Trivia: The reigning curmudgeon of TV comedy, Emmy-winning Larry David is a rare case of lightning striking twice on the small screen. Not only did he make television history with Seinfeld -- one of the most popular sitcoms to ever grace the airwaves -- but two years after the series ended, David made a stellar return with the hit HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm. A New York City native raised in the Brooklyn, David has often claimed that his carefree childhood made for a rough transition into a miserable adulthood. He began his career as a standup comic in the early to mid-'70s, with middling results at best, a period during which he also met another, albeit more successful, comedian, Jerry Seinfeld, who would also become a lifelong friend. A few years later, success was still eluding David, though, in 1979, he got his first taste of fame as a writer and performer for the Saturday Night Live knock-off Fridays. Television definitely seemed to provide a better vehicle for David's unique brand of humor, and he later got a job as a writer for Saturday Night Live during its 1984-1985 season. The blessing became a curse, however, when David failed to gel with the SNL crew, his brief tenure on the show yielding only one on-air sketch, which was relegated to the evening's final segment. David spent much of the rest of the '80s appearing in small roles in such films as Radio Days (1987) and New York Stories (1989). As the decade drew to a close, Seinfeld was in negotiations to develop a pilot for NBC, and he turned to his old friend David for inspiration, thus giving birth to the wildly popular "show about nothing." Starring Seinfeld, Michael Richards, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Jason Alexander as a quartet of self-involved New Yorkers, Seinfeld debuted in 1990 (after its 1989 pilot episode) and remained on the air for nine seasons. In addition to serving as one of the driving creative forces of the show, David was also the inspiration for the George Constanza character (Alexander) and frequently provided voice-over work. In 1996, David took a sabbatical from the series in order to try his hand at writing and directing a feature film. Though Sour Grapes didn't exactly strike gold at the box office, it did offer a healthy dose of David's trademark acerbic humor and eventually found a second life on the home video market. David returned to Seinfeld in 1998 to craft its final episode. Although he initially opposed returning to the rigors of television, 1999 saw the airing of the HBO special Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm, which, told in mockumentary style, echoed the comedian's past by weaving the tale of a failed former standup comic whose bid to return to the spotlight yielded predictably disastrous results. The show was a hit and prompted HBO to offer David his own series. Curb Your Enthusiasm would prove a massive hit, and the show -- famously featuring improvised dialogue -- would run for several seasons.

Trivia: A talented performer of stage and screen whose quick, on-the-fly wit made her the perfect candidate for a role on Seinfeld co-creator Larry David's popular HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, actress Cheryl Hines found her comic footing as a member of the famed Groundlings troupe before making the leap to the screen in the mid- to late '90s. Though the Florida native would study theater, radio, and television at Florida State University, a move to Los Angeles found her discovering a natural talent for improvisational theater. In the following years, Hines would refine her comic skills while gaining exposure on such popular television series as Suddenly Susan, The Wayans Bros., and Friends, though it would be her Emmy-nominated performance as hapless comic Larry David's wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm that truly made her a recognizable face on the small screen. Hines has also made numerous apperances in film as well, including movies like Along Came Polly, Labor Pains, and The Ugly Truth. In 2011, she returned to the small screen in ABC's quirky Suburgatory, playing glammed-up suburban wife Dallas Royce for three seasons.

Trivia: Heavyset comedian Jeff Garlin started doing standup comedy at his Florida college before he returned to his hometown of Chicago, IL, and joined the cast of Second City. In 1992, he made his film debut in the Dolly Parton comedy Straight Talk, followed by small roles in other features and made-for-TV movies. In 1997, he starred in his own HBO half-hour comedy special and guest starred on Everybody Loves Raymond a couple times before playing the reoccurring role of Marvin on NBC's Mad About You. After bit parts in the comedies Senseless and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Garlin made the successful switch back to television. This time he tried directing and producing in addition to playing Larry David's manager, Jeff Greene, on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, which would become his most recognizable role. He then hosted the short-lived variety show Late Friday and joined the cast of What About Joan for its second and final season. He made a brief return to film for Steven Soderbergh's Full Frontal and then gained co-star status with Eddie Murphy for Daddy Day Care in 2003. In 2006 he wrote, directed, and starred in the sweet indie comedy I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, and two years later joined the Pixar family providing the voice of the ship captain in the highly-successful Wall-E. As he continued working on Curb, he found working on animated films to his liking and lent his voice to Cars 2, Toy Story 3 and ParaNorman.

Trivia: Devotees of HBO will have little trouble pinpointing actress Susie Essman; she made one of her most indelible impressions as the brassy, bossy, acid-mouthed Susie Greene, wife of Larry David's manager Jeff Greene (Jeff Garlin), on the quirky sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm. Essman grew up in Mount Vernon, NY, as the daughter of two prosperous Jewish parents: an internist father and a college professor mother who taught Russian at nearby Sarah Lawrence College. She began her career as a stand-up comedian and entered films courtesy of the Tom Hanks/Sally Field seriocomedy Punchline (1988) (as -- fittingly -- a comedian), but hit her stride with Curb, which debuted in 2002. Essman subsequently participated in director Penn Jillette's monologue-heavy raunchfest The Aristocrats (2005) and hosted the Bravo network's competition-themed reality series Better Half (2007), before voicing a cat in the family-oriented animated comedy Bolt (2008). In 2010 she appeared in Kevin Smith's action comedy Cop Out.

