Trivia: Robert Fuller spent his first decade in show business trying his best to avoid performing. After his film debut in 1952's Above and Beyond, Fuller studied acting with Sanford Meisner at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse but never exhibited any real dedication. He tried to become a dancer but gave that up as well, determining that dancing was "sissified." Fuller rose to nominal stardom fairly rapidly in the role of Jess Harper on the popular TV western Laramie (1959-63). Once he found his niche in cowboy attire, he stuck at it in another series, Wagon Train, turning down virtually all offers for "contemporary" roles. When westerns began dying out on television in the late 1960s, Fuller worked as a voiceover actor in commercials, earning some $65,000 per year (a tidy sum in 1969). On the strength of his performance in the Burt Topper-directed motorcycle flick The Hard Ride, Fuller was cast by producer Jack Webb as chief paramedic Kelly Brackett on the weekly TVer Emergency, which ran from 1972 through 1977. In 1994, Robert Fuller was one of several former TV western stars who showed up in cameo roles in the Mel Gibson movie vehicle Maverick.

Trivia: Sultry blues vocalist Julie London began her film career long before she achieved fame as a recording artist. In 1945, 18-year-old London was selected to play a bargain-basement jungle princess, appearing opposite a gorilla in the PRC cheapie Nabonga. She was pretty bad, but no worse than the film itself. By the time she was cast as a sexy teenager in The Red House (1947), her acting had improved immensely, and by the time she played the female lead in the 1951 programmer The Fat Man, it looked as though she actually had a future in films. Still, London's greatest claim to fame was her long string of hit records ("Cry Me a River" et. al.) of the 1950s; many male admirers bought her albums simply to gaze upon her come-hither countenance on the dust jacket. Her status as every red-blooded American boy's wish dream was gently lampooned in Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help It (1956), in which she appears as a spectral vision who transfixes a wistful Tom Ewell. Her best dramatic film appearances of this period include her leading-lady gigs in Voice in the Mirror (1958) and Man of the West (1958). From 1945 through 1955, Julie London was the wife of actor/producer Jack Webb; years after the divorce, London played Nurse Dixie McCall on the popular Jack Webb-produced TV series Emergency, in which she co-starred with her second husband, actor/jazz musician Bobby Troup.

Trivia: With ruggedly handsome looks and a lengthy screen career, actor-producer Nick Nolte has established himself as a major industry figure. His enviable standing as one of Hollywood's most distinctive leading men was further cemented with a 1998 Best Actor Oscar nomination for his role in Affliction. A native of Omaha, NE, Nolte was born February 8, 1941. While a student at Arizona State University, he revealed talent as a football player, but whatever promise he may have had on the field was aborted by his expulsion from the school for bad grades. A subsequent move to California convinced Nolte to try acting instead. He studied at the Pasadena Playhouse, then at Stella Adler's Academy in Los Angeles under Bryan O'Byrne, while he held down a job as an iron worker. After his training, Nolte spent 14 years traveling the country and working in regional theater, occasionally landing parts in B-movies and television films. Debuting onscreen with a small role in Dirty Little Billy (1972), Nolte was 34 when he finally got his break in the acclaimed television miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man (1976). His portrayal of Tom Jordache earned him an Emmy nomination and led to a starring role opposite Jacqueline Bisset in The Deep (1977). In addition to starring in the football exposé North Dallas Forty (1979), Nolte contributed to its screenplay, written by Peter Gent.Showing a marked preference for unusual and difficult films, it was not long before Nolte became known as a well-rounded actor who brought realism, depth, and spirit to even his most offbeat or even unsympathetic roles. Some of those parts include Beat author Neal Cassady in Heart Beat (1980), a homeless bum who helps a dysfunctional rich family in the hit comedy Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), a family man attempting to come to grips with his family's traumatic past while falling in love with his therapist in The Prince of Tides (1991), a midwestern basketball coach in Blue Chips, and a world-weary detective in Mulholland Falls (1996).For a grim period in the late '80s, Nolte's career was threatened by his unrestrained drug and alcohol use, but a subsequent rehabilitation strengthened his career, paving the way for roles such as Jake McKenna in Oliver Stone's neo-noir thriller U-Turn (1997) and his Oscar-nominated turn as Sheriff Wade Whitehouse in Paul Schrader's Affliction (1997), a picture Nolte also executive produced. Following this triumph, Nolte further re-established his reputation as a major Hollywood player with his role in Terrence Malick's 1998 adaptation of James Jones' The Thin Red Line, headlining a cast including George Clooney, Sean Penn, and John Travolta. If the subsequent adaptation of author Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s acclaimed novel Breakfast of Champions failed to capture the essence of the written word, Nolte still managed to offer an impressive performance in the following year's The Golden Bowl.At this point in his career Nolte could certainly be counted on to turn in compelling performances regardless of the project, which made the return of his former demons more tragic than ever. On the heels of a mesmerizing lead performance as an aging gambler in director Neil Jordan's The Good Thief (a remake of the Jean-Pierre Melville classic Bob le Flambeur), Nolte's arrest for driving under the influence in September of 2002 made headlines when it was discovered that he was under the influence of GHB. The disheveled mugshot that followed made him the butt of many a joke; Nolte would later credit the arrest for helping him to clean up his act and get back on track with his onscreen career. A late-night jam that found neighbors phoning police made headlines the following year, and the Hulk came and went with disappointing results.In the subsequent period, Nolte remained in good form, with idiosyncratic and fascinating roles. He triumphed in the spectacular late 2004 drama Hotel Rwanda, as the politically impotent Col. Oliver during the Rwandan genocide. Neophyte director Hans Petter Moland then tapped Nolte for a pivotal characterization in his drama The Beautiful Country, released in July 2005. That same year, Nolte also triumphed on the festival circuit with his delicate work in Olivier Assayas's harrowing dysfunctional family drama Clean. In 2006, he voiced Vincent in the hit animated feature Over the Hedge, and claimed a seldom-seen but pivotal role in the thriller A Few Days in September, as an American spy desperate to reconnect with his children. Next up was Mysteries of Pittsburgh, an adaptation of Michael Chabon's debut coming-of-age novel.In 2008 Nolte appeared as the grizzled Vietnam Vet whose life the movie within the movie in Tropic Thunder is based on, and in the next few years he continued to lend his distinct, gravelly voice to a number of projects including the Kevin James vehicle Zookeeper.In 2011 his work in Warrior, as the father of two MMA fighters, earned him strong reviews as well as Oscar, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild nominations for Best Supporting Actor.

Trivia: Twice named All-American during his football-playing days at the University of Illinois, Dick Butkus went on to spend eight years (1965-1973) as linebacker for the Chicago Bears. Chosen best NFL defensive player on two separate occasions, the "Maestro of Mayhem" also held the record for second-highest number of recovered fumbles. The 6'3," 245-pound Butkus left pro football after a knee injury in 1973 but kept his hand in as a sportscaster, eventually with Chicago's WGN radio. He was appointed to the Football Hall of Fame in 1979, and an award for outstanding college linebacker has been named in his honor. With all this going for him, Butkus hardly needed movies and television to enhance his reputation, but he has appeared before the cameras on occasion. On TV, he was seen as Al Fanducci in the 1976 miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man, Brom Bones in the 1980 adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, security guard Kurt in the weekly adventure series Half-Nelson (1985), and Ed Klawicki during the 1987-1988 and 1988-1989 seasons of the popular sitcom My Two Dads. Most often, however, Dick Butkus has simply and satisfactorily played "himself," first in the award-winning TV movie Brian's Song (1970), and later in such films as Gremlins 2 (1991) and The Last Boy Scout (1993).