One of the first people to build a telephone exchange was Hungarian Tivadar Puskas (above) in 1877 while he was working for Thomas Edison. George W. Coy designed and built the first commercial telephone exchange which opened in New Haven, Connecticut. He’s been called the first full-time telephone operator. The switchboard was built from "carriage bolts, handles from teapot lids and bustle wire" and could handle two simultaneous conversations .

    
              The first telephone switchboard built by George W. Coy

Barnaby Jones is a television detective series starring Buddy Ebsen and Lee
Meriwether (seen above) as father- and daughter-in-law who run a private
detective firm in Los Angeles. The show ran on CBS-TV until April 3, 1980,
when it was cancelled due to low ratings among young viewers.

Alan Alda ,an actor, director and screenwriter is a five-time Emmy Award and six-time Golden Globe Award winner. He is best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce ( above)
in the TV series M*A*S*H on CBS from September 17, 1972 to February 28, 1983. He was nominated for 21 Emmy Awards, and won five. He took part in writing 19 episodes, including the finale, and directed 32. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the Stony Brook University School of Journalism.

Alda as U.S. Republican Senator Arnold Vinick in West Wing on NBC-TV
from 1999 to 2006

Alan Alda played  U.S. Senator Owen Brewster (above) in The Aviator
in 2004. He received his first  Academy Award nomination for the role.