Trivia: Was raised in a large catholic family.Started in television in a teenage dance show.Had her first date with her future husband in the Compass, an improvisational theatre.In 1959, was cast as a member of The Second City, an improvisational comedy enterprise.In 1961, she moved to Los Angeles, California.

Trivia: Standup comedians are famous for their neuroses, but Richard Lewis takes anxiety to a new level. On-stage, he energetically frets and overanalyses the most personal aspects of his life and wallows in his low self-esteem until the audience convulses with sympathetic laughter. He was born in Brooklyn, but raised in New Jersey. While attending Ohio State University as a marketing major, Lewis also studied communications. Upon graduation, he worked as the lead copywriter for an advertising agency. Four years into his career, he abandoned it to become a standup comedian, making his club debut in Greenwich Village in 1972. His first break came when he won a regular gig at Budd Friedman's the Improv comedy club and then debuted on The Tonight Show. Lewis became really well known in 1979 when he co-wrote and starred in Diary of a Young Comic, a show which gained him a cult following. Its success led him to become a television writer. In 1982, he made his first appearance on David Letterman's late-night talk show and from there embarked upon a three-year cross-country tour. Lewis had great success with his first cable TV special, I'm in Pain, in 1986. His second special, The Richard Lewis I'm Exhausted Concert, earned him a nomination for a Cable ACE award in 1988. Two years later his third special, I'm Doomed, was similarly nominated. He and Jamie Lee Curtis starred in the popular ABC sitcom Anything but Love from 1989 to 1992. In the early '90s, he took a break from standup. He launched his film career in 1988 with That's Adequate and continued to occasionally appear in supporting or character roles, notably in the independent film Drunks (1995) in which he won kudos for his dramatic portrayal of an alcoholic junkie. Lewis starred in a short-lived sitcom, Daddy Dearest (1993), and did not again try a television series until he and comic Kevin Nealon co-starred in Hiller and Diller in 1997. His 1995 standup routine "Magical Misery Tour" won considerable kudos and was the basis for a well-received 1996 cable special, shot live from the Bottom Line club in New York. Since 1987, Lewis was actively involved with HBO's annual Comic Relief benefits, large star-studded comedy shows in which all proceeds go toward helping the homeless.

Trivia: Louis (pronounced Louie) Nye was an American comic actor equally at home in theatre, movies or television. His basic characterization as a somewhat fey country-club bon vivant was established when he was a regular on the various '50s TV programs starring Steve Allen. Nye's chipper "Hi, ho, Steverino" became a national catchphrase, and his ability to reduce Allen to helpless giggles with in-joke adlibs remains among the treasured memories of TV's golden age. At the height of his popularity, Nye recorded a few comedy LPs, in which he essayed a variety of characterizations (he was just as persuasive at playing tough hoodlums and peppery senior citizens as he was portraying effeminate swingers). Movies seldom utilized Nye for more than a few minutes at a time, reasoning perhaps that a little of him went a long way; still, he had some prime vignettes in The Facts of Life (1960), The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961), and especially Good Neighbor Sam (1963), in which he played a gadget-laden private eye. Outside of his extensive work with Steve Allen, Nye had regular TV stints on The Ann Sothern Show (1958-61) as dentist Delbert Gray; on Happy Days (1970), not the famous Fonzie-ized sitcom but a summer variety series spoofing the '30s; and on Needles and Pins (1973), as the intrusive brother-in-law of series star Norman Fell. In 1985, Louis Nye popped up as The Carpenter (as in "The Walrus and...") in the all-star TV movie adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.

Trivia: The son of a prominent archaeologist/museum director, American actor Ted Danson grew up near the Navajo reservation in Arizona. He played basketball while at Kent School Connecticut, and then moved on to Stanford University. It was in the process of getting acquainted with an aspiring actress at Stanford that Danson found himself attending his first audition-- and by years' end had transferred to the drama department at Carnegie Tech. Marking time in non-speaking roles, Danson left the stage for the more lucrative world of TV commercials, some of which have been well-circulated on videotape since Danson has become famous. Danson's first steady TV work was as a slimy villain on the NBC soap opera Somerset. Shortly afterward, the actor attained his first film role, as a murdered cop, in The Onion Field (1978). After seeing Danson in the movie Body Heat (1981) and in an episode of the TV series Taxi, producer Glen Charles cast the actor as Sam Malone, ex-sports star and full-time barkeeper and womanizer, on the long-running, well-loved sitcom Cheers He won Emmys for the 1989-90 and 1992-93 seasons. Frequently making attempts at film stardom during the 11-season run of Cheers, Danson finally struck gold in Three Men and a Baby (1987) and its sequel Three Men and a Little Lady (1990). Danson's most recent work includes the 1996 starring role in the TV miniseries Gulliver's Travels and a co-starring role, opposite his new wife Mary Steenburgen, in the television sit-com Ink (also 1996). In 1998 Danson began a six-year run on another successful sitcom portraying the lead character on Becker, playing a caustic grump who couldn't have been further from Sam Malone's effortless charm. He continued to work steadily on the big screen as well scoring appearances in Saving Private Ryan and Mumford. He made sporadic appearances on Larry David's award-winning Curb Your Enthusiasm, and earned strong reviews for his dramatic work on the first season of the TV show Damages. He followed that up with a co-starring role on the HBO series Bored to Death, which lasted three seasons. In 2012 he could be seen in the inspirational animal movie Big Miracle.