Trivia: The son of American vaudeville entertainers, bespectacled American comedian Steve Allen led a peripatetic childhood, shunted off from one relative or boarding school to another. As a balm to his loneliness, Allen became a voracious reader, providing himself with a wide and varied intellectual base. Breaking into showbiz as a radio disc jockey, Allen soon learned that inserting humor here and there would draw a lot more attention than merely announcing the records and reading the stockyard reports. In order to supply himself with an endless stream of material, Allen memorized every joke book and "college humor" magazine that he could get his hands on; the result was his uncanny ability to conjure up precisely the right wisecrack at the right time. Developing a strong following while hosting a radio program on Los Angeles' KNX in 1948, Allen received his first network exposure in 1949, and was also featured in several films, including Down Memory Lane (1949) and I'll Get By (1950). In 1953, Allen was hired to host a local late-night program on New York's WNBC-TV, which later developed into the NBC network's Tonight Show. Extraordinarily busy during the years 1956 and 1957, Allen hosted Tonight, headlined his own hour-long weekend variety TV series, starred as the title character in The Benny Goodman Story (1956), composed several popular songs (his piano skills were shown to excellent advantage on his TV programs), and filled up his spare time by writing books, plays, and magazine articles. He left Tonight in 1957 and closed out his NBC weekender in 1960. One year later, he was back with a Wednesday-night hour on ABC, which had the misfortune of being scheduled opposite Wagon Train. In 1962, Allen launched a syndicated 90-minute "madness and music" nightly series, a fondly remembered effort which lasted until 1964; a second syndicated nightly followed in 1968.During his heyday, Allen helped develop and nurture such talents as Tom Poston, Louis Nye, Don Knotts, Bill Dana, Gabe Dell, Tim Conway, Steve Lawrence, and Eydie Gorme. He kept busy in television throughout the 1970s and 1980s with such highly praised projects as PBS' Meeting of Minds, wherein Allen would host round-table discussions with actors posing as the great leaders and intellects of history. Long married to actress Jayne Meadows, Steve Allen showed no signs of slowing down in his early seventies (despite a well-publicized bout with cancer), as he continued to write books on a multitude of subjects, accept TV and movie guest-star appearances, make SRO personal appearances, and even occasionally return to his roots by hosting TV and radio talkfests.

Trivia: The daughter of Episcopal missionaries, Jayne Meadows was born in China; she spoke nothing but Chinese until her parents returned to America in the early 1930s. The sister of Honeymooners co-star Audrey Meadows, Jayne Meadows began her film career in the mid-1940s as a contract player at MGM. Her velvety voice and self-confident bearing ruled out her being cast as simpering ingénues: Meadows excelled as cold-blooded "other women," vitriolic divorcees, and neurotic murderesses. Her best screen role was the double- and triple-crossing Mildred Haveland in Lady in the Lake (1946). For nearly five decades, Jayne was harmoniously married to her second husband, TV personality Steve Allen, with whom she has co-starred on dozens of variety programs and game shows, as well as Steve Allen's memorable PBS miniseries Meeting of Minds. Both she and her husband were nominated for Emmy Awards for their joint guest appearance on the TV series LA Law. Her more regular TV work included the third-billed role of Nurse Chambers on Medical Center (1969-73) and the part of Ken Howard's mother on the 1983 "dramedy" It's Not Easy. Meadows made an indelible impression through the power of her voice alone as Billy Crystal's gushing, unseen mom in the two City Slickers film comedies of the 1990s. She continued acting and appearing on-screen until the late 2000s; she died in 2015, at age 95.

