Trivia: The son of a Boston barber, Leonard Nimoy was a star at the age of 8, when he played Hansel in a children's theatre production of Hansel and Gretel. Nimoy remained with his local kiddie theater troupe until 16 (one of his directors during this period was Boris Sagal). After studying drama at Boston College and Antioch College, he took acting lessons from Jeff Corey at the Pasadena Playhouse. In films from 1950, Nimoy played the title character in the low-budget Kid Monk Baroni and essayed bits and minor roles in such productions as Zombies of the Stratosphere (1951), Rhubarb (1951) and Them! (1954). In between acting assignments, he held down a dizzying variety of jobs: soda jerk, newspaper carrier, vacuum-cleaner salesman, vending machine mechanic, pet-shop clerk, cabbie and acting coach. During his 18 months in Special Services at Fort McPherson, Georgia, he acted with Atlanta Theater Guild when he could spare the time. Back in Hollywood in 1956, he became virtually a regular at the Ziv TV studios, playing villains in programs like Highway Patrol and Sea Hunt. For a short while, he specialized in the plays of Jean Genet, appearing in both the stage and film productions of The Balcony and Deathwatch. Impressed by Nimoy's guest turn on a 1963 episode of The Lieutenant, producer Gene Roddenberry vowed to cast the saturnine, mellow-voiced actor as an extraterrestrial if ever given the chance. That chance came two years later, when Roddenberry signed Nimoy to play Vulcanian science officer Spock on Star Trek. At first pleased at the assignment, Nimoy came to resent the apparent fact that the public perceived him as Spock and nothing else: indeed, one of his many written works was the slim autobiography I Am Not Spock. After Star Trek's cancellation, Nimoy joined the cast of Mission: Impossible in the role of "master of disguise" Paris (he replaced the series' previous master of disguise Martin Landau, who ironically had originally been slated to play Spock). In the early 1970s, Nimoy began racking up directorial credits on such series as Night Gallery. He also made his first Broadway appearance in 1973's Full Circle. And, perhaps inevitably, he returned to Spock, thanks to the popular demand engendered by the then-burgeoning Star Trek cult. His initial reacquaintance with the role was as voiceover artist on the 1973 Saturday-morning cartoon version of Star Trek. Then Spock went on the back burner again as Nimoy devoted himself to his theatrical commitments (a touring production of Sherlock Holmes, his one-man show Vincent), his writing and directing activities, and his hosting chores on the long-running (1976-82) TV documentary series In Search Of.... Finally in 1978, Nimoy was back in his Enterprise uniform in the first of several Star Trek theatrical features. The Spock character was killed off in the second Trek picture The Wrath of Khan, but Nimoy stayed with the franchise as director of the next two feature-length Trek entries (PS: Spock also came back to life). He went on to direct such non-Trek filmic endeavors as 3 Men and a Baby (1987), The Good Mother (1988), Funny About Love (1990) and Holy Matrimony (1994). He also produced and acted in the 1991 TV movie Never Forget, and served as executive producer of the 1995 UPN network series Deadly Games. Perhaps because he will always have dozens of professional irons in the fire, Leonard Nimoy now seems resigned to being forever associated with the role that brought him international fame; his most recent autobiographical work was aptly titled I Am Spock. In 2009 he returned to his iconic role portraying Spock in J.J. Abrams smash-hit reboot of the Star Trek franchise. He next took on a recurring role in the sci-fi series Fringe, playing scientist William Bell. Nimoy made a final cameo appearance in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). He died in 2015, at age 83.

Trivia: She trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater and began appearing in films in 1957. She also did much work onstage and on TV; she was a regular on the TV series Peyton Place. After 1970 her screen appearances were infrequent; however, she participated in the American Film Institute's workshop program for women and directed short films and episodes of TV series. She was also a skilled aviator; she survived the crash of a Piper Cub in 1966, and in 1970 she won the Powder Puff Derby air race and was named Pilot of the Year. Later she attempted to become the first woman to fly a single-engine plane solo from New York to Moscow; she reached Denmark but then was denied permission to enter Soviet air space. She authored a memoir, Odyssey (1983). She died of cancer in 1990.

