Trivia: Angela Lansbury received an Oscar nomination for her first film, Gaslight, in 1944, and has been winning acting awards and audience favor ever since. Born in London to a family that included both politicians and performers, Lansbury came to the U.S. during World War II. She made notable early film appearances as the snooty sister in National Velvet (1944); the pathetic singer in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), which garnered her another Academy nomination; and the madam-with-a-heart-of-gold saloon singer in The Harvey Girls (1946). She turned evil as the manipulative publisher in State of the Union (1948), but was just as convincing as the good queen in The Three Musketeers (1948) and the petulant daughter in The Court Jester (1956). She received another Oscar nomination for her chilling performance as Laurence Harvey's scheming mother in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and appeared as the addled witch in Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), among other later films. On Broadway, she won Tony awards for the musicals Mame (1966), Dear World (1969), the revival of Gypsy (1975), Sweeney Todd (1979) and, at age 82, for the play Blithe Spirit (2009). Despite a season in the '50s on the game show Pantomime Quiz, she came to series television late, starring in 1984-1996 as Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote; she took over as producer of the show in the '90s. She returned to the Disney studios to record the voice of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast (1991) and to sing the title song and later reprised the role in the direct-to-video sequel, The Enchanted Christmas (1997). Lansbury is the sister of TV producer Bruce Lansbury.

Trivia: Chicagoan Terry Kiser has been a member of the movie character-actor pool since 1968. Kiser hasn't exactly scaled the heights of fame with such films as Friday the 13th Part VII, but he has paid his bills on time. His TV work has included a stint as Dr. John Rice on NBC's The Doctors, a recurring role as reporter Al Craven on the popular sitcom Night Court, and a sojourn as a member of Carol Burnett's repertory players on 1990's Carol & Company. Terry Kiser's most memorably recent film assignment has been as the scene-stealing corpse (!) in the two Weekend at Bernie's comedies of the 1990s.

Trivia: A one-time boxer and a veteran of the Vietnam War, actor Paul Le Mat made a career out of playing gruff, rugged male characters. After attending San Diego City College, Cypress Junior College, Chapman College, and L.A. Valley College following graduation from Newport Harbor High School, the New Jersey native became a war hero after winning a National Defense Medal, a Vietnam Service Medal, and a George Washington Honor Medal for his heroic wartime actions. Though he considered a career in the ring after winning the L.A. Diamond Belt and Southern Pacific Boxing Championship in the early '70s, Le Mat decided on a less physically-intensive career path, and studied acting at the Mitchell Ryan Actors' Studio and San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater. His role as a tire-squealing drag racer in George Lucas' American Graffiti earned the actor a Most Promising Newcomer award at the 1974 Golden Globe Awards, but Le Mat's star waned after a memorable role as a CB coordinator in Jonathan Demme's Handle With Care (1977). He reprised his American Graffiti role in the film's 1979 sequel, but after appearing in Demme's underappreciated Melvin and Howard and a menacing, Golden Globe-winning performance in the harrowing domestic drama The Burning Bed, good parts became scarce. By the 1990s, Le Mat's roles had gone from leading to supporting, and aside from American History X (1998), most of his roles were in bottom-of-the-barrel, B-grade schlock. Genre fans still relished in his performances in such fare as Grave Secrets and Puppet Master (both 1989), but the most exposure Le Mat received in the '90s was his role as the mayor in the Western series Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years. In 2001, Le Mat received his most substantial dramatic role in years as the best friend to a troubled Vietnam veteran in Arliss Howard's Big Bad Love.

Trivia: Born in California, actor Larry Wilcox was raised and educated in Wyoming. Wilcox's first important TV assignment was the role of ranchhand Dale Mitchell in the 1972-74 episodes of Lassie. He was elevated to teen-idol status when, in 1977 he was cast as Officer Jon Baker on TV's CHiPs; he left the series one year shy of its 1983 cancellation. Later on, Wilcox showed up on Murder She Wrote, playing four different parts on as many episodes. At last report, Larry Wilcox was heading a successful Southern California pharmaceutical corporation.