Trivia: Though most of Ruth Buzzi's official biographies list her birthplace as Westerly, RI, she herself was fond of claiming that she was born in Wequetequock, CT, perhaps because it sounded funnier. Whatever the case, Buzzi was the daughter of an immigrant Italian stone sculptor who specialized in cemetery monuments. After attending dancing school, 17-year-old Buzzi studied for an acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse. A well-established West Coast character actress by 1959, Buzzi came to Broadway to appear in the short-lived revue Misguided Tour; it was here that she created the first of her many memorable "alter egos," half-witted magician's assistant Shakuntula. It was while playing the woebegone Agnes Gooch in a 1961 stock-company production of Auntie Mame that Buzzi developed the character that would reach full maturity as the whining schlumper Gladys Ormphby. In 1965, she joined the cast of the CBS TV variety series The Entertainers, and that same year provided the voice of Granny Goodwich on the Linus the Lionhearted cartoon weekly. She went to make recurring appearances on That Girl and the 1967 Steve Allen Comedy Hour; and in January of 1968, she began a seven-year hitch on the immensely popular Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Together with Laugh-In co-star Arte Johnson, Buzzi provided the voice for her cartoon likeness in the 1977 Saturday morning animated series Baggy Pants and the Nitwits. Under the aegis of Sid and Marty Krofft, Buzzi starred on the weekend kiddie shows Far Out Space Nuts (1975) and The Krofft Supershow (1976). On the big screen, Ruth Buzzi has been seen in such Disney fare as Freaky Friday (1977), The North Avenue Irregulars (1978), and The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979).

Trivia: American actor Tim Conway was born in Willoughby, Ohio, but grew up in the curiously named community Chagrin Falls, a fact that he'd later incorporate for a quick laugh in many of his comedy routines, TV films and movies. After majoring in speech and radio at Bowling Green State University, Conway went into the Eighth Army Assignment Team, where, much in the manner of his later bumbling screen characters, he managed to "misplace" a boatload of 7500 replacement troops. Once the army was through with him (and vice versa), Conway secured a job answering mail for a Cleveland radio deejay; his letters were so amusing that he was given a position as a writer in the promotional department, then went on to direct a TV program called Ernie's Place. Whenever Ernie was short a guest, Conway showed up as "Dag Hereford," a so-called authority on several subjects who'd reveal himself to be a blithering simpleton. Comedienne Rose Marie happened to be in Cleveland in 1961, and upon catching Conway's routine recommended the young erstwhile comic to Steve Allen; Conway redid the Hereford bit for Allen's ABC variety series in the fall of '61, fracturing the audiences (and Allen) in three memorable appearances. Now that he was a full-fledged comic, he knew he couldn't continue performing under his real name, Tom Conway, since that was also the name of a well-known British actor; Allen advised Tom to "dot the O," and thereafter he was known as Tim Conway. In 1962, Conway was engaged to play the Doug Hereford-like role of Ensign Doug Parker on the wartime sitcom McHale's Navy, which lasted six seasons and made Conway a star. The actor made several attempts over the following decades to succeed as a solo TV star (witness his 1967 western comedy Rango on ABC), but none of his post-McHale's Navy series have been anything resembling hits. Still, Conway was always welcome as a supporting comic, and he scored major success with hysterically funny appearances opposite Harvey Korman on The Carol Burnett Show in the 1970s; Conway also enjoyed a measure of success as star or co-star of a number of Disney films and low-budget "regional" comedy pictures like The Prize Fighter (1978) and The Private Eyes (1980). In the late 1980s and '90s Conway starred in a popular series of satirical "how-to" home videos, playing a diminutive, dim-bulbed Scandinavian named Dorf; he also lent an acclaimed comedic cameo as a driving instructor to the action film Speed 2 (1997), and voiced a series of Christian-themed animated videos entitled Hermie & Friends, with such friends and colleagues as the late Don Knotts and Burnett co-star Vicki Lawrence. Conway would continue to appear on screen over the coming years, making memorable appearances on TV shows like 30 Rock and providing the voice of Barnacle Bob on the animated series Spongebob Squarepants.

Trivia: Though he has done many other things since the late '60s and early '70s, comedian/actor Dick Martin will best be remembered as the co-host of the innovative sketch comedy series Laugh-In (1968-1973) with his longtime partner and straightman Dan Rowan. Rowan and Martin started out on television appearing briefly on the summer edition of the comedy variety show The Chevy Show in 1958. He and Rowan made their feature-film debut that year in the Western Once Upon a Horse. Between 1962 and 1964, Martin, sans Rowan, was a regular on The Lucy Show. The two reunited to appear regularly on The Dean Martin Summer Show (1966-1967). That year, Martin also made another solo appearance in the Doris Day feature The Glass Bottom Boat. Laugh-In was the comic duo's biggest success and at the peak of their popularity, the two attempted to further cash in by appearing in the Abbott and Costello-like horror spoof, The Maltese Bippy (1969). The film bombed and it would be years before Martin again appeared in a film. Since then, his acting appearances on television and in film have been sporadic.

