Trivia: Though perhaps best remembered for playing the suave, mysterious Mr. Roarke on the popular television series Fantasy Island (1978-1984), and for his car commercials in which he seductively exhorted the pleasures of the upholstery ("Rich, Corinthian leather") in his distinctive Spanish accent, Ricardo Montalban once played romantic leads in major features of the '40s and '50s. He also had a successful career on-stage. Born Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalban y Merino in Mexico City, Montalban spent part of his youth in the U.S. The tall, dark, handsome, and curly haired actor first worked as a bit player on Broadway before returning to Mexico in the early '40s and launching a film career there. By 1947, he had returned to the States and signed with MGM. That year, Montalban played his first leading role opposite Cyd Charisse in the romantic musical Fiesta (1947). It would be the first of many roles in which he would play a passionate singing and dancing "Latin Lover." He and Charisse again teamed up as dancers in the Esther Williams musical water extravaganza in On an Island With You (1948). At one point, it was a toss-up between Montalban and fellow MGM "LL" Fernando Lamas as to which was more popular. It would not be until 1949 before Montalban had the opportunity to play a non-romantic role as a border agent who gets revenge upon the killers of his partner in Border Incident. His second serious role in Battleground (1949) ranks among his best performances. By the late '50s, he had become a character actor, often cast in ethnic roles, notably that of a genteel Japanese Kabuki actor in Sayonara (1957). He had occasionally appeared on television since the late '50s, but did not appear regularly until the mid-'70s. In 1976, Montalban earned an Emmy for his portrayal of a Sioux chief in the television miniseries How the West Was Won. In the early '70s he was part of a touring troupe that read dramatic excerpts from Shaw's Don Juan in Hell. In 1982, Montalban reprised a role he had made famous on the original Star Trek TV series as the ruthless Khan to star in the second Star Trek feature, The Wrath of Khan. In the '80s, Montalban only sporadically appeared in feature films. His television career also slowed, though he occasionally appeared on series such as The Colbys (1985-1987) and Heaven Help Us! (1994). Montalban has written an autobiography, Reflections: A Life in Two Worlds (1980). Confined to a wheelchair after a 1993 spinal operation left him paralyzed from the waist down, Montalban remiained in good health despite being in constant pain, and continued to play an active role in promoting Nostros - a non-profit organization founded by Montalban in 1970 and dedicated to improving the image of Latinos within the entertainment industry. In the late 1990s and early 2000s Moltalban's career recieved something of a second wind when he began performing vocal work on such animated television series' as Freakazoid!, Dora the Explorer, and Kim Possible, with a role as the kindly grandfather in Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over even giving the wheelchair-bound actor an opportunity to triumphantly rise once again thanks to the magic of special effects. Additional vocal work in the 2006 animated family adventure The Ant Bully continued to keep Montalban busy despite his physical limitations. His brother, Carlos Montalban, was also an actor.

Trivia: Supporting and character actor Herve Villechaize appeared in 13 feature films, but he is best remembered for playing Tattoo, Ricardo Montalban's chirpy sidekick on Fantasy Island (1978-1983). Born to a French father and English mother, Villechaize was a dwarf who stopped growing taller after hitting 3'9". Before becoming an actor, Villechaize studied art in Paris and New York. Deciding acting was the better venue, he studied under drama teacher Julie Bovasso. He made his feature film debut in The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight (1971) and went on to play small "novelty" roles in exploitation and cult movies such as Malatesta's Carnival and Oliver Stone's Seizure (1974). One of his more notable roles was that of an evil dwarf in the James Bond thriller The Man With the Golden Gun (1974). Villechaize was married three times. On September 4, 1993, he fatally shot himself, allegedly to escape his many health problems.

Trivia: Actor, singer, dancer Sammy Davis, Jr., the son of vaudeville entertainer Sammy Davis, began performing professionally at the age of three, appearing in his uncle Will Mastin's family act of seven men and seven women; during the early Depression the act was reduced in size to Davis, Jr., his father, and his uncle, and was called the Will Mastin trio. Soon he developed into a very versatile entertainer, skilled at singing, dancing, telling jokes, doing mimicry, and playing several instruments. He debuted onscreen at age seven in the short Rufus Jones for President (1933), in which he acted and danced. He toured the country with the Trio until the '40s, when he spent two years in the army. Upon his return, the act was renamed "The Will Mastin Trio, Starring Sammy Davis, Jr.," and the group began playing big variety theaters and top nightclubs. In the '50s he performed solo, soon becoming a popular TV entertainer as well; some critics considered him the world's greatest living entertainer. In 1954 he lost his left eye in a serious car accident and suffered other injuries that jeopardized his career. However, he quickly bounced back, and in the mid-'50s he began getting work in films, playing his first dramatic lead role in Anna Lucasta (1958). Also, in 1956 he debuted on Broadway as the star of Mr. Wonderful; later he starred in the Broadway show Golden Boy. As a screen actor he became best known for his work with the "Rat Pack," comprised of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop, who socialized and worked together; although the inclusion of a black man in the group was at the time considered egalitarian, his roles tended to be tokenistic and occasionally involved benign racist jokes at his expense. He somewhat alienated himself from black audiences, who occasionally booed him as a sell-out; and in a controversial move he converted to Judaism. He was also a popular recording star with several hits including "Mr. Bojangles" and "The Candy Man." He was frequently a guest star on TV specials and episodes of TV series, and twice hosted his own variety-talk shows, The Sammy Davis Jr. Show (NBC, 1966) and Sammy and Company (syndicated, 1975-77). He authored the autobiography Yes I Can (1965). He married and divorced Swedish actress Mai Britt.

