Trivia: In a business where public scandal and bad-boy behavior are the rule rather than the exception, Paul Newman is as much a hero offscreen as on. A blue-eyed matinee idol whose career successfully spanned five decades, he was also a prominent social activist, a major proponent of actors' creative rights, and a noted philanthropist. Born January 26, 1925, in Cleveland, OH, Newman served in World War II prior to attending Kenyon College on an athletic scholarship; when an injury ended his sports career, he turned to drama, joining a summer stock company in Wisconsin. After relocating to Illinois in 1947, he married actress Jacqueline Witte, and, following the death of his father, took over the family's sporting-goods store. Newman quickly grew restless, however, and after selling his interest in the store to his brother, he enrolled at the Yale School of Drama. During a break from classes he traveled to New York City where he won a role in the CBS television series The Aldrich Family. A number of other TV performances followed, and in 1952 Newman was accepted by the Actors' Studio, making his Broadway debut a year later in Picnic, where he was spotted by Warner Bros. executives.Upon Newman's arrival in Hollywood, media buzz tagged him as "the new Brando." However, after making his screen debut in the disastrous epic The Silver Chalice, he became the victim of scathing reviews, although Warners added on another two years to his contract after he returned to Broadway to star in The Desperate Hours. Back in Hollywood, he starred in The Rack. Again reviews were poor, and the picture was quickly pulled from circulation. Newman's third film, the charming Somebody Up There Likes Me, in which he portrayed boxer Rocky Graziano, was both a commercial and critical success, with rave reviews for his performance. His next film of note was 1958's The Long Hot Summer, an acclaimed adaptation of a pair of William Faulkner short stories; among his co-stars was Joanne Woodward, who soon became his second wife. After next appearing as Billy the Kid in Arthur Penn's underrated The Left-Handed Gun, Newman starred opposite Elizabeth Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, scoring his first true box-office smash as well as his first Academy Award nomination.After appearing with Joanne Woodward in Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! -- the couple would frequently team onscreen throughout their careers -- Newman traveled back to Broadway to star in Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth. Upon his return to the West Coast, he bought himself out of his Warner Bros. contract before starring in the 1960 smash From the Terrace. Exodus, another major hit, quickly followed. While by now a major star, the true depths of Newman's acting abilities had yet to be fully explored; that all changed with Robert Rossen's 1961 classic The Hustler, in which he essayed one of his most memorable performances as pool shark "Fast" Eddie Felson, gaining a second Oscar nomination. His third nod came for 1963's Hud, which cast him as an amoral Texas rancher. While a handful of creative and financial disappointments followed, including 1964's The Outrage and 1965's Lady L, 1966's Alfred Hitchcock-helmed Torn Curtain marked a return to form, as did the thriller Harper.For 1967's superb chain-gang drama Cool Hand Luke, Newman scored a fourth Academy Award nomination, but again went home empty-handed. The following year he made his directorial debut with the Joanne Woodward vehicle Rachel Rachel, scoring Best Director honors from the New York critics as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. The couple next appeared onscreen together in 1969's Winning, which cast Newman as a professional auto racer; motor sports remained a preoccupation in his real life as well, and he was the most prominent of the many celebrities who began racing as a hobby. He then starred with Robert Redford in 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which went on to become the highest-grossing Western in movie history. It was followed by 1971's W.U.S.A., a deeply political film reflecting Newman's strong commitment to social activism; in addition to being among Hollywood's most vocal supporters of the civil rights movement, in 1968 he and Woodward made headlines by campaigning full time for Democratic Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy.After directing and starring in 1971's Sometimes a Great Notion, Newman announced the formation of First Artists, a production company co-founded by Barbra Streisand and Steve McQueen. Modeled after the success of United Artists, it was created to offer performers the opportunity to produce their own projects. Newman's first film for First Artists' was 1972's Pocket Money, followed by another directorial effort, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. After a pair of back-to-back efforts under director John Huston, 1972's The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean and the next year's The Mackintosh Man, Newman reunited with