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: 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.

Trivia: Wiry, solemn-faced American actor Curt Conway interrupted stage work to appear in his first film, Gentleman's Agreement (1947). As Bert McAnny in the Oscar-winning film, Conway was one of many Anglo-Saxon types who opened mouth and inserted foot when Gregory Peck, investigating anti-Semitism, pretended to be Jewish. Conway was a stalwart of television's "live" days of the '50s, at which time he did some directing as well as acting. Twilight Zone fans will remember a heavily made-up Conway in the 1963 episode "He's Alive"; the actor played a shadowy stranger who gives advice to a neo-Nazi activist (Dennis Hopper) on how to get ahead, and who at the end of the episode turns out to be--to everyone's surprise but the audience--Adolph Hitler. Having begun his film career in a movie indictment of race prejudice, Curt Conway ended his career in a film dealing with the same subject, 1971's The Man.

Trivia: A name that carries its own connotations, Hugh Marston Hefner not only founded the billion-dollar Playboy Enterprises, but did much to spearhead the "sexual revolution" -- first by publishing Playboy magazine in 1953, then by expanding his girlie magazine into supper clubs, cable networks, book publishing, apparel, adult-entertainment home videos, and scores of other arenas. Playboy Magazine itself began with a well-known business coup: Hefner purchased nude photographs of an extremely young Marilyn Monroe and published them in his magazine, in December 1953, making the first issue an instant, must-have American phenomenon. This provided the necessary boost to get the publication underway. Whereas other purveyors of entertainment for men, such as Larry Flynt and Al Goldstein, would later hone in on the gritty underbelly of the market, Hefner aggressively (and successfully) attempted to make eroticism and nudity more palatable to average middle-class citizens, gradually bringing increasingly explicit printed material into mainstream America's living rooms and thus reshaping the country's moral and sociocultural landscape. To Hefner's credit, he never failed to underestimate the intelligence of his readers, filling each issue with the finest literary work, criticism, interviews, and nonfiction journalism, alongside his erotic centerfold photographs -- thus giving the magazine some class. Film historians might be intrigued to know that Hefner's cinematic activities are not by any means limited to softcore adult entertainment. He has occasionally produced critically lauded mainstream pictures, such as Roman Polanski's X-rated (for violence, not sex) Macbeth (1971), Arthur Hiller's cult classic The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder (1974), and (as part of a legal settlement) Peter Bogdanovich's extraordinary character study Saint Jack (1979).Hefner was portrayed by Cliff Robertson in Bob Fosse's Star 80, Jack Fitz in American Gangster, and Randall Batinkoff in the telemovie Hefner: Unauthorized. In the 21st century he was the star of the reality series The Girls Next Door, which focused on his relationship with three former playmates, and in 2008 he played himself in the Anna Faris comedy The House Bunny.

Trivia: Character actor Art Batanides made a number of appearances in film and television, but will be best remembered for his work on the Police Academy franchise and on the extremely popular late-'70s/early-'80s television series Happy Days. Batanides died in early 2000, at age 77.

Trivia: Instantly recognizable for her cute overbite, raucous voice, and broad Bronx accent, Penny Marshall successfully made the transition from popular comic actress to a respected director and producer of popular mainstream feature films. A New York native (born Carole Penny Marsciarelli), Marshall is the daughter of an industrial filmmaker and a dance instructor. She started dancing herself as a toddler and as a teen competed on The Ted Mack Amateur Hour with a dance troupe comprised of several friends. The group also appeared on The Jackie Gleason Show. By the time she was a young adult and had graduated with degrees in math and psychology from the University of New Mexico, her older brother, Garry Marshall, had established himself as a successful television writer. It was Garry who provided Marshall with her first film role in his feature film debut effort as a screenwriter and producer in How Sweet It Is (1968).When her brother began creating and producing situation comedies, he made sure Marshall had parts in his shows, the first of which was My Friend Tony and the second was The Odd Couple, where she had a recurring role. Marshall also guest starred on other comedies, including The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but her big break didn't come until her brother cast her and her friend Cindy Williams as Laverne and Shirley in an episode of his popular series Happy Days. Her portrayal of a wiseacre working-class broad and Williams' take on the more innocent Shirley gained an instant fan base and so Garry Marshall was inspired to build a sitcom around the characters. Laverne and Shirley debuted in 1978 and ran through 1983. During this period, Marshall was married to actor-turned-director Rob Reiner. She divorced him in the early '80s. At that time, it was apparent that her acting career was on a dead-end street and Marshall decided to try out directing. Beginning with television movies and series such as The Tracey Ullman Show, Marshall learned to direct. She made her feature film directorial debut with the Whoopi Goldberg vehicle Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986) which had originally been slated for director Howard Zieff. Returning her brother's favors, she gave him a part in the film and also created a part for her daughter, Tracy Reiner (the offspring from Marshall's first marriage to Michael Henry). The film was a critical and box-office dud, but this did not deter Marshall from trying again. Her second attempt at directing, Big (1988), the story of a boy whose wish is granted and so finds himself stranded in a man's body, made actor Tom Hanks a movie star and established Marshall as a respectable big-league filmmaker. Still, she took two years to finish her next film, Awakenings (1990). This was due in part to 20th Century Fox's reluctance to have the story filmed until Marshall had engaged her friends Robin Williams, in a rare subdued dramatic role, and Robert De Niro. A well-made and poignant drama, Awakenings received three Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture. For her next film, Marshall offered up a sentimental, funny, and ebullient look at the women who kept professional baseball alive when all the young men were off fighting during WWII in A League of Their Own (1992). It was a well-crafted effort that has grown in popularity on video and netted star Geena Davis a Golden Globe nomination. Since then, Marshall's directorial output yielded uneven results and her films, while still loaded with mainstream appeal, had yet to reach the degree of popularity of her earlier work. In the late '90s, she and her much-younger pal, comedian Rosie O'Donnell, became popular for a series of television commercials for K-Mart. In addition to directing and producing, Marshall occasionally continued to work as an actress on television and in films, and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (alongside her Laverne and Shirley co-star Cindy Williams) in 2004. Though at the time it appeared that Marshall had taken a hiatus from the director's chair, she would later resurface to direct episiodes of According to Jim and United States of Tara before lending her voice to the animated comedy series The Life and Times of Jim, and making an appearance in Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein's hipster-skewing sketch series Portlandia.