Trivia: While serving his two-year hitch in the Army, Jack Riley performed in "Rolling Along of 1960," a military travelling show. After his discharge, Riley attended John Carroll University, then resumed his show-business activities as an actor, comedian, and "special material" writer for such stars as Mort Sahl, Rowan and Martin and Don Rickles. He made his film debut in 1962's The Days of Wine and Roses, and later essayed eccentric roles in such laugh-spinners as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1979). Active in television since 1966, Riley was a comedy-ensemble player in Keep on Truckin' (1975) and The Tim Conway Show (1980 edition), and occasionally popped up on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, impersonating Lyndon Johnson. His most celebrated TV role was the supremely paranoid Elliot Carlin in The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78), a role he later reprised (under various character names) in such series as Alf and St. Elsewhere. He was also cast as TV station manager Leon Buchanan in the two-episode sitcom Roxie (1987), and was heard as the voice of Stu Pickles on the animated series Rugrats (1991- ). Extremely active in the LA theatrical scene, Jack Riley starred in such stage productions as 12 Angry Men and Small Craft Warnings. RIley died in 2016, at age 80.

Trivia: American actor John Fiedler did his first professional work in his native Wisconsin. Fiedler's many Broadway appearances included the 1960 play A Raisin in the Sun, in which he was the only Caucasian in a virtually all-black cast. His first film role was as the supplicative Juror No. 2 in Twelve Angry Men (1957). Fiedler's stock in trade was the meek-looking soul who compensated for his demeanor with a nasty temper or sadistic streak. In this capacity, he was often seen as vindictive school principals, obstreperous civil servants or combative psychiatric patients (vide TV's The Bob Newhart Show). Incredibly prolific in films and on television, John Fiedler's best-known role was Vinnie, Oscar Madison's card-playing crony in both the stage and screen versions of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple.

Trivia: Glamorous, down-to-earth leading lady Suzanne Pleshette was the daughter of the managing director of Brooklyn's Paramount Theater. She attended Performing Arts High School, Finch College, and Syracuse University. After some TV experience, she made her film debut in Jerry Lewis' The Geisha Boy (1958), then went on to replace Anne Bancroft as star of Broadway's The Miracle Worker. During her years at Warner Bros., Pleshette successfully avoided simpering ingénue roles, holding out for parts requiring beyond-her-years emotional depth. Her flair for comedy was delightfully tapped during her subsequent tenure with Disney in such films as The Ugly Dachsund (1967) and The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (1968). Pleshette's film work, however, has never struck so responsive a chord with the fans as her television work, notably her portrayal of Emily Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978) -- a role that she briefly and hilariously reprised on the very last episode of Newhart's subsequent series, Newhart. She then starred in several short-lived TV series, including Maggie Briggs (1984), Bridges to Cross (1986), and The Boys Are Back (1994), and was also a ubiquitous presence in such made-for-TV movies as Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean. And yes: Incredible as it may seem, Suzanne Pleshette was once married to Troy Donahue. Pleshette died of respiratory failure in January 2008.

Trivia: Born in New Hampshire, Peter Bonerz was raised in Milwaukee, where he attended Marquette High School. Afflicted with a stammer in his teen years, Bonerz was encouraged by one of his teachers to enter an elocution contest. In doing so, he began to develop confidence in his speaking skills; by the time he'd graduated from Marquette University, Bonerz was determined to pursue a career in acting. Turned down by Chicago's Second City troupe, Bonerz was nonetheless able to secure work with the Premise, a New York-based improv group. Drafted into the army, he bluffed his way into a job as a director of training films. He continued his directing activities into his civilian life, staging and appearing in sketches with the Committee, a San Francisco comedy aggregation. In 1965, Bonerz starred in the independently produced film Funnyman, which earned him critical praise but which never secured a national release. Still, he was able to find work in such films as Medium Cool (1969) and Catch-22 (1970) and TV programs like The Addams Family. In 1972, Bonerz finally achieved a nationwide following when he was cast as orthodontist Jerry Robinson on The Bob Newhart Show, which ran for six seasons. He later co-starred as chauvinistic CEO Mr. Hart in the TV-series adaptation 9 to 5 (1982). By the 1980s, Bonerz was far too busy as a TV and film director to appear before the cameras with any frequency. His big-screen directorial credits include Nobody's Perfekt (1980) and Police Academy 6 (1989), while his TV work in this field is far too extensive to detail here. In 1992, Peter Bonerz received the Directors' Guild Award for his achievements in TV comedy directing; and from 1991 to 1994, Bonerz taught acting and directing courses at U.C.L.A.

