Trivia: The son of an Oklahoma carpet layer, James Garner did stints in the Army and merchant marines before working as a model. His professional acting career began with a non-speaking part in the Broadway play The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (1954), in which he was also assigned to run lines with stars Lloyd Nolan, Henry Fonda, and John Hodiak. Given that talent roster, and the fact that the director was Charles Laughton, Garner managed to earn his salary and receive a crash course in acting at the same time. After a few television commercials, he was signed as a contract player by Warner Bros. in 1956. He barely had a part in his first film, The Girl He Left Behind (1956), though he was given special attention by director David Butler, who felt Garner had far more potential than the film's nominal star, Tab Hunter. Due in part to Butler's enthusiasm, Garner was cast in the Warner Bros. TV Western Maverick. The scriptwriters latched on to his gift for understated humor, and, before long, the show had as many laughs as shoot-outs. Garner was promoted to starring film roles during his Maverick run, but, by the third season, he chafed at his low salary and insisted on better treatment. The studio refused, so he walked out. Lawsuits and recriminations were exchanged, but the end result was that Garner was a free agent as of 1960. He did quite well as a freelance actor for several years, turning in commendable work in such films as Boys' Night Out (1962) and The Great Escape (1963), but was soon perceived by filmmakers as something of a less-expensive Rock Hudson, never more so than when he played Hudson-type parts opposite Doris Day in Move Over, Darling and The Thrill of It All! (both 1963).Garner fared rather better in variations of his Maverick persona in such Westerns as Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) and The Skin Game (1971), but he eventually tired of eating warmed-over stew; besides, being a cowboy star had made him a walking mass of injuries and broken bones. He tried to play a more peaceable Westerner in the TV series Nichols (1971), but when audiences failed to respond, his character was killed off and replaced by his more athletic twin brother (also Garner). The actor finally shed the Maverick cloak with his long-running TV series The Rockford Files (1974-1978), in which he played a John MacDonald-esque private eye who never seemed to meet anyone capable of telling the truth. Rockford resulted in even more injuries for the increasingly battered actor, and soon he was showing up on TV talk shows telling the world about the many physical activities which he could no longer perform. Rockford ended in a spirit of recrimination, when Garner, expecting a percentage of the profits, learned that "creative bookkeeping" had resulted in the series posting none. To the public, Garner was the rough-hewn but basically affable fellow they'd seen in his fictional roles and as Mariette Hartley's partner (not husband) in a series of Polaroid commercials. However, his later film and TV-movie roles had a dark edge to them, notably his likable but mercurial pharmacist in Murphy's Romance (1985), for which he received an Oscar nomination, and his multifaceted co-starring stints with James Woods in the TV movies Promise (1986) and My Name Is Bill W. (1989). In 1994, Garner came full circle in the profitable feature film Maverick (1994), in which the title role was played by Mel Gibson. With the exception of such lower-key efforts as the noir-ish Twilight (1998) and the made-for-TV thriller Dead Silence (1997), Garner's career in the '90s found the veteran actor once again tapping into his latent ability to provoke laughs in such efforts as Space Cowboys (2000) while maintaining a successful small-screen career by returning to the role of Jim Rockford in several made-for-TV movies. He provided a voice for the popular animatedfeature Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) and appeared in the comedy-drama The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002). Garner enjoyed a career resurgance in 2003, when he joined the cast of TV's 8 Simple Rules, acting as a sort of replacement for John Ritter, who had passed away at the beginning of the show's second season. He next appeared in The Notebook (2004), which earned Garner a Screen Actors Guild nomination and also poised him to win the Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award. His last on-screen role was a small supporting role in The Ultimate Gift (2007). In 2008, Garner suffered a stroke and retired acting. He died in 2014, at age 86.

Trivia: Ruddy-faced, barrel-bellied American actor Kenneth McMillan was a stalwart of the New York Shakespeare Festival, and also appeared in the original Broadway productions of American Buffalo and Streamers. He was the recipient of the Obie Award for his performance in the off-Broadway presentation Weekends and Other People -- the usual "overnight success" after nearly 20 years in the business. Sitcom fans are familiar with McMillan through his recurring role as Valerie Harper's ulcerated boss on Rhoda. Many of McMillan's roles required him to be bully or bigot: Sheriff Bull Connor on the TV miniseries King (1978) the black-baiting fire chief in Ragtime (1979), etc. In real life, Kenneth McMillan was known to be a friendly and generous man, qualities which carried over into such rare comedy roles as the ballclub manager in the little-seen Blue Skies Again (1983).

