Career: While working in Hartford, Falk joined a local theatre group called the Mark Twain Masquers. He also took acting classes at the White Barn Theatre in Westport, Connecticut. In 1956, he moved to New York to pursue an acting career. He made his professional stage debut in an Off-Broadway production of Moliere's Dom Juan - it closed after just one performance. He had better luck with other Broadway roles. After a number of small film parts, Falk was praised for his supporting role in Murder, Inc. (1960), for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. In 1961, he starred in Frank Capra's final film, Pocketful of Miracles and earned his second Academy Award nomination. Falk continued to make films and make guest appearances on TV shows. He is best known as the star of the TV detective series Columbo, which he first played in the 1968 TV movie Prescription: Murder. He went on to play the crumpled detective on and off on TV between 1971 until 2003. Falk died at his Beverly Hills home on June 23, 2011 at the age of 83.

Career: In 1956, Vaughn was signed by Burt Lancaster's production company, but was drafted into the army shortly afterwards. On his return to Hollywood, he spent the next few years playing small roles in movies and TV series such as The Ten Commandments and Gunsmoke. In 1960 he received an Oscar nomination for The Young Philadelphians and was one of The Magnificent Seven. TV show The Lieutenant followed, and he became a major global star thanks to The Man from UNCLE in 1964. Vaughn has also starred in Bullitt, The Towering Inferno, Battle Beyond the Stars, and SOB, and continues to regularly crop up on the big and small screens. He starred in as con-artist Albert Stroller in the BBC drama Hustle between 2004 and 2012, before shifting his attention to Coronation Street to appear as rich American Milton, the love interest of Sylvia Goodwin.

Career: After making his mark on the London stage, McGoohan appeared in his first film, The Dam Busters, in 1954. He later gained contracts with the Rank Organisation and Walt Disney, but it was the TV play The Greatest Man in the World that led to him being cast in spy series Danger Man in 1960. Its huge success made him Britain's highest-paid TV actor. McGoohan created surreal cult hit The Prisoner in 1967 before moving to the US. Afterwards his output was sporadic, but he appeared in, directed and written episodes of Columbo, had his own series called Rafferty, and starred in the films Ice Station Zebra, Escape from Alcatraz, Silver Streak and Braveheart. McGoohan died on January 13, 2009, in Santa Monica, California, following a brief illness.