Trivia: American actress Candice Bergen was a celebrity even before she was born. As the first child of popular radio ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his young wife Frances, Candice was a hot news item months before her birth, and headline material upon that blessed event (her coming into the world even prompted magazine cartoons which suggested that Edgar would try to confound the nurses by "giving" his new daughter a voice). Candice made her first public appearance as an infant, featured with her parents in a magazine advertisement. Before she was ten, Candice was appearing sporadically on dad's radio program, demonstrating a precocious ability to throw her own voice (a skill she hasn't been called upon to repeat in recent years); at 11 she and Groucho Marx's daughter Melinda were guest contestants on Groucho's TV quiz show You Bet Your Life. Candice loved her parents and luxuriated in her posh lifestyle, though she was set apart from other children in that her "brothers" were the wooden dummies Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd - and Charlie had a bigger bedroom than she did! Like most 1960s teens, however, she rebelled against the conservatism of her parents and adopted a well-publicized, freewheeling lifestyle - and a movie career. In her first film, The Group (1965), Candice played a wealthy young lesbian - a character light years away from the sensibilities of her old-guard father. She next appeared with Steve McQueen in the big budget The Sand Pebbles (1966), simultaneously running smack dab into the unkind cuts of critics, who made the expected (given her parentage) comments concerning her "wooden" performance. Truth to tell, Candice did look far better than she acted, and this status quo remained throughout most of her film appearances of the late 1960s; even Candice admitted she wasn't much of an actress, though she allowed (in another moment that must have given papa Edgar pause) that she was terrific when required in a film to simulate an orgasm. Several films later, Candice decided to take her career more seriously than did her critics, and began emerging into a talented and reliable actress in such films as Carnal Knowledge (1971) and The Wind and the Lion (1975). Most observers agree that Candice's true turnaround was her touching but hilarious performance as a divorced woman pursuing a singing career - with little in the way of talent - in the Burt Reynolds comedy Starting Over (1979). Candice's roller-coaster offscreen life settled into relative normality when she married French film director Louis Malle; meanwhile, her acting career gained momentum as she sought out and received ever-improving movie and TV roles. In 1988, Candice began a run in the title role of the television sitcom Murphy Brown, in which she was brilliant as a mercurial, high-strung TV newsmagazine reporter, a role that won Ms. Bergen several Emmy Awards. While Murphy Brown capped Candice Bergen's full acceptance by audiences and critics as an actress of stature, it also restored her to "headline" status in 1992 - when, in direct response to the fictional Murphy Brown's decision to become a single mother, Vice President Dan Quayle delivered his notorious "family values" speech.Murphy Brown finished its successful run in 1997, and Bergen would make a handful of big-screen appearances in the ensuing years including Miss Congeniality, Sweet Home Alabama, and The In-Laws. In 2004 she became part of the cast of Boston Legal, another hit show that ran for five often award-winning seasons. When that show came to a close, she appeared in films such as The Women, Sex and the City, and Bride Wars - where she portrayed the country's leading wedding planner.

