Trivia: Best remembered for his high-profile acting roles on two 1970s television sitcoms -- that of genial news writer Murray Slaughter on CBS's The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977) and that of sweet-natured Captain Merrill Stubing on ABC's The Love Boat (1977-1986), stage-trained actor Gavin MacLeod in fact began his career typecast as a villain. He landed parts in Hollywood features including The Sand Pebbles (1966), Deathwatch (1966), and The Comic (1969), and enjoyed a tenure as Joseph "Happy" Haines on the sitcom McHale's Navy from 1962 through 1964. After The Love Boat permanently laid anchor in the mid-'80s, MacLeod signed on as a spokesperson and pitchman for Princess Cruises and returned to regional theatrical work. He also tackled guest spots on programs including Touched by an Angel and (in a move that surprised everyone) the HBO prison drama Oz. Off-camera, MacLeod is an outspoken born-again Christian. He hosted a popular talk show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, along with his wife, Patti (whom he divorced in 1982 and remarried three years later), called Back on Course, and personally funded many of the Greatest Adventure Stories from the Bible animated videos for children.

Trivia: Universally recognized as Ship's Doctor Adam Bricker on the blockbuster prime-time sitcom The Love Boat (1977-1986) -- a part he held for the entire nine-season run of the series -- actor Bernie Kopell entered the doors of show business via a most unlikely route. Born in Brooklyn, Kopell attended Erasmus High and then New York University (with a dramatic art major). After a stint at sea aboard the naval vessel USS Iowa, Kopell signed on to drive a taxicab in Southern California -- and achieved his big break on the day that Oregon Trail (1959) film producer Dick Einfeld hitched a ride in the back of his cab. In a span of minutes, Kopell reportedly managed to convince Einfeld that he was not really a cab driver but an actor in serious need of work. The effort paid off, and Kopell snagged his first part -- a two-line part in Oregon as an aide to president James K. Polk. In the early '60s, Kopell joined the Actors' Ring Theatre in Los Angeles, where he developed a knack for characterizations and voices; this led, in turn, to character-type roles on a myriad of television programs including The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Steve Allen Show, and My Favorite Martian (which often, though not always, cast the wiry Kopell as a Hispanic). By the early '70s, Kopell had landed steady assignments on Get Smart, Bewitched, That Girl, and other series. The Love Boat, however, embodied his breakthrough. He followed it up with an emcee assignment on The Travel Channel (hosting its Railway Adventures Across Europe) and a surge in theatrical work, with portrayals in regional productions of such plays as Rumors, A History of Shadows, and Death of a Salesman.

Trivia: Actor Fred Grandy enjoyed two distinct careers -- an initial career as an actor and a proverbial second wind on the political stage. As a thespian, Grandy signed for guest spots on early-'70s series including Maude and Phyllis, but built his reputation via his nine-season portrayal of Yeoman-Purser Burl "Gopher" Smith, right-hand man to Captain Merrill Stubing (Gavin MacLeod), on the popular television sitcom The Love Boat (1977-1986). He proved popular with audiences, but by the mid-'80s reportedly grew tired of acting and gravitated to the political arena because he found it more challenging. Indeed, in 1986 -- the year of Boat's cancelation -- Grandy was elected as a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Iowa.

Trivia: For millions of Americans, the prime-time situation comedy The Love Boat will be forever inseparable from the image of Ted Lange, an actor cast for nine seasons as the genial Isaac the Bartender on the Pacific Princess luxury liner and trademarked by his iconic "two-finger drop" greeting. Yet Lange's portrayal of Isaac scarcely hinted at the actor's dexterity or dramatic range. In truth, this actor received classical dramatic training at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and would go on, after the Princess took its final voyage in September 1986, to establish himself as a revered creative force in regional theater.Lange initially broke into films with many portrayals in Hollywood programmers during the early '70s, including Trick Baby (1972), Blade (1972), and Black Belt Jones (1974), and landed a regular role in the one-season ethnic sitcom That's My Mama (1974), as a streetwise philosopher opposite Clifton Davis (Amen) and Theresa Merritt. The Love Boat, of course, brought Lange his most widespread recognition; nonetheless (as indicated), he hearkened back to his theatrical roots beginning in the late '80s and divided his time between writing, directing, and stage acting roles. His resumé as a scribe sports at least 17 original plays including Lemon Meringue Facade, Behind the Mask -- An Evening with Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Evil Legacy -- The Story of Lucretia Borgia, while he has appeared dramatically in productions including Hair and Taming of the Shrew and has directed plays ranging from Othello to the rock & roll musical Born a Unicorn.

