Trivia: Like Clark Gable, David Janssen lost quite a few film roles in the early stages of his career because his ears were "too big" and -- also like Gable-- he did pretty well for himself in the long run. The son of a former beauty queen-cum-stage mother, Janssen was virtually strong-armed into show business, appearing as a child actor on-stage and as a juvenile performer in such films as Swamp Fire (1946). Signed to a Universal contract in 1950, he showed up fleetingly in films both big-budget (To Hell and Back) and small (Francis Goes to West Point). Full stardom eluded Janssen until 1957, when he was personally selected by actor/producer Dick Powell to star in the TV version of Powell's radio series Richard Diamond, Private Detective. Though he didn't exactly become a millionaire (for several years he earned a beggarly 750 dollars per week), Janssen's saleability soared as a result of his three-year Diamond gig, and by 1960 he was earning top billing in such Allied Artists productions as King of the Roaring 20s (1960), in which he played gambler Arnold Rothstein, and Hell to Eternity (1960). In 1963, he landed his signature role of Dr. Richard Kimble on TV's The Fugitive. For the next four years, Janssen/Kimble perambulated throughout the country in search of the "one-armed man" who committed the murder for which Kimble was sentenced to death, all the while keeping one step ahead of his dogged pursuer, Lieutenant Gerard (Barry Morse). The final episode of The Fugitive, telecast in August of 1967, was for many years the highest-rated TV episode in history. There was little Janssen could do to top that, though he continued appearing in such films as Warning Shot (1967) and Green Berets (1969), and starring in such TV series as O'Hara, U.S. Treasury (1971) and Harry O (1974-1976). David Janssen died of a sudden heart attack at age 49, not long after completing his final TV movie, City in Fear (1980).

Trivia: The son of a London shopkeeper, Barry Morse enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts at age 15. Upon graduation, Morse spent four years in provincial repertory, playing (by his own count) some 300 roles. In 1942 he made his first film appearance in Will Hays's The Goose Steps Out. Firmly established in London theatrical circles by 1951, he starred in an early BBC telecast of Hamlet--then left for Canada, where he would spend the next decade. Dubbed "the Laurence Olivier of Canada" by more than one admirer, Morse appeared with regularity on the CBC, occasionally producing and directing as well. He began dividing his time between Toronto and Hollywood in 1959, showing up in such American TV anthologies as Playhouse 90 and The Twilight Zone. In 1963, he was hired by producer Quinn Martin to play the diligent Lieutenant Girard in the popular weekly series The Fugitive. Morse's post-Fugitive television work includes two weekly series, The Adventurer (1974) and Space: 1999 (1975-77), and any number of specials and miniseries. Barry Morse's best performances of the past two decades include his interpretation of Menachem Begin in the American miniseries Sadat (1980) and his hilarious turn as a numbskull American president (who happens to be a former movie actor!) in the London Weekend Television black comedy Whoops Apocalypse (1982). Morse died in February 2008 at age 89.

Trivia: A former showgirl and nightclub singer, Janice Rule was signed to a Warner Bros. contract in 1951. It would be nearly ten years before Rule's truly worthwhile roles would outnumber her inconsequential parts. She all but cornered the market in bitter, neurotic socialites in the 1960s, playing such parts as the small-town wealthy shrew who drunkenly swallows a string of valuable pearls in The Chase (1966) and Burt Lancaster's vitriolic ex-mistress in The Swimmer (1968). Playing these profoundly disturbed screen characters must have been cathartic for Ms. Rule, who took time off from acting in the late 1970s to become a professional psychoanalyst. From 1961 through 1979, Janice Rule was married to actor Ben Gazzara.

Trivia: Kevin McCarthy and his older sister Mary Therese McCarthy both found careers in the entertainment industry, though in very different arenas -- Mary became a best-selling novelist, and Kevin became an actor after dabbling in student theatricals at the University of Minnesota. On Broadway from 1938 -- Kevin's first appearance was in Robert Sherwood's Abe Lincoln in Illinois -- McCarthy was critically hosannaed for his portrayal of Biff in the original 1948 production of Death of a Salesmen (who could tell that he was but three years younger than the actor playing his father, Lee J. Cobb?) In 1951, McCarthy re-created his Salesman role in the film version, launching a movie career that would thrive for four decades. The film assignment that won McCarthy the hearts of adolescent boys of all ages was his portrayal of Dr. Miles Bennell in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Bennell's losing battle against the invading pod people, and his climactic in-your-face warning "You're next!, " made so indelible an impression that it's surprising to discover that McCarthy's other sci-fi credits are relatively few. Reportedly, he resented the fact that Body Snatchers was the only film for which many viewers remembered him; if so, he has since come to terms with his discomfiture, to the extent of briefly reviving his "You're next!" admonition (he now screamed "They're here!" to passing motorists) in the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He has also shown up with regularity in the films of Body Snatchers aficionado Joe Dante, notably 1984's Twilight Zone: The Movie (McCarthy had earlier played the ageless title role in the 1959 Zone TV episode "Long Live Walter Jamieson") and 1993's Matinee, wherein an unbilled McCarthy appeared in the film-within-a-film Mant as General Ankrum (a tip of the cap to another Dante idol, horror-movie perennial Morris Ankrum). Kevin McCarthy would, of course, have had a healthy stage, screen and TV career without either Body Snatchers or Joe Dante; he continued showing up in films into the early 1990s, scored a personal theatrical triumph in the one-man show Give 'Em Hell, Harry!, and was starred in the TV series The Survivors (1969), Flamingo Road (1981), The Colbys (1983) and Bay City Blues (1984).

Trivia: Actor Bill Raisch is best remembered for playing the one-armed killer in the television series The Fugitive (1963-1967). Raisch lost his arm during WWII. He made his film debut playing a German in Berlin Express (1948). In 1962, Raisch appeared in Lonely Are the Brave. For many years he worked as a stand-in for Burt Lancaster.

Trivia: American actor Lloyd Haynes got his start working as a television crewman. During the early 1970s, he had a leading role in the television series Room 222. From there, Haynes worked in numerous television movies, had a regular role on the daily serial General Hospital and from the mid-'60s through the early '80s also appeared in a few films including Ice Station Zebra.