Trivia: Professional magician Harry Anderson made his living as a street performer until he was "discovered" on the talk-show circuit in the late '70s. Looking all the world like a young Willy Loman, Anderson delighted in flim-flamming his "suckers" and then revealing his chicanery. He made his film debut as, appropriately, a sideshow prestidigitator in The Escape Artist (1982) then appeared on a sporadic basis as wise guy thimblerig Harry the Hat on the TV sitcom Cheers. This led to his being cast as freewheeling Judge Harold T. Stone on the weekly Night Court which ran from 1984 to 1992. Despite his insouciant "hustler" persona, Anderson is an immensely appealing performer with a strong following among children, and starred in such Disney TV-movie productions as The Absent-Minded Professor (1988) and Harvey (1995). In 1993, Harry Anderson launched another long-running sitcom, playing real life newspaper humorist Dave Barry (whom he resembles not one whit!) in Dave's World.

Trivia: California-born Jeanette Nolan racked up an impressive list of radio and stage credits in the 1930s, including a stint with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre troupe. She made her film debut in 1948 in Welles' MacBeth; her stylized, Scottish-burred interpretation of Lady MacBeth was almost universally panned by contemporary critics, but her performance holds up superbly when seen today. Afterwards, Ms. Nolan flourished as a character actress, her range extending from society doyennes to waterfront hags. She appeared in countless TV programs, and played the rambunctious title role on the short-lived Western Dirty Sally (1974). Nolan made her final film appearance playing Robert Redford's mother in The Horse Whisperer (1998). From 1937, Jeanette Nolan was married to actor John McIntire, with whom she frequently co-starred; she was also the mother of actor Tim McIntire.

Trivia: American comic actor Mark Blankfield rose to popularity on the ABC TV sketch-comedy series Fridays (1980-1982). Though he essayed many characterizations on this series, Blankfield's best-received "persona" was his speed-freak pharmacist. In 1982, Blankfield played the title role (or roles) in the feature-film horror spoof Jekyll and Hyde...Together Again. Since that time, his film assignments have been secondary parts in films like The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981) and Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993). Mark Blankfield was also seen on a weekly basis in the TV sitcoms The Nutt House (1989, as Freddy) and Good and Evil (1991, as George).

Trivia: Diminutive American actor Phil Leeds has been trafficking in comedy character roles for well over 50 years. When not showing up on Broadway or on tour, Leeds has been a regular visitor to television. He was seen on a weekly basis as an ensemble player on the DuMont Network's 1950 variety series Front Row Center; as Moscow apartment dweller Vladimir in Ivan the Terrible (1976); as delicatessen habitue Lou Gold in Singer and Sons (1990); and as "The Kid," a 75-year-old con man, in Double Rush (1995). A relative latecomer to films, Phil Leeds has made up for lost time with a steady stream of select character roles; notably his poignantly amusing cameo as the long-dead husband in the hospital emergency room in Ghost (1990), eagerly anticipating a reunion with his about-to-die widow.

Trivia: American actor John Larroquette began gaining public attention as a disc jockey. For several years, he paid the bills with TV and movie voiceovers, notably as the (uncredited) narrator of Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Larroquette started getting on-camera assignments in the mid 1970s, making his network TV bow in the role of Dr. Paul Herman in the prime time weekly Doctors' Hospital (1975-76); this was followed by a two-year stint as Robert Anderson on the Robert Conrad TV vehicle Black Sheep Squadron (1976-78). From 1984 through 1992, Larroquette portrayed assistant DA and self-styled ladies man Dan Fielding on the popular sitcom Night Court, a role which won him four Emmy awards. In 1994, the actor starred in his own series, The John Larroquette Show, playing an erudite recovering alcoholic who manages a St. Louis bus depot.His film career never quite matched the success he found on the small- screen, but he had small parts in The Twilight Zone Movie and Choose Me before he reached the height of his Night Court Fame. He was a friend to Bruce Willis in the Blake Edwards comedy Blind Date and appeared opposite his fellow NBC sitcom star Kirstie Alley in the flop Madhouse. He was one o the adult leads in the 1994 version of Richie Rich. As the '90s came to a close he returned to the small-screen in Payne, an attempt to update the classic British series Fawlty Towers. As the new century began, Larroquete could be seen in The 10th Kingdom, and a few years later he lent his voice as the narrator of the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - just as he did for the original thirty years before. He appeared in diverse projects such as Beethoven's 5th, and the 2006 Southland Tales. He scored a recurring role for a couple of seasons on Boston Legal.

Trivia: Six feet tall by the time he was twelve, Richard Moll would eventually peak at 6'8". To ward off jokes about his height, Moll adopted the "class clown" pose in school, eventually developing a taste for play-acting. Moving from his hometown of Pasadena to Hollywood in 1968, Moll spent the next decade or so with various theatrical troupes, and for a while toured schools in the role of Abraham Lincoln. Whenever he made the movie and TV casting rounds, Moll was greeted with an astonished "What a monster!"; thus, a monster he became, playing a steady succession of "bikers and snake men and one-eyed mutants." He was one of the title characters in the 1972 TV movie Gargoyles, was seen as an abominable snowman in Caveman (1981), and played various and assorted hulking goons in such adventure flicks as Metalstorm (1982) and The Sword and the Sorceror (1984). He was finally allowed to exhibit his "human" side--not to mention his considerable flair for light comedy--as court guard Bull Shannon on the long-running (1984-92) TV sitcom Night Court. Back to monstrosities and villains again in the 1990s--this time by choice rather than necessity-- Richard Moll has continued appearing in sizeable (in more ways than one) TV guest-star roles, and has lent his vocal talents to the role of Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face, in Batman: The Animated Series.