Redford in The Sting, another triumph which won the 1973 Best Picture Oscar. He next appeared in the star-studded disaster epic The Towering Inferno, followed by 1975's The Drowning Pool, a sequel to Harper. His next major success was the 1977 sports spoof Slap Shot, which went on to become a cult classic.A string of disappointments followed, including Robert Altman's self-indulgent 1979 effort Quintet. The 1981 Absence of Malice, however, was a success, and for 1982's courtroom drama The Verdict Newman notched his fifth Best Actor nomination. He finally won the Oscar on his sixth attempt, reprising the role of Eddie Felson in 1986's The Color of Money, Martin Scorsese's sequel to The Hustler. After starring in two 1989 films, Blaze and Fat Man and Little Boy, Newman began appearing onscreen less and less. In 1991, he and Joanne Woodward starred as the titular Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, and three years later he earned yet another Academy Award nomination for his superb performance in Robert Benton's slice-of-life tale Nobody's Fool. His films since then have been fairly sparse and of mixed quality, with Joel Coen's and Ethan Coen's The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) being at the higher end of the spectrum and the Kevin Costner vehicle Message in a Bottle (1999) resting near the bottom. Newman again graced screens in 2000 with Where the Money Is, a comedy that cast him as a famous bank robber who fakes a stroke to get out of prison. For his role as a kindly crime boss in 2002's Road to Perdition, Newman became a ten-time Oscar nominee.Turning 80 in 2005, Newman nonetheless remained a presence in Hollywood. That year, audiences could see him on the small-screen in the critically-acclaimed HBO miniseries Empire Falls, for which he won a Golden Globe, and the following year, he lent his voice to the Pixar animated film Cars.Despite his movement away from Hollywood, Newman remained a prominent public figure through his extensive charitable work; he created the Scott Newman Foundation after the drug-related death of his son and later marketed a series of gourmet foodstuffs under the umbrella name Newman's Own, with all profits going to support his project for children suffering from cancer. Newman died on September 26, 2008 after a battle with lung cancer.

Trivia: With spouse Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward comprised one of the most successful husband-and-wife tandems in Hollywood history; not only among the most acclaimed film actresses of her era, she was also highly visible as a television and theatrical performer, as well as a prominent social activist. Woodward was born February 27, 1930, in Thomasville, GA, and later acted in campus productions while attending Louisiana State University. After relocating to New York she studied at both the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Actors' Studio, and in 1953 signed on as an understudy in the Broadway production of William Inge's Picnic; there she met Newman, and they soon fell in love. After starring in 1954's The Lovers, Woodward turned to television, appearing in dozens of programs. A performance in an episode of Four Star Playhouse caught the attention of Fox production chief Buddy Adler, who quickly snapped her up with a long-term contract.Woodward made her film debut in the 1955 Western Count Three and Pray. Her next project, the 1956 thriller A Kiss Before Dying, ran into controversy over its advertising campaign, and as a result appeared in theaters only briefly. Director Nunnally Johnson then requested Woodward's services for the starring role in his schizophrenia drama The Three Faces of Eve; Fox initially refused, but after everyone from Judy Garland to Susan Hayward rejected the role, the studio finally relented. The performance won Woodward a Best Actress Academy Award in 1957, but Fox remained unsure how best to utilize her skills; they next cast her in the Martin Ritt drama No Down Payment, appearing with a number of the studio's other aspiring talents. In 1958, Woodward and Newman co-starred in The Long Hot Summer; the couple married that same year, and then reunited for Leo McCarey's Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! After starring in the 1959 adaptation of the William Faulkner classic The Sound and the Fury, Woodward co-starred with Marlon Brando in The Fugitive Kind before teaming with Newman in the 1960 hit From the Terrace; they were again together in 1961's Paris Blues. By now a mother as well as a wife, Woodward retreated from film for two years to focus on domestic duties. Upon returning to Hollywood in 1963, her career took a nosedive: Her comeback vehicle The Stripper performed poorly at the box office, and A New Kind of Love -- another project with Newman -- did not fare much better. When 1964's Signpost to Murder also failed, she again went on a two-year hiatus. Upon resurfacing, she starred in A Fine Madness with Sean Connery and in A Big Hand for the Little Lady with Henry Fonda. Despite good critical notice, neither was