Trivia: As the co-star of the landmark Bonnie and Clyde, actress Faye Dunaway helped usher in a new golden era in American filmmaking, going on to appear in several of the greatest films of the 1970s. Born January 14, 1941, in Bascom, FL, Dunaway was the daughter of an army officer. She studied theater arts at the University of Boston and later joined the Lincoln Center Repertory Company under the direction of Elia Kazan and Robert Whitehead. Between 1962 and 1967, she appeared in a number of prominent stage productions, including A Man for All Seasons and Arthur Miller's After the Fall, playing a character based on Marilyn Monroe. Dunaway's breakthrough performance came in an off-Broadway production of Hogan's Goat, which resulted in a contract with director Otto Preminger. She made her film debut in his 1967 drama Hurry Sundown, but the two frequently clashed, and she refused to appear in his Skidoo; after a legal battle, Dunaway was allowed to buy out the remainder of her contract, and she then starred in The Happening (1967).Still, Dunaway was virtually unknown when she accepted the role of the notorious gangster Bonnie Parker opposite Warren Beatty in Arthur Penn's 1967 crime saga Bonnie and Clyde. The picture was an unqualified success, one of the most influential films of the era, and she had become a star seemingly overnight, earning a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her sexy performance. Dunaway's next major role cast her with Steve McQueen in 1968's The Thomas Crown Affair, another major hit. However, her next several projects -- Amanti, a romance with Marcello Mastroianni, and the Kazan-directed The Arrangement -- stumbled, and although 1970's Little Big Man was a hit, Puzzle of a Downfall Child (directed by her fiancé, Jerry Schatzberg) was a disaster. Quickly, Dunaway was reduced to projects like the little-seen 1971 thriller La Maison Sous Les Arbres and the Western Doc. When they too failed, she retreated from films, first appearing on-stage in Harold Pinter's Old Times and then starring in the made-for-television The Woman I Love.After portraying Blanche du Bois in a Los Angeles stage adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire, Dunaway returned to the cinema in Stanley Kramer's 1973 drama Oklahoma Crude. Subsequent to her appearance in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers, she made headlines for her marriage to rocker Peter Wolf and was then cast in Roman Polanski's 1974 noir Chinatown. The performance was her best since Bonnie and Clyde, scoring another Academy Award nomination, and the film itself remains a classic. The success of The Towering Inferno later that same year confirmed that Dunaway's star power had returned in full, and she next co-starred with Robert Redford in the well-received thriller Three Days of the Condor. In 1976, Dunaway starred as an ambitious television executive in Sidney Lumet's scathing black comedy Network, and on her third attempt she finally won an Oscar. A British feature, Voyage of the Damned, and a TV-movie, The Disappearance of Aimee, quickly followed, and in 1978 she starred in the much-maligned thriller The Eyes of Laura Mars.After 1979's The Champ, Dunaway starred with Frank Sinatra in The First Deadly Sin. An over-the-top turn as Joan Crawford in the tell-all biopic Mommie Dearest followed in 1981, as did another biography, the TV feature Evita Peron. Her career was again slumping, a fate which neither the Broadway production of The Curse of an Aching Heart nor another telefilm, 1982's The Country Girl, helped to remedy. After 1984's Supergirl, Dunaway spent much of the decade on the small screen, appearing in a pair of miniseries -- Ellis Island and Christopher Columbus -- and in 1986 appearing as the titular Beverly Hills Madam. The 1987 feature Barfly found a cult audience, but almost without exception, Dunaway's subsequent films went unnoticed; even the 1990 Chinatown sequel The Two Jakes was a failure. In 1993, she starred in a short-lived sitcom, It Had to Be You, and continued to appear in little-seen projects. Dunaway's most prominent roles of the mid-'90s included a supporting turn as the wife of psychiatrist Marlon Brando in 1995's Don Juan DeMarco and as a barmaid/hostage in the directorial debut of actor Kevin Spacey, Albino Alligator (1996). In 1999, Dunaway gave a nod to her screen past with a cameo appearance in the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. That same year, she took on the more substantial role of Yolande d'Aragon in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc.As the new century began she had parts in The Yards and Festival in Cannes. In 2002 she had a part in the big-screen adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' The Rules of Attraction. She had a brief part in Tim Burton's Big Fish.In 2005 she appeared for one season as the lead judge on the acting reality series The Starlet, where she repeated the painful catchphrase, "don't call us, we'll call you," every time a contestant was dismissed from the program.She continued to work steadily in a variety of projects including Flick, Midnight Bayou, and 2010's A Family Thanksgiving.

