Trivia: The younger brother of Gunsmoke star James Arness, American actor Peter Graves worked as a musician and radio actor before entering films with 1950's Rogue River. At first, it appeared that Graves would be the star of the family, since he was cast in leads while brother Jim languished in secondary roles. Then came Stalag 17 (1953), in which Graves was first-rate as a supposedly all-American POW who turned out to be a vicious Nazi spy. Trouble was, Graves played the part too well, and couldn't shake the Nazi stereotype in the eyes of most Hollywood producers. Suddenly the actor found himself in such secondary roles as Shelley Winters' doomed husband in Night of the Hunter (1955) (he was in and out of the picture after the first ten minutes), while sibling James Arness was riding high with Gunsmoke. Dissatisfied with his film career, Graves signed on in 1955 for a network kid's series about "a horse and the boy who loved him." Fury wasn't exactly Citizen Kane, but it ran five years and made Graves a wealthy man through rerun residuals--so much so that he claimed to be making more money from Fury than his brother did from Gunsmoke. In 1966, Peter Graves replaced Steven Hill as head honcho of the force on the weekly TV adventure series Mission: Impossible, a stint that lasted until 1973. Though a better than average actor, Graves gained something of a camp reputation for his stiff, straight-arrow film characters and was often cast in films that parodied his TV image. One of the best of these lampoonish appearances was in the Zucker-Abrahams comedy Airplane (1980), as a nutty airline pilot who asks outrageous questions to a young boy on the plane (a part the actor very nearly turned down, until he discovered that Leslie Nielsen was co-starring in the film). Peter Graves effortlessly maintained his reliable, authoritative movie persona into the '90s and 2000s, and hosted the Biography series on A&E, for which he won an Emmy; he also guest-starred on programs including Cold Case, House and American Dad. Graves died of natural causes in March 2010, at age 83.

Trivia: A former University of Illinois sociology major, ash-blonde leading lady Barbara Bain studied for a theatrical career at New York's Actors Studio and Neighborhood Playhouse. While attending an actor's workshop in 1956, Barbara made the acquaintance of an intense young performer named Martin Landau. It was love at first sight, and they married in 1957. Landau and Bain strove to maintain separate careers, and while her husband tended to work more often than she did, Barbara was well-represented with guest appearances on such series as Richard Diamond, Private Detective, Get Smart and The Dick Van Dyke Show. In 1964, the Landaus worked together for the first time on an episode of The Greatest Show on Earth. They didn't care much for the experience, and vowed not to co-star again -- at least, not until producer Bruce Geller made them an offer they couldn't refuse with the weekly TV suspenser Mission: Impossible. Cast as silken espionage agent Cinammon Carter, Bain won three consecutive Emmies for her work on the series (if you're wondering why Cinammon never adopted elaborate disguises, as did practically everyone else on the program, it is because Bain suffered from claustrophobia, and could not abide being hemmed in by heavy makeup). Then, after three seasons' worth of Mission: Impossible, the Landaus quit the series in 1969, citing poor scripts and insufficient creative challenges. In later years, Bain would comment ruefully that leaving the show ruined her career. The record doesn't quite bear this out: indeed, during the early 1970s she racked up an impressive list of TV movie appearances, and was offered a great deal of money to reteam with Landau in the syndicated sci-fi TV series Space: 1999 (1975-77). In 1989, Bain appeared in her very first theatrical feature, Trust Me (1989), playing a truculent, dishonest art collector. Though long-divorced from Martin Landau, Barbara Bain did not express an aversion to the possibility of playing a cameo alongside her ex-husband in the 1996 film version of Mission: Impossible, should either one of them be asked to do so (alas, they weren't).

