Fans of the Bob Newhart Show (the second incarnation, simply titled Newhart, I think), will remember Tom Poston as the actor who played George, the handyman ... he's passed away and here's an interesting detail I wasn't aware of:

``When I started out, I was sorry I'd missed vaudeville,'' Poston told New York magazine. ``I was sorry I'd missed silent movies. At the time, it didn't occur to me that I was participating in the beginnings of television. TV was a weird option because of the advertising. When it first started, I said, `I don't want to have anything to do with promoting beer and cigarettes and cars. I don't want to peddle snake oil.' I had studied to be a classicist.''

... from Bloomberg. Now I'm wondering whether that means 'classicist' in our sense or classicist in the 'classic drama' sense ... possibly the latter, given his post-war studies.