Trivia: Getting his career underway in such popular Broadway productions as A Streetcar Named Desire and A Man for All Seasons, veteran character actor Len Wayland was a longtime fixture of film and television, where he would appear in everything ranging from Gunsmoke to The A-Team.A native of Texas, Wayland moved to Hollywood in the early '50s, soon finding frequent work in television. Eventually gaining over 350 TV credits through his many appearances, Wayland played in such made-for-television thrillers as Michael Crichton's Pursuit (1972) before landing a regular role on Sam, a series created by Jack Webb (Wayland had previously made appearances in Webb's other television mainstay, Dragnet). Retiring from the business around 1980, Wayland, an avid golfer, spent much of his time putting around the green with close friends. Following a massive stroke, Len Wayland died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA, at the age of 80. True to form, those close to Wayland found it fitting to pay tribute to their friend with a memorial service at the place he loved most, on a golf course in Los Angeles.

Trivia: With the sort of GQ looks that command attention both onscreen and off, longtime actor Steven Bauer has come a long way since making an impression in Brian De Palma's controversial 1983 crime drama Scarface. A native of Cuba whose family fled to Miami shortly after Fidel Castro came to power in 1956, Bauer began his education at Miami-Dade Community College, where a walk-on role in the play Summer and Smoke sparked a lifelong love of acting. He transferred to the University of Miami and continued to hone his craft in such plays as Of Mice and Men, and by the time he moved to New York, Bauer was ready to study under the tutelage of acclaimed acting coach Stella Adler. It was during this time that auditions for Scarface were announced, and with his confidence bolstered by a handful of supporting roles in film and television, Bauer proved that he could hold his own opposite Al Pacino. Cast as the titular character's close friend and partner in crime, the young actor's powerful performance drew a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Although the film's notable violence and profanity ultimately provoked a backlash from both Hollywood and the viewing public, Bauer's career maintained its upward trajectory when, the following year, the handsome rising star took the lead in the romantic thriller Thief of Hearts.Throughout the '80s, roles in such high-profile films as Running Scared (1986) and Gleaming the Cube (1989) helped maintain Bauer's presence on the big screen, but it was a role in the 1990 television miniseries Drug Wars: The Camarena Story that earned him his second Golden Globe nomination and proved he could give a commanding lead performance. Increasingly relegated to low-budget thrillers and forgettable, straight-to-video fare, he had occasional roles in such films as Raising Cain (1992) and Wild Side (1995). In 2000, Bauer shared a Screen Actor's Guild award for Best Ensemble Performance in the acclaimed Steven Soderbergh crime drama Traffic, in which the actor portrayed jailed drug kingpin Carlos Ayala. The roles that immediately followed, however, seemed to offer Bauer little room to expand his talent, though his performance in the popular, but short-lived TV series UC: Undercover at least served to keep him in the spotlight before joining an impressive cast in the 2003 Bob Dylan drama Masked and Anonymous. Married to actress Melanie Griffith for the majority of the '80s, the couple divorced in 1987. Bauer married Ingrid Anderson in 1989.

Trivia: Born in New York City while his father Noah Beery Sr. was appearing on-stage, Noah Beery Jr. was given his lifelong nickname, "Pidge," by Josie Cohan, sister of George M. Cohan "I was born in the business," Pidge Beery observed some 63 years later. "I couldn't have gotten out of it if I wanted to." In 1920, the younger Beery made his first screen appearance in Douglas Fairbanks' The Mark of Zorro (1920), which co-starred dad Noah as Sergeant Garcia. Thanks to a zoning mistake, Pidge attended the Hollywood School for Girls (his fellow "girls" included Doug Fairbanks Jr. and Jesse Lasky Jr.), then relocated with his family to a ranch in the San Fernando Valley, miles from Tinseltown. While some kids might have chafed at such isolation, Pidge loved the wide open spaces, and upon attaining manhood emulated his father by living as far away from Hollywood as possible. After attending military school, Pidge pursued film acting in earnest, appearing mostly in serials and Westerns, sometimes as the hero, but usually as the hero's bucolic sidekick. His more notable screen credits of the 1930s and '40s include Of Mice and Men (1939), Only Angels Have Wings (again 1939, this time as the obligatory doomed-from-the-start airplane pilot), Sergeant York (1941), We've Never Been Licked (1943), and Red River (1948). He also starred in a group of rustic 45-minute comedies produced by Hal Roach in the early '40s, and was featured in several popular B-Western series; one of these starred Buck Jones, whose daughter Maxine became Pidge's first wife. Perhaps out of a sense of self-preservation, Beery appeared with his camera-hogging uncle Wallace Beery only once, in 1940's 20 Mule Team. Children of the 1950s will remember Pidge as Joey the Clown on the weekly TV series Circus Boy (1956), while the more TV-addicted may recall Beery's obscure syndicated travelogue series, co-starring himself and his sons. The 1960s found Pidge featured in such A-list films as Inherit the Wind (1960) and as a regular on the series Riverboat and Hondo. He kicked off the 1970s in the role of Michael J. Pollard's dad (there was a resemblance) in Little Fauss and Big Halsey. Though Beery was first choice for the part of James Garner's father on the TV detective series The Rockford Files, Pidge was committed to the 1973 James Franciscus starrer Doc Elliot, so the Rockford producers went with actor Robert Donley in the pilot episode. By the time The Rockford Files was picked up on a weekly basis, Doc Elliot had tanked, thus Donley was dropped in favor of Beery, who stayed with the role until the series' cancellation in 1978. Pidge's weekly-TV manifest in the 1980s included Quest (1981) and The Yellow Rose (1983). After a brief illness, Noah Beery Jr. died at his Tehachapi, CA, ranch at the age of 81.