Trivia: The son of a sales engineer and born in New Orleans, Jeffrey Hunter was raised in Milwaukee, WI. While still in high school, Hunter acted on Milwaukee radio station WTMJ; this led to summer stock work. After serving in the Navy, Hunter attended Northwestern University, where he continued his stage appearances and was featured in the 1950 film version of Julius Caesar, which starred Charlton Heston. Attending U.C.L.A. on a scholarship, Hunter was spotted by a Hollywood agent while starring in a school production of All My Sons. He made his first "mainstream" film appearance in 20th Century Fox's Fourteen Hours, a film which also served as the debut for Grace Kelly. His movie career gained momentum after he co-starred with John Wayne in the Western classic The Searchers (1956). In 1961, Jeffrey Hunter was cast as Jesus Christ in The King of Kings; the actor's youthful appearance prompted industry wags to dub the picture "I Was a Teenaged Jesus," though in fact Hunter was 33 at the time. Few of his post-King of King roles amounted to much, and by 1967 he was one of several former Hollywood luminaries knocking about in European films. From 1950 through 1955, Hunter was married to actress Barbara Rush, who years after the divorce would remember Hunter fondly as the handsomest man she ever met. Jeffrey Hunter died of a concussion at 42, after an accidental fall in his home.

Trivia: For an actor almost universally associated with a single character -- Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise -- William Shatner has found diverse ways to stay active in the public eye, even spoofing his overblown acting style in a way far more hip than desperate. Years after he last uttered "warp speed," Shatner remains a well-known face beyond Star Trek conventions, re-creating himself as the spoken-word pitchman for priceline.com, and starring in a popular series of smoky nightclub ads that featured some of the most cutting-edge musicians of the day.The Canadian native was born on March 22, 1931, in Montréal, where he grew up and attended Verdun High School. Shatner studied commerce at McGill University before getting the acting bug, which eventually prompted him to move to New York in 1956. He initially worked in such live television dramatic shows as Studio One and The United States Steel Hour in 1957 and 1958, as well as on Broadway. His big screen debut soon followed as Alexei in the 1958 version of Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.Throughout the 1960s, Shatner worked mostly in television. His most memorable appearance came in a 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone entitled "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," in which he plays a terrified airline passenger unable to convince the crew that there's a mysterious gremlin tearing apart the wing. He also appeared in such films as Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and the bizarrely experimental Esperanto-language horror film Incubus (1963). In 1966, he got his big break, though neither he nor anyone else knew it at the time. Shatner was cast as the macho starship captain James Kirk on Star Trek, commanding a crew that included an acerbic doctor, a Scottish engineer, and a logician with pointy ears, on a mission "to boldly go where no man has gone before." However, the show lasted only three seasons, considered by many to be high camp. After providing a voice on the even shorter-lived animated series in 1973, Shatner must have thought Star Trek too would pass. A costly divorce and a lingering diva reputation from Star Trek left him with few prospects or allies, forcing him to take whatever work came his way. But in 1979, after a decade of B-movie labor in such films as The Kingdom of Spiders (1977) and a second failed series (Barbary Coast, 1975-1976), Shatner re-upped for another attempt to capitalize on the science fiction series with Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This time it caught on, though the first film was considered a costly disappointment. With dogged determination, the producers continued onward with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), at which point fans finally flocked to the series, rallying behind the film's crisp space battles and the melodramatic tête-à-tête between Shatner and Ricardo Montalban.Shatner had to wrestle with his advancing age and the deaths of several characters in Star Trek II and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), but by Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), the actor got to indulge in his more whimsical side, which has since characterized his career. As the series shifted toward comedy, Shatner led the way, even serving as director of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), which many considered among the series' weaker entries. During this period, Shatner also began parodying himself in earnest, appearing as host of Saturday Night Live in a famous sketch in which he tells a group of Trekkies to "Get a life." He also turned in a wickedly energetic mockery of a moon base captain in Airplane II: The Sequel (1982). Shatner made one final appearance with the regular Star Trek cast in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), then served as one of the crossovers to the new series of films in Star Trek: Generations (1994), in which endlessly theorizing fans finally learned the fate of Captain Kirk.The success of the Trek movies reenergized Shatner's TV career, even if it didn't immediately earn him more film roles. Shatner played the title role on the successful police drama T.J. Hooker from 1982 to 1987, directing some episodes, then began hosting the medical reality series Rescue 911 in 1989. Shatner returned to the movies with another parody, Loaded Weapon I, in 1993, and in 1994 began directing, executive producing, and acting in episodes of the syndicated TV show TekWar, based on the popular series of Trek-like novels he authored. In the later '90s, Shatner was best known for his humorously out-there priceline.com ads, but also guested on a variety of TV shows, most notably as the "Big Giant Head" on the lowbrow farce Third Rock From the Sun. He also appeared as game show hosts both in film (Miss Congeniality, 2000) and real life (50th Annual Miss America Pageant, 2001). In 1999, Shatner suffered public personal tragedy when his third wife, Nerine, accidentally drowned in their swimming pool. The champion horse breeder and tennis enthusiast owns a ranch in Kentucky and remains active in environmental causes. Shatner took on a small role for 2004's Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, and voiced the villainous wildebeest Kazar in Disney's animated adventure The Wild in 2006. Shatner returned to television for a starring role on the popular dramady Boston Legal, in which he plays Denny Crane, a once unbeatable lawyer who co-founded the successful law firm where he continues to work despite his reputation as an eccentric old man.

