Trivia: Though perhaps best remembered for playing the suave, mysterious Mr. Roarke on the popular television series Fantasy Island (1978-1984), and for his car commercials in which he seductively exhorted the pleasures of the upholstery ("Rich, Corinthian leather") in his distinctive Spanish accent, Ricardo Montalban once played romantic leads in major features of the '40s and '50s. He also had a successful career on-stage. Born Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalban y Merino in Mexico City, Montalban spent part of his youth in the U.S. The tall, dark, handsome, and curly haired actor first worked as a bit player on Broadway before returning to Mexico in the early '40s and launching a film career there. By 1947, he had returned to the States and signed with MGM. That year, Montalban played his first leading role opposite Cyd Charisse in the romantic musical Fiesta (1947). It would be the first of many roles in which he would play a passionate singing and dancing "Latin Lover." He and Charisse again teamed up as dancers in the Esther Williams musical water extravaganza in On an Island With You (1948). At one point, it was a toss-up between Montalban and fellow MGM "LL" Fernando Lamas as to which was more popular. It would not be until 1949 before Montalban had the opportunity to play a non-romantic role as a border agent who gets revenge upon the killers of his partner in Border Incident. His second serious role in Battleground (1949) ranks among his best performances. By the late '50s, he had become a character actor, often cast in ethnic roles, notably that of a genteel Japanese Kabuki actor in Sayonara (1957). He had occasionally appeared on television since the late '50s, but did not appear regularly until the mid-'70s. In 1976, Montalban earned an Emmy for his portrayal of a Sioux chief in the television miniseries How the West Was Won. In the early '70s he was part of a touring troupe that read dramatic excerpts from Shaw's Don Juan in Hell. In 1982, Montalban reprised a role he had made famous on the original Star Trek TV series as the ruthless Khan to star in the second Star Trek feature, The Wrath of Khan. In the '80s, Montalban only sporadically appeared in feature films. His television career also slowed, though he occasionally appeared on series such as The Colbys (1985-1987) and Heaven Help Us! (1994). Montalban has written an autobiography, Reflections: A Life in Two Worlds (1980). Confined to a wheelchair after a 1993 spinal operation left him paralyzed from the waist down, Montalban remiained in good health despite being in constant pain, and continued to play an active role in promoting Nostros - a non-profit organization founded by Montalban in 1970 and dedicated to improving the image of Latinos within the entertainment industry. In the late 1990s and early 2000s Moltalban's career recieved something of a second wind when he began performing vocal work on such animated television series' as Freakazoid!, Dora the Explorer, and Kim Possible, with a role as the kindly grandfather in Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over even giving the wheelchair-bound actor an opportunity to triumphantly rise once again thanks to the magic of special effects. Additional vocal work in the 2006 animated family adventure The Ant Bully continued to keep Montalban busy despite his physical limitations. His brother, Carlos Montalban, was also an actor.

Trivia: Actor Dick York started out as a child performer on radio, playing important roles in such airwaves favorites as Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy. In the early '50s, York began showing up in New York-based instructional films, including a now-infamous reel about proper dating etiquette. Establishing himself as one of Broadway's most versatile young character actors, he was seen in such major productions as Tea and Sympathy, Bus Stop, and Night of the Auk. In films from 1955, York's most famous movie role was schoolteacher Bertram Cates in Inherit the Wind, the 1960 dramatization of the Scopes Monkey Trial. Though a prolific TV guest star, he didn't settle down on a weekly series until 1962, when he co-starred with Gene Kelly and Leo G. Carroll in a short-lived video adaptation of Going My Way. Two years later, he landed his signature role: Darren Stephens, the eternally flustered husband of glamorous witch Samantha Stephens (Elizabeth Montgomery), in Bewitched. He remained with the series until 1969, when a recurring back ailment (the legacy of an on-set injury suffered while filming the 1959 feature They Came to Cordura) forced York to relinquish the role of Darren to Dick Sargent. Though he was for all intents and purposes retired from acting, York remained active on behalf of several pro-social causes. He was the founder of Acting for Life, an organization designed to help the homeless help themselves. Living a spartan existence in Grand Rapids, MI, an increasingly infirm Dick York tirelessly continued giving of himself for the benefit of others until his death from emphysema in 1992.

