Trivia: The odyssey of Dennis Hopper was one of Hollywood's longest, strangest trips. A onetime teen performer, he went through a series of career metamorphoses -- studio pariah, rebel filmmaker, drug casualty, and comeback kid -- before finally settling comfortably into the role of character actor par excellence, with a rogues' gallery of killers and freaks unmatched in psychotic intensity and demented glee. Along the way, Hopper defined a generation, documenting the shining hopes and bitter disappointments of the hippie counterculture and bringing their message to movie screens everywhere. By extension, he spearheaded a revolt in the motion picture industry, forcing the studio establishment to acknowledge a youth market they'd long done their best to deny. Born May 17, 1936 in Dodge City, Kansas, Hopper began acting during his teen years, and made his professional debut on the TV series Medic. In 1955 he made a legendary collaboration with the director Nicholas Ray in the classic Rebel Without a Cause, appearing as a young tough opposite James Dean. Hopper and Dean became close friends during filming, and also worked together on 1956's Giant. After Dean's tragic death, it was often remarked that Hopper attempted to fill his friend's shoes by borrowing much of his persona, absorbing the late icon's famously defiant attitude and becoming so temperamental that his once-bright career quickly began to wane. Seeking roles far removed from the stereotypical 'troubled teens' which previously dotted his resume, Hopper began training with the Actors Studio. However, on the set of Henry Hathaway's From Hell to Texas he so incensed cast and crew with his insistence upon multiple takes for his improvisational techniques -- the reshoots sometimes numbering upwards of 100 -- that he found himself a Hollywood exile. He spent much of the next decade mired in "B"-movies, if he was lucky enough to work at all. Producers considered him such a risk that upon completing 1960's Key Witness he did not reappear on-screen for another three years. With a noteworthy role in Hathaway's 1965 John Wayne western The Sons of Katie Elder, Hopper made tentative steps towards a comeback. He then appeared in a number of psychedelic films, including 1967's The Trip and the following year's Monkees feature Head, and earned a new audience among anti-establishment viewers.With friends Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson in front of the camera, Hopper decided to direct his own movie, and secured over $400,000 in financing to begin filming a screenplay written by novelist Terry Southern. The result was 1969's Easy Rider, a sprawling, drug-fueled journey through an America torn apart by the conflict in Vietnam. Initially rejected by producer Roger Corman, the film became a countercultural touchstone, grossing millions at the box office and proving to Hollywood executives that the ever-expanding youth market and their considerable spending capital would indeed react to films targeted to their issues and concerns, spawning a cottage industry of like-minded films. Long a pariah, Hopper was suddenly hailed as a major new filmmaker, and his success became so great that in 1971 he appeared in an autobiographical documentary, American Dreamer, exploring his life and times.The true follow-up to Easy Rider, however, was 1971's The Last Movie, an excessive, self-indulgent mess that, while acclaimed by jurors at the Venice Film Festival, was otherwise savaged by critics and snubbed by audiences. Once again Hopper was left picking up the pieces of his career; he appeared only sporadically in films throughout the 1970s, most of them made well outside of Hollywood. His personal life a shambles -- his marriage to singer/actress Michelle Phillips lasted just eight days -- Hopper spent much of the decade in a haze, earning a notorious reputation as an unhinged wild man. An appearance as a disturbed photojournalist in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now did little to repair most perceptions of his sanity. Then in 1980, Hopper traveled to Canada to appear in a small film titled Out of the Blue. At the outset of the production he was also asked to take over as director, and to the surprise of many, the picture appeared on schedule and to decent reviews. Slowly he began to restake his territory in American films, accepting roles in diverse fare ranging from 1983's teen drama Rumble Fish to the 1985 comedy My Science Project. In 1986 Hopper returned to prominence with a vengeance. His role as the feral, psychopathic Frank Booth in David Lynch's masterpiece Blue Velvet was among the most stunning supporting turns in recent memory, while his touching performance as an alcoholic assistant coach in the basketball drama Hoosiers earned an Academy Award nomination. While acclaimed turns in subsequent films like 1987's The River's Edge threatened to typecast Hopper, there was no doubting his return to Hollywood's hot list, and in 1988 he directed Colors, a charged police drama starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall. While subsequent directorial efforts like 1989's Chattahoochee and 1990's film noir The Hot Spot failed to create the same kind of box office returns as Easy Rider over two decades earlier, his improbable comeback continued throughout the 1990s with roles in such acclaimed, quirky films as 1993's True Romance and 1996's Basquiat. Hopper was also the villain-du-jour in a number of Hollywood blockbusters, including 1994's Speed and the following year's Waterworld, and was even a pitchman for Nike athletic wear. He also did a number of largely forgettable films such asRon Howard's EdTV (1999). In addition, he also played writer and Beat extraordinaire William S. Burroughs in a 1999 documentary called The Source with Johnny Depp as Jack Kerouac and John Turturro as Allen Ginsberg. In 1997 Hopper was awarded the distinction of appearing 87th in Empire Magazine's list of "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time."Hopper contracted prostate cancer in the early 2000s, and died of related complications in Venice, CA, in late May 2010. He was 74 years old.