Trivia: She is best known for creating a multitude of memorable comic characters, including Ernestine the telephone operator and the rotten five-year-old rugrat Edith Ann, on television and in her stage shows, but let it not be forgotten that Lily Tomlin is also a talented dramatic actress, something she has thus far only demonstrated in two films. She was born Mary Tomlin in Detroit, MI. She was studying premed at Wayne State University when she heard the stage calling and so dropped out to perform skits and characterizations in cabarets and coffeehouses. Tomlin made her television debut on The Garry Moore Show but didn't get her first real break until she became a regular on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In in 1970 and stayed through 1973. The series' machine gun pace proved the perfect outlet for Tomlin's offbeat humor and gave her the opportunity to hone her skills and develop her characters. She made an auspicious film debut with a touching dramatic role as a troubled gospel singer trying to deal with her hearing-impaired children and a womanizing Keith Carradine in Robert Altman's Nashville (1975), winning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress and a New York Film Critics award for the same category. Her next film, The Late Show (1977), was also more dramatic than comic and Tomlin again won kudos, though not in the form of awards, for her work. While she started off strongly in films, her subsequent output has been of uneven quality ranging from the entertaining All of Me (1984) to the abysmal Big Business (1988). But while her film career has never quite taken flight, Tomlin remained successful on-stage, in clubs, and on television. On Broadway, Tomlin has had two successful one-woman shows, Appearing Nitely (1976) and The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1986), which Tomlin made into a film in 1991. In 1996, Tomlin became a regular on the cast of the long-running sitcom Murphy Brown playing a canny news producer and foil for Candice Bergan's Murphy. That same year she would work for the first time with director David O. Russell on the film Flirting With Disaster. After returning to film with the demise of Murphy Brown, Tomlin took on supporting roles in a variety of films, such as Tea with Mussolini and Disney's The Kid. But television soon came calling again in the form of a recurring role on NBC's The West Wing as The President's eccentric personal secretary.In 2004, Tomlin teamed with Russell again for the ensemble comedy I Heart Huckabees. A subsequent visit to the animated town of Springfield found Tomlin dropping in on The Simpsons the following year, withg recurring roles on both Will and Grace and The West Wing preceding a turn as one-half of a sisterly singing act along with Meryl Streep in the 2006 Robert Altman radio-show adaptation A Prairie Home Companion. At the Oscar telecast in 2006 Streep and Tomlin presented Altman with a lifetime achievement award, delivering their speech in a style that emulated the distinctive rhythms of his films. That same year she leant her vocal talents to an animated film for the first time in her career providing the voice for Mommo in The Ant Bully, which coincidently also featured her Prairie Home Companion cohort Meryl Streep. She had a major role in Paul Schrader's The Walker, and provided a voice in the English-language version of Ponyo. She joined the cast of the award-winning cable series Damages in 2010 for that show's third season and was a series regular on Malibu Country in 2012-13, playing Reba McEntire's mother.

Trivia: The career of producer/director Garry Marshall was marked by many peaks, including such classic television sitcoms as The Odd Couple (1970-1975), Happy Days (1974-1984), and Mork and Mindy (1978-1982), and the phenomenally popular feature film Pretty Woman (1990). A Brooklyn native, Marshall (born Gary Marsciarelli) was the son of an industrial filmmaker and a dance instructor. His sister, Penny Marshall, is a comic actress and noted film director. Marshall majored in journalism at Northwestern University and subsequently served a stint in the army before becoming a reporter for the New York Daily News. He was also a jazz drummer in a band before becoming a television comedy scriptwriter for such artists as Joey Bishop and Phil Foster and the writer for Jack Parr on The Tonight Show.Marshall moved to Los Angeles in 1961, but he didn't make it big until he teamed up with writer Jerry Belson. Together, they penned numerous episodes for several sitcoms, notably The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Lucy Show. In 1970, Marshall produced The Odd Couple, which starred Jack Klugman and Tony Randall and was based on a popular Neil Simon play and movie. He reached his apex as a television producer during the '70s, with such hits as Laverne and Shirley (1976-1983), (a Happy Days spin-off starring sister Penny), and Mork and Mindy. In addition to his producing and television directorial efforts, Marshall occasionally appeared as a supporting actor. In features, Marshall co-produced and co-wrote (with Belson) his first film, How Sweet It Is!, in 1968. A year later, the two produced and penned The Grasshopper. Marshall made his directorial feature film debut in 1982 with Young Doctors in Love, a comic look at daytime serials. As a film director, Marshall's output received uneven critical reviews. Films such as the Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell vehicle Overboard and the Bette Midler/Barbara Hershey melodrama Beaches (1988) had good box-office business, but were considered of average quality. 1990's Pretty Woman was Marshall's first big movie hit. Following its tremendous success, he tried his hand at a serious drama with Frankie and Johnny (1991) starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer. Later, Marshall's films tended more toward sentimental and straight dramas such as The Twilight of the Golds (1997) and The Other Sister (1999). Marshall returned to comedy -- and to his teaming of Julia Roberts and Richard Gere -- in 1999 with Runaway Bride. Remaining an active director well into his 70s, Marshall helped to launch Anne Hathaway's career by taking the helm for both 2001's The Princess Diaries and its 2004 sequel, though his subsequent, holiday-themed ensemble comedies Valentine's Day (2010), New Year's Eve (2011) and his final film Mother's Day (2016) largely flatlined with critics and moviegoers - with New Year's Eve earning him his first-ever Razzie Award. In addition to his work behind the camera, Marshall occasionally appeared as an actor in films and television shows alike. During the mid-'90s, many TV audiences came to recognize him for playing Candice Bergen's ratings-crazy boss, Stan Lansing, on Murphy Brown. Marshall died July 18, 2016, of complications of pneumonia.