Trivia: Julie Parrish was a notably charming ingenue during the early and mid-'60's, in the Mary Tyler Moore/Marlo Thomas vein, who made the jump to become one of the cuter "TV wives" of mid-'60's sitcoms. Born Ruby Joyce Wilbar in Middlesboro, KY, in 1940, she grew up in Lake City, TN, and acted in her first school play at the age of six. After graduating high school in Tecumseh, MI, she enrolled in a modeling school and also joined the Toledo Repertory Company. Concurrent with this, she was put into a local beauty contest by the modeling school, which she won, getting to runner-up status in the preliminary to the Miss America contest. Subsequently, she won a Young Model of the Year competition, the prize for which was a role in the Jerry Lewis movie It's Only Money; as it turned out, the producer had never signed off on the contest, but director Frank Tashlin felt so badly for the would-be actress that he wrote a role for her into the film. He also sent to her see MGM producer Jack Cummings, who put her into the studio's contract school and got her an agent. Parrish earned a role in a play, Memo, starring MacDonald Carey, Fred Clark, Pippa Scott, and a young Alan Alda, which closed in Boston while on its way to New York. Meanwhile, television beckoned, including guest shots on The Dobie Gillis Show and Dick Powell Theatre, and large supporting parts in Columbia's Beach Party/Ski Party rip-off Winter a Go-Go and the Frankie Avalon/Annette Funicello film Fireball 500. Parrish also got a supporting role in The Nutty Professor, starring Jerry Lewis, and played in the Elvis Presley vehicle Paradise Hawaiian Style, all in between roles in the Star Trek episode "The Menagerie," the pilot show for The F.B.I., and episodes of Gunsmoke, Ben Casey, Bonanza, My Three Sons, and Gidget. In 1967, she was cast as Linda Lewis, the charmingly pert, sly wife of deejay Joby Baker in the sitcom Good Morning World, which was an attempt by producers Bill Persky and Sam Denoff to do with radio what The Dick Van Dyke Show -- on which they'd worked -- had done with television. It was cancelled after a single season, but she then moved on to theatrical work with Hans Conreid in Absence of a Cello and as Maggie in Arthur Miller's After the Fall. With her ingenue roles behind her, Parrish spent the '70s and '80s playing mature female parts in movies and television, including the movies The Devil and Max Devlin and The Last Fling, a continuing role on the soap opera Capitol, and supporting parts in series like Murder She Wrote. She also succeeded Barbara Parkins in the role of Betty Anderson in a revival of Peyton Place. In the 1990's, Parrish portrayed Joan Diamond in Beverly Hills 90210. In addition to her acting, Parrish became a very visible activist on the issue of battered women, having survived an abusive relationship herself, and also became very active in support work for female cancer victims, a result of her own treatments for ovarian cancer early in the decade. As an alumna of Star Trek, Elvis Presley's movies, and Jerry Lewis's movies, she wasoccasionally seen at some nostalgia and 1960s popular culture conventions.

