Trivia: Michael Rennie always claimed that he "turned actor" to escape becoming an executive for his family's wool business. The Cambridge-educated Rennie haunted the casting offices until he was hired by Alfred Hitchcock for his first film, The Secret Agent (1936). Handsome but hollow, Rennie decided that if he was to be a film star, he'd better learn to act, thus he spent several seasons with the York Repertory. Serving in World War II as a flying officer in the RAF, Rennie came to the United States for the first time to be a training instructor in Georgia. Small roles in postwar British films led to a 20th Century Fox contract. It was during his stay at Fox that Rennie truly began to blossom with major roles in 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still (as Klaatu), 1952's Les Miserables (as Jean Valjean), 1953's The Robe, and many other films. On television, Michael Rennie spent two years and 76 episodes portraying suave soldier of fortune Harry Lime on the syndicated series The Third Man. Rennie died of emphysema on June 10, 1971.

Trivia: Chuck Connors attended Seton Hall University before embarking on a career in professional sports. He first played basketball with the Boston Celtics, then baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers and Chicago Cubs. Hardly a spectacular player -- while with the Cubbies, he hit .233 in 70 games -- Connors was eventually shipped off to Chicago's Pacific Coast League farm team, the L.A. Angels. Here his reputation rested more on his cut-up antics than his ball-playing prowess. While going through his usual routine of performing cartwheels while rounding the bases, Connors was spotted by a Hollywood director, who arranged for Connors to play a one-line bit as a highway patrolman in the 1952 Tracy-Hepburn vehicle Pat and Mike. Finding acting an agreeable and comparatively less strenuous way to make a living, Connors gave up baseball for films and television. One of his first roles of consequence was as a comic hillbilly on the memorable Superman TV episode "Flight to the North." In films, Connors played a variety of heavies, including raspy-voiced gangster Johnny O in Designing Woman (1957) and swaggering bully Buck Hannassy in The Big Country (1958). He switched to the Good Guys in 1958, when he was cast as frontiersman-family man Lucas McCain on the popular TV Western series The Rifleman. During the series' five-year run, he managed to make several worthwhile starring appearances in films: he was seen in the title role of Geronimo (1962), which also featured his second wife, Kamala Devi, and originated the role of Porter Ricks in the 1963 film version of Flipper. After Rifleman folded, Connors co-starred with Ben Gazzara in the one-season dramatic series Arrest and Trial (1963), a 90-minute precursor to Law and Order. He enjoyed a longer run as Jason McCord, an ex-Army officer falsely accused of cowardice on the weekly Branded (1965-1966). His next TV project, Cowboy in Africa, never got past 13 episodes. In 1972, Connors acted as host/narrator of Thrill Seekers, a 52-week syndicated TV documentary. Then followed a great many TV guest-star roles and B-pictures of the Tourist Trap (1980) variety. He was never more delightfully over the top than as the curiously accented 2,000-year-old lycanthrope Janos Skorzeny in the Fox Network's Werewolf (1987). Shortly before his death from lung cancer at age 71, Chuck Connors revived his Rifleman character Lucas McCain for the star-studded made-for-TV Western The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1993).

Trivia: A graduate of the Nashville Conservatory and the model for U.S. Navy recruiting posters, John Pickard entered films in 1946 following a four-year stint in the navy. Pickard played supporting roles in scores of Westerns and action dramas before reaching stardom as Captain Shank of the U. S. Cavalry on the NBC television Western series Boots and Saddles. Filmed entirely on location at Kanab, UT, the series enjoyed a two-season run (1957-1958) and also featured Gardner McKay as Lieutenant Kelly. Pickard earned a second stab at small-screen stardom in Gunslinger (1961) and played supporting roles in nearly every other popular television drama, from Gunsmoke to Simon and Simon. He was tragically killed by a rampant bull while vacationing on a family farm in his home state of Tennessee.

Trivia: Jim Davis' show business career began in a circus where he worked as a tent-rigger. He came to Los Angeles as a traveling salesman in 1940, gradually drifting into the movies following an MGM screen test with Esther Williams. After six long years in minor roles, he was "introduced" in 1948's Winter Meeting, co-starring with Bette Davis (no relation, though the Warner Bros. publicity department made much of the fact that the two stars shared the same name). He never caught on as a romantic lead, however, and spent most of the 1950s in secondary roles often as Western heavies. He starred in two syndicated TV series, Stories of the Century (1954) and Rescue 8 (1958-1959), and made at least 200 guest star appearances on other programs. Jim Davis is best known today for his work as oil-rich Jock Ewing on the prime time TV serial Dallas, a role he held down from 1978 to his unexpected death following surgery in 1981.

Trivia: In films from 1932, American actor/stunt man Chuck Hamilton was a handy fellow to have around in slapstick comedies, tense cop melodramas and swashbucklers. Hamilton showed up in the faintly fascistic law-and-order epic Beast of the City (1932), the picaresque Harold Lloyd comedy Professor Beware (1938), and the flamboyant Errol Flynn adventure Against All Flags (1952). When not doubling for the leading players, he could be seen in minor roles as policemen, reporters, chauffeurs, stevedores and hoodlum. From time to time, Chuck Hamilton showed up in Native American garb, as he did in DeMille's Northwest Mounted Police (1940).

Trivia: The younger brother of film star Robert Mitchum, American actor John Mitchum shared his family's Depression-era travails before striking out on his own. As brother Robert's star ascended in the mid '40s, John remained his elder sibling's boon companion, severest critic and drinking buddy. In later years, John was a convivial anecdotal source for books and articles about Bob, each reminiscense becoming more colorful as it was repeated for the next interview. After holding down a variety of jobs, John decided to give acting a try as a result of hearing Bob's tales of Hollywood revelry; too heavyset to be a leading man, John became a reliable character actor, usually in military or western roles. He frequently had small parts in his brother's starring films, notably One Minute to Zero (1951) and The Way West (1967). Most of John's movie work was done outside Robert's orbit, however, in such films as Cattle King (1963) and Paint Your Wagon (1970). Perhaps John Mitchum's best screen role was as Goering in the 1962 biopic Hitler; he may have been utterly opposed ideologically to the late German field marshal, but John certainly filled the costume.