Trivia: Jim Nabors, he of the vacuous expression and the dumbstruck expletives "Gawwwleee" and "Shazzayam," graduated from the University of Alabama with a degree in business administration. Nabors' first TV job was as an apprentice film cutter; shortly afterward, he launched a fitfully successful career as a cabaret singer. In 1963, he was hired to play the one-shot role of gas station attendant Gomer Pyle on the top-rated The Andy Griffith Show. Essentially a build-up to a punchline (Griffith explained to a nonplused stranger that the goofy Gomer planned to become a brain surgeon), Nabor's hayseed character proved so popular that he became a regular on the series. In 1964, with Griffith's manager Richard O. Linke calling the shots, Nabors was spun off into his own weekly sitcom, Gomer Pyle USMC, which ran for five successful seasons. Televiewers got their first inkling that there was more to Nabors than Gomer when, on a 1964 Danny Kaye Show, he revealed his rich, well-modulated baritone singing voice. He went on to record 16 popular record albums, utilizing his high-pitched Gomer voice in only one of them (1965's Shazzam). Nabors' larynx was further deployed on his TV variety series The Jim Nabors Show (1969-72), on the 1967 opening episode (and every subsequent season opener) of The Carol Burnett Show, and in countless personal appearances all over the world. Additionally, Nabors starred in such 1970s Saturday morning kiddie efforts as Krofft Supershow, The Lost Saucer and Buford and the Galloping Ghost (voice only). He played his first serious role as a vengeful hillbilly on a 1973 episode of TVs The Rookies, and essayed comic supporting parts in such good-ole-boy films as Cannonball Run (1978) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), both starring his close friend Burt Reynolds. Because Nabors never married, he found himself the target of numerous ugly and unfounded rumors concerning his private life. When he became deathly ill in the mid-1980s, there were those who jumped to the conclusion that Nabors had contacted AIDS. In fact, he had fallen victim to a particularly vicious form of hepatitis, picked up (according to Nabors) when he cut himself while shaving in India. Nabors recovered from his ailment after a highly publicized liver transplant saved his life.

Trivia: After five years of playing uptight Donald Hollinger, the boyfriend of Marlo Thomas in her groundbreaking proto-feminist sitcom That Girl for five years, Ted Bessell as an actor was hopelessly typecast as the perennial second fiddle. This was a shame for despite the bland image he projected on the show, he was a vital, creative, talented, and passionate man who excelled at painting, music, directing, and acting. A native of Flushing, NY, Bessell was a piano prodigy and at age 12 performed a recital at Carnegie Hall. By the time he graduated from college in 1958, he had decided to become an actor and launched his career in 1961, playing an elevator operator in the feature film Lover Come Back. The following year he was cast as a college student on the series It's a Man's World. The series only lasted a season and Bessell went on to become a semi-regular on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. in 1966, the year That Girl went into production. Though the role of Donald made Bessell a television star, the actor stated that the role "took away the heart of me." During its run, he also played small roles in a few feature films, including Don't Drink the Water (1969). Following the end of the series, Bessell starred opposite a chimpanzee in the short-lived Me and the Chimp (1972) in which he played an uptight dentist/father of two forced to contend with the tame ape his children found abandoned in a park one day. The '70s were a slow time for him -- but for a few memorable appearances as the boyfriend of Mary Tyler Moore on her proto-feminist sitcom -- and he only appeared in a couple of films. The '80s continued in a similar vein, but included two unsuccessful attempts at TV sitcoms: Good Time Harry (1980) and Hail to the Chief (1985) in which he played Patty Duke's husband. By the late '80s, Bessell had largely abandoned acting and become a television director. In 1989, he shared an Emmy for directing an episode of Fox television's Tracey Ullman. In early October 1996, Bessell had just reunited with Marlo Thomas to present at the Emmys and was discussing a That Girl reunion movie with her. He was also busy preparing to direct a feature-film version of the '60s sitcom Bewitched (produced by himself and Penny Marshall through their jointly owned Parkway Productions, which they established in 1991) when he was felled by a fatal aortal aneurysm.