Trivia: Commenting on his notorious on-set irascibility in 1977, Jack Klugman replied that he was merely "taking Peter Falk lessons from Robert Blake," invoking the names of two other allegedly hard-to-please TV stars. Klugman grew up in Philadelphia, and after taking in a 1939 performance by New York's Group Theatre, Klugman decided that an actor's life was right up his alley. He majored in drama at Carnegie Tech and studied acting at the American Theatre Wing before making his (non-salaried) 1949 stage-debut at the Equity Library Theater. While sharing a New York flat with fellow hopeful Charles Bronson, Klugman took several "grub" jobs to survive, at one point selling his blood for $85 a pint. During television's so-called Golden Age, Klugman appeared in as many as 400 TV shows. He made his film debut in 1956, and three years later co-starred with Ethel Merman in the original Broadway production of Gypsy. In 1964, Klugman won the first of his Emmy awards for his performance in "Blacklist," an episode of the TV series The Defenders; that same year, he starred in his first sitcom, the 13-week wonder Harris Against the World. Far more successful was his next TV series, The Odd Couple, which ran from 1970 through 1974; Klugman won two Emmies for his portrayal of incorrigible slob Oscar Madison (he'd previously essayed the role when he replaced Walter Matthau in the original Broadway production of the Neil Simon play). It was during Odd Couple's run that the network "suits" got their first real taste of Klugman's savage indignation, when he and co-star Tony Randall threatened to boycott the show unless the idiotic laughtrack was removed (Klugman and Randall won that round; from 1971 onward, Odd Couple was filmed before a live audience). It was but a foretaste of things to come during Klugman's six-year (1977-83) reign as star of Quincy, M.E.. Popular though Klugman was in the role of the crusading, speechifying LA County Coroner's Office medical examiner R. Quincy, he hardly endeared himself to the producers when he vented his anger against their creative decisions in the pages of TV Guide. Nor was he warmly regarded by the Writer's Guild when he complained about the paucity of high-quality scripts (he wrote several Quincy episodes himself, with mixed results). After Quincy's cancellation, Klugman starred in the Broadway play I'm Not Rappaport and co-starred with John Stamos in the 1986 sitcom You Again?. The future of Klugman's career -- and his future, period -- was sorely threatened when he underwent throat surgery in 1989. He'd been diagnosed with cancer of the larynx as early as 1974, but at that time was able to continue working after a small growth was removed. For several years after the 1989 operation, Klugman was unable to speak, though he soon regained this ability. He continued working through 2011, and died the following year at age 90.

Trivia: Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1931, Robert Ito has spent his film career as a character actor, often in the science fiction genre. He enjoyed success on the long-running television series Quincy, and his voice has been used in many animated films, such as Batman and Superman.Robert Ito's first performances were on the stage as a dancer in the National Ballet of Canada. After a decade with the company, Ito moved to New York in the 1960s, to dance on Broadway in The Flower Drum Song.Ito moved to Hollywood and began his film career in 1966 with some forgettable science fiction vehicles, such as Women of the Prehistoric Planet and Dimension 5. The B-movie genre often turned to Ito when it wanted an actor to portray someone of his Japanese heritage. Over the years, he played many such roles, the most outstanding of which was his performance as Professor Hikita, the kidnapped scientist in the 1984 cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.Ito fared well in television, in which he was given roles that showcased his talents in made-for-television movies and series. He appeared in some memorable dramas, such as Helter Skelter (1976), American Geisha (1986), and The War Between Us (1996). The latter film starred Ito as a Canadian World War I veteran and patriarch of a family of Japanese descent, forced to leave his home in Vancouver during the dark days of Japanese resettlement following Pearl Harbor.Ito also gained distinction for his role as Fong in the Kung Fu series, as well as on popular show Quincy. He made cameo appearances in many other television shows including Magnum, P.I. and Star Trek, which featured him in a 2001 production.

Trivia: Supporting actress Irene Tedrow spent most of her 60-year career on stage, but she also had considerable experience in feature films and on television. Slender and possessing an austere beauty, Tedrow was well suited for the rather prim and moral characters she most often played. After establishing herself on stage in the early '30s, she made her film debut in 1937. She gained fame during the 1940s playing Mrs. Janet Archer in the Meet Corliss Archer film series. She kept the role in the subsequent television series. She played Mrs. Elkins on Dennis the Menace between 1959 and 1963. In 1976, Tedrow earned an Emmy for her performance in Eleanor and Franklin.

