Columbo

1. Bradford Dillman

Dark-haired, Ivy League-looking Bradford Dillman, whose white-collar career spanned nearly five decades, possessed charm and confident good looks that were slightly tainted by a bent smile, darting glance and edgy countenance that often provoked suspicion. Sure enough, the camera picked up on it ...

2. Joel Fabiani

Actor | Snake Eyes

He had an unsettled childhood, his family never staying in one place for very long. The youngest of three brothers, Joel Anthony Fabiani was born to an Italian-Austrian father (Ernest Fabiani, 1902-1988) and an Irish and Native American mother (Bessie Fabiani, née Holcomb, 1903-1992). He attended ...

3. Steve Forrest

Actor | Mommie Dearest

A ruggedly handsome action man of the 1960s and '70s, Steve Forrest was born William Forrest Andrews in Huntsville, Texas, the youngest of thirteen children of Annis (Speed) and Charles Forrest Andrews, a Baptist minister. His brother was actor Dana Andrews. Forrest began his screen career as a ...

4. Stephen Caffrey

Actor | Tour of Duty

Stephen Caffrey has been a stage actor in New York, Los Angeles and across the country for over 30 years. On Film and Television he starred in and directed the series "Tour of Duty" for over 3 seasons on CBS. He received an Emmy nomination for his year on "All my Children" and has had leading roles...

5. Molly Hagan

Actress | Walker

Molly Hagan was born the seventh child of Jack and Betty Hagan in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At the age of 4 the entire family moved to Ft. Wayne, Indiana. She grew up among cornfields and limestone quarries. Molly always wanted to be an actor. She toiled with her sister, Lucy Hagan, to create the ...

6. Richard Libertini

Actor | Popeye

Richard Libertini was born in E. Cambridge, Massachusetts, to parents who had come to America from southern Italy. Having grown up in a household where both Italian and English were spoken, he developed an ear for foreign accents. A facility he would later use to advantage on stage and in films.

He ...

7. William Windom

Actor | Escape from the Planet of the Apes

A man of all mediums, this veteran, Manhattan-born character actor was named after his great-grandfather, Lincolnesque Congressman William Windom. Born in 1923, the son of Paul Windom, an architect, and the former Isobel Wells Peckham, Bill attended Williams College and the University of Kentucky, ...

8. Gene Barry

Actor | The War of the Worlds

With effortless class and elegant charm Gene Barry took '50s and '60s TV by storm, after a rather lackluster start on the musical stage and in films. Born Eugene Klass in New York City on June 14, 1919, to Martin (an amateur violinist), and Eva (an amateur singer), he showed a gift at an early age ...

9. Katherine Justice

Actress | Prescription: Murder

Red-haired former farm girl Katherine Justice came to prominence as a prolific TV guest star of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. She first attracted attention as beauty contest winner 'Miss Ohio' in 1960. Being underage (17), she was disqualified from competing for the 'Miss Universe' title in Miami Beach. ...

10. Anthony James

Actor | Unforgiven

Character actor Anthony James was born on July 22, 1942 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Unusually tall (6' 6½) and lanky, with a rough, pockmarked face, a lean, stringy build, and an extremely intense screen presence, James was often cast in Westerns as scary, sleazy villains. He was especially ...

11. Nina Foch

Actress | The Ten Commandments

A leading lady of the 1940s, the tall and blonde Foch usually played cool, aloof and often foreign, women of sophistication. As film roles became harder to find, Foch proved to be versatile in many areas. She was a panelist on several TV quiz shows, worked as George Stevens' assistant director for ...

12. Virginia Gregg

Actress | Operation Petticoat

Virginia Gregg was born on March 6, 1916 in Harrisburg, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Operation Petticoat (1959), Police Story (1973) and Emergency! (1972). She was married to Jaime Del Valle. She died on September 15, 1986 in Encino, Los Angeles, California, USA.

13. Andrea King

Actress | Red Planet Mars

Andrea King was born Georgette André Barry in Paris, France, however she lived there only two months before her mother, Belle Hart, brought her back to the United States. Belle was an ambulance driver on the front lines during World War I, as well as a dancer with the renowned Isadora Duncan. ...

14. Susanne Benton

Actress | Catch-22

Susanne Benton was born on February 3, 1948 in Canada. She is an actress, known for Catch-22 (1970), A Boy and His Dog (1975) and Jigsaw (1968).

15. Ena Hartman

Actress | Airport

Ena Hartman was born on April 1, 1935 in Moscow, Arkansas, USA. She is an actress, known for Airport (1970), Terminal Island (1973) and Dan August (1970).

