# Actors Under The Stars

> Drawing actors from the closing credits into recognition


## Posts

- [An Excuse to Talk About Jesse White](https://actorsunderthestars.com/an-excuse-to-talk-about-jesse-white/): Nobody really needs an excuse to talk about Jesse White; nevertheless, I have a pretty good one. Whether you have known his name forever or are learning it for the first time, Jesse White is a TV and cinema treasure. From his last television appearance as a droll Florida retirement community neighbor of Jerry Seinfeld’s parents all the way back to his breakthrough romp as the unstoppable mental health facility attendant in the classic comedy Harvey (1950), that wonderful melting-ice cream face has been, often namelessly, enjoyed. So, my excuse to talk about him: Jesse White and my mother went [&hellip;]
- [Feeling Culty](https://actorsunderthestars.com/feeling-culty/): I remember one Halloween evening back in the late 1980s when I tuned into the American Movie Classics Channel only to discover that they were airing not one single scary cinema treat; just regular fare&#8211;as if Halloween didn&#8217;t even exist! Back then, when my children were school kids, the holiday was something essentially celebrated just in classroom parties on October 31—if that happened to fall on a weekday. Trick-or-treating was, for various reasons, out of favor and adults almost never donned costumes. Now America is obsessed with the holiday. It’s inescapable (not that I, for one, would wish to escape). [&hellip;]
- [Introducing: Actors Under the Stars](https://actorsunderthestars.com/introducing-actors-under-the-stars/): There are countless supporting actors. Some are off-beat and quirky, and everybody calls them “character actors.” Others may be every bit as much eye-candy as a top-billed movie star. On the Welcome page, I called supporting players, “the diamonds at the core of the film &amp; television world.” I could as easily have metaphorized them as &#8220;the foundation,” or &#8220;the backbone.” If you knew Supporting TV Cast, you probably sensed that it tended to lean in toward the kind of veteran actor who strikes one’s sensibilities like a well-liked aunt or uncle you forget about until they come for a [&hellip;]
- [Edward Binns](https://actorsunderthestars.com/edward-binns/): I'm Not Frank Lovejoy
- [John Hoyt](https://actorsunderthestars.com/john-hoyt/): Off the Record All These Years???
- [Larry Gates](https://actorsunderthestars.com/larry-gates/): The Man Who Slapped Sidney Poitier
- [Margaret Hayes](https://actorsunderthestars.com/margaret-hayes/): Almost Ravished in the Library
- [Marsha Hunt](https://actorsunderthestars.com/marsha-hunt/): Your Face Is in the Script
- [Peter Mark Richman](https://actorsunderthestars.com/peter-mark-richman/): Opened to the Contact
- [Prudence Wright Holmes](https://actorsunderthestars.com/prudence-wright-holmes/): Implacable Actor/Playwright/Coach
- [Wallace Shawn](https://actorsunderthestars.com/wallace-shawn/): Puckish and Popular
- [A Streaming Conversation on Race in America](https://actorsunderthestars.com/a-streaming-conversation-on-race-in-america/): One evening, my friend Terry Talley – a stage actor, a playwright, a manager of charitable donations at UNICEF, a white guy, and an often infuriating but always true-hearted good person – arrived at his unassuming apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to find two black men standing by the elevator in the entrance hall. Encountering two black men he had not seen before in the lobby at night set off wiggly hairs on the back of Terry’s neck. (A response familiar to you?) He later told me that his initial impulse was to act like he had just [&hellip;]
- [Daytime Emmy Drama Series Awards: once The Best of Everything, now just a few Dark Shadows?](https://actorsunderthestars.com/daytime-emmy-drama-series-awards-once-the-best-of-everything-now-just-a-few-dark-shadows/): I held a Daytime Emmy statuette once. As everyone says about those show biz awards, they are heavier than you expect. During the global pandemic lockdown broadcast of the 47th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards last night, hosts and presenters commentated from their homes; the winners, who had obviously been informed of their victories before airtime, gave their grateful acceptance speeches from their living rooms, family rooms, and backyards – along with a lot of articulate and impassioned addresses on the hot button topic of racial inequity in America – and I don’t think  anyone actually held onto a golden statuette. [&hellip;]
- [George Gerdes Bit Me: A Brief Tribute to a Fine Familiar Face](https://actorsunderthestars.com/george-gerdes-bit-me-a-brief-tribute-to-a-fine-familiar-face/): Actor George Gerdes once bit me on the thigh. He did not pierce the flesh but his teeth marks lingered on my skin, as I recall, for months. I will miss him because, as widely reported in national print and digital news media, George experienced a brain aneurism on New Year’s Eve 2020. He perished on New Year’s Day. He was, like nearly all actors noted here at Supporting TV Cast, a keen, crafted talent who graced the worlds of TV, film, and stage as a staple, reassuring presence with no garish red-carpet glare. His credits are numerous. Sometimes he is [&hellip;]
- [Rebirth: Isn't It Lovely](https://actorsunderthestars.com/rebirth-isnt-it-lovely/): Currently, we find ourselves in the midst of large-scale upheavals – groping for “new normals” in a global pandemic; passionate demands across the U.S. and the world for social reform and racial justice; a vitriolic presidential election; retaliatory and inadvertent attacks from Mother Nature; and more. I hope the rebirth of Supporting TV Cast will contribute some small-scale positives to life now and to come. Lauding the under-lauded is a pleasure. Back in 2011, I took a 6-week, online course in HTML coding with an eye toward creating a website dedicated to biographies of my favorite category of actors – the [&hellip;]
