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: American actor George Furth attended Northwestern University, a cradle of American acting talent. After getting his master's degree at Columbia, Furth sought out stage work: his first part was in the 1961 play A Cook for Mr. General. Most often cast in films as a bespectacled, nerdish, ineffectual type, Furth appeared in such films as The Best Man (1964) and Myra Breckenridge (1970). His most celebrated movie role was as Woodcock, the by-the-book railroad guard robbed twice by Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). On TV, Furth was seen regularly on Broadside, Tammy, The Good Guys and The Dumplings--situation comedies all. Broadway regulars will recognize the name George Furth less for his acting than for his considerable accomplishments as a playwright; in 1970, Furth wrote the book for Stephen Sondheim's Tony-winning musical Company.

Trivia: The son of a Brooklyn upholsterer, baby-faced comic actor Buddy Hackett always claimed he was "born to be funny." Hackett was the boy who invariably blew his lines in the Holiday pageants and the overweight teen who accidentally stuck his foot in a water bucket during his first game with the high school football team. It was while serving in the Army that Hackett met the double-talking Chinese waiter who inspired him to create the most famous of his early nightclub routines. Hackett's first stand-up gig in Brooklyn led to additional work on the New York supper club Catskill resort circuits; he also guested on a very early (1945) TV program, Laff Time. His film debut was as the voice of a talking camel in the otherwise straightforward Arabian nights programmer Slave Girl (1947). He was signed to a Universal Pictures contract in 1953, then starred for two years in Broadway comedy Lunatics and Lovers. He played the title role in 1956 TV sitcom Stanley, which served to introduce Carol Burnett to America's televiewers; two years later, he became a regular on Jackie Gleason's Saturday night variety series. Hackett was most active in films during the years 1958 through 1968, appearing primarily in nitwit comedy-relief roles, but also delivering a solid dramatic performance in God's Little Acre. At the same time, his reputation in nightclubs soared, first because of his quick wit and gift for sudden improvisation, then later for his ability to spout out the dirtiest of material with the cherubic ingenuousness of a naughty first-grader. Perhaps it was this veneer of innocence that made Hackett an ideal "family" entertainer in such G-rated pictures as Everything's Ducky (1961), The Music Man (1962), and The Love Bug (1968). As late as 1989, he was still delighting the kiddie trade as the voice of Scuttle in the Disney animated feature The Little Mermaid. Among Buddy Hackett's many television credits was the 1978 biopic Bud and Lou, in which he offered a curiously unsympathetic interpretation of his idol, Lou Costello; ironically, back in 1954 Hackett had replaced an ailing Costello in the Universal slapstick comedy flick Fireman Save My Child.

Trivia: A veteran of films, television, and the Las Vegas stage, musician Steve Lawrence is probably most recognizable to film audiences as The Blues Brothers' Maury Sline. Born Sidney Leibowitz in Brooklyn, New York, on July 8, 1935, Lawrence began writing music at the age of 16 and broke into television as a performer on Steve Allen's Tonight Show in the mid-'50s. A fixture of various TV variety shows throughout the '60s, including The Carol Burnett Show, Lawrence entered the realm of film cult stardom with his role in The Blues Brothers (1980), and went on to do sporadic screen work for the next couple of decades. In addition to supporting roles in Blues Brothers 2000 (1998), the boxing drama Play It to the Bone (2000), and the crime mystery The Yards, Lawrence had a recurring role on the TV sitcom The Nanny. Along with his wife Eydie Gorme, whom he married in 1957, Lawrence was a fixture of the Las Vegas stage for a long time, where he and Gorme often performed as the supporting act for Frank Sinatra.