Trivia: Balancing independent film and Hollywood, Stephen Dorff made his name as a versatile actor with a particular talent for playing assorted rebels and villains. The son of composer Steve Dorff, the younger Dorff opted for the acting side of show business instead. Entering the industry as a teenager, Dorff cut his acting teeth on TV in the late '80s with guest spots on several series, including Roseanne and Married With Children, and roles in TV movies, including I Know My First Name Is Steven (1989). Dorff jumped to feature films with the starring role as a socially conscious South African boxer in The Power of One (1992). Voted the National Association of Theater Owners' Male Star of Tomorrow in 1992, Dorff next earned attention with his lead performance as Beatle manqué Stu Sutcliffe in the British biopic Backbeat (1993). He also appeared in the genre thriller Judgment Night that same year, with Emilio Estevez and Cuba Gooding Jr. Despite his Hollywood beginnings, Dorff focused more on independent productions in the mid-'90s, including the media satire S.F.W. (1994). His nuanced performance as Warhol Factory transvestite superstar Candy Darling in Mary Harron's acclaimed I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), though, definitively revealed that Dorff could be more than a pretty, brooding face. Dorff further held his own opposite Jack Nicholson in neo-noir Blood and Wine (1997) and against Harvey Keitel in crime drama City of Industry (1997), but neither film made a box office impression. Dorff scored a summer popcorn hit, however, as Wesley Snipes' flamboyant vampire nemesis in the comic book adaptation Blade (1998). Displaying his range, Dorff starred opposite Susan Sarandon in the romance Earthly Possessions (1999) for HBO, and put two different spins on movie director characters in Phil Joanou's film à clef Entropy (1999) and John Waters' black comedy Cecil B. Demented (2000). Branching out into another medium, Dorff starred in Quantum Project (2000), the first film produced for the Internet. Dorff continued to do work in a series of independent films, but occasionally would appear in more mainstream fare such as fear dot com, Cold Creek Manor, and Alone in the Dark. He had his largest profile film in years in 2006 as part of the cast of Oliver Stone's 9/11 film World Trade Center. He maintained his footing in the independent film world by starring opposite Milla Jovovich and Aisha Taylor on that same year's .45.Over the next several years, Dorff would find an ongoing series of roles in an impressive variety of projects, like Michael Mann's Public Enemies, Sophia Coppola's Somewhere, and Tarsem Singh's Immortals.

Trivia: Known for her feline eyes and brash New York attitude, Queens native Debi Mazar began her show business career behind the scenes as a makeup artist for a star-studded clientele, the most lucrative of the bunch being Madonna. Attracted by her unique features, the iconic pop singer cast Mazar in the music videos for "True Blue," "Deeper and Deeper," and "Papa Don't Preach." It wasn't until 1990, however, that Mazar made her film debut as the cokehead girlfriend of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) in Martin Scorsese's GoodFellas. After portraying a series of small but indelible characters in Oliver Stone's The Doors, Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, and Jodie Foster's Little Man Tate (all 1991), Mazar had developed a small but devoted following and a reputation solid enough to land her the tough-talking role of legal defense secretary Denise Iannello on ABC's legal drama Civil Wars (1991-1993), a role she would reprise for NBC's L.A. Law in 1994.After taking on several more tiny supporting parts throughout the early '90s, including one which would reunite her with Jungle Fever director Spike Lee (in the Oscar-winning Malcolm X [1992]), Mazar made her debut as a lead character in Money for Nothing (1993), a blue-collar crime comedy co-starring John Cusack, with whom she would work for a second time in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway (1994). After a brief performance as a manicurist in television's Witch Hunt (1994), Mazar could be found in the role of a femme fatale alongside Drew Barrymore, Jim Carrey, and Val Kilmer in Batman Forever (1995), and would portray an idealistic HIV-positive thief in Red Ribbon Blues (1995). Red Ribbon Blues wasn't the last time Mazar would delve into the complex world of sex and gender-related prejudice -- in 1996's Girl 6, Mazar co-starred as an anonymous member of a phone sex business, while Things I Never Told You found her playing a transsexual. Shortly afterward, Mazar chewed a respectable amount of scenery as one of Long Island barfly Tommy's (Steve Buscemi) potential hook-ups in 1996's Trees Lounge. The actress continued to exhibit her versatility in a series of roles during 1997, including those of a sleazy television show producer in Meet Wally Sparks, an intergalactic waitress in Space Truckers, and two decidedly more serious performances in the gay & lesbian drama Nowhere and Nick Cassavetes' romantic drama She's So Lovely.With the notable exceptions of bleaching her trademark jet-black tresses for 1998's Frogs for Snakes with Robbie Coltrane, and her role as Debbie De Luca in Michael Mann's tobacco industry exposé The Insider (1999), Mazar spent much of the late '90s on the small screen. After the failure of CBS's sitcom Temporarily Yours (1997), Mazar played lead roles in David and Lisa (a psychological drama co-produced by Oprah Winfrey) and NBC's Witness to the Mob. Following another NBC sitcom appearance in the short-lived Working (1998), the actress starred in 2000's CBS drama That's Life as an advice-dispensing hairdresser. In 2002, Mazar played right-hand woman to multi-millionaire Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs) in Jackie Chan's The Tuxedo, and went on to offer a poignant monologue in Ten Tiny Love Stories the same year. In 2004, Mazar took on a supporting role in the crime comedy Be Cool with John Travolta and Uma Thurman, and starred in Dennis Brooks' independent film Goodnight, Joseph Parker.She had a major role in 2008's A Beautiful Life, and that same year had a small part in the ensemble of The Women. In 2012 she could be seen in the porn queen biopic Lovelace.