Trivia: Actress and comedian Marcia Wallace began her career as a stage actress, appearing with the improv troupe The Fourth Wall and in off-Broadway plays in the late '60s. After a guest appearance on the Merv Griffin Show, Wallace began a thriving TV career playing secretary Carol Kester Bondurant on The Bob Newhart Show and making countless appearances over the coming decades on game shows like Hollywood Squares and To Tell the Truth, as well as shows like Full House and The Young and the Restless. In 1990, she began voicing Edna Krabappel, Bart's jaded 4th grade teacher, on The Simpsons, winning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance in 1992. Wallace continued to appear on the show in a recurring role up until her death in 2013.

Trivia: From the late '60s through the mid-'70s, first on I Dream of Jeannie and later on The Bob Newhart Show, Bill Daily was one of the most visible comic acting talents in television, despite the fact that he'd always intended on a career in music. Born in Des Moines, IA, in 1928, he was raised by his mother with help from several aunts and uncles after the death of his father and he gravitated toward music as a teenager. Following a stint in the army in the late '40s, Daily became a professional musician, playing upright bass with different groups in the Midwest, and he eventually added little bits of stand-up comedy to his repertory in the course of performing. He hooked up with an NBC station in Chicago, first working behind the camera as a writer and musician and then doing comedy on the air. Eventually, he became a regular guest as a comedian on The Mike Douglas Show, which originated from Chicago. From there, he was discovered by Steve Allen who brought him onto his show as a comedian and sidekick. Daily subsequently credited his musical side with providing him with the sense of timing to become a successful comedian. During the early and mid-'60s, Daily moved into acting roles on programs like Bewitched -- on which he debuted in a straight dramatic role, in a Christmas episode in which he was highly effective -- and was given a small role in the pilot of I Dream of Jeannie. That part, of Major Roger Healy, turned into the co-starring role after the program's first season. Following five successful seasons on that program, he moved to The Bob Newhart Show as Howard Borden, providing comedic support similar to the part he'd played on I Dream Of Jeannie, as Newhart's befuddled, constantly jet-lagged next door neighbor. Daily has only ever appeared in two feature films, both of them comedies -- the made-for-television In Name Only in 1969, as a carefree bachelor (clearly modeled after one aspect of his character on I Dream of Jeannie) and in Disney's release of The Barefoot Executive in 1971. Since the first Bob Newhart series left the air, his television appearances have been infrequent and always in supporting, guest starring roles, although he did appear on Nick-at-Nite helping to promote The Bob Newhart Show when it aired on the channel. He has since reportedly become a theatrical actor and director in the Albuquerque, NM, area.

Trivia: A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, American actor Henry Winkler, born October 30th, 1945, first appeared on Broadway and in films (Crazy Joe, The Lords of Flatbush [both 1974]) before making the guest-star rounds on TV sitcoms. He worked several times for MTM productions, appearing in such roles as Valerie Harper's date on Rhoda and a charming thief undergoing psychoanalysis on The Bob Newhart Show. In 1973, Winkler was selected among hundreds of candidates (including ex-Monkee Micky Dolenz) to play the small recurring role of Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli, a leather-jacketed auto mechanic, on the new TV sitcom Happy Days. Though the series' stars were ostensibly Ron Howard, Anson Williams, and Donny Most, the bulk of the fan mail sent to Happy Days during its first season was addressed to "the Fonz." By the time the second season rolled around, Winkler was afforded second billing and a larger slice of screen time on each week's episode. Soon the more impressionable TV fans of America were parroting such Fonzie catchphrases as "Aaaaay" and "Sit on it!," while the nonplussed Winkler, who always regarded himself as a Dustin Hoffman-esque character actor, climbed to teen-idol status, complete with fan magazine interviews, posters, and Fonzie dolls. He also enjoyed a substantial salary boost, from 750 dollars per episode to (eventually) 80,000 dollars. At first, the off-stage Winkler could be as testy and sarcastic as his on-stage persona, but as Fonzie assumed "role model" proportions, the actor began comporting himself in as polite and agreeable a manner as possible. Accordingly, Fonzie became less of a Marlon Brando-type hoodlum and more of a basically goodhearted, moralistic young fellow who happened to be a motorcycle-racing dropout. By the time Happy Days ended in 1983 (by which time Winkler was elevated to top billing), Fonzie was a "drop-in," with a good job as a high school shop teacher and the possibility of a solid marriage. During his Happy Days heyday, Winkler was determined to prove he was capable of playing parts above and beyond Fonzie by taking film roles as far removed from his TV character: the troubled Vietnam vet in Heroes (1977), the vainglorious actor-turned-wrestler in The One and Only (1981), a '30s-style Scrooge in An American Christmas Carol (1982), and the timorous morgue attendant in Night Shift (1983). Following the example of his Happy Days co-star Ron Howard, Winkler also began working his way into the production and direction end of the business. In addition, Winkler used his name value for the benefit of others, remaining active in charitable and political causes. After several years away from the camera, Winkler returned to acting in the 1991 TV-movie Absolute Strangers, playing the husband of a woman caught in the middle of a volatile pro-life/pro-choice argument. And in 1993, Henry Winkler starred in the brief TV sitcom Monty, portraying a bombastic Limbaugh-type conservative TV personality. Winkler appeared in Little Nicky (2006) and You Don't Mess With the Zohan (2008), both times playing himself. Winkler continued to take small roles and guest spots on television and film throughout the 2000s.