Trivia: Lead and former juvenile actress McNichol is the daughter of a former actress. At age six she began appearing in commercials and was in TV shows by age nine. At 12 she became a regular on the TV series Apple's Way; after that show was canceled she was soon signed to the cast of Family, for which she went on to win two Emmy Awards. She began appearing onscreen in the late '70s, and looked to be on her way to a good film career with her costarring role in Little Darlings (1980), a popular teen-oriented comedy; however, most of her subsequent films were either low-quality or unsuccessful, and she never established herself as a screen actress. In the late '80s and early '90s she costarred on the TV sitcom Empty Nest.

Trivia: While growing up in Chicago, Tom Bosley dreamed of becoming the star left-fielder for the Cubs. As it turned out, the closest Bosley got to organized athletics was a sportscasting class at DePauw University. After additional training at the Radio Institute of Chicago and two years' practical experience in various dramatic radio programs and stock companies, he left for New York in 1950. Five years of odd jobs and summer-theater stints later, he landed his first off-Broadway role, playing Dupont-Dufort in Jean Anouilh's Thieves' Carnival. Steadier work followed at the Arena Theatre in Washington, D.C.; then in 1959, Bosley landed the starring role in the Broadway musical Fiorello!, picking up a Tony Award, an ANTA Award, and the New York Drama Critics Award in the bargain. In 1963, he made his film bow as Natalie Wood's "safe and secure" suitor Anthony Colombo in Love With the Proper Stranger. Occasionally cast as two-bit criminals or pathetic losers (he sold his eyes to blind millionairess Joan Crawford in the Spielberg-directed Night Gallery TV movie), Bosley was most often seen as a harried suburban father. After recurring roles on such TV series as That Was the Week That Was, The Debbie Reynolds Show, and The Sandy Duncan Show, Bosley was hired by Hanna-Barbera to provide the voice of flustered patriarch Howard Boyle on the animated sitcom Wait Til Your Father Gets Home (1972-1973). This served as a dry run of sorts for his most famous series-TV assignment: Howard Cunningham, aka "Mr. C," on the immensely popular Happy Days (1974-1983). The warm, familial ambience of the Happy Days set enabled Bosley to weather the tragic death of his first wife, former dancer Jean Elliot, in 1978. In addition to his Happy Days duties, Bosley was narrator of the syndicated documentary That's Hollywood (1977-1981). From 1989 to 1991, he starred on the weekly series The Father Dowling Mysteries, and thereafter was seen on an occasional basis as down-to-earth Cabot Cove sheriff Amos Tupper on Murder, She Wrote. Reportedly as kind, generous, and giving as his Happy Days character, Tom Bosley has over the last 20 years received numerous honors for his many civic and charitable activities.

Trivia: French-Cajun actor Lance LeGault broke into films as a stand-in for several male stars, foremost among them Elvis Presley. LeGault also worked as a stunt double, occasionally playing speaking roles in films like 1968's The Young Runaway. He has also been steadily employed as a nightclub and lounge singer. In the 1980s, he was busy on television in a variety of rough-hewn characterizations. Lance LeGault's regular TV-series roles include antagonistic Col. Roderick Decker in The A-Team (1983-86) and gonzo bounty hunter Alamo Joe in Werewolf (1987-88).

Trivia: Georgia-born leading lady Cassie Yates has kept busy in films and TV since 1976. Yates' TV-series roles have included detective Jennifer Dempsey in Ron Moody's 1980 sitcom Nobody's Perfect and Diane Wyman, wife of would-be private eye Press Wyman (Judd Hirsch) in Detective in the House (1985). Soap opera fans will remember Yates as Sarah Curtis in the 1987 episodes of Dynasty. Cassie Yates' most appealing film role was as the philandering friend of Nastassja Kinski in the 1982 remake of Unfaithfully Yours.

Trivia: Leading actress Rosana DeSota first appeared onscreen in the late '80s.