Trivia: Red-headed, freckle-faced Martin Milner was only 15 when he made his screen debut in Life With Father (1947), and would continue to play wide-eyed high schoolers and college kids well into the next decade. His early film assignments included the teenaged Marine recruit in Lewis Milestone's The Halls of Montezuma (1951) and the obnoxious suitor of Jeanne Crain in Belles on Their Toes (1952). His first regular TV series was The Stu Erwin Show (1950-1955), in which he played the boyfriend (and later husband) of Stu's daughter Joyce. More mature roles came his way in Marjorie Morningstar (1957) as Natalie Wood's playwright sweetheart and in The Sweet Smell of Success (1957) as the jazz musician targeted for persecution by Winchell-esque columnist Burt Lancaster. Beginning in 1960, he enjoyed a four-year run as Corvette-driving Tod Stiles on TV's Route 66 (a statue of Milner and his co-star George Maharis currently stands at the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY). A longtime friend and associate of producer/director/actor Jack Webb, Milner was cast as veteran L.A.P.D. patrolman Pete Malloy on the Webb-produced TV weekly Adam-12, which ran from 1968 to 1975. His later TV work included a short-lived 1970s series based on Johan Wyss' Swiss Family Robinson. Later employed as a California radio personality, Martin Milner continued to make occasional TV guest appearances; one of these was in the 1989 TV movie Nashville Beat, in which he was reunited with his Adam-12 co-star Kent McCord. He made an appearance on the short-lived series The New Adam-12 and had recurring roles on shows like Life Goes On and Murder, She Wrote. Milner died in 2015, at age 83.

Trivia: Supporting actor Kent McCord is best known for co-starring in the long-running series Adam-12 (1968-1975). McCord made his film debut in the made-for-television movie The Outsider (1967). Following the demise of Adam-12, McCord continued appearing in TV films and in low-budget features such as Unsub (1985) and Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993).

Trivia: Actor and stunt man Fred Stromsoe worked in both television and feature films. His television credits include a regular role as Officer Woods on Adam-12 between 1974 and 1975. He also appeared in segments of Wild, Wild West and Gunsmoke.

Trivia: The oldest son of singer Bing Crosby, American actor Gary Crosby was named for Bing's good friend Gary Cooper. Crosby, along with his three brothers, began his show-biz career as a child on his father's radio program. In 1942 he appeared in the movie musical Star Spangled Rhythm, where he was kissed by Betty Grable. For the next few years he was only seen in film sporadically. In 1962, with the encouragement of his wife, Gary began pursuing a performing career in earnest, first as part of a nightclub act with his brothers, then as a solo singer. In 1963 Crosby was signed for a two-year continuing role on the TV sitcom The Bill Dana Show. After its 1965 cancellation his career went on hold until director Hollingsworth Morse persuaded TV actor/producer Jack Webb to take a chance with Gary and give him a few supporting roles on the 1960s version of Dragnet.Webb liked Crosby and retained him in the role of Officer Ed Wells on Adam-12, which debuted in 1968. With three years of Adam-12 under his belt, Crosby took on the role of Officer Ed Rice on the short-lived cop show Chase (1974). While his father was still alive, Crosby was usually guarded in his comments about his relationship with his father, but after his father died in 1977, Gary found himself an object of much media scrutiny and in 1983, six years after his father's death, he published a scathing account of his troubled upbringing in Going My Own Way. The book not only generated public controversy, it also created turmoil amongst his brothers and his step family.

