Trivia: Born John Sanford, this scratchy-voiced, bulldog-faced black comedian and actor entered show business while still in his teens; over several decades, he worked as a "blue humor" comic in nightclubs and theaters around the country. From 1951-55 he teamed with comic Slappy White. He made 54 "party records" (comedy records with plenty of four-letter words and blue humor, popular mostly in the black community) and established himself as the dean of blue comedy. In the '60s his audience expanded, and he got guest shots on a number of TV shows. After debuting onscreen in Ossie Davis's unexpectedly successful film Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) Foxx was signed to star in the TV series Sanford and Son the show was a hit and lasted from 1972-77, making him a household name. He went on to appear in the sitcoms Sanford, The Redd Foxx Show and in the variety show The Redd Foxx Comedy Hour and continued appearing regularly as a stand-up comic in Las Vegas.

Trivia: Began his acting career at the age of 4 with an appearance in the Broadway play Green Pastures. Was drafted by the Army and served a tour of duty in Vietnam. Guest-starred on an Emmy-winning episode of All in the Family, which helped him earn a lead role on the popular sitcom Sanford and Son. Scaled back his acting work after experiencing a spiritual awakening and becoming a minister in 1983. Is also a writer whose works include several children's books and the memoir Second Banana: The Bitter Sweet Memoirs of the Sanford & Son Years.

Trivia: Marlene Clark, a black supporting actress and occasional lead, appeared on screen beginning in the '70s.

Trivia: Although sandy-voiced character actor David Doyle sometimes gave the onscreen impression of being an unprepossessing, slow-on-the-uptake "little man," in truth Doyle stood six feet tall, weighed 200 pounds, and had an I.Q. of 148. Born into a family of lawyers, Doyle was drawn to amateur theatricals at the age of ten. In an effort to please both his parents and his own muse, he attended pre-law classes at the University of Nebraska, all the while taking acting lessons at Virginia's Barter Theatre and New York's Neighborhood Playhouse. His first theatrical break came in 1956, when he replaced Walter Matthau in the Broadway hit Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? He subsequently spent several seasons as an actor/director in a Midwestern traveling stock company, then returned to New York, where he appeared in S.J. Perelman's The Beauty Part and seven other Broadway plays. After a decade's worth of film and TV supporting appearances and commercials, Doyle was cast in the recurring role of Walt Fitzgerald in the 1972 sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie; that same year, he made semi-weekly visits to The New Dick Van Dyke Show in the role of Ted Atwater. From 1976 and 1981, Doyle had the enviable task of playing John Bosley, liaison man between unseen private eye Charlie and the gorgeous female stars of TV's Charlie's Angels. Since that time, David Doyle has been seen as Frank Macklin on the short-lived 1987 series Sweet Surrender, and heard as the voice of Grandpa Pickles on the Nickleodeon cable network's animated series Rugrats (1991- ). Doyle died of heart failure at age 67 on February 27, 1997. One of his last feature film performances was that of the voice of Pepe in The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996).