Trivia: As the son of broadcast journalist Nick Clooney and the nephew of chanteuse Rosemary Clooney, George Clooney entered the world with show business coursing through his veins. Born May 6, 1961 in Lexington, Kentucky, the future E.R. headliner appeared at the tender age of five on his father's Cincinnati talk program, The Nick Clooney Show. In his youth, Clooney honed a sharp interest in sports - particularly baseball - but by adulthood, Clooney launched himself as an onscreen presence, seemingly without effort. Beginning with a string of television commercials, then signed with Warner Brothers Entertainment as a supporting player. By the time Clooney had paid his dues, he'd appeared in single episodes of The Golden Girls, Riptide, Crazy Like a Fox, Street Hawk and Hunter.After regular gigs on TV shows like The Facts of Life, Roseanne, and Sisters, Clooney scored a role on the NBC medical drama E.R., which proved his breakthrough to superstardom. When that program shot up to #1 in prime time ratings, Clooney carried it (much more, in fact, than a first-billed Anthony Edwards) - his inborn appeal to women and his onscreen grace and charm massive contributing factors. This appeal increased as his character - initially something of a callous womanizer - matured with the show, eventually evolving into a kind and thoroughly decent, if somewhat hotheaded, human being.The performer's newfound star power led to big screen opportunities, like an acid-mouthed, rifle-wielding antihero (one of the Gecko Brothers, alongside Quentin Tarantino) in the Robert Rodriguez-directed, Tarantino-scripted horror comedy From Dusk Till Dawn (1995). Not long after, Clooney shifted gears altogether, co-headlining (with Michelle Pfeiffer) in the charming romcom One Fine Day (1996). Though he would notoriously misstep in accepting the role of Bruce Wayne in the 1997 attempted Batman reboot Batman & Robin, Clooney's honesty about the part being a bad fit was refreshing to audiences, and he took little flack for the movie, moving on to critically acclaimed movies like the action-laced crime comedy Out of Sight, and Terrence Malick's adaptation of The Thin Red Line. Out of Sight represented a massive watershed moment for Clooney: the first of his numerous collaborations with director Steven Soderbergh. In 1999 -- following his much-talked-about departure from E.R. - Clooney continued to work on a number of high-profile projects. He would star alongside Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube as an American soldier reclaiming Kuwaiti treasure from Saddam Hussein in David O. Russell's Three Kings, and eventually win a 2000 Golden Globe for his portrayal of a pomade-obsessed escaped convict in the Coen brothers' Odyssey update O Brother Where Art Thou?. It was around this time that Clooney, now an established actor equally as comfortable on the big screen as the small, began to branch out as the Executive Producer of such made-for-TV efforts as Killroy (1999) and Fail Safe (2000). Soon producing such features as Rock Star (2001) and Insomnia (2002), Clooney next re-teamed with Soderbergh for a modern take on a classic Rat Pack comedy with Ocean's Eleven (2001). After the dynamic film duo stuck together for yet another remake, the deep-space psychological science-fiction drama Solaris (2002), busy Clooney both produced and appeared in Welcome to Collinwood and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind later the same year.Confessions marked Clooney's behind-the-camera debut, and one of the most promising actor-turned-director outings in memory. Adapted by Charlie Kaufman from Gong Show host Chuck Barris's possibly fictionalized memoir, the picture exhibited Clooney's triple fascinations with politics, media and celebrity; critics did not respond to it with unanimous enthusiasm, but it did show Clooney's promise as a director. He went on to star alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones in the Coen Brothers movie Intolerable Cruelty. The small film was a major sleeper hit among the lucky few who got to see it, and it proved to be a great showcase for Clooney's abilities as a comedian. He moved on to team up with Zeta-Jones again, along with almost the entire cast of Ocean's Eleven, for the sequel, Oceans Twelve, which earned mixed critical reviews, but (like its predecessor) grossed dollar one at the box office. By 2005, Clooney achieved his piece-de-resistance by writing, directing, and acting a sophomore outing: the tense period drama Good Night, and Good Luck.. Shot in black-and-white by ace cinematographer Robert Elswit, the picture followed the epic decision of 1950's television journalist Edward R. Murrow (played by David Strathairn) to confront Senator Joseph McCarthy about his Communist witch hunt. The picture drew raves from critics and received nominations for Best Picture and Best Director.Clooney next appeared in the harshly explicit and openly critical Syriana. He took the lead in this ensemble political thriller about the oil industry, directed by Stephen Gaghan of Traffic and heralded by critics as a disturbingly real look at a hopelessly flawed and corrupt system. Clooney won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a veteran CIA officer. Never one to rest for very long, Clooney then joined the cast of The Good German. Directed by longtime collaborator Steven Soderbergh, German unfolds in post-WWII Berlin, where Clooney plays a war correspondent who helps an ex-lover (Cate Blanchett) search for her missing husband. The actor-director team would pair up again the following year for the third installment in the Ocean's saga, Ocean's Thirteen. Next turning towards a more intimate, individualized project, Clooney earned yet more acclaim playing the title role in Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton, where his portrayal of a morally compromised legal "fixer" earned him strong reviews and an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.Complications during the pre-production of the period comedy Leatherheads led to Clooney rewriting the script, as well as starring in and directing the picture. Though the movie made few ripples with audiences or critics, Clooney's adeptness continued to impress. In 2009, he gave voice to the lead character in Wes Anderson's thoroughly charming stop-motion animation feature Fantastic Mr. Fox, played a soldier with ESP in the comedy The Men Who Stare at Goats, and earned arguably the best notices of his career as corporate hatchet man Ryan Bingham in Jason Reitman's Up in the Air. His work in that well-reviewed comedy/drama earned him nominations from the Screen Actors Guild, the Golden Globes, and the Academy. In the midst of awards season, Clooney again produced a successful telethon, this time to help earthquake victims in Haiti.In 2011 Clooney would, for the second time in his already impressive career, score Oscar nominations for writing and acting in two different films. His leading role in Alexander Payne's The Descendants earned him a wave of critical praise, as well as Best Actor nods from the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy, as well as capturing the Best Actor award from the Golden Globes. The film he co-wrote and directed that year, the political drama The Ides of March garnered the heartthrob a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination from BAFTA, the Academy, and the Golden Globes. In 2012 he earned his second Oscar as one of the producers of that year's Best Picture winner, the Ben Affleck-directed political thriller/Hollywood satire Argo. The following year, he appeared in the critically-acclaimed, box office smash Gravity, and also produced August: Osage County. In 2014, he co-wrote and co-produced (with Grant Heslov) and starred in The Monuments Men, but the film was delayed from a late-2013 release and didn't score well with critics or at the box office.

