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: We shouldn't say it, but...at nearly seven foot two, American actor Richard Kiel was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Making the cast-call rounds while working as a nightclub bouncer, Kiel began picking up bit roles in the early '60s. He was the misleadingly altruistic alien in the classic 1962 Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man" (you'll remember that climactic line "It's a cookbook!") and was less prestigiously starred in that masterpiece of bad cinema, Eegah! (1962). Ambling through a series a tough-lug and town-bully roles, Kiel attained full stardom as the menacing, steel-dentured Jaws in the the 1977 James Bond flick The Spy Who Loved Me. So well-received was this appearance that the scriptwriters contrived to bring Jaws back from the dead in the next Bondfest, Moonraker (1979), wherein Kiel becomes a good guy before the end and even gets a girlfriend. In 1992, Richard Kiel turned producer/director (in addition to starring) with the appropriately titled The Giant of Thunder Mountain, a "four waller" which was released on a city-by-city basis. He played a memorable role in Happy Gilmore (1996), playing a fan of the title golfer and voiced a thug in Disney's animated film Tangled (2010). Kiel died in 2014, just days before his 74th birthday.

Trivia: Growing up in Florida, American actress Peggy Stewart naturally gravitated to the water, and distinguished herself as a swimming champ in high school. Her family moved to California in the mid '30s, where she made the acquaintance of character actor Henry O'Neill. Aware that Paramount Pictures was looking for a new face to play the part of Joel McCrea's and Frances Dee's daughter in Wells Fargo (1936), O'Neill recommended Stewart. The assignment led to numerous other roles for the teenaged actress, who by the end of 1940 was not only established in Hollywood but the wife of actor Don "Red" Barry (Stewart was also the sister-in-law of another actor, Wayne Morris). At about the time her marriage was breaking up in 1944, Stewart signed with Republic Studios, where, starting with Tucson Raiders (1944), she became resident leading lady for many of Republic's western stars. She also appeared in serials at Republic but preferred westerns because the shooting schedules were shorter and she was able to wear a more varied wardrobe. Leaving Republic in 1948, she freelanced until 1953, when she briefly gave up acting to become a casting director at NBC television; she also married again, to actor Buck Young. As the '50s progressed Stewart eased back into acting, but only in roles that would provide a challenge to her. In 1974, she won the Los Angeles Drama Circle award for her stage performance in Picnic. Long retired, Peggy Stewart has in the last two decades become one of the favorite guest speakers on the nostalgia convention and western film festival circuit.

Trivia: A former pro baseball player, Bing Russell eased into acting in the 1950s, appearing mostly in westerns. Russell could be seen in such bonafide classics as The Horse Soldiers (1959) and The Magnificent Seven (1960), and not a few bow-wows like Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966). From 1961 through 1973, Russell played the semiregular role of Deputy Clem on the marathon TV western series Bonanza. When time permitted, he also dabbled in screenwriting. The father of film star Kurt Russell, Bing Russell has acted with his son on several occasions, most memorably in the role of Vernon Presley in the 1979 TV-movie hit Elvis.