Trivia: Tall, sandy-haired British actor Charles Dance trained for a career in graphic design at Plymouth College of Art and Leicester College of Art. Dance developed a taste for the theatre by listening to the reminiscences of two elderly actors who ran a pub in his Dover neighborhood. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at the age of 29, and made his first film, the James Bond picture For Your Eyes Only, six years later. Dance's widest professional exposure came in 1984 when he appeared in "The Jewel in the Crown," a 14-part British TV production seen in the U.S. on Masterpiece Theatre. Charles Dance's best-remembered performances have been as D.W. Griffith in Good Morning Babylon (1987); the role of Meryl Streep's husband in Plenty (1985); the title part in the 1990 TV adaptation of Phantom of the Opera; and the displaced "imaginary" villain in Arnold Schwarzenegger's The Last Action Hero (1993).

Trivia: There's no mystery concerning the hometown of George Wendt. The heavyset, curly haired actor never misses a talk show opportunity to cheer on his beloved Chicago "Cubbies" or "Da Bears." After theater work in Chicago and New York and a handful of TV appearances on sitcoms like M*A*S*H and Alice, Wendt inaugurated his signature role of burly, unemployed barfly Norm Peterson on TV's long-running Cheers (1983-1993); so far as it can be determined, he still hasn't paid his bar tab, which according to TV Guide totalled up to 64,218 dollars at the end of 11 seasons. He starred in the short-lived The George Wendt Show, and continued to work steadily on both the small and big screen in a variety of projects including Spice World, Outside Providence, Teddy Bears' Picnic, and Edmond. He also reprised his iconic role of Norm on an episode of the successful Cheers spinoff Frasier.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Crampton, a lead actress, has appeared on screen since the '80s.

Trivia: An Irish actor, born and raised in Dublin, Jason O'Mara turned out more prolific television appearances (in guest spots and supporting turns) than almost any of his contemporaries. Among other assignments, he landed roles on Band of Brothers, Criminal Minds, Men in Trees, and Grey's Anatomy, then rose to broader acclaim as one of the leads, ex-cop turned legal assist Charles Conti, on the popular law drama series In Justice (2006). In 2007, O'Mara tackled a supporting role opposite Milla Jovovich and Ashanti in the gruesome video game adaptation Resident Evil: Extinction. But it was on the small screen that O'Mara really seemed to shine, and after traveling back to the 1970s as the lead in the shortlived police detective series Life on Mars, the increasingly prolific actor ventured even further back in time -- 85 million years to be exact -- with his family to start a prehistoric human civilization in the FOX series Terra Nova. That show, too, was cancelled before it had the chance to gain a loyal following, though O'Mara quickly bounced back with a featured role in the 2012 Katherine Heigl romantic action comedy One for the Money, which found the actor cast as a fugitive cop being pursued by his gorgeous ex -- now a tenacious bounty hunter. He is not to be confused with the Philadelphia-based jazz musician with the same name.

Trivia: Actress Carolyn Purdy-Gordon maintained her most frequent presence in horror outings, often directed by longtime husband Stuart Gordon of Chicago's Organic Theater. She began her eminent screen career with a portrayal of a physician in Gordon's popular gorefest-cum-black comedy Re-Animator (1985), starring Jeffrey Combs and Bruce Abbott, then worked on additional projects with her husband including the horror comedy From Beyond (1986), the more straight-faced shocker Dolls (1987), and the sci-fi action movie Robot Jox (1989). In 2007, Purdy-Gordon returned to the screen after a lengthy absence with a supporting role in Stuart Gordon's psychological thriller Stuck, starring Mena Suvari and Stephen Rea.