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: The son of musical arranger Val McCann, rotund American comic actor Chuck McCann began working up laugh-getting routines while attending high school. A nightclub performer at 17, McCann made regular, well-received appearances on Steve Allen's various network programs even before he was twenty. In 1959 McCann launched a local Manhattan kid's show, Let's Have Fun, where he hosted Laurel and Hardy comedies and read the newspaper funnies -- with appropriately zany voices for such characters as Little Orphan Annie and Dick Tracy. His gift for mimickry was a godsend for the many novelty records and animated cartoons for which McCann provided voiceovers (he was still a cartoon regular into the '90s). As a film actor, McCann offered a brilliant, noncomic performance in 1968's Heart is a Lonely Hunter; and in collaboration with his friend Harry Hurwitz he co-wrote and starred in a marvelous pastiche of old movie clips and new routines titled The Projectionist (1971). Chuck McCann's greatest fame rests securely on his many appearances as Oliver Hardy (with such actors as Jim McGeorge and Larry Harmon in the Stan Laurel role) in TV commercials for everything from gasoline to pizza, and for his recurring appearances as the "Hi, guy" nosey neighbor in the Right Guard commercials of the '60s and '70s.

Trivia: The daughter of Sheila and Gordon MacRae, actress/singer Meredith MacRae was virtually born into a show business career, and with her voice and good looks it would have been difficult for her to have avoided such a choice, even if she'd wanted to. Her parents actually led a surprisingly unpretentious middle-class life-style, and she earned all of her breaks, whether they were roles in movies (Bikini Beach) or a chance at a recording career -- she cut a handful of records in the early/middle 1960s. But it was on the series My Three Sons in 1963 that she first became widely known on the small-screen, when she took the role of Sally Morrison. After two years in that part, she moved on to Petticoat Junction, where she took over the role of Billie Jo Bradley from Guinilla Hutton -- she kept the part for the five years remaining in the series' run, and the producers enabled MacRae to feature her singing ability in the part. Following the cancellation of the series, MacRae went on to do guest spots of series ranging from Fantasy Island to The Rackford Files, and she was also a frequence guest on game shows. She was also active in summer stock and regional theater productions of such shows as Bye Bye Birdie and Take Me Along, and raised money for various medical charities. MacRae died of complications from brain cancer in the summer of 2000.

Trivia: Though his official film debut was 1955's House of Bamboo, American actor Robert Quarry had been playing bit parts since at least 1943. In his mid-forties, Quarry finally attained stardom as the leading character in Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) and Return of Count Yorga(1971). Touted as the "new Vincent Price" (with whom he co-starred in 1973's Dr. Phibes Rises Again), Quarry went on to play such juicy roles as the mad guru in Deathmaster (1975, which he also produced) before inexplicably fading from films in the late 1970s. Except for a one-shot as Michael Anthony in a 1978 TV-movie revival of the old series The Millionaire, Quarry virtually disappeared, returning in the mid-1980s in a smattering of low-budget "regional" thrillers.

Trivia: Was an avid fan of horror films in his childhood days. Enlisted in the United States Navy before attending college. Was a member of the Gamma Phi Fraternity while attending Duquesne University. Got interested in acting when he was in his 20s. Primarily known for his work in horror and thriller films.

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: 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: 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: Most filmgoers and television viewers know Jason Evers for his performances on such series as The Guns of Will Sonnett, movies like The Green Berets, and guest-starring roles on programs such as Star Trek ("Wink of an Eye"). In reality, the actor has had a much longer career than those movie and television credits rooted in the 1960s and 1970s. Born Herbert Evers in the Bronx, NY, in 1922, he was the son of a theatrical ticket agent. Evers left De Witt Clinton High School before graduation in order to pursue an acting career and landed an apprenticeship with the Ethel Barrymore Colt Jitney Players, with whom he toured the country for two years at the end of the 1930s. In the early '40s, he was signed up by producer Brock Pemberton, who cast him in his breakthrough part, as Pvt. Dick Lawrence in the play Janie. That play established Evers as a handsome male ingenue, of a type similar to contemporaries such as Van Heflin, Van Johnson, and Bill Williams. He subsequently endured a series of flop plays, as well as two years in uniform. After returning to civilian life, Evers resumed his career, principally in road company productions, including a tour of I Am a Camera with Veronica Lake. By then Evers was married to actress Shirley Ballard and the two frequently found themselves struggling financially between roles. Strangely enough, their marriage ended just at a point when the two were working together in a successful Broadway play entitled Fair Game. By 1960, Evers was ready to make the jump to the potentially greener pastures of the West Coast, and possible film work. He landed the leading role in a summer replacement television series called Wrangler, portraying a rugged, laconic cowboy. In the bargain, he also traded in his first name for the smoother and more manly Jason Evers. The series wasn't picked up for the regular season but Evers was on the map, his new name and image working very much in his favor. Jason Evers was a fresh name and face, and he had also acquired an intense, edgy quality, in sharp contrast to the callow handsomeness of his image in the 1940s and 1950s. Herbert Evers seemed a slightly bland leading man, but Jason Evers, in name and image, conveyed intensity and even danger. He did a few small movie roles at the outset of the decade, and then got the only starring screen role of his career -- unfortunately, the latter was in the horror thriller The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962). The actor -- credited as Herb Evers -- played a scientist obsessed with the idea of keeping the severed head of his fiancée alive. Luckily, no one of any consequence in the entertainment industry ever saw the film (which has since been embraced by bad-movie cultists, and has turned up on Mystery Science Theater 3000), or tied "Herb Evers" up with Jason Evers. In 1964, he got another crack at a series with Channing, a topical drama set at a university -- a kind of collegiate answer to Mr. Novak -- co-starring Henry Jones. That program failed to find an audience, but by then, Evers was making a massive number of guest-star appearances, on series as different as Gunsmoke and Star Trek, often playing villains. He also played important supporting roles in feature films, including an excellent performance in The Green Berets, as the doomed Captain Coleman, the outgoing commander of the forward base where John Wayne's Colonel Kirby tries to make a stand. Evers landed what was arguably his best television role on the series The Guns of Will Sonnett, portraying Jim Sonnett, the gunslinger who is the object of a search through the West by his father (Walter Brennan) and son (Dack Rambo). Evers was perfect as Jim Sonnett, grim and taciturn and, yet, beneath his nasty veneer as a tired veteran gunman, concerned for the well-being of his father and son once he knows they are looking for him. The only problem with the role was that he hardly ever got to play it -- as the object of the quest at the center of the series' plot, he only actually appeared onscreen a handful of times during the two-year run of the series. Still, it was an actor's dream of a part, in the sense that his character was discussed prominently in every episode, and figured in virtually every plot complication and development; no performer could ask for a better lead-in than that to his actually taking the stage, and his appearances were memorable. Evers' career began to wind down during the 1970s, amid roles of varying size in such movies as Escape From the Planet of the Apes and Barracuda, and the horror-exploitation movie Claws. Evers has been in retirement since the mid-'80s, although he did briefly return to work, portraying a role in Basket Case 2 (1990).

Trivia: Supporting actor Gilbert Green first appeared onscreen in the '60s.