Trivia: An alumnus of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Wisconsin-born actress Gena Rowlands entered the Broadway talent pool in 1952. From 1955 through 1957, the blonde, frosty-eyed actress co-starred with Edward G. Robinson in the original Broadway production of Middle of the Night. She also did plenty of Manhattan-based television during this period, including a recurring role on the forgotten syndicated series Top Secret U.S.A. Rowlands made her first film, The High Cost of Loving, in 1958, the same year that she married legendary actor/director John Cassavetes. The excellent response to her performance as the deaf-mute wife of a detective on the 1961 TV series 87th Precinct sparked a grass-roots campaign to have Rowlands appear on the series on a weekly basis, but her film commitments were such that she couldn't be confined to any one part for very long. Always a capable leading lady, Rowlands blossomed into full stardom in the films directed by her husband. She first collaborated with him on A Child Is Waiting (1963) and then starred as a prostitute in his 1968 film Faces. Rowlands went on to earn Oscar nominations for her work in two of her husband's other films, A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Gloria (1980).After Cassavetes' death in 1989, Rowlands took a two-year sabbatical from films, returning to play Holly Hunter's mother -- and Richard Dreyfuss' mother-in-law -- in Once Around (1991). That same year, she appeared as a casting agent in Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth. After starring in such films as 1995's The Neon Bible and Something to Talk About (the latter of which featured her as the "steel magnolia" wife of Robert Duvall and mother of Julia Roberts), Rowlands stepped in front the camera for her son Nick Cassavetes' 1996 directorial debut, Unhook the Stars. The actress turned in a strong performance as a matriarch experiencing various life upheavals, and the following year again collaborated with her son in his romantic comedy She's So Lovely. Rowlands continued to stay busy with work for other directors, appearing in no less than three films in 1998. Particularly notable appearances included her role as Sean Connery's estranged wife in Playing by Heart and her portrayal of the grandmother of a disabled boy in The Mighty. In addition to her film work, Rowlands has earned considerable acclaim for her television roles. In 1985, she earned an Emmy nomination for her role in the powerful AIDS drama An Early Frost, and has won Emmys for her performances in The Betty Ford Story (1987) and Face of a Stranger (1991).At the beginning of the 21st century Rowlands continued to work steadily racking up credits in a variety of projects including Wild Iris, Hysterical Blindness, and Taking Lives. IN 2004 she acted again for her son in the cult hit The Notebook, and she followed that up with a role in the supernatural thriller The Skeleton Key. In 2007 she provided one of the voices in the well-reviewed Persepolis, and after a five-year hiatus from screens she returned in yet another project directed by her son, the quirky psychological drama Yellow.

Trivia: The daughter of actress Nan Kelly Yorke, she first modeled while still a baby, then went on to play child roles onstage and in over 50 silent films of the '20s. She worked for a time on radio, then returned to films at 17, going on to play leads in both A- and B-movies over the next decade. With her film work drying up she returned to the stage and won a Tony Award and two Sarah Siddons Best Actress Awards. She appeared in only two more films, one of which was the screen version of The Bad Seed (film, 1956), the play for which she'd won her Tony Award; for her work in the film she received a Best Actress Oscar nomination. She continued a successful stage career through the '70s, and occasionally appeared in TV roles. From 1941-42 she was married to actor Edmond O'Brien. Her brother is actor Jack Kelly.

Trivia: Blonde, loquacious American actress Joyce Van Patten was being sent out for modelling assignments at the age of eight months. Her stagestruck mother advertised Van Patten and older brother Dick as "the Van Patten Kids," ready and willing to step into any juvenile roles available. At age 5, Joyce made her Broadway debut in Love's Old Sweet Song, which also featured Dick. Joyce was nine years old when she won the Donaldson award for her performance in the stage drama Tomorrow the World. She interrupted her stage career for a brief marriage at age 16 (her equally brief second marriage was to actor Martin Balsam), then at 20 played her first adult role in the Broadway comedy Desk Set. Her first film assignment was an unbilled bit in the Manhattan-lensed Fourteen Hours (1951), and her first regular TV stint was on the CBS soap opera As the World Turns in the late '50s. Joyce has since been seen on a weekly basis in such TV series as The Danny Kaye Show (1963-66), The Good Guys (1968) (as Herb Edelman's good-natured wife), The Don Rickles Show (1972) (as Don's goodnatured wife) and The Mary Tyler Moore Hour (1979) (as Mary's personal secretary, yet again good-natured). Joyce Van Patten's films have included The Goddess (1958), I Love You Alice B. Toklas (1968), St. Elmo's Fire (1984), and a rare "bitchy" appearance as the antagonistic athletic coach in The Bad News Bears (1976).

Trivia: African-American actress Juanita Moore entered films in the early '50s, a time in which few black actresses were given much to do in major-studio films. Fortunately, Juanita's roles began improving as Hollywood tentatively developed a social consciousness toward the end of the decade. In 1959, she received an Academy Award nomination for her performance in Imitation of Life (1959), a glossy updating of a once-controversial Fannie Hurst novel about racial inequity. Within the next decade Hollywood underwent several sociological upheavals, and Juanita Moore was one of the beneficiaries; she became a fixture of such black-oriented films of the '70s as Uptight (1969), Thomasine and Bushrod (1974) and Abby (1974). She continued to work sporatically through the 1980s and '90s, appearing as a grandmother in Disney's The Kid (2000) and in an episode of Judging Amy in 2001. Moore died in 2014 at age 99.