Trivia: Born Leonard Rosenberg, Randall moved to New York at age 19 and studied theater with Sanford Meisner and at the Neighborhood Playhouse. His stage debut was in The Circle of Chalk (1941). From 1942-46 he served with the U.S. Army, following which he acted on radio and TV. He began appearing onscreen in 1957 and was a fairly busy film actor through the mid '60s. He is best known for his work on TV, particularly for his portrayal of fastidious Felix Unger on the sitcom "The Odd Couple." He also starred or costarred in the series "One Man's Family," "Mr. Peepers," "The Tony Randall Show," and "Love, Sidney." He frequently appears on TV talk shows, where he is witty, erudite, and urbane. In 1991 he created the National Actors Theater, a repertory company; its purpose is to bring star-filled classic plays to broad-based audiences at low prices.

Trivia: Commenting on his notorious on-set irascibility in 1977, Jack Klugman replied that he was merely "taking Peter Falk lessons from Robert Blake," invoking the names of two other allegedly hard-to-please TV stars. Klugman grew up in Philadelphia, and after taking in a 1939 performance by New York's Group Theatre, Klugman decided that an actor's life was right up his alley. He majored in drama at Carnegie Tech and studied acting at the American Theatre Wing before making his (non-salaried) 1949 stage-debut at the Equity Library Theater. While sharing a New York flat with fellow hopeful Charles Bronson, Klugman took several "grub" jobs to survive, at one point selling his blood for $85 a pint. During television's so-called Golden Age, Klugman appeared in as many as 400 TV shows. He made his film debut in 1956, and three years later co-starred with Ethel Merman in the original Broadway production of Gypsy. In 1964, Klugman won the first of his Emmy awards for his performance in "Blacklist," an episode of the TV series The Defenders; that same year, he starred in his first sitcom, the 13-week wonder Harris Against the World. Far more successful was his next TV series, The Odd Couple, which ran from 1970 through 1974; Klugman won two Emmies for his portrayal of incorrigible slob Oscar Madison (he'd previously essayed the role when he replaced Walter Matthau in the original Broadway production of the Neil Simon play). It was during Odd Couple's run that the network "suits" got their first real taste of Klugman's savage indignation, when he and co-star Tony Randall threatened to boycott the show unless the idiotic laughtrack was removed (Klugman and Randall won that round; from 1971 onward, Odd Couple was filmed before a live audience). It was but a foretaste of things to come during Klugman's six-year (1977-83) reign as star of Quincy, M.E.. Popular though Klugman was in the role of the crusading, speechifying LA County Coroner's Office medical examiner R. Quincy, he hardly endeared himself to the producers when he vented his anger against their creative decisions in the pages of TV Guide. Nor was he warmly regarded by the Writer's Guild when he complained about the paucity of high-quality scripts (he wrote several Quincy episodes himself, with mixed results). After Quincy's cancellation, Klugman starred in the Broadway play I'm Not Rappaport and co-starred with John Stamos in the 1986 sitcom You Again?. The future of Klugman's career -- and his future, period -- was sorely threatened when he underwent throat surgery in 1989. He'd been diagnosed with cancer of the larynx as early as 1974, but at that time was able to continue working after a small growth was removed. For several years after the 1989 operation, Klugman was unable to speak, though he soon regained this ability. He continued working through 2011, and died the following year at age 90.

Trivia: The son of a Rumanian rabbi, Canadian actor/comedian David Steinberg was considered the quiet member of his large family -- until he developed a gift for lying. Steinberg's prevarications did not endear him to his father, who said "I kiss the train that takes you away" when Steinberg left Winnipeg to study theology in Israel. All plans for a rabbinical career ended when Steinberg happened to catch Lenny Bruce's act, whereupon he decided to become a comedian. Paul Sills of Chicago's Second City troupe hired Steinberg after seeing the young comic in a University of California production of Candide, but Steinberg didn't really fit in with the communal spirit of Second City and chose to strike out as a solo actor. He appeared in Broadway productions as Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights and Little Murders, both failures. Finally he attained a new agent who guided Steinberg through the Playboy-club circuit in the late '60s. Steinberg confused many club patrons by avoiding standard mother-in-law jokes in favor of conceptual comedy - humor based on observations of everyday life. One of his routines centered around a sanctimonious minister's sermon, and on the strength of this Steinberg was hired for guest spots on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. After his appearance on October 27, 1968, Steinberg was deluged with angry mail complaining about his "blasphemous" performance; the Smothers refused to cave in to pressure and used Steinberg on other programs, including their final taping in April 1969, which remained untelecast after the brothers were fired by CBS. Adverse publicity or no, Steinberg was hired to emcee a 45-minute ABC-TV variety program, The Music Scene, in 1969, where his comic gifts were stifled and he was expected to merely point fingers as the singing groups were introduced. In 1972, when censorial pressure had subsided somewhat at CBS thanks to the advent of All in the Family, Steinberg was hired by the network for a summer replacement series, The David Steinberg Show. The program played to so-so ratings, but did give Steinberg a brief spurt of popularity wherein fans could be heard repeating his catchphrases "Boogie boogie boogie" and "Get OFF me." Steinberg's fame crested in the mid '70s, after which he faded from television. In the early '80s Steinberg turned to film directing with such movies as Paternity (1980) and Going Berserk (1982), and in 1985 he gave TV another try with a series of syndicated interview specials.

Trivia: Heavyset, hawk-nosed Italian-American character actor Al Molinaro maintained a constant association with two series roles throughout his career, both down-to-earth and sweet-natured, paternal types: that of Murray Greshner, better known as Murray the Cop, on the small-screen version of The Odd Couple (1970-1983), and that of Alfred Delvecchio, the second proprietor of Arnold's Drive-In, on Happy Days (a role maintained from 1976 through 1982). The Wisconsin-based location of Days hit close to home for Molinaro, as a real-life native of Kenosha, WI. Born in 1919, he began signing for acting roles in the early to mid-'50s and achieved his big break when very briefly cast as Agent 44 on Mel Brooks' spy spoof Get Smart (before Victor French replaced him). Molinaro reportedly met Odd Couple producer Garry Marshall while enrolled in acting classes with Marshall's sister, Penny, and thereby landed the part of Murray. That led, in turn, to the Happy Days casting in the fall of 1976 when series co-star Pat Morita left to headline his own short-lived series, Mr. T & Tina. Following Days, Molinaro signed for very infrequent guest roles on series and permanently settled in Los Angeles, where he did occasional theatrical performances and made public appearances. He retired from acting in the mid-'90s. Molinaro died in 2015, at age 96.