16. Sherry Boucher

Actress | Five Days from Home

Sherry Boucher was born on July 25, 1945 in Bossier City, Louisiana, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Five Days from Home (1978), Nursie (2004) and Sisters of Death (1977). She was previously married to George Peppard.

17. Lee Grant

Actress | In the Heat of the Night

Academy Award-winner Lee Grant was born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal on October 31, 1925 in Manhattan, New York City, to Witia (Haskell), a teacher and model, and Abraham Rosenthal, an educator and realtor. Her father was of Romanian Jewish descent, and her mother was a Russian Jewish immigrant. Lee ...

18. John Fink

Actor | Batman & Robin

John Fink was born on February 11, 1940 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He is an actor, known for Batman & Robin (1997), Flatliners (1990) and The Client (1994). He was previously married to Charlotte "Sharkey" Flintermann.

19. Harold Gould

Actor | Patch Adams

Harold Gould earned a Ph.D. in theater and taught speech and drama at Cornell University.

Pursuing off-Broadway work in the 1950s, he decided to practice what he preached and became a full-time professional actor in the 1960s.

He appeared in hundreds of TV programs during his distinguished performing...

20. Patricia Mattick

Actress | The Beguiled

Patricia Mattick was born on July 31, 1951 in Denver, Colorado, USA. She was an actress, known for The Beguiled (1971), Tales of the Unexpected (1977) and Ransom for a Dead Man (1971). She died on December 6, 2003 in Tallahassee, Florida, USA.

21. Paul Carr

Actor | Akira

Paul Carr was born on February 1, 1934 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. He was an actor and producer, known for Akira (1988), Star Trek (1966) and The Time Tunnel (1966). He was married to Merrily M Hirsch and Evan MacNeil. He died on February 17, 2006 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

22. Jed Allan

Actor | General Hospital

Jed Allan was born on March 1, 1935 in The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for General Hospital (1963), Days of Our Lives (1965) and Port Charles (1997). He was married to Janice Toby Druger. He died on March 9, 2019 in Palm Desert, California, USA.

23. Hank Brandt

Actor | Kingpin

Hank Brandt was born on June 4, 1934 in East Orange, New Jersey, USA. He was an actor, known for Kingpin (1996), Dumb and Dumber (1994) and Escape from Alcatraz (1979). He was married to Dixie Dixon. He died on December 4, 2004 in North Hills, California, USA.

24. Jean Byron

Actress | Invisible Invaders

A true sunny delight, actress Jean Byron will be fondly remembered for her three-season-long role as vivacious "Natalie Lane", the grounding mom of "identical cousin" Patty Duke on The Patty Duke Show (1963), the one who was always around to help teenage Patty regroup when "a hot dog made her lose ...

25. Richard Roat

Actor | Westworld

On Friday, August 5, the Lakers and Angels lost their biggest fan. Richard Roat, the most supportive friend a person in the entertainment industry could ever have, passed away suddenly. Richard had amassed over 135 acting roles on television, film, and on Broadway. He guest starred on "The Golden ...

26. Norma Connolly

Actress | The Wrong Man

Norma Connolly was born on August 20, 1927 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. She was an actress, known for The Wrong Man (1956), General Hospital (1963) and The Twilight Zone (1959). She was married to Howard Rodman. She died on November 18, 1998 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

27. Harlan Warde

Actor | The Monster That Challenged the World

Harlan Warde was born on November 6, 1917 in Los Angeles County, California, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Monster That Challenged the World (1957), Money Madness (1948) and State Department: File 649 (1949). He was married to Barbara Grace Whittaker and Caroline Frances Sherwood. ...

28. Bill Walker

Actor | Big Jake

Bill Walker was born on July 1, 1896 in Pendleton, Indiana, USA. He was an actor, known for Big Jake (1971), Tick, Tick, Tick (1970) and Boy Who Caught a Crook (1961). He was married to Peggy Cartwright. He died on January 27, 1992 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.

29. Timothy Carey

Actor | The Killing

Timothy Carey had one of the most unusual careers of all Hollywood character actors, obtaining full cult status for his portrayals of the doomed, the psychotic and the plain crazy. Carey's career was an "only in America" type of story, and he retains his status as a great American original many ...

30. Judson Morgan

Actor | Columbo

Judson Morgan was born on April 13, 1914 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was an actor, known for Columbo (1971), Hawkins (1973) and Driven (1996). He died on March 10, 2006 in Pacific Palisades, California, USA.