Trivia: Character actress Diana Scarwid's pre-film credentials are impeccable. Scarwid was active with the University of Georgia Theatre Workshop, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the National Shakespeare Conservatory and the Film Actor's Workshop at Burbank Studios before making her first movie appearance in Louis Malle's Pretty Baby (1978). She was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of John Savage's girlfriend in Inside Moves (1980), then moved on to her most talked-about screen role: Cristina Crawford, the much-abused adopted daughter of Hollywood star Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) in Mommie Dearest (1980). Opinions are split right down the middle concerning Scarwid's work in this film: Some congratulate her for bringing artistry and craftsmanship to an impossibly written role, while others condemn her for never rising above the tawdry material--and for failing to shed her Southern accent. Evidently Mommie Dearest did more harm than good for Scarwid; thereafter, with isolated exceptions like 1981's Silkwood (in which she was superb as Cher's humorless lesbian lover), she was largely confined to garbage like Psycho III (1986) and Brenda Starr (1993). Happily, there are still some producers willing to cast Diana Scarwid in worthwhile parts; the most recent of these was the role of Rose Kennedy in the made-for-TV JFK: The Restless Years (1993).

Trivia: The younger brother of actor Dana Andrews, Steve Forrest served in World War II while his brother (17 years Steve's senior) was starring in such films as The Purple Heart (1944) and Laura (1944). Upon his return to America, Steve went to Hollywood to pay a social call on Dana, decided he liked the movie colony, and opted to stick around for a while. Though he'd previously played bits in such films as Crash Dive (using his given name of William Andrews), Forrest never seriously considered acting as a profession until enrolling at UCLA. He tried regional theatre work and scriptwriting then received a brief but showy bit part in MGM's The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). This led to further film work in second leads then several years' worth of villainous roles. When asked why he accepted so many bad-guy assignments, Forrest would cite the comment once made to him by Clark Gable: "The hero gets the girl but the heavy gets the attention". By 1969, however, Forrest felt as though he'd worn out his welcome as a heavy, and began regularly turning down roles, holding out for heroic parts. In 1975, he was cast as Lieutenant Dan "Hondo" Harrison on the popular TV action series S.W.A.T., which might have run for years had it not been axed under pressure from the anti-violence brigades. More recently, Steve Forrest lampooned his rugged, rough'n'ready image in the 1987 film comedy Amazon Women of the Moon.In the years to follow, Forrest would remain beloved for his man's man presence on screen, appearing occasionally on shows like Colombo and Murder, She Wrote. Forrest passed away in 2013 at the age of 87.

Trivia: Howard Da Silva worked the steel mills of Pennsylvania to pay his way through Carnegie Institute. After finishing his acting training, Da Silva went to work for Eva Le Galliene's theatrical troupe. He brought attention to himself by staging a one-man show, Ten Million Ghosts, which led to several years' work with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. On Broadway, the stocky, booming-voiced Da Silva created the roles of Jack Armstrong in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (a part he re-created in the 1940 film version) and Jud Frye in Oklahoma. His earliest movie appearance was in the Manhattan-filmed Jimmy Savo vehicle Once in a Blue Moon (1934), but Da Silva didn't gain cinematic prominence until signed by Paramount in the 1940s, where among many other choice assignments he was cast as the bartender in the Oscar-winning The Lost Weekend (1945). As one of most vocal and demonstrative of Hollywood's Left Wing, Da Silva became a convenient target for the House Un-American Activities Commission, and he was blacklisted. Unable to find movie or TV work, DaSilva returned to the stage in the 1950s, not facing the cameras again until 1962's David and Lisa (1962). Among his many memorable portrayals of the 1970s were Benjamin Franklin in stage and film versions of 1776, Nikita Khrushchev in the 3-hour TV drama Missiles of October, and his award-winning supporting performance in PBS' Verna: The USO Girl. Howard Da Silva also appeared in both the 1949 and 1974 versions of The Great Gatsby, playing the tragic garage owner Mr Wilson in the first version, and the Arnold Rothstein-like gambler Meyer Wolfsheim in the second.

Trivia: Rutanya Alda, born Rutanya Skrastins in Riga, Latvia, has been steadily appearing in American films since the late '60s. Alda, who was known as Ruth Alda in her earlier films, has also performed on stage and television in the U.S.

Trivia: The older sister of actor Marlon Brando, Jocelyn Brando first set foot on stage under the direction of her mother, the leading light of an Omaha community theatre group. Jocelyn's career has been mostly confined to stage work ever since, though she has occasionally surfaced on film. Her best-known movie role (if not her largest) was detective Glenn Ford's murdered wife in the 1953 gangster melodrama The Big Heat. Jocelyn has also appeared in two of brother Marlon's films, The Ugly American (1962) and The Chase (1966). In the early 1970s, Jocelyn Brando succeeded Frances Sternhagen in the role of Mrs. Krakauer on the long-running daytime drama Love of Life.

