Trivia: Willowy brunette actress Kate Jackson spent her early adulthood in summer stock, in training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and as a page and tour guide at the NBC studios in Rockefeller Center. Anxious to burst forth with reams of dialogue as a film and TV actress, Jackson found herself in the utterly non-speaking role of a glamorous ghost on the mid-1960s daytime TV serial Dark Shadows. She was allowed to flap her gums a little more often as Jill Danko on TV's The Rookies (1973-76). Full stardom arrived for Jackson when she was cast as Sabrina Duncan, "the smart one" on the prime time jigglefest Charlie's Angels; she remained with this series from 1976 through 1979. Her last regular weekly TV effort was Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1983-1987) in which she played an average housewife who moonlighted as a secret agent. Though Jackson has made sporadic film appearances, it is safe to say that her greater fame rests upon her small-screen work. Jackson received an outpouring of industry sympathy and support when she battled breast cancer in the early 1990s. Kate Jackson has been a prolific and popular TV commercial spokesperson, and narrated Trouble in Mind, a series documenting the effects of mental illness, from 1999 to 2000.

Trivia: After attending Trinity University and the University of San Antonio, brunette Jaclyn Smith flourished as a model and cover girl. Making her first film appearance in 1969, Smith endured such negligible movie projects as The Moonshiners (1974) before achieving stardom as Kelly Garrett, showgirl-turned-PI, on the spectacularly successful TV series Charlie's Angels. She was the only member of the original Angels to remain with the series from its debut in 1976 to its final telecast in 1981. Like her Charlie's Angels cohorts Cheryl Ladd and Farrah Fawcett, Smith went on to a busy career in made-for-TV movies, efficiently playing the title roles in Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (1982) and Florence Nightingale (1985). In 1989, she returned to the weekly-TV grind as star of the mystery series Christine Cromwell. That same year, a random sampling of Hollywood insiders (technicians, grips, "gofers", etc.) voted Smith as one of the nicest and most cooperative actresses in the business (parenthetically, her Charlie's Angels co-star Kate Jackson was elected one of the least likeable performers in Tinseltown). Jaclyn Smith was previously married to actors Roger Davis and Dennis Cole, and cinematographer Tony Richmond. Her fourth marriage was to Dr. Bradley Allen in 1998.

Trivia: Although sandy-voiced character actor David Doyle sometimes gave the onscreen impression of being an unprepossessing, slow-on-the-uptake "little man," in truth Doyle stood six feet tall, weighed 200 pounds, and had an I.Q. of 148. Born into a family of lawyers, Doyle was drawn to amateur theatricals at the age of ten. In an effort to please both his parents and his own muse, he attended pre-law classes at the University of Nebraska, all the while taking acting lessons at Virginia's Barter Theatre and New York's Neighborhood Playhouse. His first theatrical break came in 1956, when he replaced Walter Matthau in the Broadway hit Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? He subsequently spent several seasons as an actor/director in a Midwestern traveling stock company, then returned to New York, where he appeared in S.J. Perelman's The Beauty Part and seven other Broadway plays. After a decade's worth of film and TV supporting appearances and commercials, Doyle was cast in the recurring role of Walt Fitzgerald in the 1972 sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie; that same year, he made semi-weekly visits to The New Dick Van Dyke Show in the role of Ted Atwater. From 1976 and 1981, Doyle had the enviable task of playing John Bosley, liaison man between unseen private eye Charlie and the gorgeous female stars of TV's Charlie's Angels. Since that time, David Doyle has been seen as Frank Macklin on the short-lived 1987 series Sweet Surrender, and heard as the voice of Grandpa Pickles on the Nickleodeon cable network's animated series Rugrats (1991- ). Doyle died of heart failure at age 67 on February 27, 1997. One of his last feature film performances was that of the voice of Pepe in The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996).

Trivia: Actress/singer Cheryl Jean Stopelmoor billed herself as Cherie Moore when she performed as a backup singer on the 1970 Hanna-Barbera animated TVer Josie and the Pussycats. She reverted to her given name when appearing as a regular on the prime-time programs The Ken Berry WOW Show and Search (both 1972), and in various TV guest assignments. Stopelmoor was occasionally written up in fan and industry magazines of the period, more because of her unusual name than her acting skills (often, her last name was longer than the parts she played). Stopelmoor finally became a star when she adopted her married name of Ladd (her husband of many years was actor David Ladd, son of film luminary Alan Ladd) and replaced Farrah Fawcett on the highly-rated ABC "jiggle" show Charlie's Angels. She played blonde angel Kris Munroe from 1977 through 1981, then concentrated on made-for-TV films, wherein she was permitted plenty of creative input. Ladd's TV movies found her cast as both victim (A Death in California) and victimizer (When She Was Bad); arguably her best outing was the title role in the 1983 TV biopic Grace Kelly. She has since returned to series TV from time to time, playing Liane DeViller on Crossing (1986) and Holli Holliday on the syndicated Baywatch wannabe One West Waikiki (1994). Tirelessly active in civic and charitable endeavors, Cheryl Ladd was at one time Goodwill ambassador to Childhelp USA.

