Trivia: With the sort of GQ looks that command attention both onscreen and off, longtime actor Steven Bauer has come a long way since making an impression in Brian De Palma's controversial 1983 crime drama Scarface. A native of Cuba whose family fled to Miami shortly after Fidel Castro came to power in 1956, Bauer began his education at Miami-Dade Community College, where a walk-on role in the play Summer and Smoke sparked a lifelong love of acting. He transferred to the University of Miami and continued to hone his craft in such plays as Of Mice and Men, and by the time he moved to New York, Bauer was ready to study under the tutelage of acclaimed acting coach Stella Adler. It was during this time that auditions for Scarface were announced, and with his confidence bolstered by a handful of supporting roles in film and television, Bauer proved that he could hold his own opposite Al Pacino. Cast as the titular character's close friend and partner in crime, the young actor's powerful performance drew a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Although the film's notable violence and profanity ultimately provoked a backlash from both Hollywood and the viewing public, Bauer's career maintained its upward trajectory when, the following year, the handsome rising star took the lead in the romantic thriller Thief of Hearts.Throughout the '80s, roles in such high-profile films as Running Scared (1986) and Gleaming the Cube (1989) helped maintain Bauer's presence on the big screen, but it was a role in the 1990 television miniseries Drug Wars: The Camarena Story that earned him his second Golden Globe nomination and proved he could give a commanding lead performance. Increasingly relegated to low-budget thrillers and forgettable, straight-to-video fare, he had occasional roles in such films as Raising Cain (1992) and Wild Side (1995). In 2000, Bauer shared a Screen Actor's Guild award for Best Ensemble Performance in the acclaimed Steven Soderbergh crime drama Traffic, in which the actor portrayed jailed drug kingpin Carlos Ayala. The roles that immediately followed, however, seemed to offer Bauer little room to expand his talent, though his performance in the popular, but short-lived TV series UC: Undercover at least served to keep him in the spotlight before joining an impressive cast in the 2003 Bob Dylan drama Masked and Anonymous. Married to actress Melanie Griffith for the majority of the '80s, the couple divorced in 1987. Bauer married Ingrid Anderson in 1989.

Trivia: A hulking character actor who brings new meaning to the concept of versatility, Oliver Platt has appeared in a dizzying array of films that make him instantly recognizable but not instantly placeable to the average filmgoer. Since making his screen debut as an oily Wall Street drone in Mike Nichols' Working Girl (1988), Platt has lent his talents to almost every conceivable genre, including period dramas, political comedies, children's films, and campy horror movies.The son of a U.S. Ambassador, Platt was born in Windsor on January 12, 1960, Platt and his family soon moved to Washington, D.C. Thanks to his father's job, he had an exceptionally itinerant childhood. By the time he was 18, he had attended 12 different schools in places as diverse as Tokyo, the Middle East, and Colorado. Long interested in acting, Platt received a BA in drama from Boston's Tufts University; following graduation, he remained in Boston for three years to pursue his stage career. In 1986 he moved to New York, where he performed in a number of off-Broadway productions and had the lead in the 1989 Lincoln Center production of Ubu. Following his screen debut in Working Girl, Platt began finding steady work in such films as Married to the Mob (1988), Postcards from the Edge (1990), Beethoven (1992) -- which featured him and future collaborator Stanley Tucci as puppy thieves -- and Benny and Joon (1993). He also proved himself adept at cheesy period drama in The Three Musketeers (1993), which cast him as Porthos, and at all-out comedy, as demonstrated by his turn as a struggling comic in Funny Bones (1995). Rarely cast as a leading man, Platt has always been visible in substantial supporting roles, equally comfortable at portraying nice guys, bad guys, and just flat out weird guys alike. As Ashley Judd's suitor in Simon Birch (1998), he was the straight man, while in The Impostors (1998), his second collaboration with Tucci (two years earlier he served as associate producer for the latter's Big Night), he again displayed his capacity for broad physical comedy as a struggling actor who finds himself a stowaway on an ocean liner. In Dangerous Beauty (1998), Platt was able to exercise his nasty side as a bitter nobleman-turned-religious zealot in 16th-century Venice; that same year, his capacity for exasperated quirkiness was displayed in Bulworth, which cast him as Warren Beatty's put-upon, coke-snorting campaign manager.1999 proved to be a somewhat disappointing year for Platt, as two of his films, Three to Tango (which featured him as a gay architect) and the schlock-horror Lake Placid, which cast him as an idiosyncratic mythology expert, were both critical and commercial flops. A third film that year, Bicentennial Man -- in which Platt played the scientist who turns the titular robot (Robin Williams) into a man -- fared somewhat better. The following year, Platt's comic abilities were again on display in Gun Shy, in which he hammed it up as a bottom-rung mafioso with an overblown ego.Fortunately for the workhorse actor, the 2000s seemed to prove the boost -- and exposure -- his sagging career needed. Earning back to back Emmy nominations in 2006 and 2007 for his performance opposite former Tufts University classmate Hank Azaria in the weekly dramedy Huff, Platt was also nominated for a Screen Actor's Guild Award for his turn as New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in the TV mini-series The Bronk is Burning (2007). With 2008 came yet another Ammy nomination -- this time for his guest role on the hit FX series Nip/Tuck -- and in 2009 he appeared as Nathan Detroit in the Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls. Other notable television appearances from this phase of Platt's career included a recurring character on the seriocomic HBO series Bored to Death and a prominent role as the husband of a suburban housewife diagnosed with cancer in the Showtime comedy drama series The Big C.

Trivia: Chicago-born actress Beverly Todd began her acting career on-stage, appearing in plays such as Deep Are the Roots and No Strings in New York and London. She embarked upon her film career in the '70s, immediately making a major impact with a string of memorable roles in films like The Lost Man, They Call Me Mister Tibbs!, and Brother John, as well as in the legendary miniseries Roots. As the '80s began, Todd's roles became more varied, as she exploring her comedic side in movies like Baby Boom and Moving. This trend continued throughout the '90s and 2000s, as Todd enjoyed working on projects that fell all over the spectrum, from the high-school docudrama Lean on Me to a guest role on the sitcom A Different World and a recurring part on the hit HBO series Six Feet Under to the Oscar-winning Crash. In 2007, she had a supporting role in the Morgan Freeman/Jack Nicholson vehicle The Bucket List.

Trivia: The screen's first authentic black romantic leading man, Williams is often referred to as "the black Gable." He first appeared onstage as a child actor in The Firebrand of Florence (1947) with German actress Lotte Lenya; his mother was an elevator operator at New York's Lyceum Theater, and when she heard of an opening for a child in the play she brought him to the producer, who hired him. He went on to study acting at New York's High School of Music and Art and The National Academy of Fine Arts; for a few months he was taught by Sidney Poitier at Harlem's Actors Workshop. He began working onstage in the mid '50s, then landed his breakthrough role in the play A Taste of Honey in 1960. He debuted onscreen as a rebellious ghetto kid in The Last Angry Man (1959). However, he did not appear in another film for over a decade. In the '60s he began landing roles on TV, including a continuing role on the soap opera Another World and guest spots on TV series. He made a big impression as the costar of the TV movie Brian's Song (1970). His breakthrough screen role was as the lover of Billie Holiday (Diana Ross) in the hit Lady Sings the Blues (1972), which brought him to stardom and established him as a romantic lead. He went on to appear in a number of movies, few of which fully used his talents; he portrayed Lando Calrissian in the second and third Star Wars films, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). In the mid '80s he began appearing again frequently on TV, and starred in the short-lived series Double Dare in 1985; he was also a regular for a while on Dynasty.