Trivia: A track star at the University of Oklahoma, Dennis Weaver went on to serve as a Navy Pilot during World War II. After failing to make the 1948 U.S. decathalon Olympic team, Weaver accepted the invitation of his college chum Lonny Chapman to give the New York theatre world a try. He understudied Chapman as "Turk Fisher" in the Broadway production Come Back Little Sheba, eventually taking over the role in the national company. Deciding that acting was to his liking, Weaver enrolled at the Actors' Studio, supporting his family by selling vacuum cleaners, tricycles and ladies' hosiery. On the recommendation of his Actors' Studio classmate Shelley Winters, Weaver was signed to a contract at Universal studios in 1952, where he made his film debut in The Redhead From Wyoming (1952). Though his acting work increased steadily over the next three years, he still had to take odd jobs to make ends meet. He was making a delivery for the florist's job where he worked when he was informed that he'd won the role of deputy Chester Goode on the TV adult western Gunsmoke. So as not to be continually upstaged by his co-star James Arness (who, at 6'7", was five inches taller than the gangly Weaver), he adopted a limp for his character--a limp which, along with Chester's reedy signature line "Mis-ter Diillon" and the deputy's infamously bad coffee, brought Weaver fame, adulation and a 1959 Emmy Award. Though proud of his work on Gunsmoke--"I don't think any less seriously of Chester than I did about King Lear in college"--Weaver began feeling trapped by Chester sometime around the series' fifth season. Having already proven his versatility in his film work (notably his portrayal of the neurotic motel night clerk in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil [1958]), Weaver saw to it that the Gunsmoke producers permitted him to accept as many "outside" TV assignments as his schedule would allow. Twice during his run as Chester, Weaver quit the series to pursue other projects. He left Gunsmoke permanently in 1964, whereupon he was starred in the one-season "dramedy" series Kentucky Jones (1965). In 1967, he headlined a somewhat more successful weekly, Gentle Ben (1967-69) in which he and everyone else in the cast played second fiddle to a trained bear (commenting upon his relationship with his "co-star", Weaver replied "I liked him, but it was a cold relationship...Ben didn't know me from a bag of doughnuts.") The most successful of Weaver's post-Gunsmoke TV series was McCloud, in which, from 1970 to 1977, he played deputy marshal Sam McCloud, a New Mexico lawman transplanted to the Big Apple. In addition to his series work, Weaver has starred in several made-for-TV movies over the past 25 years, the most famous of which was the Steven Spielberg-directed nailbiter Duel (1971). Dennis Weaver is the father of actor Robby Weaver, who co-starred with his dad on the 1980 TV series Stone.

Trivia: Though he could pass as a good-natured cabbie or down-to-earth dockworker with his chiseled features and gravelly voice, J.D. Cannon has played more than his share of villains, some of them psychotic in nature. A stage actor in the 1950s and 1960s, Cannon was first seen on the big screen in 1966's The American Dream. His breakthrough role in films was road-gang convict Society Red in Cool Hand Luke (1967). On television, J. D. Cannon was seen as hard-nosed Chief of Detectives Peter B. Clifford on the Dennis Weaver series McCloud (1970-77), and as General Hampton on Call to Glory (1985).

Trivia: African American actor/director Terry Carter is a unfairly unheralded trailblazer. After growing up in (and growing out of) the tough Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, Carter played a leading role on The Story of Ruby Valentine, radio's first all-black soap opera. He was the first equal-footing black regular on a TV sitcom, portraying Private Sugarman on Phil Silvers' Sgt. Bilko. He co-starred with Sally Ann Howes in Richard Adler's ground-breaking Broadway musical Kwamina. He was the first black newscaster on a major-market television station (Boston's Westinghouse outlet, WBZ-TV). And he was founder of the first black-owned TV-commercial production firm. While his film credits are comparatively sparse, Terry Carter has built up a solid fan following with his TV work, notably as Sgt. Joe Broadhurst on McCloud (1970-77) and as Tigh on Battlestar Gallactica (1978-79).

Trivia: Educated at Sweet Briar College, Diana Muldaur began her New York stage career in 1963, appearing in three Broadway plays--Seidelman and Son, Poor Biros and A Very Rich Woman--back to back. She also played a regular role in the Manhattan-based soap opera The Secret Storm. In 1968, Muldaur appeared in her first film, The Swimmer. Exuding a serenity and maturity beyond her years, she was generally cast in cool, sophisticated roles, often as a deliberate contrast to her less-polished male co-stars: for example, she was a regular on the TV series McCloud (1970-77) cast as rambunctious Marshal Sam McCloud's(Dennis Weaver) low-key lady friend Chris Coughlin. Conversely, she was vitriol personified as barracuda lawyer Rosalind Shays in LA Law (1989-91)--at least she was until her character took a spectacular season--ending plunge down an empty elevator shaft. Other TV programs that have utilized Muldaur on a weekly basis have included The Survivors (1970), Black Beauty (1972), Born Free (1974), The Tony Randall Show (1976), Hizzoner (1979), Fitz and Bones (1981) and A Year in the Life (1987). In addition, she is among the few actors who have shown up in both the original Star Trek (in two guest-star assignments) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (as Dr. Katherine Pulaski). Undoubtedly one of her more enjoyable (and least taxing) assignments was as the voice of Dr. Leslie Thompson on Batman: The Animated Series. Equally busy when not performing before the cameras, Muldaur is a past member of the SAG board of the directors. Diana Muldaur is the widow of actor James Mitchell Vickery.

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from the '50s; he often played military men, sheriffs, or policemen.