Trivia: The son of an Oklahoma carpet layer, James Garner did stints in the Army and merchant marines before working as a model. His professional acting career began with a non-speaking part in the Broadway play The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (1954), in which he was also assigned to run lines with stars Lloyd Nolan, Henry Fonda, and John Hodiak. Given that talent roster, and the fact that the director was Charles Laughton, Garner managed to earn his salary and receive a crash course in acting at the same time. After a few television commercials, he was signed as a contract player by Warner Bros. in 1956. He barely had a part in his first film, The Girl He Left Behind (1956), though he was given special attention by director David Butler, who felt Garner had far more potential than the film's nominal star, Tab Hunter. Due in part to Butler's enthusiasm, Garner was cast in the Warner Bros. TV Western Maverick. The scriptwriters latched on to his gift for understated humor, and, before long, the show had as many laughs as shoot-outs. Garner was promoted to starring film roles during his Maverick run, but, by the third season, he chafed at his low salary and insisted on better treatment. The studio refused, so he walked out. Lawsuits and recriminations were exchanged, but the end result was that Garner was a free agent as of 1960. He did quite well as a freelance actor for several years, turning in commendable work in such films as Boys' Night Out (1962) and The Great Escape (1963), but was soon perceived by filmmakers as something of a less-expensive Rock Hudson, never more so than when he played Hudson-type parts opposite Doris Day in Move Over, Darling and The Thrill of It All! (both 1963).Garner fared rather better in variations of his Maverick persona in such Westerns as Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) and The Skin Game (1971), but he eventually tired of eating warmed-over stew; besides, being a cowboy star had made him a walking mass of injuries and broken bones. He tried to play a more peaceable Westerner in the TV series Nichols (1971), but when audiences failed to respond, his character was killed off and replaced by his more athletic twin brother (also Garner). The actor finally shed the Maverick cloak with his long-running TV series The Rockford Files (1974-1978), in which he played a John MacDonald-esque private eye who never seemed to meet anyone capable of telling the truth. Rockford resulted in even more injuries for the increasingly battered actor, and soon he was showing up on TV talk shows telling the world about the many physical activities which he could no longer perform. Rockford ended in a spirit of recrimination, when Garner, expecting a percentage of the profits, learned that "creative bookkeeping" had resulted in the series posting none. To the public, Garner was the rough-hewn but basically affable fellow they'd seen in his fictional roles and as Mariette Hartley's partner (not husband) in a series of Polaroid commercials. However, his later film and TV-movie roles had a dark edge to them, notably his likable but mercurial pharmacist in Murphy's Romance (1985), for which he received an Oscar nomination, and his multifaceted co-starring stints with James Woods in the TV movies Promise (1986) and My Name Is Bill W. (1989). In 1994, Garner came full circle in the profitable feature film Maverick (1994), in which the title role was played by Mel Gibson. With the exception of such lower-key efforts as the noir-ish Twilight (1998) and the made-for-TV thriller Dead Silence (1997), Garner's career in the '90s found the veteran actor once again tapping into his latent ability to provoke laughs in such efforts as Space Cowboys (2000) while maintaining a successful small-screen career by returning to the role of Jim Rockford in several made-for-TV movies. He provided a voice for the popular animatedfeature Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) and appeared in the comedy-drama The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002). Garner enjoyed a career resurgance in 2003, when he joined the cast of TV's 8 Simple Rules, acting as a sort of replacement for John Ritter, who had passed away at the beginning of the show's second season. He next appeared in The Notebook (2004), which earned Garner a Screen Actors Guild nomination and also poised him to win the Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award. His last on-screen role was a small supporting role in The Ultimate Gift (2007). In 2008, Garner suffered a stroke and retired acting. He died in 2014, at age 86.

Trivia: Muscular leading man Ed Nelson started out as a member of quickie-filmmaker Roger Corman's stock company, appearing in such drive-in fodder as Hot Rod Girl (1956), Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) and Cry Baby Killer. In these and other low-budgeters of the late 1950s, Nelson not only starred, but doubled on the technical crew: he was one of several production assistants portraying the title crustacean in The Attack of the Crab Monsters (1956), and designed and operated the parasite props in 1958's The Brain Eaters, which he also produced. Eventually outgrowing such things, Nelson rose to TV stardom as Dr. Michael Rossi on the prime time soap opera Peyton Place, which ran from 1964 through 1969. He later starred as Ward Fuller on The Silent Force (1970) and as Dr. Michael Wise in Doctor's Private Lives (1979). In 1969, Nelson hosted a daily, syndicated talk show, which he was ultimately forced to give up when he decided to enter politics ("conflict of interests" and "equal time" were still considerations back then). He played President Truman several times, including the 1980 TV movie Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb, in the 1992 Brooke Shields flick Brenda Starr and onstage in Give 'Em Hell, Harry. Nelson died in 2014 at age 85.