Trivia: Pennsylvania-born actress Lauren Tewes achieved broadest recognition for her stint as Cruise Director Julie McCoy on the long-running ABC situation comedy The Love Boat. Unfortunately, Tewes (unlike many of her fellow cast members) left the program prior to the final voyage of the Pacific Princess -- reportedly spiraling into a much-publicized bout of severe cocaine addiction from which she eventually fully recovered, but which cost her the role on the series. Tewes nevertheless demonstrated admirable resilience by returning for at least two Love Boat telemovies and remained active in television and film. Subsequent projects included guest appearances on the small-screen series dramas Hunter and Murder, She Wrote, and roles in features such as The Doom Generation (1995) and It Came From Outer Space 2 (1996).

Trivia: Peter Marshall has been best-known, since the mid-'60s, as the popular host of The Hollywood Squares game show for 15 years. Audience members are, thus, surprised when they learn that Marshall was a legitimate actor for more than 15 years before he ever set foot on the set of The Hollywood Squares and came from a family that counts several well-known figures among its members. Born Pierre LaCock (or la Cocque) in 1927 in Huntington, WV, he was the son of a pharmacist and the younger brother of Joanne la Cocque, who moved from being a successful model to a movie star in the 1940s and 1950s under the name Joanne Dru. He began singing in big bands as a teenager during the 1940s, then took a job as a page at NBC, and moved through different varieties of employment before finding himself broke and in Los Angeles in 1949. He hooked up with a slightly older contemporary, Tommy Noonan, in a comedy duo called Noonan & Marshall; the duo made several appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show and got cast in a handful of films at the outset of the 1950s. Marshall's obvious talent for comedy was augmented by his good looks and he had a sporadically successful, busy career over the next 15 years as an actor, working in a variety of stage and film vehicles, among them a London production of Bye Bye Birdie and the abortive Warner Bros. sequel to Mister Roberts, Ensign Pulver. Perhaps his best performance was as the young officer trapped underground with a group of allied and enemy troops in Edgar G. Ulmer's World War II drama The Cavern. That film, made in 1965, was the last screen performance that Marshall was able to give as an anonymous working actor. In 1966, NBC and the sponsors were looking for a host for a new program called The Hollywood Squares, in which well-known actors and comedians were invited to give comical (and often comically wrong answers) to leading, sometimes double-entendre questions. Somebody at the network noticed Marshall's photograph on top of a pile of publicity materials, liked what they saw and the fact that he'd acted and had also done comedy, and called him in. Starting in October 1966, and lasting until 1981, he was the host of the extraordinarily popular program, which became a kind of pop culture fixture for decades. He ceased his career as a working actor, although he did co-write the screenplay for (and appear in) Maury Dexter's notorious 1968 anti-marijuana drama Maryjane, starring an overage Fabian. He also hosted a syndicated variety show during the 1970s and was a frequent guest as a host, singer, or dancer, on programs like The People's Choice Awards. Since The Hollywood Squares, he has appeared onscreen (usually as a game show host) and done comedy in films such as Annie, and poked fun at his own image on the Fox network comedy series In Living Color. He also has a recording career, and starred in HMS Pinafore with the London Symphony Orchestra. Marshall remains busy in his seventies and his son, Pete LaCock, is a well-known major league baseball player.