Trivia: Saturnine character actor Martin Landau was a staff cartoonist for the New York Daily News before switching to acting. In 1955, his career got off to a promising beginning, when out of 2,000 applicants, only he and one other actor (Steve McQueen) were accepted by Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. Extremely busy in the days of live, Manhattan-based television, Landau made his cinematic mark with his second film appearance, playing James Mason's henchman in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959). In 1966, Landau and his wife Barbara Bain were both cast on the TV adventure/espionage series Mission: Impossible. For three years, Landau portrayed Rollin Hand, a master of disguise with the acute ability to impersonate virtually every villain who came down the pike (banana-republic despots were a specialty). Unhappy with changes in production personnel and budget cuts, Landau and Bain left the series in 1969. Six years later, they costarred in Space: 1999 a popular syndicated sci-fi series; the performances of Landau, Bain, and third lead Barry Morse helped to gloss over the glaring gaps in continuity and logic which characterized the show's two-year run. The couple would subsequently act together several times (The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island (1981) was one of the less distinguished occasions) before their marriage dissolved.Working steadily in various projects throughout the next few decades, Landau enjoyed a career renaissance with two consecutive Oscar nominations, the first for Francis Ford Coppola's Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), and the second for Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Landau finally won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's 1994 Ed Wood; his refusal to cut his acceptance speech short was one of the high points of the 1995 Oscar ceremony. He would continue to work over the next several years, appearing in movies like City of Ember and Mysteria, as well as on TV shows like Without a Trace and Entourage.

Trivia: Fans of the original action /espionage series Mission Impossible (1966-70) may recognize black actor Greg Morris for playing electronics wizard Barney Collier. Morris spent most of his career on television, appearing on such shows as Ben Casey, The Dick Van Dyck Show and The Twilight Zone. During the 1970s, Morris was a regular on Vega$ (1978-81), playing police officer Lt. David Neslon. A native of Cleveland who spent part of his childhood in New York City, his mother worked as a secretary for black labor leader A. Phillip Reynolds. Before becoming a television actor during the early '60s, Morris attended Ohio State University and the University of Iowa. Morris passed away at the age of 61 on August 27, 1996. The cause of death was unreported.

Trivia: Though he has logged many impressive credits as an actor, Vienna-born Theodore Bikel preferred to think of himself -- and bill himself -- as a folksinger. Emigrating to Palestine in the 1930s, Bikel supported himself with his music, and also acted with Tel Aviv's Habimah Theatre in Sholem Alecheim's Tevye the Milkman. A quick study in several languages, Bikel honed his acting skills with Britain's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Three years after his London stage debut, Bikel made his first film, playing a German naval officer (the first of many villainous roles) in The African Queen (1951). In 1958, he was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting appearance in The Defiant Ones. One year later, he costarred with Mary Martin on Broadway, originating the role of Captain Von Trapp in Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music. Active in many political causes ranging from Jewish relief to the Democratic Party, Bikel served as president of Actor's Equity from 1973 until 1982. In a mid-1980s interview, Theodore Bikel noted with amusement that, in spite of his many stage and screen appearances, many fans remembered him best for his brief unsympathetic appearance as a Russian officer in the otherwise forgettable 1957 film Fraulein. Bikel continued working well into his advanced years, both on screen and on stage. He died in 2015, at age 91.

Trivia: Character actress Barbara Babcock made her first film appearance in 1968's Heaven with a Gun. Usually cast as take-charge matrons, Barbara has been seen in such roles as the baseball-team owner in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) and Mrs. Douglas in That Was Then...This is Now (1985). She was also a regular on several TV series, including Search for Tomorrow, The Four Seasons, Dallas, Mr. Sunshine and The Law and Harry McGraw. More recently, Barbara Babcock was cast as Dorothy Jennings, sister-in-law of Loren Bray (Orson Bean) on the weekly Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1992- ).

Trivia: A New York-based stage and TV actor, Paul Stevens made few film appearances, but was still a familiar face thanks to his soap opera work in the '60s, '70s and '80s. Stevens played Brian Bancroft on NBC's Another World, then went on to other projects and was replaced by Luke Reilly. Over at CBS, Stevens showed up on The Young and the Restless. Replacing B-picture stalwart Robert Clarke, Paul Stevens played Dr. Bruce Henderson, one-time beau of Young and Restless perennial Jennifer Brooks (Dorothy Green).