Trivia: Though many casual observers perceive that comic actor Tom Poston was "discovered" by Steve Allen in 1956, Poston had in fact been a performer long before Allen ever set foot on a stage. At age 9, Poston was a member of the Flying Zebleys, an acrobatic troupe. After Air Force service in World War II, he began his formal acting training at the AADA. Poston made his "legit" New York stage debut in Jose Ferrer's Cyrano de Bergerac (1947). With several years of stage work under his belt, Poston was engaged to host the local New York TV variety series Entertainment (1955), and it was this effort that brought him to the attention of Steve Allen. The story goes that Poston was so flustered at his audition for Allen's TV variety series that he forgot his own name when asked. From 1956 through 1960, Poston was seen along with Louis Nye and Don Knotts as a member of the Allen stock company; appropriately, he was most often cast as a "man on the street" interviewee who could never remember his name. Poston won an Emmy for his work on Allen's show in 1959, and that same year hosted the weekday TV game show Split Personality; this gig led to a long tenure as a guest panelist on other quiz programs. In films from 1953, Poston starred in a pair of offbeat William Castle-directed comedies, Zotz (1962) and The Old Dark House (1963). Poston's TV sitcom credits include such roles as prison guard Sullivan on On the Rocks (1975), absentminded Damon Jerome on We've Got Each Other (1977), cantankerous neighbor Franklin Delano Bickley on Mork and Mindy and Ringo Crowley on Good Grief (1990). In 1982, Poston beat out Jerry Van Dyke for his most famous prime-time TV role: caretaker George Utley on Newhart. Poston died at age 85 in April 2007, of undisclosed causes. Until the time of his death, he was married to Suzanne Pleshette of The Bob Newhart Show.

Trivia: Landed earliest acting gigs on a few soap operas during the 1970s, including Gerry Brayley on CBS's daytime sudser Love of Life, Penny Davis on the NBC serial The Doctors and Karen Wolek on the ABC soap One Life to Live. Made her Broadway debut in 1978's acclaimed revival of Once in a Lifetime. Breakout role was as Stephanie Vanderkellen, a former rich girl-turned-maid, in the popular sitcom Newhart, which she joined in its sophomore season. Joined the cast of the Designing Women as Allison Sugarbaker, the cousin of Julia and Suzanne, in the sixth season. Played the wife of Peter Scolari in two shows; first on Newhart, then later on the Jason Alexander sitcom Listen Up!

Trivia: The son of a prominent archaeologist/museum director, American actor Ted Danson grew up near the Navajo reservation in Arizona. He played basketball while at Kent School Connecticut, and then moved on to Stanford University. It was in the process of getting acquainted with an aspiring actress at Stanford that Danson found himself attending his first audition-- and by years' end had transferred to the drama department at Carnegie Tech. Marking time in non-speaking roles, Danson left the stage for the more lucrative world of TV commercials, some of which have been well-circulated on videotape since Danson has become famous. Danson's first steady TV work was as a slimy villain on the NBC soap opera Somerset. Shortly afterward, the actor attained his first film role, as a murdered cop, in The Onion Field (1978). After seeing Danson in the movie Body Heat (1981) and in an episode of the TV series Taxi, producer Glen Charles cast the actor as Sam Malone, ex-sports star and full-time barkeeper and womanizer, on the long-running, well-loved sitcom Cheers He won Emmys for the 1989-90 and 1992-93 seasons. Frequently making attempts at film stardom during the 11-season run of Cheers, Danson finally struck gold in Three Men and a Baby (1987) and its sequel Three Men and a Little Lady (1990). Danson's most recent work includes the 1996 starring role in the TV miniseries Gulliver's Travels and a co-starring role, opposite his new wife Mary Steenburgen, in the television sit-com Ink (also 1996). In 1998 Danson began a six-year run on another successful sitcom portraying the lead character on Becker, playing a caustic grump who couldn't have been further from Sam Malone's effortless charm. He continued to work steadily on the big screen as well scoring appearances in Saving Private Ryan and Mumford. He made sporadic appearances on Larry David's award-winning Curb Your Enthusiasm, and earned strong reviews for his dramatic work on the first season of the TV show Damages. He followed that up with a co-starring role on the HBO series Bored to Death, which lasted three seasons. In 2012 he could be seen in the inspirational animal movie Big Miracle.

