Trivia: After a four-year hitch with the Naval Reserve, actor Steven Hill made his first New York stage appearance in Ben Hecht's A Flag is Born (1946), which also featured a young Marlon Brando. Hill made his film debut in 1950, then returned to the Navy for two more years before settling down to acting on a permanent basis. He was particularly busy in the so-called Golden Age of live TV drama, appearing in such prestigious video offerings as The Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti (1959). In 1966, he was cast as Daniel Briggs--as in "Good morning, Mr. Briggs"--on the hit TV adventure series Mission: Impossible. He left this lucrative assignment in 1967, reportedly because his Orthodox Jewish faith prevented him from filming on weekends; his replacement was Peter Graves as "Mr. Phelps" (in 1989, Hill guest-starred on the short-lived Mission: Impossible revival). Hill remained very much in demand throughout the 1980s and 1990s playing parental and authority-figure roles in such films as Yentl (1983) Heartburn (1986) and Billy Bathgate (1991). Contemporary TV viewers are most familiar with Steven Hill for his work as Michael Steadman's father on thirtysomething (1987-91) and DA Adam Schiff on the weekly TVer Law and Order, a role he stayed with from 1990 to 2000. Hill died in 2016, at age 94.

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: Upon earning his BA degree from the University of Chicago, Fritz Weaver began his formal acting training at the H-B studios. Paying his dues with such regional stock companies as Virginia's Barter Theatre and Massachussett's Group 20 Players, Weaver made his first off-Broadway appearance in a 1954 production of The Way of the World. His inaugural Broadway effort was 1955's The Chalk Circle. Weaver went on to appear in such classic stage roles as Hamlet and Peer Gynt, and also amassed a remarkable list of film credits, including two Twilight Zone appearances. In 1964, he made his film debut as the unstable Colonel Caserio in the doomsday thriller Fail Safe. The following year, he starred on Broadway in Baker Street, a musicalization of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. In 1970, he won the Tony award for his work as Jerome Malley in Child's Play. Most often cast as aristocratic villains in films (his resemblance to William F. Buckley has not gone unnoticed by producers), Fritz Weaver made his biggest international impact in the sympathetic role of Josef Weiss in the TV miniseries Holocaust (1978). Weaver worked mostly in television for the rest of his career (save for a supporting role in 1999's The Thomas Crown Affair), with guest spots in shows like The Love Boat, Murder, She Wrote, The X-Files, Frasier and Law & Order. Weaver died in 2016, at age 90.

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.