Trivia

He and his The Boston Kid (1955) co-star Leonard Nimoy both died on February 27, 2015.

Served in the US Air Force during the Korean War.

Profiled in Justin Humphreys' "Names You Never Remember, With Faces You Never Forget" (BearManor Media; Illustrated Edition (1/10/06); ISBN 1593930410/ISBN 978-1593930417).

Got a foot in the door playing juvenile delinquents in low-budget "teenpix" in the 1950s right after the James Dean rebel phase kicked in. Was typecast as the leader of a street gang in his first film, Robert Altman's The Delinquents (1957), seeing as how he actually was somewhat of a juvenile delinquent, having done a year's probation at age 15. This role was followed with another gang member appearance in Jerry Lewis's The Delicate Delinquent (1957). After Bakalyan aged out of "juvenile delinquent" roles, he carved out a new career as a character actor, often cast as Runyonesque types and comic heavies.

He and Dickie Jones were arrested in Kansas City, MO, for "vagrancy" while shooting The Cool and the Crazy (1958) on location in that city. They were standing on the sidewalk between takes, in full "JD" getup, when they were noticed by police who thought they actually were teenage gang members and hauled them in. It took several hours for the film company to straighten things out and get the two released from jail.

Became a lifelong friend of Bobby Darin following his appearance in Darin's Pressure Point (1962) and later appeared in Darin's NBC television variety series (The Bobby Darin Show (1973)) as a regular. He was one of the last people to see Darin before his death from heart disease in 1973.

Although he had a Brooklyn-type accent, he was actually from Watertown, Massachusetts.

Lifetime member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

His father was from Armenia, his mother from Nova Scotia, Canada.