Trivia: The daughter of actor James Daly and sister of actor Tim Daly, Emmy award-winning American actress Tyne Daly was destined early on to enter the family business. After graduation from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, Tyne worked on stage and appeared in TV guest spots starting in the early '70s. While applauded for her talent, Daly found full stardom eluding her for several years during a long string of busted TV pilots like In Search of America (1971), Doctor Granger (1972), Fitzgerald and Pride (1972) and Hotshot Harry and the Rocking Chair Renegades (1979) did little to make her bankable (though her performance as Kate, female partner to Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry Callahan, in the 1976 action opus The Enforcer, most assuredly helped).Then in 1981, Tyne Daly and Loretta Swit were cast in the pilot of Cagney and Lacey, an unusual (for U.S. prime time television) story of two policewomen who could handle their jobs with courage and assuredness. The success of the pilot led to a series in 1982, with Daly cast as Detective Mary Beth Lacey (opposite Meg Foster and later Sharon Gless). The series witnessed the character fighting to be accepted on equal terms with her male counterparts, and also struggling to maintain a normal home life as wife and mother. Daly's realistic portrayal earned her considerable praise from real-life law enforcement officials. Cagney and Lacey was cancelled in 1983, but returned to the air a year later thanks to a letter-writing campaign mounted by viewers. By the time the series ended in 1988, Daly had won four Emmy awards for her portrayal of Lacey. In 1994 she starred opposite Kellie Martin in the short-lived inspirational TV drama Christy, and in 1995 appeared in a trio of Cagney and Lacey reunions. In subsequent years Daly switched venues, devoting her energies to the Broadway stage. Her accomplishments during this period included scoring a personal triumph and winning a Tony as Mama Rose in the 1989-90 revival of the 1959 musical Gypsy, and taking on untold challenges in a five-role, one-woman show, Mystery School, at Gotham's Angel Orensanz Foundation Center in 1998 (revived 2008). As time rolled on, the actress (like Cagney co-star Gless) returned to television, notably with a key supporting role as the lead character's domineering, judgmental mother on the series drama Judging Amy (1999-2005) (a series on which Gless occasionally appeared as a guest star). Having caught the theatrical bug, however, Daly also retained her footing on stage in such outings as the acclaimed Rabbit Hole (2006) (opposite John Slattery and Cynthia Nixon).

Trivia: A Yale man, American actor Robert Ginty was of the Sid Haig / Harry Dean Stanton / Charles Napier school of film performing. Whether good guy or bad, Ginty's acting style was sullen and laconic, as if he held some appalling secret that it was best the world not know. He specialized in low-budget films, where his expertise shone all the more in his many performance as drifters, loners, and troubled war vets. Ginty has also directed from time to time, though no festival awards have been garnered by The Bounty Hunter (1989) and Vietnam, Texas (1990). Among Robert Ginty's TV series credits are Black Sheep Squadron (1976), The Paper Chase (1979), and Hawaiian Heat (1984) (a rare "establishment" role as a cop).

Trivia: American actress Patricia Barry was signed for a Columbia Pictures contract almost immediately upon her graduation from Stephens College. Billed as Patricia White, the young actress was kept busy in Gene Autry westerns, two-reel comedies with such funsters as Andy Clyde and Sterling Holloway, and occasional leads in B-plus features like The Wreck of the Hesperus (1948). Changing her professional name upon her marriage to producer/director Philip Barry, Jr. (son of the famed playwright), Patricia became one of the most visible actresses in 1950s television. She spent two years as a regular on the daytime drama First Love, and worked steadily in such anthologies as Playhouse 90 and Matinee Theatre. Though an advocate of the "method" school of acting, Barry's technique was a lot less self-indulgent and timewasting than most method actors of her era, and she continued popping up with regularity on TV shows of the 1960s, including a costarring stint with Jack Klugman in the short-lived 1964 sitcom Harris Against the World. Active in TV and films into the 1980s, Patricia Barry is probably best known to modern viewers for her performances in two Twilight Zone installments, "The Chaser" (1960) and "I Dream of Jeannie," wherein she pulled off the dextrous task of being both sexy and funny at the same time and for her work on soap operas, including Days of Our Lives and All My Children. Barry died in 2016, at age 93.

Trivia: The son of British actor Wilfred Hyde-White, Alex Hyde-White began his own career in his teens, appearing briefly in Captain America (1979). Hyde-White's later film characterizations include Young Henry in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1990) and David Morse in Pretty Woman (1990). What might have been his breakthrough role in Roger Corman's Fantastic Four (1994) fizzled when, for legal reasons, the film was completely withdrawn from view. Alex Hyde-White was at one time married to Karen Dotrice, herself a second-generation British performer (her father was Roy Dotrice).

Trivia: American actor Davis Roberts played character roles on stage, television, and in feature films for nearly 40 years. Between 1983 and 1984, he had a regular role as a blind bluesman on the television series Boone. He made his final film appearance in To Sleep With Anger. In addition to acting, Roberts served as an advisor for the Western division of the Actor's Equity Association. He also founded the Beverly Hills-Hollywood NAACP Image Award.