Trivia: American character actress Priscilla Pointer was the wife of famed theatrical director Jules Irving, and the mother of actress Amy Irving and writer/director David Irving. After extensive theatrical experience, Pointer attained her first major TV job in the daytime drama Where the Heart Is (1969-73). She went on to play Mrs. Austin in From Here to Eternity (1980). Rebecca Barnes Wentworth in Dallas (1981-83) and Lillie in Call to Glory (1984-85). One of her more memorable film assignments was the 1976 chiller Carrie, in which she played the mother of the character played by her daughter Amy. Perhaps as a by-product of Carrie, Priscilla Pointer was engaged to play important roles in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) and the made-for-TVTwilight Zone: The Lost Classics (1994).

Trivia: Brooklyn-born Xander Berkeley made the rounds on numerous TV shows throughout the '80s, '90s, and 2000s, not just as an actor, but as a makeup artist. The actor has put his uncanny talent in the makeup department to use on the sets of many shows, like on 24, where he designed his own makeup to depict his character's affliction with radiation sickness.Berkeley got his start in show business in the early '80s, appearing on shows like Moonlighting, The A-Team, and M*A*S*H. He went on to appear in movies, as well, like The Rock and Apollo 13, but he frequently returned to the small screen for memorable roles like George Mason, head of the Counterterrorist Unit on 24, and Sheriff Roy Atwater on CSI. In the coming years, Berkeley would continue to find success on teh small screen, on shows like Nikita.

Trivia: Veteran TV actor Jerry Douglas began his career on-screen in the early '60s, appearing on a multitude of shows like Mission: Impossible and Bonanza while supporting his family with a day job as an insurance salesman. He would sustain his career on these singular and often memorable appearances for over two decades before joining the cast of the daytime soap The Young and the Restless in 1985, playing patriarch John Abbott. He would remain with the show until 2008.

Trivia: American actress Virginia Kiser has been playing supporting roles on television and in feature films since the late 1970s. She began her career on stage in New York.

Trivia: American actor Russ Marin played supporting roles on stage, radio, television, and films of the '70s and '80s. He started out in radio in 1950.

Trivia: Alice Nunn was a character actress who enjoyed a 24-year career on-stage, in movies, and on television. Born in Jacksonville, FL, in 1927, she was bitten by the performing bug early in life; she was in school productions of such works as My Sister Eileen and attended the Wesleyan Conservatory and School of Fine Arts. Nunn later trained at the American Theater Wing and worked in radio as a continuity director before getting her break in New Faces of 1956. A singing comedienne who resembled a young Pert Kelton crossed with Sheila James, Nunn worked on-stage with Shelley Berman and Nancy Walker, and made her screen debut on television in episodes of Petticoat Junction. She later became a regular denizen of '60s sitcoms, playing comically strong-willed, often slightly belligerent women. Fans of 1960s sitcoms may remember her from Camp Runamuck as Mahala May Gruenecker, the head counselor of Camp Divine and the nemesis of series star Arch Johnson's Commander Wivenhoe; she was the perfect foil to Johnson's hulking macho boys camp leader, locking horns with him every week in much the same way that Margaret Rutherford had with Alastair Sim in the movie The Happiest Days of Your Life. Nunn's first feature film was Johnny Got His Gun (1971), in which she was one of the nurses. She was also a regular cast member of the Tony Orlando and Dawn variety show, but many of her film roles were bits, such as "Fat Lady" in Mame (1974) and "Passenger with Dog" in Airport 1975. She occasionally got bigger roles, such as the put-upon servant Helga in Mommie Dearest (1981), and is probably best remembered by 1980s filmgoers and Tim Burton fans for her portrayal of "Large Marge," the lady truck driver who frightens the hero in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985). If Nunn hadn't been so good at comedy, and exploiting the funny side of her imposing girth and presence, she might have been an older rival to Shirley Stoler, but it was not to be -- she died of heart failure in the summer of 1988, at age 60.

Trivia: Actor Norman Palmer appeared in a few films of the late '70s and early '80s. He also made frequent guest appearances on television series.

Trivia: American actor Joseph Warren spent the bulk of his career playing character roles on Broadway, but he also staffed a few feature films. Warren helped found the Pearl Theater Company and has appeared in the New York Shakespeare Festival.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the '70s.