Trivia: The son of Yugoslav immigrants, Karl Malden labored in the steel mills of Gary, Indiana before enrolling in Arkansas State Teachers College. While not a prime candidate for stardom with his oversized nose and bullhorn voice, Malden attended Chicago's Goodman Dramatic School, then moved to New York, where he made his Broadway bow in 1937. Three years later he made his film debut in a microscopic role in They Knew What They Wanted (1940), which also featured another star-to-be, Tom Ewell. While serving in the Army Air Force during World War II, Malden returned to films in the all-serviceman epic Winged Victory (1944), where he was billed as Corporal Karl Malden. This led to a brief contract with 20th Century-Fox -- but not to Hollywood, since Malden's subsequent film appearances were lensed on the east coast. In 1947, Malden created the role of Mitch, the erstwhile beau of Blanche Dubois, in Tennessee Williams' Broadway play A Streetcar Named Desire; he repeated the role in the 1951 film version, winning an Oscar in the process. For much of his film career, Malden has been assigned roles that called for excesses of ham; even his Oscar-nominated performance in On the Waterfront (1954) was decidedly "Armour Star" in concept and execution. In 1957, he directed the Korean War melodrama Time Limit, the only instance in which the forceful and opinionated Malden was officially credited as director. Malden was best known to TV fans of the 1970s as Lieutenant Mike Stone, the no-nonsense protagonist of the longrunning cop series The Streets of San Francisco. Still wearing his familiar Streets hat and overcoat, Malden supplemented his income with a series of ads for American Express. His commercial catchphrases "What will you do?" and "Don't leave home without it!" soon entered the lexicon of TV trivia -- and provided endless fodder for such comedians as Johnny Carson. From 1989-92, Malden served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Trivia: If character actor Herb Edelman was one of the more successful stage and screen purveyors of "Everyman" roles, it was probably because he'd held down an astonishing array of meat-and-potato jobs before settling into acting. Edelman studied to be a veterinarian at Cornell University, but left during the first year. He took a tentative stab at journalism before toiling as an Armed Forces radio operator and announcer. While stationed in the Far East, Edelman entertained the notion of becoming a "Jewish Buddhist." He returned to his hometown to attend Brooklyn College, dropped out to become a hotel manager, was briefly the "straight" half of a comedy team, worked in advertising, drove a hack, and dropped back into college. Finally turning to acting full time in summer stock, Edelman began picking up small roles in New York productions, including the scene-stealing exhausted delivery man inNeil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1965), a role he recreated for the 1967 film version. Forming strong bonds with both Simon and with Barefoot star Robert Redford, Edelman would later appear in Simon's The Odd Couple and California Suite, and in the Redford/Barbara Streisand vehicle The Way We Were (1973). In 1968, Edelman co-starred with Bob Denver in the two-season TV sitcom The Good Guys. Nine years later, he starred as one-half of the title role in the weekly TV comedy/fantasy Big John, Little John (Robbie Rist was the "Little" one). Other TV series featuring Herb Edelman on a regular or recurring basis included Ladies Man, 9 to 5, Strike Force and Murder She Wrote. Fans of the sitcom The Golden Girls may remember Edelman for playing Stanley, Bea Arthur's irksome ex-husband. Edelman died of emphysema at the Motion Picture Hospital in Los Angeles on July 21, 1996; he was 62.

Trivia: Best known as the host of ABC's That's Incredible! (1980-1984) -- a mondo-styled documentary series that showcased the world's most outrageous human feats -- entertainer John Davidson actually sustained a long and impressive career before that program first bowed. Raised in Philadelphia as the son of a homemaker and Baptist pastor, Davidson attended Denison University and earned his bachelor's in theater arts. He commenced dramatic work as a stage performer, opposite Bert Lahr in a 1964 Broadway production of Foxy, but decided to enter film and television at the behest of manager-cum-producer Bob Banner, who helped Davidson land emceeing assignments on the variety programs The Entertainers (1964-1965), Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966), and his own John Davidson Show (1969), as well as plum roles in two big-screen Disney musicals -- The Happiest Millionaire (1967) and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968). Following lead and supporting roles in such films as Coffee, Tea or Me? (1970), Shell Game (1975), and Roger and Harry (1977), Davidson landed That's Incredible! The program -- which featured extreme and bizarre stunts that ranged from a man catching a bullet in his teeth to a thrill-seeker diving from an airplane in a straitjacket and handcuffs -- courted not only high ratings, but extreme controversy for the injuries and deaths it reportedly caused among hopeful participants; nonetheless, it enjoyed a four-year run, during which Davidson's co-hosts included Cathy Lee Crosby and footballer Fran Tarkenton. Following Incredible!, Davidson himself became somewhat synonymous with variety and game show-themed material, hosting programs such as Hollywood Squares and The $100,000 Pyramid, while tackling scattered movie roles in features including The Squeeze (1987) and Edward Scissorhands (1990).