31. Richard O'Brien

Actor | Heaven Can Wait

Richard O'Brien was born on July 14, 1917 in Fargo, North Dakota, USA. He was an actor, known for Heaven Can Wait (1978), The Andromeda Strain (1971) and The Pack (1977). He died on March 29, 1983 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

32. Celeste Yarnall

Actress | Star Trek

Celeste Yarnall is an amazing woman of many talents who has been very successful in a diverse number of fields. There appears to be nothing she cannot do when she puts her mind to it. Apart from her initial career as model, spokesperson and actress, Celeste has also managed several talented ...

33. Lisa Moore

Actress | Act of Vengeance

Lisa Moore was born on September 12, 1940 in Georgia, USA. She was an actress, known for Act of Vengeance (1974), Hit Man (1972) and The Bionic Woman (1976). She was married to Phil Moore. She died on April 10, 1989 in Los Angeles County, California, USA.

34. Lois Battle

Actress | The Rat Patrol

Lois Battle was born on October 6, 1939 in New York, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Rat Patrol (1966), The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1965) and Ransom for a Dead Man (1971). She died on June 17, 2014 in Beaufort, South Carolina, USA.

35. Reginald Fenderson

Actor | The Green Pastures

Handsome Reginald Fenderson was a talented actor, one of the top black movie stars. Before the movies, he was quite popular on the stage, appearing in "Sailor, Beware!," and he became famous in the stage version of "Green Pastures."

Fenderson became worldwide known through what were known as "race ...

36. Jack Cassidy

Actor | The Eiger Sanction

Actor. Jack Cassidy, by his own design, defied mere definition from the day he was born in Richmond Hills, New York in 1927 until his tragic death in 1976. An actor, singer, writer, designer - the consummate showman and irrefutable creative entity - his life never followed a simple path nor did it ...

37. Rosemary Forsyth

Actress | Disclosure

A tall, willowy, highly attractive blonde, Canadian leading lady Rosemary Forsyth was born in Montreal on July 6, 1943, who moved to New York at age 5 with her divorced mother who found work as a model. Rosemary was keen on the idea of acting and studied drama both in high school. Inspired by her ...

38. Martin Milner

Actor | Sweet Smell of Success

Martin Sam Milner was born December 28, 1931 in Detroit, Michigan. His mother, Jerre Martin, originally from Oregon, was a dancer with the Paramount Theater circuit. His father, Sam Gordon Milner, a Polish Jewish immigrant, was a film distributor. The Milners moved to Seattle when Martin was a baby...

39. Barbara Colby

Actress | Mary Tyler Moore

At age 36, actress Barbara Colby was on the brink of TV-character stardom when the native New Yorker was senselessly shot and killed one evening on the streets of Los Angeles. The tall, toothy, husky-voiced, frizzy-haired actress equipped with a keen, Brooklyn-tough sensibility and dead-on comedy ...

40. Marcia Wallace

Actress | The Simpsons

Born on November 1, 1942, the eldest of three born to an Iowa general storeowner, Marcia Wallace endured a troubled childhood (alcoholism, physical abuse). Performing in high school plays as a teenager, she studied at Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa, where she majored in English and theatre.

...

41. Hoke Howell

Actor | Far and Away

A consummate character actor whose deep Southern drawl (courtesy of a Georgia birth and South Carolina upbringing) made him a highly sought-after personality. Howell began his career on Broadway in "Make A Million." Hollywood took note of his accent and tried to make the best use of it, from a ...

42. Bernie Kuby

Actor | The Karate Kid

Songwriter ("My Angelina")and author, educated at the University of Cincinnati. Since 1947 he was a copywriter for numerous magazines, radio, television and television commercials, and he wrote the Chicago stage scores for "Analysis in Wonderland" and "Tongue in Chic". Joining ASCAP in 1957, his ...

43. Lynnette Mettey

Actress | Favorite Son

Lynnette Mettey was born on April 4, 1943 in Tarrytown, New York, USA. She is an actress, known for Favorite Son (1988), Simon & Simon (1981) and M*A*S*H (1972).

44. Robert Culp

Actor | I Spy

Tall, slim and exceedingly good-looking American leading man Robert Culp, a former cartoonist in his teen years, appeared off-Broadway in the 1950s before settling into polished, clean-cut film leads and "other man" supports a decade later. Hitting the popular TV boards in the hip, racially ...

45. Pat Crowley

Actress | Forever Female

A very pleasing and thoroughly enjoyable vision on 1950s film and 1960s TV, Patricia Crowley effortlessly lit up her surroundings with a warm, inviting personality and fresh-faced attractiveness that she still carries today. At her peak she courted top TV stardom in the mid-'60s as the beleaguered ...

46. Ray Milland

Actor | The Lost Weekend

Ray Milland became one of Paramount's most bankable and durable stars, under contract from 1934 to 1948, yet little in his early life suggested a career as a motion picture actor.