- [Answers to Summer 2020 Mini-Quiz](https://actorsunderthestars.com/answers-to-summer-2020-mini-quiz/): An interactive quiz feature is coming soon to STVC! In the meantime, here are the answers to the Summer 2020 Newsletter Mini-Quiz – the correct monikers for each of these 3 faces whose given names are usually billed by initials only. (left) H.M. Wynant: This non-stop veteran is my absolute favorite kind of actor – solidly crafted with a jam-packed career that spans decades. His “Howling Man” episode is always included in Syfy’s Twilight Zone marathons. You can catch his off-beat good looks in multiple Perry Mason segments on FeTv, or his seasoned personae in works like Footprints (2009), a paean to Hollywood Boulevard (the street, [&hellip;]
- [Facebook Threesome](https://actorsunderthestars.com/facebook-threesome/): (I intended to write this 5 days ago, the day I posted the Mini Quiz on Facebook; and if you have come looking for the “Before Black People Were Invented” entry, that’s the post below.) Again, none of the 3 actors in this Mini Quiz are profiled on STVC but they are grouped here because their television oeuvres are large, and their names are gender-neutral, making them ideal for a multiple choice quiz. I must begin with Parley Baer, pictured right, because it would almost be easier to name the TV series from the 50s to the 90s on which [&hellip;]
- [Before Black People Were Invented](https://actorsunderthestars.com/before-black-people-were-invented/): Much of the country right now is infused with passion for justice and social change after the on-screen killing of African-American citizen George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer. Among the many heightened thoughts this outrage put into my mind, I – being cinema and TV oriented – flashed on the depiction of police in films of the 30s, 40s and 50s. If you are a fan of film noir, you’re probably aware that the cops used to slap suspects around routinely if they wanted to, even just some person-of-interest whose home they were visiting for questioning. I’m [&hellip;]
- [COV-ego and the Mystery Lady](https://actorsunderthestars.com/cov-ego-and-the-mystery-lady/): The nation is in a somewhat limbo-like state, morphing into what we hope will be a more relaxed phase of the COVID-19 crisis/lockdown/quarantine/ordeal/adventure. In my attempt to be clever, I’m considering the preparations for the relaunch of Supporting TV Cast to be part of my COV-ego. The pun is a little forced but…you get it. For now, I am referring to the actor pictured here as the Mystery Lady. I’ve drawn a mask on her, not as part of her mystery but as the first and, perhaps only, time-capsule image on this site of our world’s current moment. If things [&hellip;]
- [Twitter Threesome](https://actorsunderthestars.com/twitter-threesome/): I posted  on Twitter today. None of the actors pictured in the tweet have been profiled here at STVC but their careers fit, or more or less fit, the STVC mold. The dude on the left fits perfectly; the woman in the middle is more beautiful than typical for a character actor but she’s done her share of supporting roles on TV; the actor on the right is a bit of a squeeze but his body of work is building. What makes them a nice group is their names – all gender-unspecific and therefore good for a guessing game. The [&hellip;]
- [William Schallert Leaves Us](https://actorsunderthestars.com/william-schallert-leaves-us/): I don’t usually do memorial notices but…William Schallert! WILLIAM SCHALLERT (that is an anguished shout). I hate it when the world has to go on without someone so rich in spirit and artistic contributions as William Schallert (1922 – 2016). But we must. ~ FW
- [The RoberCon That Was](https://actorsunderthestars.com/the-robercon-that-was/): This past weekend, I attended the first day of the third annual RoberCon &#8211; the heartwarming science fiction/fantasy convention at the Roberson Museum in Binghamton, NY. &#8220;Let Your Geek Flag Fly&#8221; is their motto, and people do. And that&#8217;s heartwarming. I sat in the audience of a panel discussion of “The Masks” episode of The Twilight Zone. The moderator screened the segment but turned the show off just before the closing credits – always, for me, one of the best parts of any production! The discussion was of Rod Serling and his writing but the panel did reveal a couple [&hellip;]
- [Fairmount, Indiana Festival - September 24 - 27](https://actorsunderthestars.com/fairmount-indiana-festival-september-24-27/): I was never particularly a James Dean fan until I researched him for an article in 2012 and read the note he wrote as he left for the trip on which, as it turned out, he died. It was instructions for feeding his cat. For the first time, I really saw his tender beauty; my heart broke and my tears flowed 57 years after his death. Clearly a mega-star, James Dean may not seem to fit here. But beyond his three break-out movies, you probably know that he did a lot of television in the early days and appeared with [&hellip;]
- [Joe Franklin in the Labyrinth](https://actorsunderthestars.com/joe-franklin-in-the-labyrinth/): Anyone who ever visited Joe Franklin in his office, and found his/her way out again, should tell the tale. It began for me in a line of travelers waiting for a Greyhound in the dismal departure area of the Port Authority bus terminal in midtown Manhattan. I was returning home from a writer’s conference; nestled in my carry-on were the drafts of some work which I intended to develop into a book but that has, instead, landed on this website. Idly, I noticed a dark-haired man wearing a necktie with a portrait of silent screen star Theda Bara on it. [&hellip;]
- [Marsha Hunt & Laurence Fishburne](https://actorsunderthestars.com/marsha-hunt-laurence-fishburne/): &#8220;You know, if you&#8217;re not in a scene together you never even see their face.&#8221; That was what veteran Hollywood actress Marsha Hunt said to me in a recent phone interview when I questioned her about what memories she may have of such staples of the supporting player community as actors Paul Fix – who appeared in two of her films in the 1930s – and Milton Selzer – who shared billing with her in a 1972 made-for-TV movie called Jigsaw. As with many a fan in the street, their names were vaguely familiar to her but, despite their enormous [&hellip;]