Trivia: Christopher Hewett spent much of his four-decade acting career toiling in roles into which he could melt -- it was only when he found a part, near the end of his career, into which he could inject a large part of himself, that he became a star. Born in England in 1922, he was the son of a former actress, and at age seven made his stage debut, in Ireland, in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. He attended Wimbledon College and served in the Royal Air Force from 1938 until 1940. Hewett became an actor after his discharge, joining the Oxford Repertory Company, where he spent the next few years learning his craft in repertory work, eventually playing over 100 roles. In 1951, at the age of 29, he made his first screen appearance in Pool of London, and he was seen as a police detective later that same year in the classic Ealing comedy The Lavender Hill Mob. Hewett left England in 1954 and moved to New York, where he made his Broadway debut in the original cast of My Fair Lady two years later. He was primarily associated with New York theater for the next 20 years, apart from a notable screen appearance in Mel Brooks' The Producers, portraying Roger DeVries, the flamboyantly gay (and transvestite) director chosen by Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) to direct his production of "Springtime for Hitler." Hewett dominated most of the scenes in which he appeared with his flamboyant, brilliantly comic performance, and his scenes included the side-splittingly funny audition of the various Hitlers, and the scene introducing Dick Shawn's character, L.S.D. The movie was a modest success on its original release, but has since become a major cult hit and something of a pop-culture phenomenon, partly owing to the immense success of Brooks' theatrical adaptation of the same story. Hewett was delightfully looney and very visible in the role, but it was such an outre screen credit, and the movie itself such a cult item in its first decade or so in release, that it led to little else in film or television for years after. Brooks subsequently used Hewett in The Elephant Man, and he started getting occasional television work, in series such as the original E.R. (1984), and as a regular on Fantasy Island (1983-1984) for one season. Hewett, by then in his sixties and somewhat overweight, had developed a persona that could be comical or villainous, yet always seemingly jovial. In 1985, he won the title role in the series Mr. Belvedere, loosely based on the film Sitting Pretty. As prissy, fastidious housekeeper/valet Lynn Belvedere, taking care of the family that had hired him, Hewett endeared himself to millions of viewers for four seasons, and was regularly covered in the television gossip columns, his ballooning weight at times eliciting public expressions of concern from his fellow cast members. He also worked in one-off appearances on Murder, She Wrote and other series. When the series finished its run in 1990, he had achieved television stardom and name recognition far beyond anything he had known -- modern viewers were often startled to realize, on seeing The Producers, that it was Hewett playing the director of the seemingly ill-starred play. He continued to make occasional television and movie appearances for the next decade. Hewett died from complications of diabetes at the age of 79.

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: Former cheerleader for the Los Angeles Rams, Jenilee Harrison's blonde hair and bubbly personality made her a shoe-in to replace Suzanne Somers on the hit TV show Three's Company in 1983. Playing the equally blonde and adorable cousin of Somers' character, Harrison stayed with the show until it ended and then assumed the role of Jamie Ewing Barnes on the hit show Dallas. She stayed with the series until 1986, when her character was killed off for a second time (after the first turned out to be a dream sequence). Harrison then moved on to participate in various projects, like the horror flick Curse III: Blood Sacrifice in 1991 and Illicit Behavior in 1992, as well as numerous infomercials.

Trivia: Supporting actor Philip McKeon got his start as a child model appearing in magazines, newspapers, and television commercials. He is best remembered for playing Tommy, the son of the title character in the long-running sitcom Alice (1976-1985). His younger sister, Nancy McKeon, is a successful television actress.

Trivia: Made TV debut in 1974 on the ABC crime-drama The Streets of San Francisco. Landed first regular TV series role in 1975 on the CBS comedy The Jeffersons, playing Jenny Willis Jefferson. Starred in Maya Angelou's play On A Southern Journey in 1983.