stage performer Pat O'Malley was a mere lad of seventeen (or thereabouts) when he inaugurated his film career at the Edison company in 1907. A dependable "collar-ad" leading man possessed of an athlete's physique, O'Malley rose to stardom at the Kalem Studios during the teens. From 1918 to 1927, O'Malley hopscotched around Hollywood, appearing at Universal, First National, Vitagraph and Paramount; he starred in war films (Heart of Humanity [1918]), westerns (The Virginian [1922]) and adaptations of bestsellers (Brothers Under the Skin [1922]). His talkie debut in 1929's Alibi would seem to have heralded a thriving sound career, but O'Malley had aged rather suddenly, and could no longer pass as a romantic lead. He worked in some 400 films in bits and supporting roles, frequently showing up in "reunion" films in the company of his fellow silent screen veterans (Hollywood Boulevard [1936], and A Little Bit of Heaven [1941]). O'Malley remained "on call" into the early '60s for such TV shows as The Twilight Zone and such films as The Days of Wine and Roses (1962). Pat O'Malley's film credits are often confused with those of Irish comedian/dialectian J. Pat O'Malley (1901-1985) and Australian performer John P. O'Malley (1916-1959).

Trivia: Professionally, Ron Howard has come a long way from the tousle-haired, barefoot sheriff's son who trod the byways of idyllic Mayberry to reside in the heady company of Hollywood's most elite directors. Howard's films are pure entertainment; they are well-crafted efforts, frequently technically challenging from a production standpoint, and aimed at mainstream audiences. Though some of his lesser works have been criticized for possessing formulaic scripts, Howard's films approach even hackneyed subjects in fresh ways. Though he does not characterize himself as a risk taker, he loves the challenge of exploring different genres; therefore, his filmography includes B-movie actioners, domestic comedies, fantasies, sci-fi, suspense-thrillers, historical dramas, and big-budget action films. The son of actors Rance and Jean Howard, he made his theatrical debut at age two in a Baltimore production of The Seven Year Itch. He made his screen debut at age five in the suspenseful political drama The Journey (1959). The youngster became a hot property after that and appeared in several features, including The Music Man and The Courtship of Eddie's Father (both 1962). Through this period his father was a strong ally who kept Howard from being exploited by filmmakers. In a November 1996 interview with the Detroit News, Howard describes an incident in which he was six years old and during rehearsal could not cry on cue (Howard doesn't name the production), causing the director to threaten to flog him. Other children may have been terrified, but Howard felt secure because his father was on the set and would protect him. When producer Sheldon Leonard approached Rance Howard about casting Ronny (as he was billed during childhood) as Opie, the son of widowed sheriff Andy Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968), the elder Howard stipulated that his son be allowed time off for a normal childhood. It was as the mischievous but guileless Opie that Ronny Howard became famous. During the popular show's long run, Howard occasionally appeared in other feature films. While a series' demise often signals the death of a child actor's career, particularly if that child is obviously maturing, Howard managed the transition gracefully and continued working steadily. He was cast in a new television series, The Smith Family, in 1971 and starred opposite Henry Fonda, who became one of Howard's mentors, encouraging Howard to strive for creative growth and to take periodic risks to keep himself vital. The series lasted one season, but again Howard landed on his feet, making a bigger name for himself starring as a callow youth in George Lucas' smash hit American Graffiti (1973). The film spawned Garry Marshall's long-running hit, the '50s revival sitcom Happy Days (1974). Essentially reprising his role from the film, Howard (now billed as Ron Howard) starred as all-American youth Richie Cunningham. Again, Howard also worked simultaneously in films, notably in The Shootist (1976), where he played a teen who worshipped dying gunslinger John Wayne. Though playing a teenager on the series, Howard was in his early twenties and felt it was time to follow his longtime dream of becoming a director. Producer Roger Corman, who had recently starred Howard in Eat My Dust! (1976), let Howard helm the similarly themed Grand Theft Auto (1977). Howard also co-wrote the screenplay with his father and starred in the film. While not exactly an original masterpiece, the film earned praise for its fast-paced, high-energy action scenes. After leaving Happy Days in 1980, he directed Bette Davis in a television movie, Skyward, and managed to earn the great lady's respect with his filmmaking skills. Howard had his first big hit in 1982 with the black comedy Nightshift. It was to be the first of many instances in which he would work with producer Brian Grazer, who eventually became his partner and the co-founder of Howard's production company, Imagine Films Entertainment (established in 1985), and screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, who formerly wrote for Happy Days. Howard had even greater success with the Tom Hanks/Darryl Hannah vehicle Splash (1984), which launched Disney's Touchstone Pictures and became the company's most successful live-action film to date. He followed this up with sentimental favorite Cocoon (1985). He had his first misstep after hitting it big with Willow, a George Lucas-produced fantasy extravaganza that never clicked with audiences, though it has since developed a devoted cult following. During the early '90s, Howard worked on a series of big-budget films such as Backdraft (1991) and Far and Away (1992), and Apollo 13 (1995), a gripping account of a failed moon mission. Apollo 13 was a huge international hit, nominated for nine Oscars (it won for Best Sound and Best Editing), and earned Howard the coveted Director's Guild award. In 1996, Howard attempted a new genre with the violent, bloody thriller Ransom, starring Mel Gibson. While an effective suspense thriller in it's own right, Ransom didn't darken Howard's sensibilities in any permanent terms, and after a few stints as producer on both the small screen (Felicity, Sports Night and the silver screen (Inventing the Abbots (1997) and Beyond the Mat (1999)), Howard was back in the director's chair for Ed TV in 1999, but itsuffered immediate and fatal comparisons to the more popular and strikingly similar Jim Carrey vehicle, The Truman Show. Undaunted, Howard next teamed with the rubber-faced star of Truman for How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which became a box-office smash. Once again turning back to reality after the marked departure of The Grinch, Howard helmed the sensitive real-life tale of paranoid schizophrenic mathematician turned Nobel Prize winning genius John Forbes Nash Jr. in A Beautiful Mind (2001). With Russel Crowe essaying the role of Nash and Jennifer Connelly as his faithful and enduring wife, the film gained generally positive reception upon release, and only seemed to cement Howard's reputation as one of the most versatile and gifted director's of his generation as the film took the Best Picture award at both the that year's Golden Globes and Oscars. Academy Award night proved to be an even bigger night for Howard as the film also took home awards for Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and, of course, Best Director. Howard followed up his Oscar wins with the dark Western drama The Missing starring Tommy Lee Jones and Cate Blanchett. Unfortunately, neither critics or audiences were too fond of the over-long film. Lucky for Howard, his next project would see him re-team with A Beautiful Mind's Russell Crowe. The Depression-era boxing film Cinderella Man starred Crowe as real-life boxer Jim Braddock and was released in 2005 to positive reviews and Oscar-buzz. Next, he helmed the adaptation of Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code, casting his old Splash leading man Tim Hanks in the lead. The film was as big a worldwide success as the book that inspired it. Howard followed the massive success with an adaptation of Peter Morgan's hit play Frost/Nixon. The film captured five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Editing, as well as a nod for Howard's direction.As the 2000's continued to unfold, Howard would remain an extremely active filmmaker, helming movies like The Dilemma.