The Fulk if they know

Brophy

You have to be quite the television fan to be able to identify actor Kevin Brophy, one-time star of the 1977 show "Lucan" about a boy raised by wolves, or actor Peter Barton, who spent six years of his precious life portraying Dr Scott Grainger on "The Young and the Restless."

Barton

I was a big fan of "Y&R" at one time in my life, and have a dim memory of this Grainger character dating the wonderful Cricket, only to see the romance derailed when it came to light that the two were half-siblings. This sort of yuckiness might have contributed to my eventual disinterest in the goings-on in Genoa City, and I was soon to switch my daytime viewing allegiance to "The Price Is Right," in which even if someone were to go with their half-sister, they would keep it to themselves while sliding Plinko chips toward that $10,000 slot.

According to the IMDb website, Barton's résumé must have fallen behind the file cabinets of most Hollywood casting directors, while it might be interesting to hear how Brophy fed himself between acting in the 1998 movie "I'm Losing You" and the 2012 classic "Book of 1000 Deaths."  These are not people who are likely to rise from a seat in a crowded auditorium when the Oscars are being handed out, unless they were just keeping a seat warm for Adrien Brody or something.

Another man of whom you may never have heard is Ray Fulk, who lived to be 71 on a 160-acre property in Lincoln, Illinois.  Ray died last June, in a house on that property described as an "absolute filthy mess."  As so often happens with these poorly adjusted hermits, he was not just filthy, but also filthy rich. His property will bring in over a million dollars, and his other assets were worth a quarter of a million.  

So what context brings together Brophy, Barton and Fulk?  Well, it seems that Fulk liked these two dudes and their acting, so he left them his entire estate to split, save for $5,000 he bequeathed to his local anti-animal cruelty organization.  There's no indication that the actors, who are friends, ever knew of Fulk.  The news story says that Barton, who after all would seem to have time for such things, traveled to Illinois to check out the provenance of his windfall.

Let it be known that while I am a big fan of Norm MacDonald, Britney Spears and Bruce Willis, none of those people should plan on dining out on anything they will receive as proceeds from my demise.