Trivia: Jockey turned singer/actor, Davy Jones played the adorable mop-top Davy on the mid-to-late '60s phenom television series, The Monkees. He and his fellow manufactured bandmates Peter Tork, Mickey Dolenz, and Michael Nesmith made one film together -- Head (1968). After the group's demise, Jones occasionally played himself as a guest star on television (Brady Bunch) and in commercials. In 1995, he again played himself in The Brady Bunch Movie. Jones and all the other Monkees, except Nesmith, periodically got back together for tours and reunion concerts.

Trivia: Starred in the 1950s series Circus Boy. Learned to play the drums after being cast as the Monkees' drummer. Played the first synthesizer on a rock recording (the Monkees' "Daily Nightly" from the 1967 album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.). Cowrote and directed the final episode of The Monkees. Voiced various characters on Saturday-morning cartoons during the 1970s, including The Funky Phantom and The Scooby-Doo Show. Auditioned for the role of Fonzie on Happy Days. Moved to London in 1977 to costar in Harry Nilsson's musical The Point! with fellow Monkee Davy Jones. Worked as a director-producer in England during the late 1970s and early '80s. His credits include a stage version of Bugsy Malone that starred a 14-year-old Catherine Zeta-Jones. Created-produced the early 1980s British children's show Luna. Studied physics during the 1970s and '80s at the Open University, a UK correspondence college.

Trivia: Learned to play piano at the age of 9. Was part of Edwin O. Smith High School's first graduating class. Landed his spot in the Monkees thanks to a recommendation from friend and fellow musician Stephen Stills. In 1972, he spent three months in jail for hashish possession. Portrayed Topanga Lawrence's father in episodes of the TV series Boy Meets World. Battled a rare form of cancer known as adenoid cystic carcinoma in 2009.

Trivia: Stuart Margolin was a published writer and off-Broadway playwright before he was old enough to vote. The pinch-faced, curly-headed Margolin began showing up in character parts in 1966, in films like Women of a Prehistoric Planet and TV series like Occasional Wife. He was a staff writer and member of the acting ensemble on the popular sitcom anthology Love American Style, which ran from 1969 through 1974. In 1971, Margolin co-starred on the western series Nichols, launching his long friendship and professional association with actor James Garner. He went on to win two Emmy awards for his portrayal of mildly larcenous Angel Martin on Garner's long-running (1974-80) series The Rockford Files; played Philo Sandine on the 1981 retro Garner TV vehicle Bret Maverick; and guest-starred on the first episode of Garner's short-lived "dramedy" Man of the People (1991). Stuart Margolin turned to directing in the 1980s, beginning with (inevitably) a brace of James Garner TV movies, The Long Summer of George Adams (1982) and The Glitter Dome (1984)); he has since helmed two theatrical features, Paramedics and Donna d'Onore (both 1990).

Trivia: Every Presidential election from the end of Lyndon B. Johnson's terms to the beginning of Bill Clinton's second, the country could count on one thing: Comedian Pat Paulsen would run for office. Like certain real candidates, Paulsen peppered his speeches with meaningless falderal and brouhaha, his takes on the days' issues were short and pithy. When asked about the health care problem, Paulsen replied, "I don't think we need to care for healthy people." On the burgeoning national debt, he said, "Let the kids pay it: They still owe us rent and gas money." Paulsen was born in South Bend, WA, but moved with his family to Point Bonita in northern California where his father was stationed with the Coast Guard. Following his high school gradation, Paulsen served with the Marines during WWII, guarding Japanese prisoners in China following the A-bombing of Japan. Upon his discharge, Paulsen took various odd jobs until enrolling in San Francisco City College to study forestry. He was not there long before he discovered acting and enrolled in drama classes and appeared in college productions. Paulsen embarked on various comic enterprises with his brother, Lorin. During the '60s, the two went separate ways and Paulsen found success writing and performing comical folk songs and doing standup on the coffeehouse circuit. It was fellow funny folk artists, the Smothers Brothers, who provided Paulsen with his break into modest fame. Paulsen sold them one or two songs. In 1967, when the brothers launched their groundbreaking Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, they made a place for Paulsen, who would comment on newsworthy topics and issues. The following year, Paulsen won an Emmy for his shtick. It was the Smothers who suggested Paulsen launch a satirical presidential campaign. Paulsen made his feature-film debut in Hymn Averback's Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1968). His subsequent film appearances were rare. Though he never actually won any real-life elections, Paulsen did get to play the president in Bloodsuckers From Outerspace (1986). Following the end of the Smothers Brothers program, Paulsen became a popular nightclub act and performed at conventions and in theaters. For years he annually trekked to Muskegon, MI, to produce and star in plays at the Cherry County Playhouse. Paulsen died in April 1997, in Mexico of pneumonia and kidney failure. In the mid-'90s, he received the International Platform Association's coveted Mark Twain Award for his outstanding contributions to topical humor.

Trivia: Durable leading lady Nita Talbot spent the first decade or so of her career playing "slick chicks" and sharp-witted career girls. In films from 1956, she was afforded a wealth of varied screen roles, from the love-starved switchboard operator in A Very Special Favor (1966) to the brassy Madame Esther in Buck and the Preacher (1972). A TV-series perennial, Talbot was seen as Mabel Spooner opposite Larry Blyden's Joe Spooner in Joe and Mabel (1956), unregenerate con artist Blondie Collins on The Thin Man (1957), resourceful girl Friday Dora on The Jim Backus Show (1960), snooty socialite Judy Evans in Here We Go Again (1973) and ultracyncial Rose in Starting from Scratch. Nita Talbot was also a familiar face on the daytime-drama scene, with long-running roles in Search for Tomorrow and General Hospital.

Trivia: Multi-talented Michael Nesmith has come a long way from playing the quiet Monkee in the little wool cap on the popular 1960s sitcom The Monkees. Since then he has proven himself an innovator in musical genres and music videos -- his work in the latter area led to the creation of the MTV network. Nesmith is also a movie and television producer. Born in Houston, TX, Nesmith is the son of Bette Nesmith Graham, the woman who invented Liquid Paper correction fluid. Before auditioning for The Monkees in 1965, Nesmith had served a two-year stint in the Air Force, worked as a backup musician in Nashville, performed in a Los Angeles-based folk-rock duo with his friend John London, composed songs, including "Mary, Mary" and "Different Drum," and recorded a few singles. While with the Monkees, Nesmith wrote several of their hits and helped persuade the Monkees' "handlers" to allow them to produce their own records. He left the television group after completing their only feature film, Head (1968), to form his own band and then launched his solo career. In 1977, he designed a new television show called Popclips, in which he utilized live music clips while counting down the week's chart-toppers. The show is credited for inspiring the genesis of MTV. Nesmith's mother died in 1980 and left him half of her Liquid Paper fortune (worth over 20 million dollars). Nesmith then launched his own record and film production company, Pacific Arts, which became the number one source of American music videos in the '80s, and won the first Video Grammy for it in 1981. In the late '80s, Nesmith made his own filmmaking debut with the inventive music video "Elephant Parts." He reunited with the Monkees and continued to occasionally perform with them. In 1997, he and the group appeared in an hour-long television special and also released a new album, Justus.