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: Lead actress, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Lead actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: After abandoning plans to be either a minister or a doctor, Canadian-born singer/actor Alan Thicke turned to sports writing, then typed out comedy material for the CBC television network. He moved to Hollywood, where he became a writer and sometime performer on the syndicated Norman Lear series Fernwood 2-Night. He returned to Canada in 1980 to replace talk host Alan Hamel on a popular daytime chatfest. He was successful enough in this endeavor to be invited by onetime network executive Fred Silverman to star in Silverman's first non-network effort, a nighttime variety show titled Thicke of the Night (1983). Despite an enormous publicity buildup, the show was a disaster, for which Thicke adopted a "mea culpa" stance. Also during this period, his marriage to singer/actress Gloria Loring broke up; thus Thicke felt himself a failure on all counts. He has credited his comeback to producer Ilene Berg, who cast Thicke in the 1984 TV movie The Calendar Girl Murders, which proved to skeptics that the man had talent as a straight actor. In 1985, Thicke originated the role of psychiatrist Jason Seaver in Growing Pains, a popular ABC sitcom which ran until 1994. The following year, Thicke showed up as a preening, bombastic talk show host (could this have been an act of attrition for Thicke of the Night?) on the NBC comedy series Hope and Gloria. Additionally, Thicke has hosted the children's series Animal Crack-Ups (1987-1990), and has composed the theme songs for several other TV series, notably The Facts of Life. Although he worked steadily in a variety of less than noteworthy projects, he did score a cameo as himself in the satire Teddy Bears' Picnic, and landed supporting roles in the comedies The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, and the 2012 Adam Sandler laugher That's My Boy.Alan Thicke's son is actor Brennan Thicke, best known for providing the voice of the TV cartoon character Dennis the Menace, and his other son, Robin Thicke, followed his father's musical interests and became a pop star. Thicke died in 2016, at age 69.

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: Evocatively-named British model Vanessa Angel made a career change when John Landis cast her as a Russian spy in Spies Like Us (1985). Born in London, Angel began modeling at 16 when she signed up with Eileen Ford and relocated to New York. After taking on a Russian accent for Landis' goofy Chevy Chase-Dan Aykroyd comedy, Angel studied the craft further at the Actors Studio. Angel combined her past and present professions playing a model in a guest appearance on TV's Melrose Place and starring in USA's TV movie The Cover Girl Murders (1993). Along with TV, Angel worked in feature films throughout the 1990s, mostly expanding upon her first experience with movie comedy. After landing bit parts in Abel Ferrara's crime noir King of New York (1990) and the ill-received Sylvester Stallone comedy Stop, or My Mom Will Shoot (1992), Angel next appeared as part of the ensemble cast in the independent romantic comedy Sleep With Me (1994) and starred as objects of affection in Kingpin (1996) and Kissing a Fool (1998). Angel returned to gangster films with a role in the made-for-cable Made Men (1999).

Trivia: If character actor Herb Edelman was one of the more successful stage and screen purveyors of "Everyman" roles, it was probably because he'd held down an astonishing array of meat-and-potato jobs before settling into acting. Edelman studied to be a veterinarian at Cornell University, but left during the first year. He took a tentative stab at journalism before toiling as an Armed Forces radio operator and announcer. While stationed in the Far East, Edelman entertained the notion of becoming a "Jewish Buddhist." He returned to his hometown to attend Brooklyn College, dropped out to become a hotel manager, was briefly the "straight" half of a comedy team, worked in advertising, drove a hack, and dropped back into college. Finally turning to acting full time in summer stock, Edelman began picking up small roles in New York productions, including the scene-stealing exhausted delivery man inNeil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1965), a role he recreated for the 1967 film version. Forming strong bonds with both Simon and with Barefoot star Robert Redford, Edelman would later appear in Simon's The Odd Couple and California Suite, and in the Redford/Barbara Streisand vehicle The Way We Were (1973). In 1968, Edelman co-starred with Bob Denver in the two-season TV sitcom The Good Guys. Nine years later, he starred as one-half of the title role in the weekly TV comedy/fantasy Big John, Little John (Robbie Rist was the "Little" one). Other TV series featuring Herb Edelman on a regular or recurring basis included Ladies Man, 9 to 5, Strike Force and Murder She Wrote. Fans of the sitcom The Golden Girls may remember Edelman for playing Stanley, Bea Arthur's irksome ex-husband. Edelman died of emphysema at the Motion Picture Hospital in Los Angeles on July 21, 1996; he was 62.