Trivia: African American actor LeVar Burton was a 19-year-old UCLA drama student when he was catapulted into international fame. On January 23, 1977, Burton made his professional debut as young Kunta Kinte, the protagonist of the classic TV miniseries Roots. He went on to give first-rate performances in such TV movies as Dummy (79) and One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story (78). Among LeVar Burton's more conspicuous TV appearances in the past decade have included his hosting chores on PBS' Reading Rainbow and his regular role as sightless Lieutenant Geordi LaForge on the syndicated Star Trek: The Next Generation (87-92). He has continued playing Lt. LaForge in the feature film versions of Star Trek. Burton is also a published author. Aside from the Star Trek films, his big-screen credits include the biopic Ali. Burton has also directed a handful of projects including episodic television, the senior-citizen romantic comedy Reach for Me, and Miracle's Boys - a drama about three brothers growing up in difficult circumstances.

Trivia: The ninth in a family of 18 children, Esther Rolle left her family's Florida home for New York once she came of age. She worked her way through Hunter College, Spellman College and the New School for Social Research. Even after her 1962 New York stage debut in The Blacks, Esther was compelled to hold down a day job in the city's garment district. She appeared in such Broadway productions as The Crucible and Blues for Mr. Charlie, and toured extensively with Robert Hooks' Negro Ensemble Company. Her breakthrough role was Florida the maid in the 1972 Norman Lear sitcom Maude. Though she balked at playing a domestic, Rolle was impressed by Florida's independence and pugnaciousness. In February of 1973, the Florida character was spun off into her own series, Good Times, the saga of a tightly-knit black family surviving in the Chicago projects. Rolle welcomed the series as an opportunity to depict a poor but proud African-American family with a strong father figure (played by John Amos) at the center. But when Amos, upset that co-star Jimmie "J.J." Walker was dominating the series, left Good Times in 1974, Rolle echoed the words of such groups as the National Black Media Coalition in chastising the renovated series, wherein an irresponsible, wisecracking teenaged cut-up was now "head" of the household. When her contract ran out in 1977, Esther joined John Amos in bolting Good Times. After a year of pursuing other projects -- one of which, the made-for-TV film Summer of My German Soldier, won Rolle an Emmy -- she was back on Good Times, having been assured that she would be given full script approval and that the J.J. character had matured. But by this time, audiences had wearied of Good Times, and the series was cancelled in 1979. Since that time, Rolle has hardly wanted for work: her most recent credits include the strong role of Idella in the 1989 Oscar-winner Driving Miss Daisy, the starring part of the black owner of a Jewish deli in the 1990 sitcom Singer and Son, and a guest appearance as the dying Mammy in the 1994 Gone with the Wind sequel Scarlet. In addition, Esther Rolle has been nominated honorary chairperson of the President's Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped, and has been honored with several Image Awards from the NAACP.

Trivia: Of Scandinavian stock, Barry Nelson was no sooner graduated from the University of California-Berkeley than he was signed to an MGM contract. Most of his MGM feature-film assignments were supporting roles, though he was given leads in the 1942 "B" A Yank in Burma and the 1947 "Crime Does Not Pay" short The Luckiest Guy in the World. While serving in the Army, Nelson made his Broadway debut in the morale-boosting Moss Hart play Winged Victory, repeating his role (and his billing of Corporal Barry Nelson) in the 1944 film version. Full stardom came Nelson's way in such Broadway productions of the 1950s and 1960s as The Rat Race, The Moon is Blue and Cactus Flower. He repeated his Broadway role in the 1963 film version of Mary Mary, and both directed and acted in Frank Gilroy's two-character play The Only Game in Town (1968). Nelson starred in a trio of 1950s TV series: the 1952 espionager The Hunter, the 1953 sitcom My Favorite Husband, and the unjustly neglected Canadian-filmed 1958 adventure series Hudson's Bay (1959). Oh, and did you know that Nelson was the first actor ever to play Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond on television? Yep: Barry Nelson portrayed American spy Jimmy Bond on a 1954 TV adaptation of Fleming's Casino Royale. Nelson died of unspecified causes on April 7, 2007, while traveling through Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He was 84.

Trivia: The son of comedian Harvey Lembeck, Michael Lembeck started his career following his dad's footsteps as a comic character actor. The younger Lembeck made his TV movie debut in Gidget Grows Up. His subsequent small-screen gigs included Kaptain Kool in the Saturday morning extravaganza The Krofft Supershow (1977) and Max Horvath, the flight-steward husband of Julie Cooper (MacKenzie Phillips) in One Day at a Time (1979-84). He also played schoolteacher Peter Newman in the 1985 sitcom Foley Square, and, on a less comical note, was seen as Abbie Hoffman in the 1987 TV-movie special Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 7. In the past decade, Michael Lembeck has concentrated on directing such weekly series as Hope and Gloria, Mad About You and Everybody Loves Raymond; in 1996, he won an Emmy for his direction of the hit series Friends.