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: 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: Actor Joseph Campanella's father, a Sicilian immigrant, was an early member of the American Federation of Musicians; perhaps as a result, the younger Campanella remained active in liberal "underdog" political causes all his life. At eighteen, Campanella became one of the youngest-ever skippers in the wartime navy. He went on to attend Columbia University, then began his acting career on the New York stage and in TV soap operas. Over the next three decades he would portray Joe Turino on The Guiding Light, Alec Fielding on The Doctors, Dr. Ted Steffen on the nighttime TV serial The Doctors and the Nurses and Senator Harper Devereaux on Days of Our Lives. Additional TV assignments for Campanella included the role of Mike Connors' boss on the first season (1967-68) of Mannix; attorney Brian Darrell on four seasons (1969-73) of The Bold Ones; and Hutch Corrigan on the 1985-86 season of The Colbys. He also narrated several National Geographic Specials, and was host of the syndicated 1983 revival of This is Your Life. A steadfast film supporting player, Campanella was finally awarded a lead in 1972's "rampaging rat" thriller Ben, only to find that his was the second name above the title: "Leave it to me," Campanella remarked with his usual self-deprecation, "to get second billing to a rat in my first big starring movie." Recent credits include a "guest voice" role as Dr. Thorne on the Fox Network's Batman: The Animated Series. Joseph Campanella is the brother of Frank Campanella, a character actor usually cast as uniformed big-city cops.

Trivia: Actor Frank Campanella's physical form almost single-handedly defined his Hollywood typecasting. A 6' 5" barrel-chested Italian with a great, hulking presence and memorably stark facial features, Campanella excelled as a character player, almost invariably appearing as toughs and heavies. Born to a piano builder father who played in the orchestras of Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante, and Al Jolson, Campanella studied music exhaustively as a young man, and trained as a concert pianist, but discovered a rivaling passion for drama and entered Manhattan College as an acting major. Campanella's career as an actor began somewhat uncharacteristically, on a light and jovial note, by playing Mook the Moon Man during the first season of the Dumont network's infamous and much-loved kiddie show Captain Video and his Video Rangers (1949-1954). One- and two-episode stints on many American television programs followed for Campanella, most on themes of crime and law enforcement, including Inside Detective (1952), The Man Behind the Badge (1954), Danger (1954), and episodes of the anthology series Playwrights '56 (1956), Studio One (1956), and Suspicion (1957) that called for gritty, thuggish, urban types. During the 1960s, Campanella sought out the same kinds roles in feature films -- a path he pursued for several decades. Turns included John Frankenheimer's 1966 Seconds (as the Man in the Station); Mel Brooks' 1968 The Producers (as a bartender); 1970's The Movie Murderer (as an arson lieutenant); the Steve Carver-directed, Roger Corman-produced gangster film Capone (1975, as Big Jim Colosimo); Ed Forsyth's 1976 Chesty Anderson -- U.S. Navy (as the Baron); Conway in Warren Beatty's 1978 Heaven Can Wait; and Judge Neal A. Lake in Michael Winner's 1982 Death Wish 2. Campanella teamed with director Garry Marshall seven times: as Col. Cal Eastland in The Flamingo Kid (1984), Remo in Nothing in Common (1986), Captain Karl in Overboard (1987), Frank the Doorman in Beaches (1988), Pops in Pretty Woman (1990), a retired customer in Frankie and Johnny (1991), and a Wheelchair Walker in Exit to Eden (1994). Campanella re-teamed with Warren Beatty for the first time since 1978 as Judge Harper in Dick Tracy (1990) and again as the Elevator Operator in Love Affair (1994). Additional series in which Campanella appeared during the 1970s and '80s included Maude, Hardcastle & McCormick, Quincy, M.E., The Love Boat, Barnaby Jones, The Rockford Files, The Fall Guy, St. Elsewhere, and many others. In middle age, Campanella parlayed his early musical training into two career choices that blended music and drama: a part on a commercial that required him to play the piano and a job as co-host of a musical program on KCSN Radio called "Offbeat Notes on Music." He also appeared on Broadway in such musicals as Guys and Dolls and Nobody Loves an Albatross. After many years of inactivity, Frank Campanella ultimately died at his home in the San Fernando Valley, of unspecified causes. He was 87. Survivors included his brother, actor Joseph Campanella, his sister-in-law, and 13 nephews and nieces.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the '70s.

Trivia: Actor Joe E. Tata is probably best known as Nat, the congenial owner of the Peach Pit on TV's Beverly Hills 90210, but the veteran performer's career actually began 25 years earlier. In the mid-'60s, Tata began appearing on popular television shows like Hogan's Heroes and Mission: Impossible, which led to recurring roles on series like The F.B.I. and Lost in Space. He continued to make appearances on television shows and in movies until he was cast in the famous role of Nat on 90210 in 1990. His easygoing manner in the role struck a chord with viewers, and he stayed with the show for the next ten years.

Trivia: An actor-turned-producer who worked with some of the biggest names in the business in both respects, Skip Ward would step behind the camera for such successful television endeavors as The Dukes of Hazzard, though the lure of the lens drew him back in front of the camera when he later formed a close working relationship with filmmaker Andy Sidaris. A Cleveland native who served a stint as an air force pilot before making the move to Hollywood, Ward's film debut came in Robert Wise's 1958 war film Run Silent, Run Deep. Subsequent efforts such as The Nutty Professor (1963) and Night of the Iguana (1964) found the fledgling actor working with a series of A-list stars, and though Ward himself would never ascend to that status, he would continue in front of the camera until 1970's Myra Breckinridge. Though he would lose the lead role in The Wild Wild West series to actor Robert Conrad, Ward's numerous television appearances included such series as The F.B.I. and The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. The late '70s found Ward gaining notice as a producer, and with efforts such as The Dukes of Hazzard and V, his status continued to rise. An association with Sidaris was established when Ward served as production coordinator for a series of Sidaris-produced ABC sports programs. Despite the fact that it had been quite some time since Ward had appeared onscreen, his relationship with Sidaris resulted in somewhat of a comeback with roles in Do or Die, Fit to Kill, and Hard Hunted. In late June of 2002, Skip Ward died of natural causes in Calabasas, CA. He was 69.