Trivia: Singer-actress, onscreen from the '70s.

Trivia: Wanted to become a prima ballerina since she was young.Practiced cheerleading in high school.Decided to pursue a career in acting during her high school years.In 1990, she started her career in television as an actress.Was an apprentice in Burt Reynolds's Jupiter Theatre, in Florida.Met her husband, Ted McGinley, in one of the plays in the theater.

Trivia: Alison La Placa is a gifted comic actress who has been working steadily since the early '80s, including starring roles in several highly anticipated (but ultimately unsuccessful) television series. Born in New Jersey in 1959 and raised in Lincolnshire, IL, a suburb outside of Chicago, La Placa set her sights on an entertainment career and trained in musical theater. As a practical matter, however, her career has been much more oriented toward comedy, which she describes as being essentially musical theater without the music. Her first shot at stardom came in 1983, at age 23, when she portrayed Elyse in the television pilot spin-off of Barry Levinson's feature film Diner. That series failed to sell, and her subsequent work included parts in Fletch (1985) and Voyage of the Rock Aliens (1988). She also made appearances on Cheers and Remington Steele, and by the second half of the 1980s, she had found her firm niche in television, starting with the series Duet (1987) on the FOX network, which led to a starring role on the short-lived FOX series Open House (1989). After being cast in a few more failed series, including The Jackie Thomas Show (1992) and Tom (1994, in which she played Tom Arnold's wife), La Placa finally found success when she joined the cast of The John Larroquette Show in 1994. Since then, La Placa's most memorable work was seen on the 1997 season of the series Friends, as Rachel's boss Joanna, whose involvement with Matthew Perry's Chandler -- including a ferociously funny performance in the episode "The One With the 'Cuffs" -- led to some delightful comedic situations. With those credits behind her, La Placa bids fair to be seen in television comedy for years to come.

Trivia: Pronounced "shy," like the colloquial term for his hometown of Chicago, Chi McBride didn't get into acting until he was 30 years old. He is probably most recognized for his role as principal Steven Harper on Fox's Boston Public. Before his first movie, he worked for a phone company, trained as a gospel singer, and joined the hip-hop band Covert. With McBride as a producer and vocalist, the band released their first and only album For Your Bootay Only in 1991. Not soon after, he started appearing as a guest star on Fox sitcoms, including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. His feature-length debut happened a year later in Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation. Billed as simply Chi, he then gained small roles for the Eddie Murphy movie The Distinguished Gentleman and the Tina Turner story What's Love Got to Do With It? In 1993, McBride found a spot for himself on NBC for The John Larroquette Show, playing the janitor Heavy Gene. Teaming up next with the Hudlin brothers, he then appeared in the HBO Twilight Zone-style trilogy Cosmic Slop, hosted by George Clinton. His next few diverse projects were supporting roles in Peter Jackson's horror comedy The Frighteners, Bill Duke's period crime flick Hoodlum, and the action thriller Mercury Rising. McBride's first leading role came in the form of the short-lived and controversial UPN sitcom The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, playing the stuffy English title character who was mistakenly enslaved to Abraham Lincoln. After appearances in Gone in 60 Seconds and Disney's The Kid, he found his well-known spot on Boston Public. While gaining high marks for his role on the David E. Kelley drama, McBride parlayed his increased notoriety into a number of higher-profile big-screen roles.2002 found McBride as a police captain in the intense cop-thriller Narc, and the over-the-top Chief in the comedy Undercover Brother. And while the following year saw Boston Public cancelled, the free-time afforded to McBride by the show's end only allowed him to sign on to roles in two of 2004's most anticipated films, the Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks dramedy The Terminal and I, Robot, an action sci-fi flick starring Will Smith. Over the course of the next decade the reliable McBride became increasingly active on the small screen, essaying recurring roles on such hit shows as House and Pushing Daisies. Later, in 2012, he voiced the role of Nick Fury in the animated superhero series Ultimate Spider-Man.