Trivia: Angela Lansbury received an Oscar nomination for her first film, Gaslight, in 1944, and has been winning acting awards and audience favor ever since. Born in London to a family that included both politicians and performers, Lansbury came to the U.S. during World War II. She made notable early film appearances as the snooty sister in National Velvet (1944); the pathetic singer in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), which garnered her another Academy nomination; and the madam-with-a-heart-of-gold saloon singer in The Harvey Girls (1946). She turned evil as the manipulative publisher in State of the Union (1948), but was just as convincing as the good queen in The Three Musketeers (1948) and the petulant daughter in The Court Jester (1956). She received another Oscar nomination for her chilling performance as Laurence Harvey's scheming mother in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and appeared as the addled witch in Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), among other later films. On Broadway, she won Tony awards for the musicals Mame (1966), Dear World (1969), the revival of Gypsy (1975), Sweeney Todd (1979) and, at age 82, for the play Blithe Spirit (2009). Despite a season in the '50s on the game show Pantomime Quiz, she came to series television late, starring in 1984-1996 as Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote; she took over as producer of the show in the '90s. She returned to the Disney studios to record the voice of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast (1991) and to sing the title song and later reprised the role in the direct-to-video sequel, The Enchanted Christmas (1997). Lansbury is the sister of TV producer Bruce Lansbury.

Trivia: While growing up in Chicago, Tom Bosley dreamed of becoming the star left-fielder for the Cubs. As it turned out, the closest Bosley got to organized athletics was a sportscasting class at DePauw University. After additional training at the Radio Institute of Chicago and two years' practical experience in various dramatic radio programs and stock companies, he left for New York in 1950. Five years of odd jobs and summer-theater stints later, he landed his first off-Broadway role, playing Dupont-Dufort in Jean Anouilh's Thieves' Carnival. Steadier work followed at the Arena Theatre in Washington, D.C.; then in 1959, Bosley landed the starring role in the Broadway musical Fiorello!, picking up a Tony Award, an ANTA Award, and the New York Drama Critics Award in the bargain. In 1963, he made his film bow as Natalie Wood's "safe and secure" suitor Anthony Colombo in Love With the Proper Stranger. Occasionally cast as two-bit criminals or pathetic losers (he sold his eyes to blind millionairess Joan Crawford in the Spielberg-directed Night Gallery TV movie), Bosley was most often seen as a harried suburban father. After recurring roles on such TV series as That Was the Week That Was, The Debbie Reynolds Show, and The Sandy Duncan Show, Bosley was hired by Hanna-Barbera to provide the voice of flustered patriarch Howard Boyle on the animated sitcom Wait Til Your Father Gets Home (1972-1973). This served as a dry run of sorts for his most famous series-TV assignment: Howard Cunningham, aka "Mr. C," on the immensely popular Happy Days (1974-1983). The warm, familial ambience of the Happy Days set enabled Bosley to weather the tragic death of his first wife, former dancer Jean Elliot, in 1978. In addition to his Happy Days duties, Bosley was narrator of the syndicated documentary That's Hollywood (1977-1981). From 1989 to 1991, he starred on the weekly series The Father Dowling Mysteries, and thereafter was seen on an occasional basis as down-to-earth Cabot Cove sheriff Amos Tupper on Murder, She Wrote. Reportedly as kind, generous, and giving as his Happy Days character, Tom Bosley has over the last 20 years received numerous honors for his many civic and charitable activities.

Trivia: Trained at Northwestern University's drama department, onetime salesman Claude Akins was a Broadway actor when he was selected by a Columbia talent scout for a small role in the Oscar-winning From Here to Eternity (1953). With a craggy face and blunt voice that evoked memories of Lon Chaney Jr., Akins was a "natural" for villainous or roughneck roles, but was versatile enough to play parts requiring compassion and humor. A television actor since the "live" days, Akins achieved stardom relatively late in life via such genial adventure series as Movin' On (1974), B.J. and the Bear (1979), The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo (1979) and Legmen (1984). In his last decade, Claude Akins was a busy-and most genial-commercial spokesperson.

