Trivia: A product of the Brooklyn parochial school system, James Farentino studied for a theatrical career at AADA. Farentino made his Broadway debut in 1961 as Pedro in Tennessee Williams's Night of the Iguana. Though most of his subsequent professional time would be taken up by film and TV work, he would make frequent return visits to the stage, winning a Theatre World Award for his portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in a mid-1970s revival of another Williams piece, A Streetcar Named Desire. After an inauspicious movie bow in 1963's Psychomania, Farentino was signed by Universal, playing second leads in such films as The War Lord (1965) The Pad: And How to Use It (1966) and Rosie (1968). While still under the Universal banner, he starred in a brace of TV series, playing Neil Darrell in The Lawyers (1969-72) and high-profile private eye Jefferson Keyes in Cool Million (1972). He went on to star as copter jockey Frank Chaney in Blue Thunder (1984), Mary Tyler Moore's boss Frank DeMarco in Mary (1985) and Julie Andrews' veterinarian husband Sam McGuire in Julie (1992); one of his more famous weekly TV assignments was as Dr. Nick Toscannini during the first season of Dynasty (1981). Of his many TV-movie roles, several are standouts, among them the apostle Peter in Jesus of Nazaraeth (1977) and Juan Peron in Evita Peron (1985). James Farentino was formerly married to actress Michele Lee. Farentino died in early 2012 at age 73.

Trivia: Having caught the theatrical bug early in life, Charles Nelson Reilly studied for his craft at the Herbert Berghof-Uta Hagen studio. While scrounging for acting jobs in the 1950s, Reilly supported himself as an usher, mail clerk and hospital orderly. In 1960 he was cast in a minor role in the Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie, understudying stars Dick Van Dyke and Paul Lynde. The following year, he played nasty "corporate nephew" Bud Frump in the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, a characterization that won him a Tony Award. In 1964, he received the New York Critic's Circle award for his work as juvenile lead Cornelius Hackel in Hello, Dolly. During this period, Reilly showed up in such Manhattan-based TV programs as The Steve Lawrence Show, and also performed a cabaret act with his friend Eileen Brennan. In 1968, he was cast as Cleymore Gregg in the network sitcom The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, a role that typed him ever after in fussy, snippy, sarcastic roles. He went on to appear in the comedy ensemble of the 1970s variety series Dean Martin Presents the Golddiggers; he starred in the Saturday morning kiddie shows Lidsville (1971-74) and Uncle Croc's Block (1975-76); and, along with Richard Dawson and Brett Sommers, he served as a semi-permanent panelist on the long-running quiz show The Match Game and as a staple on the game show The Hollywood Squares, where his flamboyant personality (he typically appeared wearing oversized glasses and a colorful ascot) became an audience favorite. Game shows, however, reportedly downgraded Reilly in the eyes of producers, and made it next to impossible for him to find a healthy amount of work. During the '80s and '90s, Reilly became active in the field of cartoon voiceovers, performing in such animated feature films as All Dogs Go To Heaven (1989), Rock-a-Doodle (1992) and The Troll in Central Park (1993), and in TV cartoons like Smurfs and Spacecats; he also appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson a record 95 times. On the theatrical scene, Reilly directed the one-person plays Belle of Amherst and Paul Robeson, and staged several operas throughout the U.S. Charles Nelson Reilly was the founder of The Faculty, a Los Angeles-based drama school.In the mid-2000s, Reilly headlined a one-man performance film, The Life of Reilly (2000). As co-directed by Barry Poltermann and Frank Anderson, the picture found the actor-comic sitting before an audience and expostulating at length on his long career in showbusiness, his open homosexuality, and - occasionally - how the two intersected in the early years by making it difficult for him to find work. The picture opened to critical raves but received extremely limited distribution in the U.S. Tragically, it marked Reilly's last major effort, and not one year later, the actor died from complications of pneumonia. He was 76.