Trivia: The son of a New York jeweler, American actor Gene Barry emerged from his pinchpenny Depression-era childhood with an instatiable desire for the finer things in life. The acting profession seemed to hold out promise for fame and (especially) fortune. Making the rounds of theatrical agents in the 1940s, Barry, no matter his true financial situation, showed up dressed to the nines; grim reality soon set in, however, and the actor found himself clearing little more than $2000 a year -- on good years. When stage work seemed to yield nothing but bits, Barry turned to early television, then signed a movie contract in 1951. The only truly worthwhile film to star Barry was 1953's War of the Worlds, but even with top billing he had to play second banana to George Pal's marvelous special effects. Finally in 1956, Herb Gordon of Ziv Productions asked Barry if he'd like to star in a western. The actor resisted -- after all, everyone was doing westerns -- until Gordon pointed out that role would include a derby hat, a cane, and an erudite Eastern personality. Barry was enchanted by this, and from 1957 through 1961 he starred on the popular series Bat Masterson. The strain of filming a weekly western compelled Barry to declare that he'd never star on a series again - until he was offered the plum role of millionaire police detective Amos Burke on Burke's Law. This series ran from 1963 through 1965, and might have gone on longer had the producers not tried and failed to turn it into a Man From UNCLE type spy show. Barry's next series, Name of the Game, was another success (it ran from 1969 through 1971), and wasn't quite as grueling in that the actor only had to appear in one out of every three episodes. Always the epitome of diamond-in-the-rough masculinity, Barry astounded his fans in the mid 1980s by accepting the role of an aging homosexual in the stage musical version of the French film comedy La Cage Aux Follies. Yet another successful run followed, after which Barry went into semi-retirement, working only when he felt like it. In 1993, Gene Barry was back for an unfortunately brief revival of Burke's Law, which was adjusted for the actor's age by having him avoid the action and concentrate on the detecting; even so, viewers had a great deal of difficulty believing that Burke (or Barry) was as old as he claimed to be.

Trivia: Trivia buffs and diehard fans of Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront will know that the non-speaking cab driver in the film's famed 'taxicab scene between Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger was noted character actor Nehemiah Persoff. An American resident from age 9, the Jerusalem-born Persoff spent his early adulthood working for the New York subway system. Asked in later years why he chose acting as a profession, Persoff would comment that the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe compelled him to prove himself worthy of his "gift of life." On stage in community and non-professional productions from 1940, he studied with Stella Adler at the Actor's Studio before graduating to Broadway. His first film appearance, in 1948, was in the Manhattan-based The Naked City. After attaining prominence in the mid-1950s, Persoff alternated between villainy and sympathetic roles, utilizing his ear for dialects to depict a wide array of nationalities. He was often cast as a gangster, both serious (Johnny Torrio in the 1959 feature Capone, Jake Guzik on the TV series The Untouchables) and satiric (Little Bonaparte in 1959's Some Like It Hot). His credits in the 1980s included Stalin in the 1980 TV movie FDR: The Last Year, Barbra Streisand's father in Yentl (1983), and the robust voice of Papa Mousekewitz in the 1986 animated feature An American Tail.

Trivia: Michael Fox played character parts--usually villains--in scores of television shows and in more than 100 films, mostly during the '50s and '60s. Fans of the CBS daily serial The Bold and the Beautiful will remember him for having played Saul Feinberg from 1987-1986. Born and raised in Yonkers, New York and first made his name on Broadway starring opposite Lillian Gish in The Story of Mary Stuart. Fox made his film debut in films such as Voodoo Tiger and Backhawks (both 1952). Later in his career, Fox founded the Theater East actors organization. Fox passed away at the Motion Picture Home, Woodland Hills, California. The 75-year-old was suffering from pneumonia at the time.

Trivia: Following Korean War service as a paratrooper, Hal Needham drifted into movies as a bit player. His remarkable physical dexterity and willingness to "take it" enabled him to rise up the professional ladder from stuntman to stunt coordinator to 2nd unit director. A longtime chum of Burt Reynolds (himself an ex-stuntman), Needham was given his first chance to direct a theatrical feature with Reynolds' Smokey and the Bandit (1977); the film was a huge hit, assuring Needham future assignments as both director and scriptwriter. The 1980 Reynolds vehicle Hooper was widely recognized as Reynolds and Needham's tribute to the entire fraternity of Hollywood stunters. For television, Needham directed several installments 1989 Burt Reynolds adventure series B. L. Stryker (1989) and the pilot for the syndicated adventure semi-weekly Bandit (1994); there was also a 1992 animated cartoon series titled Stunt Dawgs, wherein the central character was named Needham. Founder of the troubleshooting aggregation Stunts Unlimited (which also served as the title of a 1980 TV movie), Needham has also served as chairman for another movie-industry organization, Camera Platforms International. In addition, Hal Needham is owner of the "world's fastest car," the Budweiser Rocket, now on display at the Smithsonian Institute. Needham was awarded an Honorary Oscar in 2012 for his innovations, just one year before he died at age 82.