Trivia: A Chicagoan from head to toe, American comedian Bob Newhart started his workaday life as a certified public accountant after flunking out of law school. As a means of breaking his job's monotony, Newhart would call his friend Ed Gallagher, and improvise low-key comedy sketches. A mutual friend of Newhart and Gallagher's, Chicago deejay Dan Sorkin, tape-recorded some of these off-the-cuff routines and played them for Warner Bros. records. Newhart suddenly found himself booked into a Houston nightclub -- his first-ever public appearance. Armed with telephone-conversation routines which delineated how Abe Lincoln would be handled by a publicity agent, or how Abner Doubleday would have fared trying to sell baseball to a modern-day novelty firm, Newhart recorded his first comedy album in 1960 -- which evidently struck a nerve with fellow white-collar workers, since it sold 1,500,000 copies. The hottest young comic on the club-and-TV circuit, Newhart was offered starring roles in situation comedies, but felt he wasn't a good enough actor to make a single character interesting week after week. Instead, he signed in 1961 for NBC's The Bob Newhart Show, a comedy-variety series which nosedived in the ratings but won an Emmy. Fearing that TV would eat up all his material within a year or so, Newhart went back to nightclubs after his one-season series was cancelled. Sharpening his acting skills in TV guest spots and in several films (his first, 1962's Hell is For Heroes, was so unnerving an experience that Bob repeatedly begged the producers to kill his character off before the fadeout), Newhart felt emboldened enough to attempt a regular TV series again in 1972. This Bob Newhart Show cast the comedian as psychologist Bob Hartley - an ideal outlet for his "button-down" style of dry humor. Six seasons and several awards later, Newhart was firmly established as a television superstar; this time around he wasn't cancelled, but ended the series on his own volition, feeling the series had exhausted its bag of tricks. Most popular sitcom personalities had come acropper trying to repeat their first success with a second series, but Newhart broke the jinx with Newhart in 1982, wherein Bob played author Dick Loudon, who on a whim decided to open a New England colonial inn. Newhart was every bit as popular as his earlier sitcom, and, like the previous show, the series ended (in 1990) principally because Newhart chose to end it. This he did with panache: Newhart's final scene suggested the entire series had been a bad dream experienced by Bob Newhart Show's Bob Hartley! A third starring sitcom, 1992's Bob, found Newhart playing a cult-figure comic book artist; alas, despite excellent scriptwork and the usual polished Newhart performance, this new series fell victim to format tinkering and poor timeslots. Over teh course of the next few decades, Newhart would frequently turn up in guest roles on shows like Murphy Brown, ER, and Desperate Housewives, and though his 1997 odd couple sitcom George & Leo failed to find its footing, he did appear in all three installments of TNT's popular fantasy trilogy The Librarian, starring Noah Wyle. Meanwhile, cameos in such films as Elf and Horrible Bosses continually offered a gentle reminder that comedy's nicest funnyman could still crack us up.

Trivia: Character actor Len Lesser worked steadily in film and television since his film debut in Shackout on 101 (1955). Lean, dark, and bushy-browed, he was typically cast as a crook or hitman. Fans of the television sitcom Seinfeld will recognize Lesser as Uncle Leo.