Trivia: Laurel Goodwin started working as a child model at the age of seven and decided in her teens to move into acting as a profession. She was born in Wichita, KS, but moved to San Francisco, CA, where she attended Lowell High School and San Francisco State University as a drama major. In the summer of her freshman year, her teacher advised her to do summer stock work in Shasta, CA, and in her spare time she ended up baby-sitting for the children of cinematographer Kurt Gunther; in return, he took some stills of her and passed them to the publicity department at Paramount, where he was working. She was invited to audition and became a contract player in 1962. Goodwin was noticed by producer Hal Wallis and cast in the Elvis Presley vehicle Girls! Girls! Girls! as the "nice girl" vying for the rock 'n' roll king's heart, in competition with female lead Stella Stevens. Goodwin received good notices for her debut and other film roles followed; in Papa's Delicate Condition she was Jackie Gleason's older daughter and in the A.C. Lyles-produced Stage To Thunder Rock she played alongside such veteran actors as Barry Sullivan, John Agar, and Lon Chaney Jr. Goodwin's third and last feature film was the Sam Peckinpah-authored, Arnold Laven-directed Western The Glory Guys, where she had the chance to make the acqaintance of a promising young actor in the cast named James Caan. By this time in the mid-'60s, however, film production was slowing to a relative trickle and there wasn't too much demand for actresses of Goodwin's type. Her subsequent career was confined to television, where she played a multitude of roles, ranging from ingenue parts to voluptuous hippie-chicks, in episodes of The Virginian, Mannix, Get Smart, and The Beverly Hillbillies, through the end of the 1960s. If she has any screen immortality beyond the Elvis Presley movie, however, it is from her work in "The Cage", the original pilot episode for Star Trek, starring Jeffrey Hunter and Susan Oliver, in which Goodwin played Yeoman Colt. Later recut into the two-part episode "The Menagerie" and then restored to circulation intact, "The Cage ended up one of the most renowned touchstones of 1960s science fiction. After losing the lead in Gidget because she was too tall, Goodwin gradually eased out of performing, apart from commercials. Since the 1970s, she has been married to film executive William Wood, and together the two have been involved in the making of several feature films, including Stroker Ace.

Trivia: Peter Duryea was the son of veteran leading man and character actor Dan Duryea. Despite being born into the entertainment industry, the younger Duryea only worked in a handful of feature films and appeared in fewer than two-dozen network series. With his all-American good looks, Peter Duryea was a natural at playing wide-eyed innocents, but he also had considerable acting ability to go with the pretty-boy appearance -- the result was his ability at portraying evil of the most visceral and calculating sort. Thus, Gene Roddenberry chose him to play Jose Tyler, the junior bridge officer on the starship Enterprise, in "The Cage," the 1964 pilot for Star Trek, a role that wasn't picked up until the subsequent series went into production two years later. Jack Webb got even more impressive results, however, by casting Duryea in villainous roles in a string of Dragnet episodes, most notably a show entitled "The Fielder Militia," in which Duryea portrayed an eager-beaver member of an armed and dangerous right-wing paramilitary group. During this same period, he was portraying far more benign older teenage and college student roles on series such as Family Affair. In feature films, Duryea's work was limited to large roles in low-budget movies such as Catalina Caper, and small roles in major films such as The Carpetbaggers. In contrast to his father's decades of work in film and television, the younger Duryea ceased working onscreen in the early '70s. His appearance in the Star Trek pilot (which was later re-cut into a two-part episode of the actual series) ensures that he is represented on home video and DVD in the 21st century.

