Trivia: Professional magician Harry Anderson made his living as a street performer until he was "discovered" on the talk-show circuit in the late '70s. Looking all the world like a young Willy Loman, Anderson delighted in flim-flamming his "suckers" and then revealing his chicanery. He made his film debut as, appropriately, a sideshow prestidigitator in The Escape Artist (1982) then appeared on a sporadic basis as wise guy thimblerig Harry the Hat on the TV sitcom Cheers. This led to his being cast as freewheeling Judge Harold T. Stone on the weekly Night Court which ran from 1984 to 1992. Despite his insouciant "hustler" persona, Anderson is an immensely appealing performer with a strong following among children, and starred in such Disney TV-movie productions as The Absent-Minded Professor (1988) and Harvey (1995). In 1993, Harry Anderson launched another long-running sitcom, playing real life newspaper humorist Dave Barry (whom he resembles not one whit!) in Dave's World.

Trivia: Six feet tall by the time he was twelve, Richard Moll would eventually peak at 6'8". To ward off jokes about his height, Moll adopted the "class clown" pose in school, eventually developing a taste for play-acting. Moving from his hometown of Pasadena to Hollywood in 1968, Moll spent the next decade or so with various theatrical troupes, and for a while toured schools in the role of Abraham Lincoln. Whenever he made the movie and TV casting rounds, Moll was greeted with an astonished "What a monster!"; thus, a monster he became, playing a steady succession of "bikers and snake men and one-eyed mutants." He was one of the title characters in the 1972 TV movie Gargoyles, was seen as an abominable snowman in Caveman (1981), and played various and assorted hulking goons in such adventure flicks as Metalstorm (1982) and The Sword and the Sorceror (1984). He was finally allowed to exhibit his "human" side--not to mention his considerable flair for light comedy--as court guard Bull Shannon on the long-running (1984-92) TV sitcom Night Court. Back to monstrosities and villains again in the 1990s--this time by choice rather than necessity-- Richard Moll has continued appearing in sizeable (in more ways than one) TV guest-star roles, and has lent his vocal talents to the role of Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face, in Batman: The Animated Series.

Trivia: Tall, elegant African American musical performer Paula Kelly was the daughter of a popular nightclub and band singer of the same name; the elder Paula Kelly had been instrumental in popularizing such 1930s and 1940s standards as "Jeepers Creepers" and "Chattanooga Choo Choo." The younger Kelly launched her own career in the early 1960s. In 1969 she made her first film, re-creating her Broadway role as dance-hall girl Helene in Sweet Charity. Kelly's later films ranged from the excellent (The Andromeda Strain) to the barely tolerable (Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling). Extremely active on series TV, Paula Kelly has played such roles as public defender Liz Williams on Night Court (1984), Theresa in The Women of Brewster Place (the 1989 pilot for Oprah Winfrey's abortive weekly) and Sweets in South Central (1994).

Trivia: Actress and comedy writer Selma Diamond may best be remembered as the feisty, whiskey-voiced bailiff Selma Hacker in the first year of the popular television sitcom Night Court, but she was involved in the entertainment industry many years before that. A native of Canada, Diamond graduated from a New York university and got her start selling ideas for cartoons and humorous stories to various magazines. She also became a comedy writer for such radio and television personalities as Milton Berle, Tallulah Bankhead, Sid Caesar and Groucho Marx. Diamond also appeared in a few films, especially during the early '80s. She died in 1985, after working for only a year on Night Court.

Trivia: Al Ruscio played character roles since his film debut in Al Capone (1959). His best-known roles included crime boss Leo Cuneo in The Godfather: Part III (1990) and a recurring role on Life Goes On; he also appeared in the pilot episode of Seinfeld as the manager of Monk's Café. Ruscio worked as an acting teacher for years and regularly appeared in stage productions in Los Angeles. He passed away in 2013 at age 89.

Trivia: American actor John Larroquette began gaining public attention as a disc jockey. For several years, he paid the bills with TV and movie voiceovers, notably as the (uncredited) narrator of Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Larroquette started getting on-camera assignments in the mid 1970s, making his network TV bow in the role of Dr. Paul Herman in the prime time weekly Doctors' Hospital (1975-76); this was followed by a two-year stint as Robert Anderson on the Robert Conrad TV vehicle Black Sheep Squadron (1976-78). From 1984 through 1992, Larroquette portrayed assistant DA and self-styled ladies man Dan Fielding on the popular sitcom Night Court, a role which won him four Emmy awards. In 1994, the actor starred in his own series, The John Larroquette Show, playing an erudite recovering alcoholic who manages a St. Louis bus depot.His film career never quite matched the success he found on the small- screen, but he had small parts in The Twilight Zone Movie and Choose Me before he reached the height of his Night Court Fame. He was a friend to Bruce Willis in the Blake Edwards comedy Blind Date and appeared opposite his fellow NBC sitcom star Kirstie Alley in the flop Madhouse. He was one o the adult leads in the 1994 version of Richie Rich. As the '90s came to a close he returned to the small-screen in Payne, an attempt to update the classic British series Fawlty Towers. As the new century began, Larroquete could be seen in The 10th Kingdom, and a few years later he lent his voice as the narrator of the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - just as he did for the original thirty years before. He appeared in diverse projects such as Beethoven's 5th, and the 2006 Southland Tales. He scored a recurring role for a couple of seasons on Boston Legal.

Trivia: Burly black comedienne Marsha Warfield is best remembered for playing the caustic bailiff Roz on the popular television sitcom Night Court. Warfield made her film debut in the television movie The Marva Collins Story (1981). Prior to that she was a member of the sketch comedy cast on the short-lived, controversial Richard Pryor Show (1977). In addition to acting, Warfield is also a funny standup comedienne who often uses graphic language and descriptions of sex to describe the foibles of male/female interactions. Following the end of Night Court, Warfield hosted a short-lived talk show in 1990.

Trivia: Educated at the University of Pennsylvania, actor Philip Sterling made his first Broadway appearance in the 1955 musical Silk Stockings. Sterling was later spotlighted in such New York stage productions as Summertree, An Evening with Richard Nixon and Broadway Bound. In films from 1969's Me, Natalie, he has generally been cast as father figures or corporate bigwigs. His more notable film roles include Mr. Lipman in Joan Micklin Silver's Hester Street (1975) and Hollywood mogul Joseph Schenck in the 1980 TV movie Rita Hayworth: The Love Goddess. In addition, Philip Sterling has made numerous appearances in episodic television; in 1975, he co-starred with Wayne Rogers in the summer-replacement series City of Angels.

Trivia: Actor Stanley Brock was active on television and films from the 1970s to the 1990s (his last film was Mel Brooks' Life Stinks [1991]). From January through March 1986, Brock was a regular on the TV sitcom He's the Mayor. The actor played Ivan Bronski, the neighbor of a fictional 25-year-old black mayor (Kevin Hooks). Before that, Stanley Brock was mired in several failed TV pilots, including The Bureau (1976), Every Stray Dog and Kid (1981), Palms Precinct (1982) and 13 13th Avenue (1983). The credits of the long-running documentary series Wild Kingdom also list a "Stan Brock" as one of the program's many hosts, though chances are we're talking about two different people here.