Trivia: American comic actor Pee-Wee Herman was born Paul Rubenfield, which he later shortened professionally to Paul Reubens. While growing up in Sarasota, FL, Reubens began acting in junior high school, carrying this extracurricular interest through several colleges before graduating from the California Institute of the Arts. A natural-born clown, Reubens joined an improv group called the Groundlings, which during its existence would boast such formidable talent as Phil Hartman and Jon Lovitz. In 1978, Reubens developed the comic persona of Pee-Wee Herman, a childlike, squeaky-voiced kiddie show host reminiscent of Pinky Lee (with a little Soupy Sales thrown in). Soon "The Pee-Wee Herman Show" became a nightclub act unto itself; this multi-layered skewing of the whole children's entertainment ethic included a huge supporting cast, deliberately repulsive puppets, bizarre props, and, of course, Pee-Wee himself, who cavorted about the set like a baby speed freak. Reubens, who for all intents and purposes was Pee-Wee Herman at this point, was given frequent TV exposure thanks to Late Night With David Letterman and the home-video version of The Pee-Wee Herman Show. With former Groundling Phil Hartman, Pee-Wee/Reubens co-scripted the 1985 film Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Though it was the inaugural project of director Tim Burton, it was not Pee-Wee's first film (he'd already shown up in The Blues Brothers [1980] and Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams [1981]). A surrealistic reworking of the classic Italian film The Bicycle Thief, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure was a tad too bizarre for its distributor Warner Bros. The studio chose to release the film slowly on a regional basis -- but when the box-offices began to bulge, Warners gave the film a major big-city push. Audiences immediately understood that Pee-Wee's Big Adventure was meant to be a nine-year-old's notion of the Perfect World; critics, to whom nothing is ever simple, insisted upon reading all sorts of motivation and subtext into the film, and suddenly Pee-Wee Herman was the darling of the wine-and-cheese crowd. In 1986, Pee-Wee launched a Saturday morning kid's show, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, which immediately scored a hit, attracting as many adults as children (some of those adults began renting the original Pee-Wee Herman Show for their children, assuming that it would be as "safe" as the Saturday morning program -- only to be amazed at how raunchy the earlier Pee-Wee could be). The performer's popularity peaked in 1988, at which time his second film, Big Top Pee-Wee, was released. This film was not as cohesive nor as funny as the first, and it was a disappointment for both Reubens and his fans. The actor began announcing plans to "kill" his alter-ego and become Paul Reubens again in public. But the death of "Pee-Wee" came not as a suicide, but more of a crime of passion when Reubens was arrested in 1991 for indecent exposure at a screening of a porno movie. Backlash from the incident -- including the pulling of Pee-Wee merchandise off the shelves of stores and CBS' immediate cancellation of his Saturday morning show -- effectively forced the performer to abandon the Pee-Wee character. Since his fateful night at the movies, Reubens has appeared as the Penguin's father in Batman Returns (1992), a hand-me-down Dracula in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), and a voice in Tim Burton's animated feature The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). Reubens also became a semi-regular guest on the CBS television sitcom Murphy Brown. As time went on the public either forgot or forgave Reubens for his past indiscretions, and after a series of small film roles lead to larger roles in such films as Blow (2000), Reubens' past (as well as the Pee-Wee Herman alter-ego that made him famous) faded, giving the public a chance to reacquaint themselves with the actor outside of the context of his once-famous persona. In 2001 Reubens' popularity experienced something of a revival as he returned to television as the host of the popular computer trivia game turned game show You Don't Know Jack. Interviews with Reubens even hinted at a resurrection of Pee-Wee Herman in the form of a proposed trilogy in which the character, after becoming a popular celebrity, would struggle with the ill-effects of fame.

