Trivia: A ruggedly handsome Canadian actor whose somewhat imposing frame makes him ideal for authority figures, Michael Ontkean has been appearing in film and television since the early '70s. Though having actors for parents may not necessarily be a surefire sign that one will enter into the entertainment industry, the support and encouragement afforded to young Ontkean was key in building early confidence and skill. Ontkean was a mere four years old when he made his stage debut in his father's repertory company, and in addition to taking the stage at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, he became a popular child star thanks to television roles in such series as Hudson's Bay. Aside from his ambitions as an actor, Ontkean also showed athletic prowess as a hockey player -- he won a scholarship to the University of New Hampshire and played on their team for three seasons. Little did he know that his skills on the ice would eventually come into play in front of the camera as well. His popularity eventually reached beyond the Canadian border when Ontkean gained stateside notice as a key player in the 1972 series The Rookies. Soon thereafter, Ontkean's featured role in the hockey comedy Slap Shot impressed audiences by showing that the up-and-comer could hold his own alongside such heavies as Paul Newman. Through the 1980s, Ontkean's career maintained an even keel with such moderately successful features as Just the Way You Are (1984) and Maid to Order (1987). In 1990 he returned to television to great effect with his role as Sheriff Harry S. Truman in David Lynch's acclaimed series Twin Peaks. The show provided Ontkean's career with something of a revival, and after he appeared in a minor capacity in Postcards From the Edge (1990), a series of television roles kept the versatile actor busy throughout the decade. Ontkean became somewhat lost in the shuffle in the late '90s, but his performance in the child-friendly made-for-television feature Mrs. Ashboro's Cat (2003) proved that the screen veteran still had what it took to charm on the small screen.

Trivia: African-American actor/director Georg Stanford Brown was seven-years-old when his family moved from Havana to Harlem. Chronically absent during his high school years, Brown was invited to drop out by his frustrated teachers. At 15, he organized a singing group called the Parthenons, which broke up after a single network TV appearance. He moved to Los Angeles at 17, where, after passing the college entrance exam, he enrolled in the L.A. City College theater program. "I just wanted to take something easy," he explained later, "but after a while I really got to like it." He liked it well enough to study further at New York's American Musical and Dramatic Academy. Making his professional stage debut in Joseph Papp's Central Park Shakespearean productions, Brown headed back to L.A., certain that his theatrical credits would assure him steady work in films and TV, which they did, though at a molasses-slow pace. After increasingly larger roles in such films as The Comedians (1967), Bullitt (1968), and Colossus: The Forbin Project (1971), Brown was cast as officer Terry Webster on the Aaron Spelling-produced TV series The Rookies, which ran from 1972 to 1976. After Rookies, Brown began curtailing his acting in favor of directing. He helmed several episodes of TV's Hill Street Blues, as well as such made-for-TV movies as Grambling's White Tiger (1981), Miracle of the Heart: A Boys' Town Story (1986), Stuck With Each Other (1989), Father and Son: Dangerous Relations (1992), and The Last POW: The Bobby Garwood Story (1993). In 1986, Georg Stanford Brown won an Emmy for his direction of the Cagney and Lacey episode "Parting Shots," which starred his then-wife Tyne Daly.

Trivia: Though early on, short, pugnacious American actor Gerald S. O'Loughlin dreamed of becoming a lawyer, the prohibitive cost of law school forced him to steer toward engineering as a career. O'Loughlin was deflected from this ambition by an increasing interest in the theatre. After a long stint with the Marines, O'Loughlin used his GI Bill money to finance his participation at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. Working steadily on stage and in live TV drama, O'Loughlin made an inauspicious debut as the romantic lead in the Manhattan-filmed turkey Lovers and Lollipops (1956); one year later, he was shown to better advantage re-creating his stage role in the filmization of Michael Gazzo's play A Hatful of Rain (1957). For many children of the '70s, Gerald O'Loughlin will always be the tough-but-tender Lt. Ryker on the long-running cop series The Rookies. Even in his subsequent TV series assignments (Automan [1983-1984], Our House [1986]) one half expected O'Loughlin to drop character and start barking out "Hey! Danko." Gerald O'Loughlin was married to casting director Meryl Abeles.

Trivia: American actor Sam Melville is best known for his television work on such series as The Rookies (he played Officer Mike Danko), The Scarecrow and Mrs. King (as Mr. King), and Gunsmoke as a regular guest star. Melville also appeared in a couple of films from the late '60s through the late '80s.

Trivia: Willowy brunette actress Kate Jackson spent her early adulthood in summer stock, in training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and as a page and tour guide at the NBC studios in Rockefeller Center. Anxious to burst forth with reams of dialogue as a film and TV actress, Jackson found herself in the utterly non-speaking role of a glamorous ghost on the mid-1960s daytime TV serial Dark Shadows. She was allowed to flap her gums a little more often as Jill Danko on TV's The Rookies (1973-76). Full stardom arrived for Jackson when she was cast as Sabrina Duncan, "the smart one" on the prime time jigglefest Charlie's Angels; she remained with this series from 1976 through 1979. Her last regular weekly TV effort was Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1983-1987) in which she played an average housewife who moonlighted as a secret agent. Though Jackson has made sporadic film appearances, it is safe to say that her greater fame rests upon her small-screen work. Jackson received an outpouring of industry sympathy and support when she battled breast cancer in the early 1990s. Kate Jackson has been a prolific and popular TV commercial spokesperson, and narrated Trouble in Mind, a series documenting the effects of mental illness, from 1999 to 2000.