Trivia: When asked why he decided upon becoming an actor, Joe Santos tended to trot out the tried-and-true rationale "because I failed at everything else." While attending Fordham University, Santos excelled at football, but lost interest in the sport after a few semi-pro years. By the time he was 30, Santos had been remarkably unsuccessful in a variety of vocations, including railroad worker, tree cutter, automobile importer and tavern owner. While working a construction job in New York, Santos was invited by a friend to sit in on an acting class. This seemed like an easy way to make a living, so Santos began making the audition rounds, almost immediately landing a good part on a TV soap opera. This gig unfortunately led nowhere, and for the next year or so Santos drove a cab for 10 to 11 hours a day. The novice actor's first big break was a part in the 1971 film Panic in Needle Park, which he received at the recommendation of the film's star (and Santos' frequent softball partner) Al Pacino. With the plum part of Sergeant Cruz in the four-part TV drama The Blue Knight (1973), Santos inaugurated a fruitful, still-thriving career in "cop" roles, the best and longest-lasting of which was detective Dennis Becker on the James Garner series The Rockford Files (1974-80). Joe Santos' other series-TV credits include the top-billed part of deadbeat dad Norman Davis in Me and Maxx (1980), Hispanic nightclub comic Paul Rodriguez' disapproving father in AKA Pablo (1984), and Lieutenant Frank Harper in the 1985-86 episodes of Hardcastle and McCormick. One of his final roles was a recurring gig on The Sopranos. Santos died in 2016, at age 84.

Trivia: Actress Mary Frann (born Mary Frances Luecke), is best remembered for playing the skeptical but loyal wife of Bob Newhart in Newhart (1982-1990). Between 1974 and 1979, Frann was a regular on the soap opera Days of Our Lives and also was a co-star on the short-lived nighttime soap King's Crossing (1982). Since the demise of Newhart, Frann appeared regularly in made-for-television movies, as a guest star in series, and in miniseries.A native of St. Louis, MO, Frann started out as a child model and in high school appeared in local television commercials. After high school she studied drama at Northwestern University. She supported herself working as a weather person on a St. Louis NBC affiliate. Following graduation she was hired to host a Chicago morning television show. As an actress, Frann debuted on the ABC series My Friend Tony. When not acting, Frann was involved in various charitable organizations. The night before she passed away from undisclosed causes, she had been working on a volunteer committee with the Los Angeles Mission on a project to help homeless women.

Trivia: Supporting actor Don Starr made his feature film debut in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) and went on to appear regularly in films through 1979. After that, his film work became sporadic. Fans of the prime-time soap Dallas may remember him for playing Jordan Lee from 1979 through 1985. Starr's other television appearances include guest-starring roles on series ranging from The Rockford Files and The Incredible Hulk to Little House on the Prairie and L.A. Law.

Trivia: An African-American singer-actor, Anderson first appeared onscreen as Judas in rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar.

Trivia: Though typecast as a dull-witted brute, Austrian-born Mike Mazurki was the holder of a Bachelor of Arts degree from Manhattan College. During the 1930s, he was a professional football and basketball player, as well as a heavyweight wrestler. His clock-stopping facial features enabled Mazurki to pick up bit and supporting roles in such films as The Shanghai Gesture (1941) and Dr.Renault's Secret (1943). Larger parts came his way after his indelible portrayal of psychotic brute Moose Malloy in 1944's Murder My Sweet. His trademarked slurred speech was reportedly the result of an injury to his Adam's apple, incurred during his wrestling days. While villainy was his bread and butter, Mazurki enjoyed working with comedians like Jerry Lewis and Lou Costello; he was particularly fond of the latter because the diminutive Costello treated him with dignity and respect, defending big Mike against people who treated the hulking actor like a big dumb lug. Mazurki's many TV appearances included a regular role on the short-lived 1971 sitcom The Chicago Teddy Bears. In 1976, Mike Mazurki was effectively cast as a kindly trapper in the family-oriented "four-waller" Challenge to Be Free, which ended up a cash cow for the veteran actor.