Trivia: Kathryn Hays is best known for her work as an actress on television -- ironically, her most notable credits in that medium reside in two vastly different genres and professional engagements: as a longtime member of the cast of the daytime drama As The World Turns, portraying Kim Sullivan Hughes for more than 30 years; and for her performance in a single 1968 episode of the science fiction series Star Trek, entitled "The Empath." Hays was born in Princeton, IL, and raised in Joliet. She did theatrical work from the outset of her career, but from the early '60s also distinguished herself on television -- starting with a 1962 episode of the police drama Naked City up through a regular role on The Guiding Light, and on to her multi-decade work on As the World Turns. The Star Trek episode "The Empath" cast Hays in a mute role as "Gem," an alien who is trapped beneath the surface of a dying planet with the captain (William Shatner), first officer (Leonard Nimoy), and senior medical officer (DeForest Kelley) of the starship Enterprise. Her wonderfully expressive features (especially her eyes) and her portrayal -- which was almost balletic at times -- allowed Hays to totally dominate the screen and the episode without uttering a word of dialogue; many fans of the series regard her work as the finest guest-starring portrayal in the entire run of the show, and she helped to turn "The Empath" into the best single episode of the series' third season. Around this same time, Hays also starred in one theatrical film, Ralph Nelson's music-and-war drama Counterpoint (1967), playing opposite Charlton Heston. During this period, from 1966 through 1969, she was also married to Glenn Ford, who was then part of the shrinking ranks of genuine big-screen legends in the movie business. As a New York-based actress, Hays' career has mostly been centered on the small screen, as well as the stage. She is virtually an acting institution among daytime drama aficionados, and her work on As the World Turns hasn't stopped her from doing occasional guest-star turns in such New York-filmed dramas as Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU in more recent years.

Trivia: Born Krekor Ohanian, American actor Mike Connors was born and raised in the heavily Armenian community of Fresno, California. He studied law at UCLA, but distinguished himself in sports (he'd gotten in on a basketball scholarship). While in the Air Force, Connors switched his career goals to acting on the advice of producer/director William Wellman, who'd remembered Connors' college athletic activities. Hollywood changed young Mr. Ohanian's last name to Connors, and since this was the era of "Rocks" and "Tabs" it was decided that the actor needed a suitably rugged first name. So Connors spent his first few acting years as Touch Connors, a nickname he'd gotten while playing college football. His first picture was the Joan Crawford vehicle Sudden Fear (1952) but handsome hunks were a glut on the market in the early '50s, so Connors found himself in "B" pictures, mostly at bargain-basement American International studios. Renaming himself "Mike," Connors was able to secure the lead role as an undercover agent on the 1959 detective series Tightrope. The series was a hit but was dropped from the network due to complaints about excessive violence, though it cleaned up in syndication for years afterward. After a few strong but non-starring roles in such films as Good Neighbor Sam (1963) and Where Love Has Gone (1964), Connors landed the title role in Mannix (1967), a weekly TV actioner about a trouble-prone private eye. For the next eight high-rated seasons, Connors' Joe Mannix was beaten up, shot at, cold-cocked and nearly run over in those ubiquitous underground parking lots each and every week. The series ran in over 70 foreign countries, allowing Connors a generous chunk of profits percentages in addition to his lofty weekly salary-- which became loftier each time that the actor announced plans to retire. Mike Connors has starred in the 1981 series Today's FBI and filmed a cop-show pilot titled Ohanian (playing a character with his own real name), but nothing has quite captured the public's fancy, or been as lucrative in reruns, as Connors' chef d'ouevre series Mannix.