Trivia: Slim, ladylike British actress Dana Wynter spent most of her childhood in Rhodesia, where she attended Rhodes University as a pre-med student. An amateur preoccupation with theater led to a lifelong professional commitment; she made her first stage appearances before she turned 20, and her first film, White Corridors (1951), at 21. From 1955 through 1960 Wynter was under contract to 20th Century Fox studios in Hollywood. Usually called upon merely to exhibit cool-headed British reserve, she was given an excellent opportunity to display hysteria and near-lunacy in 1958's In Love and War. In films until the late '80s, Dana Wynter has also done a great deal of television; in 1966, she co-starred with Robert Lansing on the British-filmed espionage series The Man Who Never Was, and was cast (superbly) as Queen Elizabeth in the 1982 TV movie The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana.

Trivia: A gruff character actor, Caridi has been onscreen from the '70s.

Trivia: Following study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and subsequent stage and modeling experience, legendary actress Lauren Bacall gained nationwide attention by posing for a 1943 cover of Harper's Bazaar magazine. This photo prompted film director Howard Hawks to put her under personal contract, wanting to "create" a movie star from fresh, raw material.For her screen debut, Hawks cast Bacall opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not (1944). The young actress was so nervous that she walked around with her chin pressed against her collarbone to keep from shaking. As a result, she had to glance upward every time she spoke, an affectation which came across as sexy and alluring, earning Bacall the nickname "The Look." She also spoke in a deep, throaty manner, effectively obscuring the fact that she was only 19-years-old. Thanks to the diligence of Hawks and his crew -- and the actress' unique delivery of such lines as "If you want anything, just whistle..." -- Bacall found herself lauded as the most sensational newcomer of 1944. She also found herself in love with Humphrey Bogart, whom she subsequently married. Bogie and Bacall co-starred in three more films, which increased the actress' popularity, but also led critics to suggest that she was incapable of carrying a picture on her own. Bacall's disappointing solo turn in Confidential Agent (1945) seemed to confirm this, but the actress was a quick study and good listener, and before long she was turning in first-rate performances in such films as Young Man With a Horn (1950) and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). Bogart's death in 1957 after a long and painful bout with cancer left Bacall personally devastated, though, in the tradition of her show-must-go-on husband, she continued to perform to the best of her ability in films such as Designing Woman (1957) and The Gift of Love (1958). In the late '60s, after Bacall's second marriage to another hard-case actor, Jason Robards Jr., she received only a handful of negligible film roles and all but dropped out of moviemaking. In 1970, Bacall made a triumphant comeback in the stage production Applause, a musical adaptation of All About Eve, in which she played grand dame Margo Channing, a role originally played by Bette Davis in the film version. Her sultry-vixen persona long in the past, Bacall spent the '70s playing variations on her worldly, resourceful Applause role, sometimes merely being decorative (Murder on the Orient Express, 1974), but most often delivering class-A performances (The Shootist, 1976). After playing the quasi-autobiographical part of a legendary, outspoken Broadway actress in 1981's The Fan, she spent the next ten years portraying Lauren Bacall -- and no one did it better. In 1993, Bacall proved once more that she was a superb actress and not merely a "professional personality" in the made-for-cable film The Portrait, in which she and her Designing Woman co-star Gregory Peck played a still-amorous elderly couple. During the filming of The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), Bacall traveled to France to accept a special César Award for her lifetime achievement in film. For her role in Mirror, which cast her as Barbra Streisand's mother, Bacall earned a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination. She continued to work on a number of projects into the next decade, including Diamonds, in which she appeared alongside Kirk Douglas, with whom she last co-starred in the 1950 romantic drama Young Man with a Horn.In the new century she worked twice with internationally respected filmmaker Lars von Trier, appearing in Dogville and Manderlay. She was in the Nicole Kidman film Birth, and appeared in the documentary Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff. Bacall won an Honorary Oscar in 2010. She died in 2014 at age 89.

