Trivia: Born in a multicultural New York City neighborhood, comedian Don Adams joined the Marines upon the outbreak of World War II. After Guadalcanal, Adams saw little action due to a life-threatening bout of blackwater fever (malaria) that kept him out of commission until the end of the war. As a civilian, Adams tried at first to carve out a career as a professional artist, taking outside jobs to support himself and his family. Blessed with a gift for mimicry, Adams and a friend teamed up for a comedy act but response was minimal, and soon Adams was involved in the cartographic and engineering business. Then in 1954, on a whim, he auditioned for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts; his routine went over, and he was on his way. Collaborating with his close friend Bill Dana, Adams developed a topnotch act full of "inside" showbiz references that fortunately never went over the heads of the audience. His best monologue was "The Defense Attorney," wherein Adams adopted the clipped speech cadence of actor William Powell. Though he would be seen in a variety of sketches during his nightclub years and his early-1960s stint as a regular on The Perry Como Show, it was the Powell imitation that scored highest. Adams would use this voice for the cartoon character of Tennessee Tuxedo in 1963, and that same year expanded on the impression in the role of inept house detective Byron Glick on The Bill Dana Show. The "spy cycle" of 1965 enabled Adams to refine the Byron Glick character into the magnificently self-confident but monumentally inept secret-agent Maxwell Smart on the hit TV sitcom Get Smart, which ran until 1970. In addition to providing Adams a conduit for his beloved movie parodies, the series also gave him an opportunity to direct. In 1971, Adams moved onto another genre-spoof TV series, The Partners, in which he played police detective Lennie Crook. Hampered by weak scripts and a death-valley timeslot opposite All in the Family, The Partners perished after thirteen weeks. After this debacle, Adams found the going rough for a while, though he made a comfortable living with nightclub appearances and guest spots on such TV series as The Love Boat. He made no fewer than three attempts to revive Get Smart between 1980 and 1994, one of which actually resulted in a (very short-lived) weekly Fox network sitcom. Adams is best known to children of the 1980s as the voice of cartoondom's bionic blockhead, Inspector Gadget. Don Adams was the brother of another comic actor, the late Richard Yarmy; Adams' cousin Robert Karvelas played secret agent Larrabee on Get Smart.

Trivia: American actress Barbara Feldon claimed to be a lonely child, one whose escape from loneliness took the form of books and ballet. While studying drama at Carnegie Tech, she became an expert in Shakespeare, and in this capacity made her TV debut as a contestant on The $64,000 Question (kinescopes exist of this appearance; Barbara is instantly recognizable, though she hasn't quite lost all her baby fat). Feldon worked as a chorus girl in New York, then slimmed down considerably and became a high-priced fashion model. Commercials followed, in which Feldon pitched deodorant pads and--most famously--men's cologne. Few males who were going through adolescence in the early '60s will forget Feldon pitching Top Brass cologne to the "tigers" in the audience, staring into the camera with almost unbearable sultriness (the actress insisted that her come-hither glare was a result of nearsightedness). After doing the guest-star round on several TV dramatic programs, Feldon won the role of statuesque Agent 99 on the spy sitcom Get Smart. Part of the fun on this program was watching Feldon try to avoid revealing that she was a few inches taller than co-star Don Adams (in some scenes he was standing on an incline, as proven when the Nickelodeon cable network put together a montage of "who's taller?" scenes from Get Smart in the early '90s). Get Smart ran from 1965 through 1970, but Feldon has occasionally re-created Agent 99, once in a Smart TV-movie reunion, and more recently in a "return" series for the Fox Network, again starring with Don Adams. Feldon's film career has been less remarkable, save for her brilliant interpretation of a near-fanatic beauty contest organizer in the 1975 satirical comedy Smile. In the last few years, Barbara Feldon has distinguished herself as an expert voiceover artist in commercials and TV specials; she can be heard as the narrator of the PBS series Dinosaurs.

Trivia: American character actor Edward Platt is best remembered as the eternally exasperated Chief on the Get Smart series. Before making his screen debut in the mid-'50s, he worked as a singer for a band. In feature films, he was typically cast as generals and bosses.

Trivia: Actor Donald Davis is best known for his work in New York and Canadian theater, but he also appeared occasionally in feature films and on television.

Trivia: American actor Wally Cox looked and played the role of the bespectacled, introverted intellectual both before the cameras and in life. Fascinated with all things scientific and devoted to the study of insects, Cox seemed as unlikely a candidate for major stardom as he was an improbable roommate for Marlon Brando. In fact, he was both. While building his reputation in small clubs as a monologist, Cox shared quarters with Brando, his best friend since childhood. Cox didn't really tell jokes in his club act; he would relate the offbeat exploits of his boyhood pal Dufo or do a dead-on imitation of his humorless, doltish Army drill sergeant; these were characterizations rather than routines, a gentler version of the sort of work done years later by Whoopi Goldberg. Playing occasional small parts on TV (he appeared very briefly as a baker in the 1952 film The Sniper, minus his familiar eyeglasses), Cox was tapped by producer Fred Coe to appear in a 1952 summer-replacement comedy series on NBC, Mr. Peepers, where he played Robinson Peepers, the shy, knowledgeable high school teacher at Jefferson High. Mr. Peepers garnered excellent ratings and won numerous awards, including an Emmy for Cox. As big a star as he would ever be, Cox was rushed into numerous nightclub engagements, which unfortunately fell flat because of inappropriate bookings and because audiences didn't want to see Cox as anyone other than Peepers. A 1955 sitcom, The Adventures of Hiram Holliday, starred Wally as an unlikely globe-trotting adventurer; alas, it was scheduled directly opposite ABC's powerhouse Disneyland. Cox would spend most of the rest of his career playing variations of Peepers on other star's sitcoms and variety series, occasionally breaking the mold by playing a murderer or bon vivant. He also tried his hand as a playwright, a field in which he displayed considerable skill. Once again under contract to NBC in the mid '60s, Cox became a regular on the comedy quiz show Hollywood Squares, where he adopted the image of a bored know-it-all. It is this Wally Cox that most viewers remember, not the brilliant comic actor who convinced his '50s fans that he was Mr. Peepers, not just a man playing a part. Wally Cox died of a sudden heart attack in 1973; he was cremated, and his ashes were discreetly scattered at an undisclosed spot (and in defiance of municipal laws) by his old friend and ex-roommate Marlon Brando.