Trivia: In films in minor and supporting roles from 1969, actress Marilyn Hassett was starred as paralyzed ski champ Jill Kinmont in 1975's The Other Side of the Mountain. Perhaps this brilliant portrayal was too "specialized" to encourage an onrush of offers from producers and directors. Whatever the case, Hassett has never truly attained the stardom she seemed to so richly deserve in 1975. Marilyn Hassett's best film role outside Other Side of the Mountain, and its 1978 sequel, was Esther, the suicidal Sylvia Plath counterpart in the 1979 film version of Plath's The Bell Jar.

Trivia: Georgia-born leading lady Cassie Yates has kept busy in films and TV since 1976. Yates' TV-series roles have included detective Jennifer Dempsey in Ron Moody's 1980 sitcom Nobody's Perfect and Diane Wyman, wife of would-be private eye Press Wyman (Judd Hirsch) in Detective in the House (1985). Soap opera fans will remember Yates as Sarah Curtis in the 1987 episodes of Dynasty. Cassie Yates' most appealing film role was as the philandering friend of Nastassja Kinski in the 1982 remake of Unfaithfully Yours.

Trivia: Hardcase leading man Howard Duff built his reputation on radio, where among several other assignments he was cast as Dashiell Hammett's two-fisted private eye Sam Spade. He made so vivid an impression in this role that, when cast in his first film Brute Force (1947), he was given special billing in the credits as "radio's Sam Spade." His burgeoning film career was slowed down in the early 1950s by the iniquities of the Hollywood Blacklist. Duff's no-nonsense image was softened into sitcom buffoonery when, in 1957, he was cast in TV's Mr. Adams and Eve. His co-star was his then-wife Ida Lupino, and the series' producer was Lupino's previous husband Collier Young. Ida was a frequent director for Duff's subsequent TV series Dante (1960), in which he more-or-less reprised his Sam Spade characterization. Duff's later TV assignments included a three-year starring stint on Felony Squad (1966-69) and supporting roles in the prime time serials Flamingo Road and Knot's Landing. In the 1970s, Howard Duff returned to filmmaking as a character actor, scoring critical successes with his roles as an eternally inebriated relative in Altman's A Wedding (1978) and as Dustin Hoffman's attorney in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979).

Trivia: Leading and supporting film and television actress Anne Lockhart made her feature-film debut in Jory (1972). The daughter of actress June Lockhart and the granddaughter of actors Gene and Kathleen Lockhart, she also does occasional voice-over work.

Trivia: A graduate of the ABC daytime drama All My Children, Richard Hatch managed to get off on the wrong foot with critics and audiences alike with his first starring prime-time TV role. In 1976, Hatch replaced Michael Douglas on the long-running cop series The Streets of San Francisco. Before the ink was dry on the contract, Hatch was issuing public complaints about the shortcomings of his character, inspector Dan Robbins. This might have been excused as the youthful hubris, but then Hatch took his beloved co-star Karl Malden to task for giving him acting advice on the set. Not altogether surprisingly, Hatch was the subject of fewer and fewer interviews and articles after Streets was cancelled in 1977. He tried to attain film stardom, but things like Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1980) were enough to scuttle anyone's career. Luckily, Richard Hatch was able to garner a fan following with his role as Apollo on the 1979 sci-fi series Battlestar Gallactica; he also delivered a superb performance as Jan of Jan and Dean in the 1978 TV biopic Dead Man's Curve. Hatch later joined the Battlestar Galactica remake, playing the recurring role of terrorist-turned-politician Tom Zarek. Hatch died in 2017, at age 71.

Trivia: Actor Dack Rambo specialized in low-budget action features and television. Born Norman Rambo and the twin brother of actor Dirk Rambo, he started out playing Dack Massey on The New Loretta Young Show (1962-1963). He next appeared as Grant Harrison on the daytime soap Another World and in the early '80s as Steve Jacoby on All My Children. Between 1985 and 1988, Rambo played Jack Ewing on the nighttime serial Dallas. He has also appeared regularly on series such as The Guns of Will Sonnett (1967-1969). Rambo made his feature-film debut in Which Way to the Front (1970). He made his last film appearance in the 1992 film Ultra Warrior.