a hit, and Woodward spent the next year absent from moviemaking. The 1968 Rachel, Rachel was the outcome of Woodward's exile; she and Newman admitted it was carefully designed as a vehicle to resuscitate her career, and the ploy worked brilliantly -- he directed, she starred, and together they led the film to four Oscar nominations, including Best Actress and Best Picture.The following year Woodward and Newman reunited onscreen for the auto-racing drama Winning, and again starred together in 1970s politically charged W.U.S.A., a reflection of the couple's high-profile support of liberal causes; when 1971's They Might Be Giants proved unsuccessful, Newman directed Woodward to Best Actress honors at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival for The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. The follow-up Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams earned Woodward another Academy Award nomination. The Drowning Pool (1975) was Woodward's last feature film for three years; she instead turned to television, co-starring with Sally Field in the award-winning Sybil and appearing in a remake of Come Back, Little Sheba in 1977. After winning an Emmy for 1978's See How She Runs, Woodward returned to feature films with the Burt Reynolds farce The End; it was her final big-screen appearance for six years; instead, she focused solely on TV, delivering a cameo in A Christmas to Remember before starring in 1979's The Streets of L.A. After Newman directed her in 1980's The Shadow Box, Woodward earned an Emmy nomination for her work in Crisis at Central High and then spent the next four years exclusively on-stage, appearing in productions of The Glass Menagerie, Candida, and Hay Fever. In 1984, she finally returned to films in Newman's Harry and Son and that same year made her own directorial debut with the PBS feature Come Along With Me. As a professor stricken with Alzheimer's disease, she won a third Emmy for 1985's Do You Remember Love? In 1987, Newman directed her in a film adaptation of The Glass Menagerie. Woodward did not reappear for four more years, when she and Newman starred as the titular Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, a performance which earned her an Oscar nomination. In 1993, she suddenly enjoyed a major resurgence, appearing in two major theatrical releases, Philadelphia and The Age of Innocence (which she narrated) as well as a pair of TV movies, Blind Spot and Foreign Affairs. A small-screen adaptation of the Anne Tyler Pulitzer-winner Breathing Lessons earned Woodward an Emmy nomination in 1994. In 1996, she continued her television work playing herself in James Dean: A Portrait, and two years later she narrated My Knees Were Jumping: Remembering the Kindertransports, a documentary about children who had been rescued from Nazi concentration camps. She continued to participate in documentaries, and lend her voice to various projects as a narrator, but she returned to acting in 2005's made-for-HBO adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel Empire Falls.

Trivia: Sidney Poitier was to Hollywood what Jackie Robinson was to major league baseball: simply put, the man who broke the color barrier. An actor, director, and producer, he forever altered the racial perceptions long held by both motion picture audiences and executives, rising to superstar status in an industry forever dominated on both sides of the camera by whites while becoming the first African-American ever to take home an Oscar for Best Actor. Born February 20, 1927, in Miami, FL, Poitier grew up in poverty in the British West Indies. After quitting school at the age of 13, he later joined the U.S. Army, serving in World War II as a medical assistant. Upon his release from duty he relocated to New York City, where he auditioned for the American Negro Theater. When his heavy Bahamian accent prompted laughter from producers, Poitier spent the next six months honing his elocution skills, practicing his enunciation by repeating radio routines, and finally gaining admission to the theatrical troupe's ranks after his second audition.Handsome and athletic, Poitier made his Broadway debut in 1946 in an all-black production of Lysistrata, and moved into films four years later with No Way Out. His impressive turn in 1955's gritty The Blackboard Jungle brought him closer to stardom, and in 1958 he earned his first Academy Award nomination opposite Tony Curtis in Stanley Kramer's social drama The Defiant Ones. The film's focus on racial politics, as well as his increasing popularity with audiences of all racial backgrounds, solidified Poitier's standing as a key figure in the burgeoning civil rights movement, as roles in features including 1959's Porgy and Bess and 1961's Raisin in the Sun established him as the premier black actor of his generation. For 1963's The Lilies of the Field, he made history as the first African-American actor to win an Oscar in a leading role, and with the mainstream success of 1965's A Patch of Blue and 1967's To Sir, With Love, his ascent to superstardom