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: 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: Actress Lynda Day George was quite busy on TV in guest-starring roles throughout the 1960s. Before she officially changed her professional name from "Day" to "Day George" -- to acknowledge her marriage to actor Christopher George -- Day George was a regular on The Silent Force, a 1970 Mission: Impossible clone. Ironically, one year later she was cast on the real Mission: Impossible as undercover operative Casey, a role she retained until the series' cancellation in 1973. While she has appeared in the occasional theatrical film, most of Day George's best work could be seen in such small-screen miniseries as Rich Man, Poor Man, Once an Eagle, and Roots. In the early '80s, Lynda Day George began turning down network roles to devote her energies to religious television, remaining active in this field long after the death of her husband in 1983.

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: American leading man Robert Colbert made his first screen appearances as a Columbia contract player in the late '50s. His most thankless role during this period was as the romantic lead in the Three Stooges feature Have Rocket, Will Travel (1959). Seven years later, Colbert had another crack at the sci-fi genre as adventuresome scientist Dr. Doug Phillips on TV's The Time Tunnel. Each week, Colbert and co-star James Darren were plunked down into a crucial moment in world history, courtesy of the 20th Century-Fox stock footage department. In between these two assignments, Colbert played Brent Maverick, one of the stop-gap characters created to cover the defection of James Garner on the western series Maverick (1957-62). Daytime drama devotees are most familiar with Robert Colbert's decade-long tenure as Stuart Brooks on The Young and the Restless.

Trivia: American actor Russ Conway was most at home in the raincoat of a detective or the uniform of a military officer. Making his movie bow in 1948, Conway worked in TV and films throughout the '50s and '60s. Some of his films include Larceny (1948), My Six Convicts (1952), Love Me Tender (1956) (as Ed Galt, in support of Elvis Presley) Fort Dobbs (1958) and Our Man Flint (1966). TV series featuring Conway in guest spots included The Beverly Hillbillies, The Munsters and Petticoat Junction. Russ Conway settled down in 1959 to play Lieutenant Pete Kyle on David Janssen's private eye TV weekly Richard Diamond.

Trivia: Actor Joe E. Tata is probably best known as Nat, the congenial owner of the Peach Pit on TV's Beverly Hills 90210, but the veteran performer's career actually began 25 years earlier. In the mid-'60s, Tata began appearing on popular television shows like Hogan's Heroes and Mission: Impossible, which led to recurring roles on series like The F.B.I. and Lost in Space. He continued to make appearances on television shows and in movies until he was cast in the famous role of Nat on 90210 in 1990. His easygoing manner in the role struck a chord with viewers, and he stayed with the show for the next ten years.

Trivia: American character actor Lew Brown has been appearing on stage, screen and television for over 50 years.

Trivia: John Wheeler, a bald-headed character actor of short stature, is most familiar from television, though he started his career in music. Born in Texas, he attended the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA, where he earned a Bachelor of Music degree in 1952. After serving in the United States Army, he moved to New York City to pursue his master's degree. Possessed of a rich, powerful tenor voice, he sang with the City Center Opera in New York and also performed in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel and Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green's Wonderful Town at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, later repeating his role in the latter work in its television presentation that same year, which starred Rosalind Russell. On Broadway, he appeared in The Happiest Girl in the World, Kean, Cafe Crown, and I Had a Ball. He was also in the stage version of Sweet Charity, portraying Herman, the dance hall proprietor, a role that went to Stubby Kaye in the movie adaptation (Wheeler played a smaller role in the film and never had the chance to immortalize his voice on "I Love To Cry at Weddings"). Wheeler remained active into the 21st century, and is best known to television audiences for his work in episodes of such oft-rerun 1970s sitcoms as The Brady Bunch ("Dough Re Mi") and, most especially, The Odd Couple -- the latter series made use of Wheeler's vocal talents as well as his comedic acting ability as a bit player in a half dozen episodes, casting him as various characters (most often referred to as Fred Felscher) associated with Felix's opera club. He has also done numerous commercials.