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: American actor John Astin was the son of Dr. Allen V. Astin, director of the National Bureau of Standards. Evidently inheriting his intellectual bent from his father, Astin was a voracious reader and mathematician, at one point in his high school career mastering an entire semester's worth of study in one evening (that's his story, anyway). A part in the senior play at Johns Hopkins University (where he was majoring in math) cemented his desire to act, and in 1952 Astin did graduate work in dramatics at the University of Minnesota, where he appeared in 40 plays in and around the campus, played the violin, and gambled incessantly (and badly). With $100 in his pocket, Astin headed to New York, where he did janitorial work in theatres until securing a role in the off-Broadway Threepenny Opera for a princely $15 per week. Better money came Astin's way when he started doing voice-over work for animated commercials; in 1961 he extended his acting skills to films in a small but memorable part as a smarmy social worker in the Oscar-winning West Side Story. In 1962, Astin was teamed with Marty Ingels on the blue-collar sitcom I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, which despite a loyal following failed to garner ratings. The show did, however, establish Astin as a reliable laugh-getter, leading to a more successful run as Gomez Addams, the macabre but passionate paterfamilias on The Addams Family. This series ran from 1964 to 1966, after which Astin spent a great deal of time touring the country in theatrical productions - often living out of a van, a lifestyle he seemed to thrive upon. Joining Astin during his barnstorming days was his second wife, actress Patty Duke, who called herself Patty Duke Astin for the duration (Astin and Duke raised a son, Sean Astin, who grew up to become a popular film actor in his own right). The marriage ultimately dissolved due in part to Astin's bohemian point of view, though while the union lasted both Astin and Duke were tireless workaholics who were rarely without acting gigs. His many credits during this time period include 1974's Skyway to Death, and playing the dad in the original version of Freaky Friday. He directed and appeared in the TV movie Operation Petticoat. In the 1980's he landed recurring roles on both Murder, She Wrote and the sitcom Night Court. His marriage to Patti Duke ended in 1985, but Astin maintained a busy schedule appearing as a game-show host in National Lampoon's European Vacation, Teen Wolf Two, and Return of the Killer Tomatoes! As the 90s got under way he made two more Killer Tomatoes movies, appeared on the TV shows Mad About You and The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., and earned favorable reviews for his appearance in The Frighteners.

Trivia: American singer/actress Janis Paige was singing in public from age 5 in local amateur shows. Journeying from her native Washington to Los Angeles after high school, Paige secured a job as vocalist at the Hollywood Canteen, a studio-sponsored gathering spot for servicemen. It was only logical, then, that her first feature film upon being signed by Warner Bros. would be Hollywood Canteen (1944). A few musicals aside, Paige didn't get to sing much in her subsequent films, appearing mostly as ingenues and second leads. She left for Broadway in 1950, where she scored a hit in the popular comedy-mystery Remains to Be Seen, in which she costarred with then-husband Jackie Cooper. A few seasons later, Paige enjoyed her biggest hit in the Tony-Winning musical comedy The Pajama Game. Back in Hollywood, Paige watched as her stage roles went to bigger actresses (the star of the filmization of Pajama Game was her old rival at Warners, Doris Day), but she managed to secure one memorable movie role as an Esther Williams-like aquatic movie star in 1957's Silk Stockings. Janis was permitted one strong number, "Stereophonic Sound," with costar Fred Astaire, and copped most of the film's laughs as she slapped herself in the head to get the water out of her ears during interviews. The actress was a fixture of television from the early '50s onward, starring in the sitcom It's Always Jan and featured in recurring roles on such series as Eight is Enough, Trapper John MD, and Lanigan's Rabbi. Perhaps her most conspicuous prime-time TV role was as the waitress who conducted a brief affair with Archie Bunker on All in the Family. Daytime TV fans have been treated to Paige's talents on such serials as General Hospital, Capitol, and Santa Barbara, while devotees of summer stock theatre will remember the actress as star of straw-hat productions of Gypsy and Pajama Game in the '60s. As busy off-camera as on, Janis Paige was the founder of the Sunset Plaza Civic Association; and after the death of her composer husband Ray Gilbert (who penned "Zip-i-dee-Doo-Dah"), Paige was placed in charge of Gilbert's Ipanema Music Company.

Trivia: American actress Celeste Holm made her first stage appearance in 1936 with a Pennsylvania stock company. Sophisticated and poised beyond her years, Holm was cast shortly afterward in a touring company of the ultra-chic Clare Boothe Luce comedy The Women, then played New York in such high-profile productions as The Time of Your Life. Rodgers and Hammerstein cast her as soubrette Ado Annie in Oklahoma! in 1943; both the production itself and Annie's show-stopping song "I Cain't Say No" affirmed Holm's future stardom. Following her film debut in Three Little Girls in Blue (1946), she was cast by her studio, 20th Century-Fox, in the role of the love-starved fashion editor in the prestige feature Gentlemen's Agreement (1947), for which she won an Academy Award. The important role of Bette Davis' understanding friend in another Oscar-winner, All About Eve (1950), has immortalized Holm amongst the film cultists. Stage, nightclub and television assignments followed (she starred in the short-lived 1950s sitcom Honestly, Celeste), and from the late 1950s onward, Holm was more at home on stage than in films. Her performance in the touring company of Mame won Holm the Sara Siddons Award -- coincidentally the same award presented to the title character at the beginning of All About Eve. Always choosy about her roles, Holm remained active through the early 2000s whenever a good part struck her fancy; one of her most frequently rebroadcast assignments was as a custody court judge in an early-1980s episode of Archie Bunker's Place and she appeared in several episodes of Touched By an Angel. She died in 2012 at the age of 95.

Trivia: Television director George McCowan launched his career in his native Canada working on-stage and for the Canadian Broadcasting Company. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1967 and remained there, helming series' episodes and made-for-television movies until his death in 1995. McCowan only occasionally ventured into helming feature films such as Frogs (1972) and Shadow of the Hawk (1976). Television series on which he worked included Streets of San Francisco, Fantasy Island, and Hart to Hart.

Trivia: Supporting and character actor Herve Villechaize appeared in 13 feature films, but he is best remembered for playing Tattoo, Ricardo Montalban's chirpy sidekick on Fantasy Island (1978-1983). Born to a French father and English mother, Villechaize was a dwarf who stopped growing taller after hitting 3'9". Before becoming an actor, Villechaize studied art in Paris and New York. Deciding acting was the better venue, he studied under drama teacher Julie Bovasso. He made his feature film debut in The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight (1971) and went on to play small "novelty" roles in exploitation and cult movies such as Malatesta's Carnival and Oliver Stone's Seizure (1974). One of his more notable roles was that of an evil dwarf in the James Bond thriller The Man With the Golden Gun (1974). Villechaize was married three times. On September 4, 1993, he fatally shot himself, allegedly to escape his many health problems.

Trivia: A veteran soap opera actress, Judith Chapman has enjoyed starring roles on As the World Turns, Ryan's Hope, General Hospital, One Life to Live, Days of Our Lives, and The Young and the Restless. In addition to her impressive list of soap roles, Chapman has also appeared in numerous movies over the years, such as Dead Space and 28 Days.