Trivia: Actor Jon Lormer appeared in several films from the late '50s through the mid-'80s. He was also a teacher and director at the American Theater Wing in New York. Lormer guest starred in many television series and made-for-TV movies.

Trivia: Gaunt, rich-voiced British actor Leonard Mudie made his stage bow in 1908 with the Gaiety Theater in Manchester. Mudie first appeared on the New York stage in 1914, then spent the next two decades touring in various British repertory companies. In 1932, he settled in Hollywood, where he remained until his death 33 years later. His larger screen roles included Dr. Pearson in The Mummy (1932), Porthinos in Cleopatra (1934), Maitland in Mary of Scotland (1936), and De Bourenne in Anthony Adverse (1936). He also essayed dozen of unbilled bits, usually cast as a bewigged, gimlet-eyed British judge. One of his more amusing uncredited roles was as "old school" actor Horace Carlos in the 1945 Charlie Chan entry The Scarlet Clue, wherein he explained his entree into the new medium of television with a weary, "Well, it's a living!" Active well into the TV era, Leonard Mudie showed up memorably in a handful of Superman video episodes and was a semi-regular as Cmdr. Barnes in the Bomba B-picture series.

Trivia: Yale grad John Hoyt had been a history instructor, acting teacher and nightclub comedian before linking up with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre in 1937. He remained with Welles until he joined the Army in 1945. After the war, the grey-haired, deadly-eyed Hoyt built up a screen reputation as one of most hissable "heavies" around, notably as the notorious political weathervane Talleyrand in Desiree (1954). He was a bit kinder onscreen as the Prophet Elijah in Sins of Jezebel. Nearly always associated with mainstream films, Hoyt surprised many of his professional friends when he agreed to co-star in the softcore porn spoof Flesh Gordon; those closest to him, however, knew that Hoyt had been a bit of a Bohemian all his life, especially during his frequent nudist colony vacations. TV fans of the '80s generation will remember John Hoyt as Grandpa Stanley Kanisky on the TV sitcom Gimme a Break; those with longer memories might recall that Hoyt played the doctor who told Ben Gazzara that he had only two years to live on the pilot for the 1960s TV series Run For Your Life. Hoyt also holds a footnote in Star Trek history playing the doctor in the first pilot episode, "The Cage."

Trivia: Canadian-born actor James Doohan trained for his career at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse and built much of his reputation upon his uncanny skill at foreign dialects. It was director James Goldstone who in 1965 suggested that Doohan audition for the supporting role of chief engineer of the U.S.S. Enterprise on Star Trek. After trying out a variety of accents during the audition, Doohan latched onto a Scottish brogue which tickled the fancy of Trek producer Gene Roddenberry. Thus, the chief engineer was dubbed Scotty -- or, more formally, Lt. Montgomery Scott (Montgomery happened to be Doohan's middle name). The actor remained in the role until Star Trek's cancellation in 1969, subsequently reviving the character for the 1974 cartoon series and the many theatrical films. Though he most assuredly had a career outside of Scotty (among many other projects, he was one of the stars of the 1979 Saturday-morning TV series Jason of Star Command), Doohan has frequently been called upon to play variations of the character in film and TV projects ranging from National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 to Knight Rider 2000.