Trivia: Lead actress, onscreen from 1955.

Trivia: American actor John Fiedler did his first professional work in his native Wisconsin. Fiedler's many Broadway appearances included the 1960 play A Raisin in the Sun, in which he was the only Caucasian in a virtually all-black cast. His first film role was as the supplicative Juror No. 2 in Twelve Angry Men (1957). Fiedler's stock in trade was the meek-looking soul who compensated for his demeanor with a nasty temper or sadistic streak. In this capacity, he was often seen as vindictive school principals, obstreperous civil servants or combative psychiatric patients (vide TV's The Bob Newhart Show). Incredibly prolific in films and on television, John Fiedler's best-known role was Vinnie, Oscar Madison's card-playing crony in both the stage and screen versions of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple.

Trivia: Universally recognized as Ship's Doctor Adam Bricker on the blockbuster prime-time sitcom The Love Boat (1977-1986) -- a part he held for the entire nine-season run of the series -- actor Bernie Kopell entered the doors of show business via a most unlikely route. Born in Brooklyn, Kopell attended Erasmus High and then New York University (with a dramatic art major). After a stint at sea aboard the naval vessel USS Iowa, Kopell signed on to drive a taxicab in Southern California -- and achieved his big break on the day that Oregon Trail (1959) film producer Dick Einfeld hitched a ride in the back of his cab. In a span of minutes, Kopell reportedly managed to convince Einfeld that he was not really a cab driver but an actor in serious need of work. The effort paid off, and Kopell snagged his first part -- a two-line part in Oregon as an aide to president James K. Polk. In the early '60s, Kopell joined the Actors' Ring Theatre in Los Angeles, where he developed a knack for characterizations and voices; this led, in turn, to character-type roles on a myriad of television programs including The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Steve Allen Show, and My Favorite Martian (which often, though not always, cast the wiry Kopell as a Hispanic). By the early '70s, Kopell had landed steady assignments on Get Smart, Bewitched, That Girl, and other series. The Love Boat, however, embodied his breakthrough. He followed it up with an emcee assignment on The Travel Channel (hosting its Railway Adventures Across Europe) and a surge in theatrical work, with portrayals in regional productions of such plays as Rumors, A History of Shadows, and Death of a Salesman.

Trivia: Phillip Pine was a character actor whose chameleon-like presence graced the entertainment world for more than 50 years as an actor, in addition to work as a screenwriter and director. Pine was born in Hanford, CA, 1920, and made his stage debut in a play written in Portugeuse. He later worked on showboats along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, and made the jump to small roles in movies in the mid-'40s, when he was in his twenties. His dark features frequently got him cast as gangsters and thugs in the early part of his career, and he moved in more prominent roles -- usually of a villainous nature -- in the 1950s.In 1954, Pine worked on-stage in See the Jaguar and The Immoralist and crossed paths with James Dean at the outset of the latter's career in New York. He played the title role in the stage version of A Stone for Danny Fisher, in a production that also featured Zero Mostel, Joe de Santis, and Susan Cabot. Brooks Atkinson, reviewing the play in The New York Times, wrote that Pine turned in "a good performance. He makes the character shifty and shallow, but likable, also, like a heel who means well weakly." With very expressive eyes and a minimum of words, Pine could melt into a role and make the most of only a few seconds' screen time. His feature films included William Keighley's crime thriller The Street with No Name (1948), Robert Wise's The Set Up, Mark Robson's My Foolish Heart, and William Wellman's Battleground, all released in 1949. He was also a veteran of hundreds of television shows, from Superman ("The Case of the Talkative Dummy," "The Mystery of the Broken Statues") to The Twilight Zone to Star Trek ("The Savage Curtain"), all of them as villains of a crafty and devious nature. Pine's biggest feature film role was in Irving Lerner's 1958 thriller Murder By Contract, in which he portrayed one of a pair of hoods working with hired assassin Vince Edwards. Pine passed away in 2006 at the age of 86.