Trivia: Spindly, mustachioed character actor Cornelius Keefe was active in Hollywood from 1924 to 1958. When talkies came in, Keefe was engaged as a recurring player in Educational Studio's "Torchy" 2-reel comedy series. He landed sizable parts in films like Charlie Chan's Greatest Case (1933) and Lady with a Past (1934), and was also busy in the "B"-western field. For the most part, his roles were bits and walk-ons; in this capacity, he showed up in a number of John Ford pictures. Though Cornelius Keefe also billed himself as Jack Hill, his credits should not be confused with those of Hal Roach stock-company player Jack Hill.

Trivia: Whether writing, producing, directing, or appearing onscreen in such camp classics as The Brain Eaters and Plan 9 From Outer Space, Joanna Lee always gave her all. A Newark, NJ, native who relocated to California with her divorced mother at the age of 12, Lee got her first taste of fame on the small screen with appearances on such notable television shows as Leave It to Beaver, The Donna Reed Show, and Death Valley Days, where audiences caught a glimpse of a young actress who possessed not only a refreshing onscreen beauty, but undeniable talent, as well. As her career progressed with feature appearances and numerous other film roles, Lee wrote episodes of Petticoat Junction, Gilligan's Island, and The Waltons, the latter of which earned her an Emmy in 1974. She was nominated for a second Emmy the following year for her work on the television biopic Babe, and although that award eluded her, the movie provided Lee with her first credit as a producer. She moved into the director's chair in 1979 with the made-for-TV feature Mirror, Mirror, and as the Disco Decade gave way to the Me Decade, Lee was producing nearly every project on which she served as screenwriter. Especially adept at tackling social issues, Lee fought racial stereotypes as late as 1980, when she struggled to cast actress Kim Fields as an Olympic gymnast. Despite the producer's claim that there "are no black Olympic gymnasts," Lee stuck to her guns. and the film broke new ground for both television and minority athletes. Although Lee's final writer/producer/director duties came with the 1989 television drama My Dad Can't Be Crazy, Can He?, her legacy lived on through the work of her sons, actors Craig Lee and Christopher Ciampa. Joanna Lee died of bone cancer October 24, 2003, in Santa Monica, CA. She was 72.

Trivia: Comic actor Robert Ball was a fixture in television and, to a lesser degree, movies, from the late 1950s until the early 1990s. Mostly seen in group settings and character roles -- and billed variously as Robert Ball, Robert E. Ball, Bob Ball, and Bobby Ball -- his somewhat diminutive size only served to accentuate the impact of his wry, sardonic delivery, an attribute that various producers (including Leonard Stern and, later, Carl Reiner and Garry Marshall) used to piercing effect in episodes of their television series. Ball made his small-screen debut during 1957 on the series The Adventures of McGraw, and a year later he was part of the cast of Bruno VeSota's The Brain Eaters (1958), a low-budget science fiction film. These were both straight acting jobs, and any humor in The Brain Eaters, in particular, was wholly unintended. But when VeSota -- a busy character actor who occasionally worked as a filmmaker -- next occupied the director's chair four years later for Invasion of the Star Creatures (1962), Ball (billed as Bob Ball) had the lead role of Private Philbrick and was running on all comic cylinders. Alas, the movie wasn't up to what Ball and costar Frankie Ray brought to their roles, and it was singularly unappreciated by most critics. It has since become a kind of cult touchstone among aficionados of low-budget science fiction, horror, and so-called "psychotronic" cinema. In between The Brain Eaters and Invasion of the Star Creatures, Ball busied himself with small roles on every kind of television series, including Peter Gunn, Perry Mason, Route 66, Frontier Circus, Dr. Kildare, The Twilight Zone, I'm Dickens...He's Fenster, Mr. Novak, Ben Casey, The Jack Benny Program, and The Dick Van Dyke Show. He was particularly effective on the latter, in the episode "Bupkis", as Rob Petrie's larcenous former Army buddy who had signed his name to a song he had almost nothing to do with. Ball was something of a chameleon-like presence and could melt into a part, and even those familiar with his work could miss him in some of those roles. But stars and producers obviously liked his work. Dick Van Dyke Show creator/producer Carl Reiner used him in The Comic (1969) and in the subsequent New Dick Van Dyke Show, and longtime Reiner cohort Howard Morris used him in Who's Minding the Mint (1967). Ball had a relatively easy time slipping into the counter-culture era, getting roles in such representative films of the period as Easy Rider (as one of the mimes), Bunny O'Hare, and Zachariah. Continuing in television, he worked steadily across genres, including Westerns such as Bonanza and '70s topical sitcoms like Maude. Producer Garry Marshall -- himself a Dick Van Dyke Show alumnus -- gave him memorable comedic roles in The Odd Couple, Laverne and Shirley, and Happy Days; and Ball was one of the Marshall stock company picked up for the feature films Young Doctors in Love (1982) and Beaches (1988). This was, of course, sandwiched in between work on Starsky and Hutch, Kojak, and a dozen other TV series. Ball retired after 1992.