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: American actress Pat Crowley was the daughter of a coal mine foreman. Pat' s older sister Ann took the plunge into acting first, and it was during Ann's appearance in a Chicago musical production that ten-year-old Pat was given a walk-on. Ann introduced her sister to a stock company producer, and from then on Pat was one of the busiest ingenues in New England, finally making her Broadway bow in Southern Exposure; Crowley was still only 16. Two years later, following a run on the live TV series A Date With Judy, Crowley was hired for a major role in Forever Female (1953), in which she and Ginger Rogers vied for the affections of William Holden. After becoming the center of much publicity at that time, Crowley then experienced a long spell of unemployment. When jobs became plentiful again, Crowley worked on both the stage and on TV, usually in one-shot guest roles; she had the distinction of being Robert Vaughn's first "leading lady" on the premiere episode of Man From U.N.C.L.E. in 1964. One year later, Crowley was cast as an unorthodox housewife on the NBC sitcom Please Don't Eat the Daisies. After two years of Daisies, Crowley's work load subsided; she did more supporting work until 1974, when she received a sizeable role on the Lloyd Bridges cop show Joe Forrester. Since that time, Patricia Crowley has confined her activities to TV character roles, notably a season's worth of appearances as Emily Falmont on the '80s nighttime serial Dynasty.