Trivia: Fresh out of the University of California, sprightly Colorado-born actress Barbara Rush attended the Pasadena Playhouse, walking several miles to and from her classes to save up enough money for her tuition. Before launching her film career, she married actor Jeffrey Hunter, the first of two desultory unions. She became a favorite of little boys of all ages due to her leading-lady stints in two of the most influential science fiction films of the 1950s, When Worlds Collide (1951) and It Came From Outer Space (1953). After biding her time in idiotic programmers like Prince of Pirates (1953), she emerged as an A-list leading lady at the major studios, adept at both comedy (Oh Men! Oh Women! [1957]) and drama (The Young Lions [1958]). Easing into character parts in the 1960s, Rush was often cast as viper-tongued shrews, cheating wives, and abrasive alcoholics. She also surprised many of her fans by appearing as "special guest villain" Nora Clavicle on an outrageous 1968 episode of Batman, which proposed that the miniskirted policewomen of Gotham City could be cowed into submission simply by releasing mice into the community. Though she hasn't been seen in many films in later years, Barbara Rush has continued to flourish as a stage actress and TV guest star.

Trivia: Born to a peripatetic vaudeville couple, Maggie Reed joined her parents' act as soon as she learned to walk, stopping the show with an energetic rendition of "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate." After touring in a double act with her brother Bud, she made her Broadway debut in the 1934 revue Calling All Stars, where she was billed for the first time as Martha Raye (at first claiming that she chose the name out of a phone book, she later affirmed that it had been involuntarily foisted upon her by "some idiot" and insisted -- nay, demanded -- that her friends call her Maggie). While appearing as a singer/comedienne at Hollywood's Trocadero, she was selected to appear in Paramount's Rhythm on the Range (1936), in which she introduced her trademark song, "Mr. Paganini." For the next four years she was Paramount's favorite soubrette, overemphasizing her big mouth and gorgeous legs in a series of zany comedy roles. She also proved to be a convincing romantic lead for Bob Hope (a lifelong friend) in such films as Give Me a Sailor (1938) and Never Say Die (1939). Dropped by Paramount in 1940, she moved to Universal, where she was seen to good advantage in The Boys From Syracuse (1940), Abbott and Costello's Keep 'Em Flying (in a dual role in 1941), and Olsen and Johnson's Hellzapoppin' (1941); during this period she also returned to Broadway, co-starring with Al Jolson (with whom she'd previously appeared on radio) in Hold On to Your Hats. During WWII, Raye and her pals Carole Landis, Kay Francis, and Mitzi Mayfair formed a U.S.O. troupe, performing tirelessly under incredibly difficult and dangerous conditions before thousands of enthusiastic G.I.s; the four actresses later starred in a fictionalized retelling of this experience, Four Jills in a Jeep (1944). After the war, she essayed her greatest screen role in Charlie Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux (1947), playing a brash and very wealthy widow whom wife-killer Chaplin can not murder no matter how hard he tries. From 1953 to 1954 she starred in her own weekly TV variety series and continued to appear in night clubs throughout the '50s. In 1962 she starred in her last major film, Billy Rose's Jumbo, opposite Doris Day and Jimmy Durante, and five years later spent seven months in the title role of the Broadway hit Hello Dolly. Indefatigably resuming her U.S.O. activities during the Vietnam war, she became the troops' favorite performer, earning the affectionate nickname "Boondock Maggie," an honorary commission as Marine Colonel from President Johnson, and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 1969 Academy Awards ceremony. Unfortunately, her activities in Southeast Asia also incurred the wrath of Hollywood's anti-war activists, who unfairly labeled Raye a "hawk" and "warmonger" and did their best to prevent her finding film or TV work. She was rescued by producer puppeteers Sid and Marty Krofft, who cast her as Boss Witch in the 1970 theatrical feature Pufnstuf and as the aptly named Benita Bizarre in the Saturday morning TV series The Bugaloos. Her later work included a Broadway run in No No Nanette, extensive summer stock and dinner theater tours in the stage farce Everybody Loves Opal, supporting stints on TV's McMillan and Wife and Alice, and a cameo appearance in the feature film Airport 79. Among her six husbands were makeup artist Bud Westmore, orchestra leader David Rose, and dancer Nick Condos (her daughter by this marriage, Melodye Condos, briefly pursued a singing career of her own). In declining health for many years (she lost one of her legs to cancer), Martha Raye died at the age of 78, survived by her much younger seventh husband Mark Harris.