## Pages

- [Welcome](https://actorsunderthestars.com/): Recognize Anyone? You probably won&#8217;t see red carpet interview videos with these supporting actors, but they are among the diamonds at the core of the film &amp; television world. This website is about mining actors &#8211;both current and classic&#8211; from the closing credits, and from the back of your mind, into illumination and recognition. Some are faces that give you that feeling of familiarity and delight every time you see them&#8211;but whose names you can never quite remember or never even knew. Or the name may be familiar but is disembodied. Connect the Dots Others are voices with essentially unconnected [&hellip;]
- [Terms of Service](https://actorsunderthestars.com/terms-of-service/): Actors Under the StarsTM Terms of Service Last Updated September 24. 2025 Welcome to Actors Under the Stars (“Actors Under the Stars”, “we,” “our,” or “us”)! Thanks for using the Actors Under the Stars website (the “Services”).  By using our Services, you are agreeing to these Terms of Service (“Terms”). Please read them carefully.  Our Services are very diverse, so sometimes additional terms or product requirements (including age requirements) may apply. If additional terms or conditions are available with or applicable to the relevant Services, then those additional terms become part of your agreement with us if you use those [&hellip;]
- [About](https://actorsunderthestars.com/about/): FW – the would-be wizard behind the curtain – is yours truly, Felicia Waynesboro. For the entire six-year life of Triple Cities Carousel (2013-2019), I was a staff writer and columnist at the monthly newspaper on arts and culture in upstate New York. As a contributing writer, my work has appeared in such publications as the national magazine Victoria and Horizon, a Canadian humor magazine. I have been an editor/writer on the arts for the Cultural Council Foundation in New York City and a feature correspondent for a Pennsylvania newspaper. My work also appears online and in the anthologies In Pieces: An Anthology of Fragmentary [&hellip;]
- [Cast Notes/Blog](https://actorsunderthestars.com/cast-notes-blog/)
- [Actor Profiles](https://actorsunderthestars.com/actor-profiles/)
- [About Backup](https://actorsunderthestars.com/about-backup/): FW – the would-be wizard behind the curtain – is yours truly, Felicia Waynesboro. As a contributing writer, my work has appeared in such publications as the national magazine Victoria and Horizon, a Canadian humor magazine. I have been an editor/writer on the arts for the Cultural Council Foundation in New York City and a feature correspondent for a Pennsylvania newspaper. A recent six-year stint as a staff writer and columnist for Triple Cities Carousel, an upstate New York monthly, kept me covering arts and culture. My work also appears online and in the anthologies In Pieces: An Anthology of Fragmentary Writing and Hobbies: How 37 Fascinating Hobbies [&hellip;]
- [Privacy Policy](https://actorsunderthestars.com/privacy-policy/): Actors Under the StarsTM Privacy Policy Last updated: September 20, 2025 Thank you for using Actors Under the Stars (“Actors Under the Stars”, “we”, “us” or “our”)! We are committed to protecting your privacy and, for that reason, we have adopted this Privacy Policy to explain our data collection, use, and disclosure practices for the Actors Under the Stars services (including the actorsunderthestars.com website, and any other tools, products, or services provided by Actors Under the Stars that link to or reference this Privacy Policy) (collectively, the “Services”). This Privacy Policy applies to information Actors Under the Stars collects through [&hellip;]


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