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Parfrey was born Sydney Woodrow Parfrey in New York City, New York, to Hazel (James) and Sidney Parfrey, both Welsh immigrants. One of the most interesting character actors to emerge on American film and television in the 1960s, Parfrey brought a quirky charisma to every role he played, from shopkeepers to space-age simians. His noted turn as the unbalanced informer in Broadway's "Advise and Consent" (1961) set the standard for his offbeat, conspiratorial persona in dozens of TV and movie appearances into the 1980s. Always a supporting player receiving inconsistently deferential billing, Parfrey did manage some focal TV guest-star roles, mainly in the late sixties, and a few big A-movie parts, most notably as one of the wretched prisoners in Papillon (1973). Parfrey's association with that film's director, Franklin Schaffner, also included his bit as one of the three "See No Evil" orangutan judges in Planet of the Apes (1968) (he would don the prosthetics again for the pilot of the spinoff TV series). In addition, Parfrey also turned up in the unofficial repertory companies of both Clint Eastwood and Don Siegel. His determination to bring that edgy "something extra" to his profession lives on in his son, the "underground" publisher Adam Parfrey.

Hawaiian-born James Shigeta was, for a time, the biggest East Asian U.S. star the country had known for decades. His up-and-down career reflected the country's changing interest in films with East Asian themes, but, when called upon, he filled both A-movie starring roles and minor T.V. guest appearances with the same cool and classy style. An aspiring song-and-dance man early in his career, he had a series of romantic leading roles in the late fifties, culminating in his most important one, the lead in Ross Hunter's glitzy production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical, Flower Drum Song (1961). Supporting parts followed, his last showy turn coming again from Ross Hunter, with star billing and his own production number in the ill-fated musical remake of Lost Horizon (1973). Along the way, there have been many notable T.V. guest appearances showcasing Shigeta's facility with both sympathetic and villainous roles. His status as the foremost East Asian leading man of twentieth century U.S. film will endure undiminished by an erratic career.

The son of a celebrated Dutch actor, John Van Dreelen may have come by his debonair countenance with a bit of help from his continental pedigree. Fluent in several languages, he was reported to have escaped a concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Holland by disguising himself as one of the German officers he would later play so often on both big and small screens.

Though he bookended and sprinkled his career with appearances in many European films, Van Dreelen is best remembered as an A-list guest star in dozens of American television shows from the early 1960s to the mid-'80s. Never a major player in American theatrical films, he nonetheless scored a few choice roles, including the Danish concert pianist who rescues and woos Lana Turner during an extended sequence in Madame X (1966). Van Dreelen also enjoyed an international stage career and starred in the original American touring production of "The Sound of Music." Despite his close identification with despotic roles, he also easily breezed through light drama and comedy and cut a dashing and memorable figure in 1960s pop culture oeuvre.