Trivia: Born in Brooklyn, NY, on December 29, 1936, actress/dancer/rubberfaced comedienne Mary Tyler Moore went on to star in the definitive television comedies of both the 1960s and the 1970s: The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977). For her performances as Laura Petrie and Mary Richards, Moore won five Emmy Awards, in 1965, 1966, 1973, 1974, and 1976.Moore got her start in television commercials, acting as Happy Hotpoint, the Hotpoint Appliance Elf during The Ozzie and Harriet Show in 1955. She then progressed to a stint as the disembodied voice and legs of Sam, the answering service lady, on Richard Diamond, Private Detective (1957-1960). Three unsuccessful shows and a series of TV specials followed her more notable series: Mary (1978), the Mary Tyler Moore Hour (1979), and Mary (1985-1986). Her dramatic career took off in 1981, when she was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of the repressed mother in Ordinary People. Moore had Broadway success with Whose Life Is It Anyway?, appeared in the highly acclaimed Finnegan, Begin Again with Robert Preston on HBO, and won a CableACE Award in 1993 for her performance as an evil orphanage director in Stolen Babies. In 1996, Moore gained the appreciation of a new generation of fans with her hilarious turn as Ben Stiller's neurotic mother in David O. Russell's Flirting With Disaster. She also experienced a sort of renaissance through her mention in other films, notably Douglas Keeve's 1995 frockumentary Unzipped, which featured a beatific Isaac Mizrahi extolling the virtues of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and singing its theme song. In addition to her television and film work, Moore, as a well-known diabetic, has been a longtime representative of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. And though her film and television roles would become more sporadic moving into the new millennium, Moore could still be seen in the occasional theatrical release (Cheats, Against the Current) or made-for-television movie (Miss Lettie and Me, Snow Wonder) while making guest appearances in such popular sitcoms as That 70's Show and Hot in Cleveland. Moore died in 2017, at age 80.

Trivia: Cloris Leachman seems capable of playing any kind of role, and she has consistently demonstrated her versatility in films and on TV since the 1950s. On the big screen, she can be seen in such films as Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Last Picture Show (1971), for which she won an Oscar; and Young Frankenstein (1974). On TV, she played the mother on Lassie from 1957-58, and Phyllis Lindstrom on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-77) and her own series, Phyllis (1975-77). She was a staple on many of the dramatic shows of the '50s, and a regular on Charlie Wild, Private Detective (1950-52), and The Facts of Life. Leachman has won three Emmy Awards and continues to make TV, stage, and film appearances, including a turn as Granny in the film version of The Beverly Hillbillies (1993) and supplying her voice for the animated Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996) and The Iron Giant (1999). In 1999, she could be seen heading the supporting cast in Wes Craven's Music of the Heart.

Trivia: Actress Lisa Gerritsen embarked on a dramatic career for a very brief albeit memorable period of time -- from around 1969 (at the age of 12) to 1978 (at the age of 21), when she finally hung up her acting gloves and moved out of the spotlight. The world first took notice of Gerritsen when she signed for a role in the short-lived NBC sitcom My World and Welcome to It (1969-1970). Loosely adapted from the writings of humorist James Thurber, the program starred William Windom (She's Having a Baby) as John Monroe -- a husband and father of one who worked as a writer and cartoonist, suffered from an enormous sense of insecurity, and lived in his daydreams. Gerritsen co-starred as Lydia Monroe, John's preteen daughter. Unfortunately, despite a cover article in TV Guide circa 1969 and an abortive attempt by CBS to revive the series in 1972, it never connected with a substantial audience. Several months after a big-screen debut as a terrified airline passenger in the star-studded epic Airport (1970), Gerritsen then cropped up in another regular supporting role on a series, this time on the still-influential sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show. On that program, she played Bess Lindstrom, the teenage daughter of Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman), the landlady of Mary Richards' (Moore) building. The series as a whole ran until 1977, but five years in, producer Grant Tinker decided to spin off the characters of Phyllis and Bess into their own sitcom, simply and elegantly titled Phyllis; as a result, Leachman and Gerritsen promptly left the program to head up the new show. The premise of that outing (which debuted in 1975 and ran for two years) had Phyllis and Bess moving to San Francisco following the sudden death of husband and father Lars, where Phyllis took a job in a commercial photography studio. Phyllis represented Gerritsen's last major acting role, and thereafter, she moved into an unrelated field. Her resumé also includes guest appearances on such programs as Gunsmoke, The Odd Couple, and Bonanza.