Trivia: Burly black comedienne Marsha Warfield is best remembered for playing the caustic bailiff Roz on the popular television sitcom Night Court. Warfield made her film debut in the television movie The Marva Collins Story (1981). Prior to that she was a member of the sketch comedy cast on the short-lived, controversial Richard Pryor Show (1977). In addition to acting, Warfield is also a funny standup comedienne who often uses graphic language and descriptions of sex to describe the foibles of male/female interactions. Following the end of Night Court, Warfield hosted a short-lived talk show in 1990.

Trivia: Perhaps it was a combination of a strong commitment to his values, inner strength, and a keen sense of humor, but Brandon Tartikoff had the rare gift of being able to successfully elevate a failing television network from the bottom to number one for five years running and still remain one of Hollywood's most likeable characters to both industry insiders and the public. He has been called a wunderkind for becoming at age 31 the youngest person to run a television network. After a decade at NBC, he went on to become the president of Paramount Pictures and then the chairman of New World Entertainment, a company that creates television projects for syndication, cable, and the Internet. Though a busy executive and a man who had been fighting recurring bouts of Hodgkin's disease since age 23, Tartikoff found time to be with his wife, Lilly, and their daughters, Calla and Elizabeth. A native New Yorker, Tartikoff started out at a television station in New Haven, CT, following boarding school and an education at Yale. He next moved to Chicago to work for ABC affiliate WLS where he made the station successful by devising creative promotional packages and producing and writing a comedy variety series. While there, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease and underwent chemotherapy. Despite a 50-pound weight loss and the ensuing pain of radiation treatments, Tartikoff did not miss work and his cancer eventually went into remission. The young whiz got his first real break when Fred Silverman, the head of the ABC network, hired him as the manger of dramatic development at ABC in 1976. Under Silverman's tutelage, Tartikoff was quickly promoted to program executive of current dramatic programming. In 1977, the young executive was hired by NBC as their director of comedy programs. When Silverman became the network's newest president, he made Tartikoff his head of West Coast programming. In 1980, Silverman named the 31-year-old President of Programming. During their first years at the new network, Tartikoff and Silverman had trouble settling in. Offering such silly dramas and comedies as Manimal and the abysmal The Adventures of Sheriff Lobo did nothing to promote NBC to audiences. Matters changed, however, when Silverman was replaced by former MTM producer Grant Tinker. By the end of the decade, Tinker and Tartikoff had turned the ailing NBC into a 500 million dollar profit-making entertainment machine. One of the unusual measures taken by Tartikoff during the rebuilding period was to ignore the early low Nielsen ratings of the critically acclaimed Family Ties, Cheers, and St. Elsewhere. Whereas other overly ratings-conscious executives may have ruthlessly canceled the poorly rated shows, Tartikoff was convinced they were indeed high-quality, well-written programs and so allowed audiences time to discover them. The ploy worked and all three became top rated series through the 1980s. As the decade progressed, Tartikoff and Tinker still had a few misfires such as The Bay City Blues and Jennifer Slept Here, but they were also responsible for such groundbreaking hits as Miami Vice, Hill Street Blues, and L.A. Law. As chief of entertainment, Tartikoff had a knack for discovering untried talent, and when he truly believed in a project and the people behind it, nothing could stop him from giving them the chance he thought they deserved. While NBC had its share of "lowest common denominator shows," Tartikoff saw that many of the programs were directed especially towards educated, middle to upper-middle class viewers, a trend that continued through the '90s. In the early '80s, Tartikoff's cancer returned and more chemo followed until the disease again went into remission. He never told his higher ups about his illness, nor did he let it slow him down. Other notable shows for which Tartikoff was responsible include Seinfeld, The Cosby Show, Hunter, The A-Team, The Golden Girls, and Highway to Heaven. During these years, the amiable Tartikoff became a semi-celebrity, appearing on talk shows and sometimes even making cameo appearances on shows such as Saved By the Bell. He has even hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live.By 1990, Tartikoff was the highest paid network executive in the industry and when Tinker left that year, he was promoted to president of NBC Entertainment and president of NBC Productions. But by then, NBC's profits and popularity had begun to level off. After nearly a decade at NBC, Tartikoff left NBC to become the head of New World Entertainment and Paramount Pictures. He also ran his own production company, H. Beale -- named after Peter Finch's character in Network, a feature film Tartikoff liked so much that in the mid-to-late '90s, he narrated a showing of it on one of Ted Turner's cable channels, peppering the story with anecdotes from his own network experiences. While at Paramount, Tartikoff was instructed to cut costs and so focused on releasing more modest but successful productions such as The Addams Family (1991), Wayne's World (1992), Patriot Games (1992), and Indecent Proposal (1993). On the downside, he also approved the release of Beverly Hills Cop 3 and the ambitious bomb 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992). A car accident earlier that year resulted in his daughter Callas suffering a serious head trauma. He himself had broken ribs during the wreck and missed a couple months of work. In October 1992, Tartikoff resigned from Paramount stating that he needed to be near Calla to facilitate her recovery. He returned to work, this time for America Online to supervise the company's development of entertainment industry-oriented online programs. He was quite busy with his new business, but the cancer again returned.On August 27, 1997, 48-year-old Brandon Tartikoff lost his fight with the disease. His funeral was attended by many whose careers he had boosted, including directors Rob Reiner and Danny De Vito, NBC executives past and present Fred Silverman, Grant Tinker, and Robert Wright, and actors Jerry Seinfeld and Ted Danson. In keeping with Tartikoff's style, the sadness of the occasion was lifted with jokes and humorous anecdotes.

Trivia: Supporting actor Norman Bartold appeared in numerous films of the 1970s. He also worked on television as a guest star and in television movies. He made his film debut in The Littlest Hobo (1958).