Trivia: Carnegie Tech alumnus Gretchen Corbett made her professional acting bow with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Corbett's first New York stage appearance was in a 1967 revival of Shaw's Arms and the Man. While specializing in the classics on-stage, her film assignments were on a less artistically lofty plane. Her first film was 1969's Out of It, followed by such credits as Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971) and the made-for-TV Mandrake (1979). Gretchen Corbett's TV-series obligations have included a lengthy run as attorney Beth Davenport on The Rockford Files (1974-1980) and reluctant parallel-universe denizen June Sterling on Otherworld (1985).

Trivia: Stuart Margolin was a published writer and off-Broadway playwright before he was old enough to vote. The pinch-faced, curly-headed Margolin began showing up in character parts in 1966, in films like Women of a Prehistoric Planet and TV series like Occasional Wife. He was a staff writer and member of the acting ensemble on the popular sitcom anthology Love American Style, which ran from 1969 through 1974. In 1971, Margolin co-starred on the western series Nichols, launching his long friendship and professional association with actor James Garner. He went on to win two Emmy awards for his portrayal of mildly larcenous Angel Martin on Garner's long-running (1974-80) series The Rockford Files; played Philo Sandine on the 1981 retro Garner TV vehicle Bret Maverick; and guest-starred on the first episode of Garner's short-lived "dramedy" Man of the People (1991). Stuart Margolin turned to directing in the 1980s, beginning with (inevitably) a brace of James Garner TV movies, The Long Summer of George Adams (1982) and The Glitter Dome (1984)); he has since helmed two theatrical features, Paramedics and Donna d'Onore (both 1990).

Trivia: When asked why he decided upon becoming an actor, Joe Santos tended to trot out the tried-and-true rationale "because I failed at everything else." While attending Fordham University, Santos excelled at football, but lost interest in the sport after a few semi-pro years. By the time he was 30, Santos had been remarkably unsuccessful in a variety of vocations, including railroad worker, tree cutter, automobile importer and tavern owner. While working a construction job in New York, Santos was invited by a friend to sit in on an acting class. This seemed like an easy way to make a living, so Santos began making the audition rounds, almost immediately landing a good part on a TV soap opera. This gig unfortunately led nowhere, and for the next year or so Santos drove a cab for 10 to 11 hours a day. The novice actor's first big break was a part in the 1971 film Panic in Needle Park, which he received at the recommendation of the film's star (and Santos' frequent softball partner) Al Pacino. With the plum part of Sergeant Cruz in the four-part TV drama The Blue Knight (1973), Santos inaugurated a fruitful, still-thriving career in "cop" roles, the best and longest-lasting of which was detective Dennis Becker on the James Garner series The Rockford Files (1974-80). Joe Santos' other series-TV credits include the top-billed part of deadbeat dad Norman Davis in Me and Maxx (1980), Hispanic nightclub comic Paul Rodriguez' disapproving father in AKA Pablo (1984), and Lieutenant Frank Harper in the 1985-86 episodes of Hardcastle and McCormick. One of his final roles was a recurring gig on The Sopranos. Santos died in 2016, at age 84.

Trivia: Tough-guy American actor James Luisi could usually be found playing cops or plainclothes detectives. Luisi spent four (1976-80) years in the role of Lt. Doug Chapman on TV's The Rockford Files, later repeating the characterization (now promoted to Captain) in two Rockford TV-movies of the mid-1990s. On daytime TV, he was seen as Phil Wainwright in Another World. James Luisi's TV resumé also included the roles of garage owner Harry Foreman in Harris and Company (1979) and police lieutenant Marciano in Renegades (1983).