Trivia: Diminutive (5'4"), bespectacled, sandy-haired Arte Johnson built up his early reputation in musical comedy revues. He began toting up film and TV credits in 1955, usually playing goggle-eyed nerds. Johnson was a regular and semi-regular in several sitcoms of the 1950s and 1960s, including It's Always Jan (1955), Sally (1958), Hennessey (1959-62) and Don't Call Me Charlie (1962). Though established as a comedian, Johnson found himself taking more and more villainous supporting roles as the '60s progressed, in films like The Third Day (1965) and The President's Analyst (1967). Considering himself washed up by 1967, Johnson accepted a slight salary cut to appear as a regular in a new NBC TV project called Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Within a year, Johnson was a bigger name than ever before, fracturing audiences with a seemingly inexhaustible variety of characterizations, ranging from his helmeted, chain-smoking German soldier ("Verrrrry interesting") to hirsute, overcoated dirty old man Tyrone Horneigh ("Wanna walnetto?"). In 1970, Johnson starred in his own TV special, spotlighting his "other selves," and in later years revived many of his Laugh-In characters in such summer-stock productions as Little Me. Though his popularity dipped dramatically following the cancellation of Laugh-In in 1973, Johnson has never wanted for work, be it such movies as Love at First Bite (1979, in which Johnson played Dracula's number one toady Renfield) or such TV series as The Love Boat, Fame, Glitter and Games People Play. He also provided the voice for his "Tyrone" character in the 1977 Saturday morning animated weekly Baggy Pants and the Nitwits. In 1996, Arte Johnson was reunited with several of his Laugh-In colleagues on an episode of the TV sitcom Mad About You.

Trivia: Born Dawn Bethel, North began dancing professionally at age 10 and, during her teens, modeled and danced in clubs and for film loops; meanwhile, she got married at 15 and soon had a child. She got bit roles in a couple of films, and in 1953 gained Hollywood's attention with a wild dance performance in the Broadway musical Hazel Flagg. North reprised her role in the play's screen version, Living It Up (1954), with Martin and Lewis. Soon thereafter she was signed to a film contract by Fox, which tried to make her into a '50s-style platinum blond "sexpot" and potential replacement for Marilyn Monroe; the studio mounted a big publicity campaign and starred her in several light productions. She proved herself to be a skilled comedian and dancer and a reasonably good actress. However, within a few years other actresses usurped her "dumb blond" roles, and after 1958 she disappeared from the screen for almost a decade. She went on to perform in stock, on the road, and on TV. Gradually, she developed a reputation as a serious actress, an unprecedented transformation of performing personas for an actress of her generation. In the late '60s she began appearing regularly in films in character roles, and she sustained a busy screen and TV career through the '90s.

Trivia: Alice Nunn was a character actress who enjoyed a 24-year career on-stage, in movies, and on television. Born in Jacksonville, FL, in 1927, she was bitten by the performing bug early in life; she was in school productions of such works as My Sister Eileen and attended the Wesleyan Conservatory and School of Fine Arts. Nunn later trained at the American Theater Wing and worked in radio as a continuity director before getting her break in New Faces of 1956. A singing comedienne who resembled a young Pert Kelton crossed with Sheila James, Nunn worked on-stage with Shelley Berman and Nancy Walker, and made her screen debut on television in episodes of Petticoat Junction. She later became a regular denizen of '60s sitcoms, playing comically strong-willed, often slightly belligerent women. Fans of 1960s sitcoms may remember her from Camp Runamuck as Mahala May Gruenecker, the head counselor of Camp Divine and the nemesis of series star Arch Johnson's Commander Wivenhoe; she was the perfect foil to Johnson's hulking macho boys camp leader, locking horns with him every week in much the same way that Margaret Rutherford had with Alastair Sim in the movie The Happiest Days of Your Life. Nunn's first feature film was Johnny Got His Gun (1971), in which she was one of the nurses. She was also a regular cast member of the Tony Orlando and Dawn variety show, but many of her film roles were bits, such as "Fat Lady" in Mame (1974) and "Passenger with Dog" in Airport 1975. She occasionally got bigger roles, such as the put-upon servant Helga in Mommie Dearest (1981), and is probably best remembered by 1980s filmgoers and Tim Burton fans for her portrayal of "Large Marge," the lady truck driver who frightens the hero in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985). If Nunn hadn't been so good at comedy, and exploiting the funny side of her imposing girth and presence, she might have been an older rival to Shirley Stoler, but it was not to be -- she died of heart failure in the summer of 1988, at age 60.