Trivia: The son of a Boston barber, Leonard Nimoy was a star at the age of 8, when he played Hansel in a children's theatre production of Hansel and Gretel. Nimoy remained with his local kiddie theater troupe until 16 (one of his directors during this period was Boris Sagal). After studying drama at Boston College and Antioch College, he took acting lessons from Jeff Corey at the Pasadena Playhouse. In films from 1950, Nimoy played the title character in the low-budget Kid Monk Baroni and essayed bits and minor roles in such productions as Zombies of the Stratosphere (1951), Rhubarb (1951) and Them! (1954). In between acting assignments, he held down a dizzying variety of jobs: soda jerk, newspaper carrier, vacuum-cleaner salesman, vending machine mechanic, pet-shop clerk, cabbie and acting coach. During his 18 months in Special Services at Fort McPherson, Georgia, he acted with Atlanta Theater Guild when he could spare the time. Back in Hollywood in 1956, he became virtually a regular at the Ziv TV studios, playing villains in programs like Highway Patrol and Sea Hunt. For a short while, he specialized in the plays of Jean Genet, appearing in both the stage and film productions of The Balcony and Deathwatch. Impressed by Nimoy's guest turn on a 1963 episode of The Lieutenant, producer Gene Roddenberry vowed to cast the saturnine, mellow-voiced actor as an extraterrestrial if ever given the chance. That chance came two years later, when Roddenberry signed Nimoy to play Vulcanian science officer Spock on Star Trek. At first pleased at the assignment, Nimoy came to resent the apparent fact that the public perceived him as Spock and nothing else: indeed, one of his many written works was the slim autobiography I Am Not Spock. After Star Trek's cancellation, Nimoy joined the cast of Mission: Impossible in the role of "master of disguise" Paris (he replaced the series' previous master of disguise Martin Landau, who ironically had originally been slated to play Spock). In the early 1970s, Nimoy began racking up directorial credits on such series as Night Gallery. He also made his first Broadway appearance in 1973's Full Circle. And, perhaps inevitably, he returned to Spock, thanks to the popular demand engendered by the then-burgeoning Star Trek cult. His initial reacquaintance with the role was as voiceover artist on the 1973 Saturday-morning cartoon version of Star Trek. Then Spock went on the back burner again as Nimoy devoted himself to his theatrical commitments (a touring production of Sherlock Holmes, his one-man show Vincent), his writing and directing activities, and his hosting chores on the long-running (1976-82) TV documentary series In Search Of.... Finally in 1978, Nimoy was back in his Enterprise uniform in the first of several Star Trek theatrical features. The Spock character was killed off in the second Trek picture The Wrath of Khan, but Nimoy stayed with the franchise as director of the next two feature-length Trek entries (PS: Spock also came back to life). He went on to direct such non-Trek filmic endeavors as 3 Men and a Baby (1987), The Good Mother (1988), Funny About Love (1990) and Holy Matrimony (1994). He also produced and acted in the 1991 TV movie Never Forget, and served as executive producer of the 1995 UPN network series Deadly Games. Perhaps because he will always have dozens of professional irons in the fire, Leonard Nimoy now seems resigned to being forever associated with the role that brought him international fame; his most recent autobiographical work was aptly titled I Am Spock. In 2009 he returned to his iconic role portraying Spock in J.J. Abrams smash-hit reboot of the Star Trek franchise. He next took on a recurring role in the sci-fi series Fringe, playing scientist William Bell. Nimoy made a final cameo appearance in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). He died in 2015, at age 83.

Trivia: Muscular leading man Ed Nelson started out as a member of quickie-filmmaker Roger Corman's stock company, appearing in such drive-in fodder as Hot Rod Girl (1956), Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) and Cry Baby Killer. In these and other low-budgeters of the late 1950s, Nelson not only starred, but doubled on the technical crew: he was one of several production assistants portraying the title crustacean in The Attack of the Crab Monsters (1956), and designed and operated the parasite props in 1958's The Brain Eaters, which he also produced. Eventually outgrowing such things, Nelson rose to TV stardom as Dr. Michael Rossi on the prime time soap opera Peyton Place, which ran from 1964 through 1969. He later starred as Ward Fuller on The Silent Force (1970) and as Dr. Michael Wise in Doctor's Private Lives (1979). In 1969, Nelson hosted a daily, syndicated talk show, which he was ultimately forced to give up when he decided to enter politics ("conflict of interests" and "equal time" were still considerations back then). He played President Truman several times, including the 1980 TV movie Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb, in the 1992 Brooke Shields flick Brenda Starr and onstage in Give 'Em Hell, Harry. Nelson died in 2014 at age 85.