Trivia: A trained painter, Australian-born Rod Taylor switched to acting in his early twenties, toting up Australian stage credits before making his first Aussie film, The Stuart Exposition, in 1951. A villainous stint as Israel Hand in the 1954 Australian/U.S. production Long John Silver gave evidence that Taylor might be able to handle leading roles. However, he was still among the supporting ranks in his first American film, The Virgin Queen (1955). Signed to a nonexclusive contract by MGM in 1957, Taylor was cast in predominantly American roles, and accordingly managed to submerge his Australian accent in favor of a neutral "mid-Atlantic" cadence; even when playing an Englishman in 1960's The Time Machine, he spoke with barely a trace of a discernable accent. His film career peaked in the early to mid 1960s; during the same period he starred in the TV series Hong Kong (1961), the first of several weekly television stints (other series included Bearcats, The Oregon Trail, Masquerade and Outlaws). He was so long associated with Hollywood that, upon returning to Australia to appear in the 1977 film The Picture Show Man, Taylor was cast as an American. In his later career, Taylor thrived in character roles as ageing, but still virile, outdoorsmen, appearing in television shows like The Oregon Trail and Outlaws. He had recurring roles on Falcon Crest, Murder, She Wrote and Walker, Texas Ranger before mostly retiring from acting. In 2009, director Quentin Tarantino lured him out of retirement with the chance to play Winston Churchill in Inglourious Basterds. Taylor died in 2015, at age 84.

Trivia: American actor Jim Hutton was performing in a military show in Germany when he was discovered by director Douglas Sirk. Sirk promptly cast Hutton in A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958), which though released by Universal, led to an MGM contract for the young actor. Evidently MGM had plans to turn Hutton into the new Jimmy Stewart, for the studio insisted upon casting their young star in roles calling for ingenuous clumsiness. Perhaps the quintessential Hutton role was as The Horizontal Lieutenant (1962), in which his constant bumbling eventually transforms him into a war hero. MGM frequently paired Hutton with another player of acute comic skill, Paula Prentiss; they worked so well together that many fans assumed Hutton and Prentiss were married -- which must have been amusing to Paula's longtime husband Richard Benjamin. Hutton was allowed a few non-comedy "outdoors" roles in Major Dundee (1965) and The Green Berets (1969), but for the most part was locked into playing gangling young goofs. Oddly, Hutton's screen persona worked quite well for his TV-series role as Ellery Queen in the mid-1970s. The actor was charming and convincing as the self-effacing, deceptively preoccupied criminologist, especially when he turned to the camera 45 minutes into each Ellery Queen episode and invited the folks at home to help him solve the mystery. Hutton died of cancer at age 46 -- too soon to fully realize the success of his son, actor Timothy Hutton.

Trivia: Petite, dark-haired Sue Randall only ever made two appearances on the big screen, in a supporting role in Walter Lang's battle-of-the-sexes comedy Desk Set (1957), portraying a member of Katharine Hepburn's research staff, and co-starring in O'Dale Ireland's exploitation thriller Date Bait (1960), made for Roger Corman's low-budget Filmgroup company. Millions of baby-boomer television viewers, however, will always remember Randall fondly for her portrayal of Miss Alice Landers, Beaver Cleaver's favorite teacher on Leave It to Beaver; from 1958 through 1962, the object of a crush on the part of the series' young hero as well as his eternal admiration, Miss Landers was virtually a fixture in American popular culture for five years. Randall also had a starring role in the 1955 series Valiant Lady and appeared on series such as Sea Hunt, Perry Mason, The Fugitive, 77 Sunset Strip, The F.B.I., Gunsmoke, Wendy and Me, and I Spy, before retiring in 1965. She was one of the few surviving major supporting cast members who did not participate in Still the Beaver (1983), the revival of the series. Randall died of cancer in 1984 at the age of 49.

Trivia: Down-to-earth American actor Charles Aidman brought his "everyman" personality to such realistic war films as Pork Chop Hill (1959) and War Hunt (1962). He has since been cast in roles of quiet unstressed authority in films like Countdown (1967), Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977) and Uncommon Valor (1983). Aidman has also guest-starred on practically every TV series ever made; comedy fans will remember his portrayal of the hypnotist who plants an embarrassing post-hypnotic suggestion in the mind of Rob Petrie on a 1963 Dick Van Dyke Show episode. From 1985 through 1987, Charles Aidman was narrator of the revived Twilight Zone TV anthology series.

Trivia: In films from 1938's Tenth Avenue Kid, American actor Paul Bryar remained a durable character player for over thirty years, usually in police uniform. Among his screen credits were Follow Me Quietly (1949), Dangerous When Wet (1952), Inside Detroit (1955) and The Killer is Loose (1956). He also showed up in one serial, Republic's Spy Smasher (1942), and was a regular in Hollywood's B factories of the 1940s (he made thirteen pictures at PRC Studios alone, three of them "Michael Shayne" mysteries). Television took advantage of Bryar's talents in a number of guest spots, including the unsold pilot The Family Kovack (1974). He had somewhat better job security as a regular on the 1965 dramatic series The Long Hot Summer, playing Sheriff Harve Anders, though he and everyone else in the cast (from Edmond O'Brien to Wayne Rogers) were back haunting the casting offices when the series was cancelled after 26 episodes. One of Paul Bryar's last screen appearances was as one of the card players (with future star Sam Elliott) in the opening scene of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).