Trivia: One of the precious few actors of the "pretty boy" school to survive past the 1950s, Robert Wagner was the son of a Detroit steel executive. When his family moved to Los Angeles, Wagner's original intention of becoming a businessman took second place to his fascination with the film industry. Thanks to his dad's connections, he was able to make regular visits to the big studios. Inevitably, a talent scout took notice of Wagner's boyish handsomeness, impressive physique, and easygoing charm. After making his unbilled screen debut in The Happy Years (1950), Wagner was signed by 20th Century Fox, which carefully built him up toward stardom. He played romantic leads with ease, but it wasn't until he essayed the two scene role of a shellshocked war veteran in With a Song in My Heart (1952) that studio executives recognized his potential as a dramatic actor. He went on to play the title roles in Prince Valiant (1954) and The True Story of Jesse James (1956), and shocked his bobby-soxer fan following by effectively portraying a cold-blooded murderer in A Kiss Before Dying (1955). In the early '60s, however, Wagner suffered a series of personal and professional reverses. His "ideal" marriage to actress Natalie Wood had dissolved, and his film career skidded to a stop after The Pink Panther (1964). Two years of unemployment followed before Wagner made a respectable comeback as star of the lighthearted TV espionage series It Takes a Thief (1968-1970). For the rest of his career, Wagner would enjoy his greatest success on TV, first in the mid-'70s series Switch, then opposite Stefanie Powers in the internationally popular Hart to Hart, which ran from 1979 through 1983 and has since been sporadically revived in TV-movie form (a 1986 series, Lime Street, was quickly canceled due to the tragic death of Wagner's young co-star, Savannah Smith). On the domestic front, Wagner was briefly wed to actress Marion Marshall before remarrying Natalie Wood in 1972; after Wood's death in 1981, Wagner found lasting happiness with his third wife, Jill St. John, a longtime friend and co-worker. Considered one of Hollywood's nicest citizens, Robert Wagner has continued to successfully pursue a leading man career into his sixties; he has also launched a latter-day stage career, touring with his Hart to Hart co-star Stefanie Power in the "readers' theater" presentation Love Letters. He found success playing a henchman to Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies, and in 2007 he began playing Teddy, a recurring role on the hit CBS series Two and a Half Men.

Trivia: Born in 1908, actress Nedra Volz began her career in show business as a little girl, appearing in vaudeville under the name "Baby Nedra" when she was a toddler. She served as a vocalist for a popular big band in the 1930s called Cato's Vagabonds, and was married in 1946 to Oren Volz, with whom she would have three children. It wasn't until the 1970s that Volz began the onscreen career that would make her a familiar face to so many fans, appearing on numerous TV shows like WKRP in Cincinnati and Maude. In 1980, she took on the role of Adelaide Brubaker on the popular sitcom Diff'rent Strokes, and she would stay with the series for two years. She also took on the recurring role of Emma Tisdale on The Dukes of Hazzard, and continued to wrack up a huge list of single-episode appearances on various shows throughout the '80s and '90s. Volz finally retired from acting in 1996 at the age of 88. She moved to Mesa, AZ, where she eventually passed away in 2003 at the age of 94.

Trivia: Born Stefania Federkiewicz, she is a lead actress of routine Hollywood films of the '60s and '70s. Soon after graduating from Hollywood High, she debuted onscreen in 1961; early in her career she was billed as Taffy Paul. She starred in the TV series Girl from U.N.C.L.E. and Hart to Hart. From 1966-74 she was married to actor Gary Lockwood, then she became the constant companion of aging actor William Holden; following his death in 1981, she continued being active with the William Holden Wildlife Foundation, which worked to create a big-game preserve and study center in Kenya.

Trivia: Specializing in middle-aged characters even in his twenties, American actor Charles Cyphers has been a familiar face on the TV-movie landscape since the early '70s. Cyphers was particularly well served by director John Carpenter, who cast the actor in Assault on Precinct 13 (1975), Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), and Escape From New York (1981). Carpenter also featured Cyphers as Sam Phillips in the made-for-TV Elvis (1979). Perhaps it's coincidence, or perhaps a private joke between actor and director: Whatever the case, Cyphers' character names in his Carpenter films are often lifted from real life. For example, he played Dan O'Bannon in The Fog (screenwriter O'Bannon is Carpenter's most frequent collaborator) and Leigh Brackett in Halloween (Brackett, a female screenwriter, worked on such films as Rio Bravo, which Carpenter remade as Assault on Precinct 13). On TV, Charles Cyphers was seen on The Betty White Show (1975), as Hugo Muncy, White's cross-dressing stunt double.

Trivia: American actor Richard Davalos might have been a star had it not been for the formidable competition in his star-making movie. Davalos was cast as Aron the upright, dutiful son of Raymond Massey in the expensive 1955 filmization of East of Eden. The film, however, belonged to the boy playing Cal, Aron's supposedly ne'er-do-well younger brother: James Dean. One recent magazine article figuratively robbed Davalos of the best scene in the movie, wherein, after learning that his mother was a prostitute, he taunts his erring father by laughingly smashing his head through a glass window; the magazine attributed this unforgettable moment to James Dean! It's too bad, since Davalos was actually a lot more versatile than Dean (if not as charismatic), having proven this in a multitude of TV guest roles. As for movies, except for the meaty role of Blind Dick in Cool Hand Luke (1967), the best Davalos could do after Eden were such negligible starring stints as Pit Stop (1969) and indifferent character roles in films like Kelly's Heroes (1971). In 1961, Richard Davalos co-starred with Darryl Hickman on the short-lived television Civil War series The Americans. His last film was 2008's Ninja Cheerleader. Davalos died in 2016, at age 85.

Trivia: Billy Jacoby is the stage name occasionally used by supporting actor Billy Jayne. The brother of actor Scott Jacoby, Jayne made his feature-film debut at age ten in The Runner Stumbles (1979). During the '80s, Jayne appeared in low-budget films ranging from horror (Bloody Birthday) to comedy (Party Camp) aimed at adolescent audiences. Jayne also appeared regularly on television in series such as Silver Spoons (1982-1987) and Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1990-1992), as well as in made-for-TV movies like Spring Fling! (1995) and Breaking Through (1997).