Trivia: Though he's had a very successful career as a television actor, tall, black-haired, and youthful-looking Scott Baio might be best remembered for dating seemingly every hot, blonde starlet to enter Hollywood. He made his first television appearance as a teen in 1976. He became a regular on the nostalgic sitcom Happy Days in 1977, playing the role of Fonzie's tough little cousin, Chachi, and became a favorite with many preteen girls. Later, he and fellow Happy Days cohort, Erin Moran, starred in the short-lived spin-off series Joanie Loves Chachi (1982-1983). When that failed, the two returned to their original series and remained with it through its demise in 1984. Baio was then cast in the lead of a new sitcom, Charles in Charge, as a conscientious young man who earns money for college by playing nanny to two lively teenage girls and their younger brother. The show ended in 1990, and the following year, Baio headlined another short-lived sitcom as the janitor/love interest on Baby Talk. In 1993, he played his first dramatic role in a series when he was cast opposite Dick Van Dyke in Diagnosis Murder. In the fall of 1997, Baio again returned to sitcom work with the Fox series Rewind in which he plays a marketing executive with a sense of déjà vu that leads him to return to his adolescent years during the '70s. Baio's movie work has been more sporadic. He made his first feature-film appearance as Bugsy in Bugsy Malone (1976). Most of his subsequent film work has been in such low-budget efforts as Skatetown (1979), Zapped (1982), and I Love New York (1988).In 2005, Baio took a recurring role on the cult hit Arrested Development, as lawyer Bob Loblaw. His deadpan delivery was a hit with audiences, as was the subtle in-joke of his appearing with fellow 80's teen star Jason Bateman. In 2007, Baio capitalized on his laundry list of hot and famous ex girlfriends with his own reality show, Scott Baio is 45 And Single. The series followed him as he faced up to his playboy past, working with a life coach to face up to his fear of marriage with the goal of proposing to his long-term girlfriend. The show was popular enough to create a follow-up series, Scott Baio is 46 and Pregnant.

Trivia: Born in Missouri, entertainer Dick Van Dyke was raised in Danville, Illinois, where repeated viewings of Laurel & Hardy comedies at his local movie palace inspired him to go into show business. Active in high school and community plays in his teens, Van Dyke briefly put his theatrical aspirations aside upon reaching college age. He toyed with the idea of becoming a Presbyterian minister; then, after serving in the Air Force during World War II, opened up a Danville advertising agency. When this venture failed, it was back to show biz, first as a radio announcer for local station WDAN, and later as half of a record-pantomime act called The Merry Mutes (the other half was a fellow named Philip Erickson). While hosting a TV morning show in New Orleans, Van Dyke was signed to a contract by the CBS network. He spent most of his time subbing for other CBS personalities and emceeing such forgotten endeavors as Cartoon Theatre. After making his acting debut as a hayseed baseball player on The Phil Silvers Show, Van Dyke left CBS to free-lance. He hosted a few TV game shows before his career breakthrough as co-star of the 1959 Broadway review The Girls Against the Boys. The following year, he starred in the musical comedy Bye Bye Birdie, winning a Tony Award for his portrayal of mother-dominated songwriter Albert Peterson (it would be his last Broadway show until the short-lived 1980 revival of The Music Man). In 1961, he was cast as comedy writer Rob Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show, which after a shaky start lasted five seasons and earned its star three Emmies.He made his movie bow in the 1963 filmization of Bye Bye Birdie, then entered into a flexible arrangement with Walt Disney Studios. His best known films from that era include Mary Poppins (1964), Lt. Robin Crusoe, USN and The Comic, in which he played an amalgam of several self-destructive silent movie comedians. His TV specials remained popular in the ratings, and it was this fact that led to the debut of The New Dick Van Dyke Show in 1971. Despite the creative input of the earlier Dick Van Dyke Show's maven Carl Reiner, the later series never caught on, and petered out after three seasons. A chronic "people pleaser," Van Dyke was loath to display anger or frustration around his co-workers or fans, so he began taking solace in liquor; by 1972, he had become a full-fledged alcoholic. Rather than lie to his admirers or himself any longer, he underwent treatment and publicly admitted his alcoholism -- one of the first major TV stars ever to do so. Van Dyke's public confession did little to hurt his "nice guy" public image, and, now fully and permanently sober, he continued to be sought out for guest-star assignments and talk shows. In 1974, he starred in the TV movie The Morning After, playing an ad executive who destroys his reputation, his marriage and his life thanks to booze. After that Van Dyke, further proved his versatility when he began accepting villainous roles, ranging from a cold-blooded wife murderer in a 1975 Columbo episode to the corrupt district attorney in the 1990 film Dick Tracy. He also made several stabs at returning to weekly television, none of which panned out--until 1993, when he starred as Dr. Mark Sloan in the popular mystery series Diagnosis Murder. He made a few more movie appearances after Diagnosis Murder came to an end, most notably as a retired security guard in the hit family film Night at the Museum. As gifted at writing and illustrating as he is at singing, dancing and clowning, Van Dyke has penned two books, Faith, Hope and Hilarity and Those Funny Kids. From 1992 to 1994, he served as chairman of the Nickelodeon cable service, which was then sweeping the ratings by running Dick Van Dyke Show reruns in prime time. Van Dyke is the brother of award-winning TV personality Jerry Van Dyke, and the father of actor Barry Van Dyke.