Trivia: A Brooklyn street-gang member in his youth, actor Adam Roarke spent the bulk of his film career wearing a black leather jacket, sporting a menacing-looking beard, and roaring into view astride a motorcycle. During the biker-flick vogue of the 1960s and early 1970s, Roarke either starred or co-starred in such chrome-plated epics as Hell's Angels on Wheels, Hell's Belles and The Losers. In one of his rare non-cycle appearances, he played Raymond Bailey, the conceited movie star who is doubled by Steve Railsback in The Stunt Man (1980). In 1987, Adam Roarke made his directorial debut with Trespasses. Roarke was born into a show business family; his father was a vaudeville comedian and his mother a chorine. He himself did not take up acting until after he decided to clean up his act and serve two years in the Army. He briefly studied acting and at age 19 signed a contract with Universal Studios where he appeared in the aforementioned biker flicks and as a television guest star on shows ranging from Star Trek to Mod Squad. In the early '80s, a Dallas-located Halloween party populated by young actors such as Lou Diamond Phillips, inspired Roarke to open an acting school in the Texas city. His Film Actors Lab opened at the Dallas Communications Complex in Las Colinas, Texas in 1982.

Trivia: African American actress/singer Nichelle Nichols was born in Robbins, a progressive Illinois community founded by blacks in the 1890s. Nichelle sang with the Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton bands, then performed as a single in nightclubs. Garnering acting experience in supporting roles in such films as Mister Buddwing (1965) and Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding!(1966), Ms. Nichols was cast in her signature role in 1966: Lieutenant Nyota Uhura on Star Trek. Much was made in the mainstream press over the fact that here was the first TV science-fiction series to feature a black regular. Much more was made on the set of Trek by Nichols, who issued public complaints about the paucity of her character's screen time. She also seethed inwardly whenever star William Shatner, laboring under the assumption that every move he made was for the good of the series, ordered that Nichelle's lines be cut or altered because they "didn't fit her character." At the end of the first season, Nichols was poised to quit the series. She was persuaded to stay--by one of Star Trek's biggest fans: Dr. Martin Luther King, who felt that Uhura was a positive role model for black women. Before the series' three-year run was out, Nichols made television history by participating in an interracial kiss with William Shatner (though the scene itself was "fudged" so as not to offend those bigots who found such things offensive). In all her subsequent Trek endeavors, including the six theatrical features and the 1972 animated cartoon spin-off, Nichols saw to it that Uhura's contributions were of ever-increasing importance. In recent years, Nichelle Nichols has been active in several educational and pro-social organizations, and has been a guest host on the Sci-Fi cable channel's Inside Space; in 1994, she published her autobiography, Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories. In 1996 she made a memorable appearance at a roast of her former captain William Shatner.

Trivia: Asian-American actor George Takei studied architecture at the University of California and theatre arts at UCLA. Takei's first film appearance was in the 1960 Warner Bros. feature Ice Palace He appeared with regularity on series television in the early 1960s; his most controversial TV role was the son of a World War II traitor in the 1964 Twilight Zone episode "The Encounter," which was withdrawn from the series' syndicated package due to charges of misrepresentation from several Japanese-American groups. In 1966, Takei began what was to become a lifelong assignment when he was cast as chief navigator Hikaru Sulu on the evergreen science-fiction series Star Trek. He has extended this characterization into seven Star Trek feature films, as well as a Saturday morning cartoon series. Erudite and socially correct at all times, Takei nonetheless enjoyed a reputation as Star Trek's most aggressive on-set practical joker. The show's three-year run ended, and although Takai appeared in a smattering of pictures including The Green Berets and Which Way to the Front?, he didn't find steady work on screen until the Star Trek film franchise got under way in 1979. The ongoing love for the series, and Takai's own ability to stay in the public eye thanks in part to his ongoing association with Howard Stern's radio show, helped him find steady work throughout the nineties, eventually finding a very lucrative career using his quite recognizable, resonant voice in a variety of animated endeavors. He announced in a 2005 interview that he's been in a long-term relationship with another man for nearly 20 years, and this news did nothing to halt his career or the public's goodwill toward him. Among his most high-profile acting gigs apart from Star Trek have been the television show Heroes, okaying Le Duc Tho in Kissinger and Nixon, and playing a quirky economics teacher in the Tom Hanks directed Larry Crowne.