Trivia: Actor James Hong was working as a nightclub comic in San Francisco and Hawaii when he was tapped for his first regular TV role: "Number One Son" Barry Chan in the Anglo-American co-production The New Adventures of Charlie Chan (1957). Hong would later appear as Frank Chen in Jigsaw John (1976) and Wang in Switch (1977-78). In theatrical features, he played characters bearing such flavorful monikers as Chew, Lo Pan and Bing Wong. He was seen as Faye Dunaway's butler in Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), repeating the role (minus Faye) in the 1990 sequel The Two Jakes. One of his most sizeable screen roles was Lamont Cranston's brainy assistant Li Peng in The Shadow (1994). James Hong has also directed a brace of feature films, including 1979's The Girls Next Door and 1989's The Vineyard.

Trivia: An actor whose tall, rangy build and boyish good looks have made him a natural for comic roles, Diedrich Bader was born in Alexandria, VA, on Christmas Eve 1966; his father, William Bader, was Chief of Staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the Carter administration, and his mother, Gretta Bader, was a sculptor of note. When Bader was two, he and his family moved to Paris, France, where the boy was exposed to a steady diet of classic American comedies; young Bader was especially fond of Charlie Chaplin, and appeared on-stage for the first time at the age of four, imitating the Little Tramp at a revival theater during an unexpected intermission after a rare Chaplin film jammed in the projector. Bader and his family returned to the United States in time for him to enter high school, and he later attended the North Carolina School for the Arts. While vacationing in Santa Fe, NM, during spring break, Bader met a casting agent who lined up an audition for a small role in a television pilot. Bader ended up winning the leading role instead, and while the pilot never sold, it did prompt Bader to relocate to Los Angeles and begin pursuing an acting career full-time. He began landing guest spots on episodic television shows, including Cheers, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. In 1993, Bader was cast as the Searcher on the television series Danger Theater, a short-lived spoof of action-adventure programs. Penelope Spheeris, who directed the Danger Theater episodes, remembered Bader when casting for her film The Beverly Hillbillies (1993), based on the popular sitcom of the '60s and '70s. Bader won the role of cheerful but slow-witted Jethro Bodine, and his performance was one of the comic highlights of the film. The movie significantly raised Bader's visibility, and in 1995 he was cast as the logically challenged Oswald on The Drew Carey Show. Bader's success on The Drew Carey Show led to notable supporting roles in motion pictures, such as Office Space and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; he also began doing voice work for a number of animated television projects, including Pepper Ann, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, and Kim Possible. In his private life, Bader married actress Dulcy Rogers in 1998. As his run on The Drew Carey Show continued, he also appeared regularly in feature film such as The Country Bears, Napoleon Dynamite, Eurotrip, and Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, as well as animated films like Ice Age and Bolt. In 2010 he landed a recurring role on the short-lived NBC sitcom Outsourced.

Trivia: A master of improvisational comedy, tall, rangy, and rubber-faced, Ryan Stiles is best known for playing comic Drew Carey's best friend in the ABC sitcom The Drew Carey Show. Born in Seattle, Stiles entered the entertainment industry as a standup comedian in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was not the career his parents had hoped he would choose, but Stiles managed to make a living for a few years. In the mid-'80s, Stiles switched gears and joined the Second City comedy group in Toronto, renowned for its highly topical and fast-paced sketches. There, Stiles grew adept at improvising; in 1990, he transferred to the Los Angeles Second City troupe and, before long, the six-foot, five-inch redhead was working on television and in feature films. He made his film debut in Rainbow War (1986). Stiles' early television credits include guest-starring roles on Parker Lewis Can't Lose and Mad About You. Outside of The Drew Carey Show, he had his greatest success as a regular on the British improvisational series Whose Line Is It, Anyway?, which found an American audience on the Comedy Central cable network. During the show's run (1988-1993), it won four CableACE awards. The show was revised and updated, as a replacement series on ABC, in the summer of 1998. The show was hosted by Drew Carey.