Trivia: At first intending to become a minister, actor/monologist Andy Griffith (born June 1st, 1926) became active with the Carolina Playmakers, the prestigious drama-and-music adjunct of the University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill. He spent several seasons portraying Sir Walter Raleigh in the summertime outdoor drama The Lost Colony, spending the rest of the years as a schoolteacher. Griffith continued performing fitfully as an after-dinner speaker on the men's club circuit, developing hilariously bucolic routines on subjects ranging from Shakespeare to football. Under the aegis of agent/producer Richard O. Linke, Griffith returned to acting, attaining stardom in the role of bumptious Air Force rookie Will Stockdale in the TV and Broadway productions of No Time For Sergeants. Before committing Sergeants to film, Griffith made his movie debut in director Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd, in which he portrayed an outwardly folksy but inwardly vicious TV personality (patterned, some say, after Arthur Godfrey).After filming Face in the Crowd, No Time for Sergeants and Onionhead for Warner Bros. during the years 1957 and 1958, Griffith starred in a 1959 Broadway musical version of Destry Rides Again; as an added source of income, Griffith ran a North Carolina supermarket. On February 15, 1960 he first appeared as Andy Taylor, the laid-back sheriff of Mayberry, North Carolina, on an episode of The Danny Thomas Show. This one-shot was of course the pilot film for the Emmy-winning The Andy Griffith Show, in which Griffith starred from 1960 through 1968. Eternally easygoing on camera, Griffith, who owned 50% of the series, ruled his sitcom set with an iron hand, though he was never as hard on the other actors as he was on himself; to this day, he remains close to fellow Griffith stars Don Knotts and Ron Howard. An unsuccessful return to films with 1969's Angel in My Pocket was followed by an equally unsuccessful 1970 TV series Headmaster. For the next 15 years, Griffith confined himself to guest-star appearances, often surprising his fans by accepting cold-blooded villainous roles. In 1985, he made a triumphal return to series television in Matlock, playing a folksy but very crafty Southern defense attorney. A life-threatening disease known as Gillian-Barre syndrome curtailed his activities in the late 1980s, but as of 1995 Andy Griffith was still raking in the ratings with his infrequent Matlock two-hour specials. The actor worked on and off throughout the late nineties and early 2000s, and co-starred with Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion in the romantic comedy Waitress in 2007.

Trivia: Lead actor, onscreen from 18 Again (1988).

