Betsy Palmer (born November 1, 1926) is an American actress, best known as a regular panelist on the game show I've Got a Secret, and later for playing Pamela Voorhees in the notorious slasher film Friday the 13th.

Palmer was born Patricia Betsy Hrunek in East Chicago, Indiana, the daughter of Marie (née Love), who headed^{[citation needed]} the Chicago Business College, and Vincent R. Hrunek, an industrial chemist who was an immigrant from Czechoslovakia. She graduated from DePaul University. Palmer married Dr. Vincent J. Merendino on May 8, 1954; the couple had one daughter, Missy (b. 1962). They divorced in 1971.

Palmer got her first acting job in 1951 when she joined the cast of a 15 minute long, daily soap opera, Miss Susan, which was produced in Philadelphia. She was "discovered" for this role while enjoying a party in the apartment of actor Frank Sutton (Gunnery Sergeant Vince Carter of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.). She had been in New York City less than one week.

She would later become a familiar face on television as a long-running regular panelist on the quiz show I've Got a Secret. She joined the show's original run, replacing Faye Emerson in 1958 and remaining until the show's finale in 1967. She also was one of the substitute hosts for the show. She did not subsequently reprise her role in any of the various revivals of the show.

Gisèle MacKenzie (January 10, 1927 – September 5, 2003) was a Canadian-American singer, most famous for her performances on the popular television program Your Hit Parade.

She was born Gisèle Marie-Louise Marguerite LaFlèche in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and studied violin and voice at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Ontario. She had at least two Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio programs, Meet Gisèle and Gisele and Mr. Cable, before moving to Los Angeles, California, in 1951. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1955.

MacKenzie possessed a crystalline, resonant singing voice, and perfect pitch. She recorded albums and singles on various record labels, most notably Capitol and RCA. In 1953 she reached #6 in the UK Singles Chart, with her rendition of "Seven Lonely Days". Her biggest selling song was "Hard To Get" in 1955.

MacKenzie was an accomplished violinist and performed many comedic musical duets with mentor Jack Benny. She remarked that Benny was so enthusiastic about his own violin playing that at each break in rehearsal he would get his violin and they would play duets. In an often-played clip, she and Benny perform a violin duet of "Getting To Know You", in which she breaks their synchronization several times to add some extra musical flourishes, to his mock irritation. Finally, he breaks in with a lengthy (and stereotypically mediocre) flourish of his own, and evokes audience laughter with mock indignation: "Fool around with ME, sister!

Laurence Harvey (1 October 1928 – 25 November 1973) was a Lithuanian-born actor who achieved fame in British and American films.

Harvey maintained throughout his life that his birth name was Laruschka Mischa Skikne, but his birth name was actually Zvi Mosheh Skikne. He was the youngest of three boys born to Ber and Ella Skikne, a Lithuanian Jewish family in the town of Joniškis, Lithuania. Aged five he emigrated with his family to South Africa, where he was known as "Harry Skikne".

He grew up in Johannesburg, and was in his teens when he served with the entertainment unit of the South African Army during World War II. After moving to London, England, he enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where he became known as Larry. After learning his craft at RADA, he began to perform on stage and film, where he adopted the stage name "Laurence Harvey", taken either from the shop name Harvey Nichols or from Harvey's Bristol Cream.

He made his cinema debut in the British film House of Darkness (1948), but only established himself in British cinema when he appeared with Rex Harrison and George Sanders in King Richard and the Crusaders (1954) and as Romeo in Renato Castellani's adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, narrated by John Gielgud, in the same year. This enabled him to gain his first Hollywood experience. He was cast as the writer Christopher Isherwood in I Am A Camera (1955), with Julie Harris as Sally Bowles (Cabaret is a musical from the same source texts). He also appeared on American TV and on Broadway, making his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play Island of Goats, a flop which closed after one week, though his performance won Harvey a 1956 Theatre World Award.^{[citation needed]}

Mahalia Jackson ( /məˈheɪljə/ mə-HAYL-yə; October 26, 1911 – January 27, 1972) was an American gospel singer. Possessing a powerful contralto voice, she was referred to as "The Queen of Gospel". Jackson became one of the most influential gospel singers in the world and was heralded internationally as a singer and civil rights activist. She was described by entertainer Harry Belafonte as "the single most powerful black woman in the United States". She recorded about 30 albums (mostly for Columbia Records) during her career, and her 45 rpm records included a dozen "golds"—million-sellers.

Born as Mahala Jackson and nicknamed "Halie", Jackson grew up in the Black Pearl section of the Carrollton neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans, Louisiana. The three-room dwelling on Pitt Street housed thirteen people and a dog. This included Little Mahala (named after her aunt, Mahala Clark-Paul whom the family called Aunt Duke), her brother Roosevelt Hunter, whom they called Peter, and her mother Charity Clark, who worked as both a maid and a laundress. Several aunts and cousins lived in the house as well. Aunt Mahala was given the nickname "Duke" after proving herself the undisputed "boss" of the family. The extended family (the Clarks) consisted of her mother's siblings – Isabell, Mahala, Boston, Porterfield, Hannah, Alice, Rhoda, Bessie, their children, grandchildren and patriarch Rev. Paul Clark, a former slave. Mahalia's father, John A. Jackson, Sr. was a stevedore (dockworker) and a barber who later became a Baptist minister. He fathered four other children besides Mahalia – Wilmon (older) and then Yvonne, Pearl and Johnny, Jr. (by his marriage shortly after Halie's birth). Her father's sister, Jeanette Jackson-Burnett, and husband, Josie, were vaudeville entertainers.

Richard Wayne "Dick" Van Dyke (born December 13, 1925) is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades. He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke and father of Barry Van Dyke. Van Dyke starred in the films Bye Bye Birdie, Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and in the TV series The Dick Van Dyke Show and Diagnosis: Murder. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Blvd.

Van Dyke was born in West Plains, Missouri, to Loren (nickname "Cookie") and Hazel (born McCord) Van Dyke, but he grew up in Danville, Illinois. He is the older brother of actor Jerry Van Dyke, who is best known for his role on the TV series Coach. His grandson, Shane Van Dyke, is also an actor, and directed Titanic II. He is of Dutch descent on his father's side, and his mother was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Peter Browne from England.