was complete. Much to his credit, Poitier continued to make racially provocative films; in 1967 he appeared in Kramer's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner as the black fiancé of a white woman, while in the same year's Best Picture-winning In the Heat of the Night, he starred as a Philadelphia police detective facing prejudice while investigating a murder in the Deep South. In 1969, Poitier founded the First Artists Production Company, and in 1972 -- at the peak of the blaxploitation era which his earlier success made commercially viable -- announced his directorial debut with Buck and the Preacher. He directed and starred in his next three films (1973's Warm December, 1974's Uptown Saturday Night, and 1975's Let's Do It Again) before starring in Ralph Nelson's 1975 South African political thriller The Wilby Conspiracy, after which he returned to the director's chair with 1977's A Piece of the Action.After directing the 1980 comedy Stir Crazy, Poitier began to decrease his workload; he helmed two more features, 1982's Hanky Panky and 1984's Fast Forward, but then disappeared from filmmaking for the next several years. In 1988, Poitier appeared onscreen for the first time in over a decade in Roger Spottiswoode's thriller Shoot to Kill, followed by a supporting turn in the espionage drama Little Nikita. Upon directing 1990's disastrous Bill Cosby comedy Ghost Dad, he starred as Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in the television feature Separate But Equal, and in 1992 appeared in the star-studded Sneakers. After another extended absence, Poitier returned in 1995 in the TV movie Children of the Dust, and in 1996 he starred in the long-awaited follow-up to his '67 success To Sir With Love, TV's To Sir With Love 2.A frequent author in addition to his acting, Poitier's book Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter was published in 2008, and the following year he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Trivia: The life story of African American jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong could fill a dozen books, and in fact it has. Rising to fame with his own "Hot Five" group in the 1920s, "Satchmo" Armstrong (the nickname is derived from "Satchelmouth"; incidentally, he was known to his closest friends as "Pops") was a seasoned pro when movies began demanding his services in 1930. His earliest film appearances-- notably the Betty Boop cartoon (!) I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You (32)--exemplified the "dangerous," sexually suggestive Armstrong who had become famous in nightclubs and on 78 RPM records. The racial barriers of 1930s Hollywood required Armstrong to smooth out his rough edges and sometimes to come in through the servant's entrance; in 1938's Going Places, for example, he appears as a stableboy, and introduces the lively but comparatively antiseptic ditty "Jeepers Creepers." Armstrong was serendipitously teamed with Bing Crosby on two memorable occasions: the 1936 musical drama Pennies From Heaven and the 1956 tune-filled remake of Philadelphia Story, High Society. Usually cast as himself (or a thinly disguised facsimile), Louis was given a rare chance to act in the 1943 all-black MGM musical Cabin in the Sky, playing the heavenly emissary "The Trumpeter." In 1964, Louis Armstrong scored so huge a hit with his recording of the title tune from the Broadway musical Hello Dolly that he was arbitrarily written into the 1969 film version, sharing a few precious on-screen moments with Barbra Streisand; it was the last of his 25 feature-film appearances.

Trivia: Actress, singer, and entertainer Diahann Carroll was awarded a Metropolitan Opera scholarship to attend the High School of Music and Art in New York at the age of ten. While a sociology student in college, Carroll modeled, which led to work as a singer in nightclubs and as a TV performer. In 1954, she made her debut on Broadway (House of Flowers) and in films (in Carmen Jones). She won a Tony Award for her Broadway starring role in No Strings (1962) and later starred on the TV series Julia (1968-69), a TV breakthrough in that it was the first regular series to star (not co-star) a black actor. Carroll was nominated for a "Best Actress" Oscar for her work in Claudine (1974). She was married to actor/singer Vic Damone.

Trivia: Born in Italy but raised in France since the age of four, supporting and leading actor Serge Reggiani's prolific film career spans five decades. Often appearing in international productions, he made his film debut in Etoile sans Lumiere (1946). He went on to specialize in tragic roles. Highlights of his career include Casque D'Or (Golden Helmet) (1952), Le Doulos (1962), and Vincent, François, Paul et les Autres (1974). Reggiani was also a popular singer during the 1960s.

Trivia: Barbara Laage was a popular leading lady in French films during the 1950s. She came to film in 1948 after working in theater and performing in nightclubs. She made her debut in an American film, B.F.'s Daughter and then returned to France.