Trivia: Sharp-eyed viewers of Joel Coen's 2003 comedy Intolerable Cruelty might have noticed the older character actor playing the plaintiff's attorney in the first trial scene involving George Clooney. The deep, melodious voice, excellent old-style diction, and the sheer screen presence belonged to George Ives, a 50-year veteran of movies and the theater. Ives was born in New York City in 1922 and attended Garden City High School on Long Island. He studied drama at Columbia University and made his stage debut in Walter Kerr's Stardust, which closed before reaching Broadway. His Broadway debut came in 1947 in Alice in Arms, and appeared in road productions of Janie, Charley's Aunt, and Silver Whistle, in between work on Broadway in Present Laughter, You Never Can Tell, Mr. Barry's Etchings, Season in the Sun, and The Seven-Year Itch. He was also in the road-company production of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter (starring Eddie Bracken). Ives worked in postwar radio and television, including such anthology shows as Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, Theatre Guild on the Air, Studio One, The Philco Television Playhouse, and Kraft Television Theatre, and did guest spots on Sgt. Bilko and The Celeste Holm Show, among other series. Amid all that East Coast activity, the actor made his screen debut in 1952 in a small role in Henry Hathaway's Niagara, starring Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten. The part came about, Ives recalled in a 2004 interview, because they were shooting up at Niagara Falls and it was cheaper to bring actors in from New York City than from Hollywood. "Marilyn was acting up," he remembered with amusement, "and Arch Johnson and I were very grateful, because they had us up there for a week and a half, being paid, before they got to us." In between theater roles, Ives continued working on television into the 1960s, long after the medium moved to the West Coast. Live television had its virtues, which he appreciated, including rehearsal time and the immediacy of theater. It was also during the '60s in Hollywood that he got his best shots at regular series work. In 1961, he was in a sitcom called The Hathaways, with Jack Weston and Peggy Cass, about a couple raising a family of performing chimpanzees, though the show lasted but one season. Ives' 6-foot-2-inch height, dignified appearance, and resonant voice often got him cast as authority figures, and he did numerous guest spots on such series as The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Bewitched (he was a good friend of series co-star David White). In 1965, Ives got his best regular TV role, co-starring as Doc in the series Mr. Roberts, for Warner Bros. Television, based on the John Ford/Mervyn LeRoy navy drama starring Henry Fonda and James Cagney. Working in the shadow of William Powell, who had played the part in the movie, he made the role of the ship's doctor work for him on his terms. The series was renewed for a second season, but then abruptly canceled three weeks later when NBC decided to pick up Please Don't Eat the Daisies instead as a favor to MGM Television, which was producing the huge hit The Man From U.N.C.L.E. for the network. As good as he was with benign and avuncular roles, Ives also excelled at playing sinister, villainous, and sleazy parts, as fans of John Brahm's 1967 delinquency drama Hot Rods to Hell have come to appreciate. His other film appearances included the Paul Newman military comedy The Secret War of Harry Frigg in 1968. Ives remained active in theater all the while he was working on TV and movie projects, and in the early '70s, he was asked by Actors' Equity to take on an executive position with the organization on the West Coast. He eventually became executive director of the union's operations there, a position which precluded him from doing much other work. Ives finally retired from the union in the '90s and started working as an actor again. One of his jobs was a Honda commercial made by Joel and Ethan Coen. That project led to the Coen Brothers asking him to do a special introduction to their film Blood Simple for its DVD release. Since then, he has been a regular participant in their work, including his role in Intolerable Cruelty.

Trivia: Not to be confused with the ex-member of the Lovin' Spoonful, New York-born actor John Sebastian specialized in tough guy roles for most of his career. He only appeared in two feature films, Paul Stanley's Cry Tough (1959) and Marc Lawrence's Nightmare in the Sun (1964) -- both gritty tales of underworld activity -- but he was a regular presence in any number of (usually) crime-related television dramas, most notably those produced by Jack Webb. Sebastian was a resident member of Webb's stock company of players, making nearly a dozen appearances on Dragnet and Adam 12, in addition to working on Mannix and Marcus Welby, M.D. -- and he even managed to appear in one episode of Get Smart ("Now You See Him, Now You Don't") as a KAOS agent. Built like a fire-plug with muscles, and vaguely resembling a young James Cagney and tough-guy actor Terry Becker, with a little bit of wry cynicism à la Brad Dexter thrown in, Sebastian sported a working-class New York accent that placed him in the streets, and usually pretty mean ones when he was in character. He was perfect for crime dramas, playing cops or, much more often, hoods. In the Dragnet episode "Police Commission -- DR-13," he was totally convincing as a grease monkey/strongarm man; and in the episode "The Squeeze," Sebastian was one of the most memorable thugs in the run of the show, calmly delivering the line, "In this business, it's not how tough you are, but how tough people think you are that matters," with the kind of easy, cool nonchalance that one might later more readily associate with the narration of Goodfellas. Sebastian retired from television acting at the age of 60, following an appearance in a 1975 episode of Adam 12. He died in 1993.