Milland was born Alfred Reginald Jones in the Welsh town of Neath, Glamorgan, to Elizabeth Annie (Truscott) and Alfred ...

47. Brett Halsey

Actor | The Godfather Part III

Internationally-known actor Brett Halsey, one of Hollywood's busiest and handsomest actors of the mid-to-late '50s and early '60s, was born Charles Oliver Hand to a builder/contractor in Santa Ana, California on June 20, 1933. Interested in performing from childhood (he appeared in local community ...

48. Eric James

Actor | Columbo

Eric James was born on January 14, 1943 in Westmont, Illinois, USA. He is an actor, known for Columbo (1971), Mission: Impossible (1966) and Bright Promise (1969).

49. Don Keefer

Actor | Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Don Keefer was born on August 18, 1916 in Highspire, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Twilight Zone (1959) and Death of a Salesman (1951). He was married to Catherine McLeod. He died on September 7, 2014 in Sherman Oaks, California, USA.

50. Len Wayland

Actor | Barnaby Jones

Before his break into television in the 1950s, Len Wayland began as a Broadway actor and toured the country starring in such favorites as "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "A Man for All Seasons". He later started his television career with a stint in soap operas and then, later, in nighttime dramas. ...

51. Lieux Dressler

Actress | Point of No Return

You may know her as Alice Grant on "General Hospital." Ms. Dressler has a vast number of film, television and stage credits and has also appeared in numerous television commercials. She started performing in nightclubs, moved to the West Coast where she studied in drama workshops for two years and ...

52. Barbara Baldavin

Actress | Star Trek

Barbara Baldavin was born on October 18, 1938 in Quincy, Massachusetts, USA. She was an actress and casting director, known for Star Trek (1966), Skeeter (1993) and The Bionic Woman (1976). She was married to Joseph D'Agosta. She died on March 31, 2024 in Manhattan Beach, California, USA.

53. Eddie Albert

Actor | Roman Holiday

A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Eddie Albert was a circus trapeze flier before becoming a stage and radio actor. He made his film debut in 1938 and has worked steadily since, often cast as the friendly, good-natured buddy of the hero but occasionally being cast as a villain; one of his ...

54. Kate Reid

Actress | The Andromeda Strain

The brilliant and versatile London-born stage, radio and TV actress Kate Reid was actually born Daphne Kate Reid in 1930 to Canadian parents, Walter Clarke Reid and Helen Isabel Moore. The family moved back to Ontario before she was a year old. An introverted child of delicate health, Kate sought ...

55. Suzanne Pleshette

Actress | The Birds

Suzanne Pleshette achieved television immortality in her role as Bob Newhart's wife in the 1970s classic situation comedy, The Bob Newhart Show (1972). For her role as "Emily Hartley," wife of psychologist "Bob Hartley" (played by Bob Newhart), Pleshette was nominated for the Emmy Award twice, in ...

56. John Kerr

Actor | Tea and Sympathy

His father Geoffrey Kerr (b. 25 Jan 1895, London; d. 1971) and mother June Walker (b. 14 June 1904, New York City; d. 1966) were successful Broadway and, occasionally, film actors. He went into theatre as soon as he graduated from Harvard. He had an important role in the stage play "Bernadine" in ...

57. Val Avery

Actor | The Magnificent Seven

Val Avery was born on July 14, 1924 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Amityville Horror (1979) and Cobra (1986). He was married to Margot Stevenson. He died on December 12, 2009 in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York, ...

58. Clete Roberts

Actor | Testament

Clete Roberts was born on February 1, 1912 in Portland, Oregon. He is known for his work on M*A*S*H (1983), Testament (1983), The Jerk (1979), Meteor (1979), and Time After Time (1979). He was a well-known and highly respected TV news anchor for KTLA in Los Angeles, California. He died on September...

59. Glen Vernon

Actor | So I Married an Axe Murderer

Glen Vernon was born on October 27, 1923 in Fall River, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993), Ding Dong Williams (1946) and Impact (1949). He was married to Joy Rogers. He died on October 27, 1999 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.

60. Ron Castro

Actor | Search

Ron Castro was born on July 2, 1942 in Dallas, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Search (1972), Mission: Impossible (1966) and The Streets of San Francisco (1972). He was married to Juliana 'Jewel' Davis and Teddi Siddall. He died on November 10, 2013 in Gig Harbor, Washington, USA.

61. Jim Pelham

Actor | The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

Jim Pelham was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, USA. He is known for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), Columbo (1971) and NBC Special Treat (1975).

62. Jim Halferty

Actor | The Time Tunnel

Jim Halferty was born on October 30, 1948 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is an actor, known for The Time Tunnel (1966), The Invaders (1967) and Columbo (1971).