Trivia: Heavyweight American actor Robert Middleton trained for a musical career at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and Carnegie Tech. His deep, booming voice enabled Middleton to secure steady work as a radio actor and announcer. After appearing on Broadway in Ondine and in several live TV dramas, Middleton entered films in 1954. He was most effectively cast as burly, bullying villains, notably the sadistic prison escapee Dobish in The Desperate Hours (1955) and "grim and grisly Griswold" in Danny Kaye's The Court Jester (1956). That he could leaven his skullduggery with humor was proven in his many appearances on the Jackie Gleason shows of the mid-'50s as Ralph Kramden's boss, Mr. Marshall. Television continued to make good use of Middleton's talents into the 1960s; there was hardly a Western series in existence which didn't at least once feature the massive actor as a brutish mountain patriarch, smirking town boss, or grim-faced lynch mob leader. Shortly before his death in 1977, Robert Middleton was featured as inordinately sinister Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in the speculative feature The Lincoln Conspiracy (1977).

Trivia: American actress Farrah Fawcett was an art student at the University of Texas before she deduced that she could make more money posing for pictures than painting them. A supermodel before that phrase had fallen into common usage, Fawcett moved from Wella Balsam shampoo ads into acting, making her first film Myra Breckenridge in 1970. She worked in TV bits and full supporting parts, obtaining steady employment in 1974 with a small recurring role on the cop series Harry O, but true stardom was still some two years down the road. In 1976, producer Aaron Spelling cast Fawcett, Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith in a pilot for an adventure series titled Charlie's Angels. The pilot graduated to a series, and the rest was TV history; during her Charlie's Angels tenure Fawcett was the most visible of the three actresses, adorning magazine covers and pin-up posters (including one particularly iconic image), which set sales records. There were even Farrah Fawcett dolls before the first season of Charlie's Angels was over.Now in the hands of high-profile agents and advisors, Fawcett (billed Farrah Fawcett-Majors after her marriage to Lee Majors) decided she'd outgrown Angels and left the series, even though she had another year on her contract. While the studio drew up legal papers to block her move, she was replaced by Cheryl Ladd. Fawcett settled her dispute by agreeing to a set number of guest appearances on the program. Some industry cynics suggested that Fawcett would have problems sustaining her popularity. Certainly such lukewarm film projects as Sunburn (1979), Somebody Killed Her Husband (1978) and Saturn 3 (1980) seemed to bear this theory out. But Fawcett took matters into her own hands and decided to make her own opportunities--and like many other performers who strive to be taken seriously, she chose the most extreme, demanding method of proving her acting mettle. Playing a vengeful rape victim in both the play and 1986 film version of Extremities (an apt title) and making a meal of her role as a battered wife who murders her husband out of self-defense in the TV movie The Burning Bed (1984), Fawcett confounded her detractors and demonstrated she was a more-than-capable actress. Other TV movie appearances of varying quality cast her as everything from a child killer to a Nazi hunter to famed LIFE photographer Margaret Bourke-White. Never as big a name as she was in 1976, Fawcett nonetheless affirmed her reputation as an actress of importance. Her fans were even willing to forgive her misbegotten fling at situation comedy in the 1991 series Good Sports, in which she co-starred with her longtime "significant other" Ryan O'Neal. Fawcett died in 2009 at age 62, following a lengthy and well-publicized battle with cancer.

Trivia: A professional model since her teens, Shelley Hack made her film bow in Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977). She's the blonde passerby on the street who confesses to Woody that she's too shallow to understand what he's saying. We heard (and saw) a lot more from Hack when, in 1979, she replaced Kate Jackson on the long-running TV jigglefest Charlie's Angels. Shelley played Tiffany Welles for a single season, until she herself was replaced by Tanya Roberts. Shelley Hack survived on screen a lot longer than many people would have predicted back in 1980, co-starring in the TV weeklies Cutter to Houston (1983) and Jack and Mike (1986-87), and delivering an excellent performance in Martin Scorcese's controversial theatrical film King of Comedy (1982).

Trivia: After experience as a model and off-Broadway actress, curvaceous Tanya Roberts began appearing in film roles that relied almost exclusively on his physical attributes. In 1979's Tourist Trap, for example, the camera took a near-fetishist interest in her long and well-toned legs. Even in her big-budget movie appearances, her acting was not her strong suit, nor was it expected to be, especially in such escapist fare as Beastmaster (1982) and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle (1984). In 1980, Roberts was hired to play streetwise Julie Rogers, the last of a long line of replacement actresses in TV's Charlie's Angels (she was replacing the recently departed Shelley Hack). After her single Angels season, Roberts went back to movies, primarily horror films and high-class, soft-focus erotica. Tanya Roberts exhibited an engaging flair for self-parody as luscious secretary Velda in the made-for-TV Mike Hammer: Murder Me, Murder You (1983); but when time came to develop the film into a series, Roberts had other commitments, and was replaced by Lindsay Bloom.