Trivia: Born in New York City while his father Noah Beery Sr. was appearing on-stage, Noah Beery Jr. was given his lifelong nickname, "Pidge," by Josie Cohan, sister of George M. Cohan "I was born in the business," Pidge Beery observed some 63 years later. "I couldn't have gotten out of it if I wanted to." In 1920, the younger Beery made his first screen appearance in Douglas Fairbanks' The Mark of Zorro (1920), which co-starred dad Noah as Sergeant Garcia. Thanks to a zoning mistake, Pidge attended the Hollywood School for Girls (his fellow "girls" included Doug Fairbanks Jr. and Jesse Lasky Jr.), then relocated with his family to a ranch in the San Fernando Valley, miles from Tinseltown. While some kids might have chafed at such isolation, Pidge loved the wide open spaces, and upon attaining manhood emulated his father by living as far away from Hollywood as possible. After attending military school, Pidge pursued film acting in earnest, appearing mostly in serials and Westerns, sometimes as the hero, but usually as the hero's bucolic sidekick. His more notable screen credits of the 1930s and '40s include Of Mice and Men (1939), Only Angels Have Wings (again 1939, this time as the obligatory doomed-from-the-start airplane pilot), Sergeant York (1941), We've Never Been Licked (1943), and Red River (1948). He also starred in a group of rustic 45-minute comedies produced by Hal Roach in the early '40s, and was featured in several popular B-Western series; one of these starred Buck Jones, whose daughter Maxine became Pidge's first wife. Perhaps out of a sense of self-preservation, Beery appeared with his camera-hogging uncle Wallace Beery only once, in 1940's 20 Mule Team. Children of the 1950s will remember Pidge as Joey the Clown on the weekly TV series Circus Boy (1956), while the more TV-addicted may recall Beery's obscure syndicated travelogue series, co-starring himself and his sons. The 1960s found Pidge featured in such A-list films as Inherit the Wind (1960) and as a regular on the series Riverboat and Hondo. He kicked off the 1970s in the role of Michael J. Pollard's dad (there was a resemblance) in Little Fauss and Big Halsey. Though Beery was first choice for the part of James Garner's father on the TV detective series The Rockford Files, Pidge was committed to the 1973 James Franciscus starrer Doc Elliot, so the Rockford producers went with actor Robert Donley in the pilot episode. By the time The Rockford Files was picked up on a weekly basis, Doc Elliot had tanked, thus Donley was dropped in favor of Beery, who stayed with the role until the series' cancellation in 1978. Pidge's weekly-TV manifest in the 1980s included Quest (1981) and The Yellow Rose (1983). After a brief illness, Noah Beery Jr. died at his Tehachapi, CA, ranch at the age of 81.

Trivia: Leo Gordon cut one of the toughest, meanest, and most memorable figures on the screen of any character actor of his generation -- and he came by some of that tough-guy image naturally, having done time in prison for armed robbery. At 6 feet 2 inches tall, and with muscles to match, Gordon was an implicitly imposing screen presence, and most often played villains, although when he did play someone on the side of the angels he was equally memorable. Early in his adult life, Gordon did, indeed, serve a term at San Quentin for armed robbery; but after his release he studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and was a working actor by the early 1950's. His first credited screen appearance (as Leo V. Gordon) was on television, in the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of "The Blue And White Lamp", with Frank Albertson and Earl Rowe, in 1952. His early feature film appearances included roles in China Venture (1953) and Gun Fury (1953), the latter marking the start of his long association with westerns, which was solidified with his villainous portrayal in the John Wayne vehicle Hondo (1953). It was in Don Siegel's Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), which was shot at San Quentin, that a lot of mainstream filmgoers discovered precisely how fearsome Gordon could be, in the role of "Crazy Mike Carnie." One of the most intimidating members of a cast that was overflowing with tough guys (and which used real cons as extras), Gordon's career was made after that. Movie work just exploded for the actor, and he was in dozens of pictures a year over the next few years, as well as working in a lot of better television shows, and he also earned a regular spot in the series Circus Boy, as Hank Miller. More typical, however, was his work in the second episode of the western series Bonanza, "Death on Sun Mountain", in which he played a murderous profiteer in Virginia City's boomtown days. Once in a while, directors triped to tap other sides of his screen persona, as in the western Black Patch (1957). And at the start of the next decade, Gordon got one of his rare (and best) non-villain parts in a movie when Roger Corman cast him in The Intruder (1962), in the role of Sam Griffin, an onlooker who takes it upon himself to break up a race riot in a small southern town torn by court-ordered school integration. But a year later, he was back in his usual villain mold -- and as good as ever at it -- in McLintock!; in one of the most famous scenes of his career, he played the angry homesteader whose attempt to lynch a Native American leads to a head-to-head battle with John Wayne, bringing about an extended fight featuring the whole cast in a huge mud-pit. Gordon was still very busy as an actor and sometime writer well into the 1980's and early 1990's. He played General Omar Bradley in the mini-series War And Remembrance, and made his final screen appearance as Wyatt Earp in the made-for-television vehicle The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Hollywood Follies. He passed away in 2000 of natural causes.