Trivia: The son of a house painter, American actor/dancer Ray Bolger grew up in a middle-class Boston neighborhood called Dorchester. Bolger knew what he wanted to do in life the moment he saw Broadway entertainer Fred Stone literally bounce on stage in a Boston production of Jack O'Lantern. "That moment opened up a whole new world for me" Bolger would remember; after a relatively aimless childhood, he determined to become a performer himself. Starting out in vaudeville as a dancer, Bolger developed a loose-limbed ad lib style that would win him starring spots in such 1930s Broadway musicals as Life Begins at 8:40 and On Your Toes; in the latter, Bolger introduced Richard Rodgers' "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue". Signed by MGM in 1936 for a featured solo in The Great Ziegfeld, Bolger was given a $3,000 per week contract and was expected to take whatever part was assigned him. But Bolger balked when he was cast as the Tin Man in the studio's Wizard of Oz. He felt the role was too confining for his talents, so Bolger convinced the film's Scarecrow, Buddy Ebsen, to switch parts with him. This move, of course, assured film immortality for Bolger, but wasn't so beneficial for Ebsen, whose allergic reaction to the Tin Man's silver makeup forced him to drop out of the film and be replaced by Jack Haley. Bolger's movie career pretty much took second place to his Broadway work in the 1940s. In 1948, Bolger was awarded the lead in a musical version of Charley's Aunt titled Where's Charley? It was when the daughter of one of the production people began singing his lyrics back to him during out-of-town tryouts that Bolger, in league with composer Frank Loesser, developed the "everybody sing" chorus for the song "Once in Love With Amy". Bolger repeated his role in the 1952 filmization of Where's Charley (1952), then continued his Broadway career with intermittent film appearances into the 1960s. He also starred in a 1953 TV series, alternately titled The Ray Bolger Show and Where's Raymond?, which was so bad that even he was uncharacteristically putting himself down before the inevitable cancellation. Bolger suffered a few career setbacks on stage in the early 1960s, and his villain role in Disney's Babes in Toyland (1961) hardly showed him to best advantage, but the performer prospered as a nightclub performer during the rest of the decade in a nostalgic (if slightly lachrymose) act which recalled his past song hits. Bolger charmed live audiences with his still-athletic hoofing skills into the 1970s. In the twilight of his career, Bolger was allowed to sparkle in guest spots on such TV programs as The Partridge Family, The Love Boat, Baretta, and even PBS's Evening at the Pops.

Trivia: "Titian-haired" is the manner in which actress Tina Louise is usually described. Despite her numerous comic performances, she prefers to be regarded as a serious actress; according to some of her co-workers, her preference in this manner often takes the form of an ultimatum. Louise was born near Brooklyn, where her father ran a candy store. She studied drama at Miami University, the Neighborhood Playhouse, and the Actors' Studio. A nightclub singer in the mid-1950s, Louise came to Broadway as Appasionatta von Climax in the original 1956 production of the musical Li'l Abner. Two years later she made her first film, the then-torrid God's Little Acre. By the early 1960s, Louise was shuttling between Hollywood and Europe, often appearing in productions of the shoestring variety. Louise is fondly remembered for her three-year (1964 through 1967) stint as Marilynesque movie star Ginger Grant on Gilligan's Island, though she despised the role and made no secret of it on the set. Nor did she wish to have anything to do with the Gilligan cartoon and TV movie follow-ups of the 1970s and 1980s, choosing instead to carve a reputation as a versatile, no-nonsense actress, though she eventually capitulated and appeared in The Castaways on Gilligan's Island. Though she would go on to make other film and TV appearances in the decades to come, even penning a children's book and earning her helicopter pilot's license, Louise would forever remain the most well known for the role of Ginger.

Trivia: Tall, dark-haired, and ruggedly handsome, Lyle Waggoner is best known for being the announcer and later a regular skit player on The Carol Burnett Show from 1967 to 1974. Waggoner then went on to play Steve Trevor in The New Adventures of Wonder Woman (1975). Prior to his television work, Waggoner made his feature film debut with a bit part in Women of the Prehistoric Planet (1966). With looks to spare, he good-naturedly posed in the altogether for Playgirl magazine in the mid-'70s. After Wonder Woman was canceled, Waggoner only occasionally appeared in television movies and even less frequently in feature films.