Trivia: During the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, Patrick Duffy quickly evolved into one of prime time's old standbys for handsome, sturdy, dependable, and reliable leading men. Two key patterns hallmarked the majority of Duffy's career choices: he culled his broadest appeal and most substantial workload on television in lieu of the big screen, and exceedingly rare were those occasions in which he played a villain. In terms of audience recognition, Duffy maintained his strongest ties with two ongoing series roles -- his famous portrayal of Southfork Ranch stalwart Bobby Ewing on the blockbuster CBS prime-time soap Dallas (1978-1991), and a subsequent tenure as Frank Lambert on the ABC "TGIF" Friday-night sitcom Step by Step (1991-1998). Born born March 17, 1949, in Townsend, MT, as the second child of two saloonkeepers, Duffy grew up in dire poverty. He attended high school in Everett, WA, then attended the actor's training program at the nearby University of Washington, graduating in 1971. The actor relocated to Southern California and began receiving screen credit only a few years after college, initially with roles in telemovies such as the 1976 Last of Mrs. Lincoln and the lead in the short-lived television series Man from Atlantis (as a half-man, half-fish). Dallas, of course, brought Duffy his big break, and as its ratings shot skyward, turning it into not simply the number one program on the air but an international phenomenon, Duffy's character became intertwined with the program's legacy. The series' premise is by now iconic -- it dealt with the Ewing family, a wealthy Texas oil clan with a history rooted in scandal. Its patriarch, John Ross "Jock" Ewing Sr. (Jim Davis), had driven himself into fabulous wealth by cheating his business partner out of a fortune and his one true love, with whom he started a family and launched an entire oil dynasty. Passing on the family torch were three sons: J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman), the megalomaniacal evil brother; Bobby Ewing (Duffy), the decent and moral brother, who had married the daughter of his father's partner; and the weak-willed Gary (Ted Shackelford), who grappled continually with emotional problems and quickly snagged his own series.As Bobby, Duffy attained popularity second only to that of co-star Hagman -- popularity that prompted national headlines when Duffy opted to leave the program at the end of the 1984-1985 season. Series producer created and aired a scenario where he was killed by a hit-and-run driver, but the audience demand for Bobby Ewing grew so overwhelming during the following season that -- in an obvious bid to re-boost ratings and extend Dallas' longevity -- Hagman personally summoned Duffy to re-join the series. The writers then reposited the entire 1985-1986 season as the bad dream of Bobby's on-camera wife, Pam (Victoria Principal)! It may have seemed far-fetched to many, but as an attempt to bring the actor back to the program and draw a larger audience, it worked like a charm.Not long after Dallas finally wrapped in May 1991, Duffy turned up on ABC's aforementioned Step by Step, a kind of unofficial update of The Brady Bunch; he played Frank Lambert, a divorced Wisconsin contractor with several kids who impulsively married a widowed beautician (Suzanne Somers) with several tykes of her own. Episodes dealt with the complications wrought when the two clans moved under the same roof together. As produced by William Bickley and Michael Warren, that program also connected with a large audience. It folded in 1998.Duffy acted in several Dallas telemovies during Step by Step's run, and then ushered in guest roles on numerous additional series, including Touched by an Angel, Justice League, and Family Guy. Additional made-for-television feature credits in the late '90s and early to mid-2000s included such outings as Heart of Fire (1997), Don't Look Behind You (1998), Desolation Canyon (2006), and Falling in Love with the Girl Next Door (2006). Duffy landed another series assignment in 2006 with an ongoing role -- that of Stephen Logan Sr. -- on the CBS daytime drama The Bold and the Beautiful.

Trivia: Was enrolled in ballet school at age 8 by her foster mother. Received a full scholarship to the American Ballet School in New York. Danced professionally with numerous ballet companies, including the American Ballet Theater II, Ballet Hispanico of New York, Contemporary Ballet, Twyla Tharp Workshop and the Julliard School of Music Dance Extension Program with Anthony Tudor. Began acting while pursuing a modeling career and landed a recurring role on The Cosby Show. Originated the character Drucilla on The Young and the Restless in 1990 and won several NAACP Image Awards and three Daytime Emmy nominations for her portrayal. Worked simultaneously on The Young and the Restless and Diagnosis Murder. Authored a memoir in 2007 titled The Women Who Raised Me as a tribute to the women who helped her through foster care. Her real-life son, Jasper Armstrong Marsalis, played her child on Diagnosis Murder. Founded the Rowell Foster Children's Positive Plan, an organization dedicated to providing foster children opportunities in the arts and sports.