Trivia: Mississippi-born Mary Ann Mobley won the 1959 Miss America crown by singing a medley consisting of an aria from Madame Butterfly and the pop hit "There'll Be Some Changes Made." Within a year, Mary Ann was featured vocalist on the CBS TV variety series Be Our Guest; she then plunged into a series of youth-oriented theatrical films. Her movie leading men were an odd assortment, ranging from Elvis to Jerry Lewis. Far busier on TV than in films, Mary Ann was a guest on virtually every important prime-time dramatic series of the 1960s; she later played a recurring role on the ABC daytimer General Hospital, and in 1985 replaced Dixie Carter in the part of Conrad Bain's wife on the weekly sitcom Diff'rent Strokes. Trivia cultivators are fond of citing the two plum TV roles that Mary Ann was up for but didn't get; secret agent April Dancer on The Girl From UNCLE (she played the role in the pilot episode, but the series proper starred Stefanie Powers) and Batgirl-aka-Barbara Gordon on Batman (Yvonne Craig took over when Mary Ann fell ill). Mary Ann Mobley married to actor/talkshow host Gary Collins in 1967; the two remained together until Collins death in 2012. Mobley passed away in 2014, at age 75.

Trivia: Though he's occasionally cast as eccentric urbanites, rotund character actor Glenn Shadix actually spent his childhood in rural Alabama. After acting in regional theater and waiting tables in New York, he moved to Los Angeles in his early twenties. He made his film debut with a bit part in the 1981 film remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice, but most of his time in the '80s was spent on-stage. One of his first starring roles was in drag as the famed American writer Gertrude Stein in Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights at the West Coast Ensemble Studio Theater. He earned an LA Weekly award for his performance. Young filmmaker Tim Burton saw the play and decided to cast him in his next film, Beetlejuice. The Deetz's vain interior designer Otho continues to be one of his most recognizable roles.Joining Burton's circle of regulars, Shadix provided the voice of the mayor of Halloween Town in The Nightmare Before Christmas. He also developed a friendship with another young filmmaker named Michael Lehmann during a comedy improvisation project. He was cast in two of Lehmann's films: the black comedy Heathers, as funeral orator Father Ripper, and the suburban satire Meet the Applegates. After appearing in some of the biggest cult films of the early '90s, Shadix increased his exposure by guest starring on the popular television sitcoms Seinfeld and Cheers. He eventually played the regular role of gentle giant Typhon on the syndicated adventure series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Back on the big screen, he played various eccentrics in family-friendly films like Bingo, It Runs in the Family, and Dunston Checks In. He also occasionally appeared in horror films (Sleepwalkers), science fiction (Demolition Man), and thrillers (Dark Side of Genius). Harking back to his stage roots, Shadix then appeared in two talky obscurities: the feminist film Men and the psychological drama The Empty Mirror. Moving toward more independent projects, he played a strange Southern sheriff in the crime comedy Rose's and a loud alcoholic in the drama Shut Yer Dirty Little Mouth. In 2001, he re-teamed with Burton to play Sentator Nado in the remake of Planet of the Apes. Working the convention circuit in support of his cult film status, Shadix traveled around the world. He also underwent gastric bypass surgery in order to lose over 100 pounds. In 2003, he appeared as an aging wardrobeman in Ruby Romaine Trailer Tales and as an stubborn councilman in Carnivàle, both on HBO.

Trivia: American comic actor Henry Gibson acted professionally since childhood, but didn't gain prominence until his discovery by Jerry Lewis for a role in The Nutty Professor (1963). Gibson quickly developed a comedy act for TV variety shows, in which he passed himself off as a fey, Southern-accented "blank verse" poet. So convincing was this persona that many viewers believed Gibson was a genuine Southerner, though he actually hailed from Pennsylvania. He played a cruder variation of his yokel character as a patron of the "Belly Button" bar in Billy Wilder's Kiss Me Stupid (1964), and was hilarious as a hip-talking Indian in the Three Stooges' feature film The Outlaws is Coming (1965). Gibson might have continued in small roles indefinitely had he not been catapulted to stardom in 1968 as part of the ensemble on TV's Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, where his introductory "A poem...by Henry Gibson" became a national catchphrase. Gibson stayed with Laugh-In until 1971, whereupon he launched a reasonably successful career as a straight character actor. One of his best film roles of the '70s was Haven Hamilton, a hard-driving, flag-waving country-western star in Nashville (1975). Gibson not only delivered an expert performance but also co-wrote the songs sung by Haven Hamilton, including the deliberately banal Bicentennial ballad, "200 Years", in one of the film's early scenes. Henry Gibson continued throughout the next two decades playing strong movie character parts (the neo-Nazi commander in 1980's The Blues Brothers) and bright little cameos (the closet-smoking security guard in 1990's Gremlins 2). Gibson was also ubiquitously available as a guest star on such cable-TV reruns as Bewitched (he played a leprechaun) and F Troop (he was jinxed Private Wrongo Starr). He died of cancer in September 2009, about a week before his 74th birthday.

Trivia: After spending the 1990s as a TV teen star, Melissa Joan Hart set her sights on feature films. Born and raised on Long Island, Hart began acting in TV commercials as a child. She further honed her skills in New York theater in the late '80s as the youngest member of the Circle Repertory Lab Company. Hart then broke through as a cable TV favorite (and a CableACE Award nominee) in the role of the precocious titular preteen on the Nickelodeon series Clarissa Explains It All (1991-1994). After the series ended, Hart moved to network TV stardom in 1996 as the supernaturally gifted title teen on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Maintaining her pert primetime persona while revealing her range, Hart also starred in several TV movies, including Family Reunion: A Relative Nightmare (1995), Twisted Desire (1996), The Right Connections (1997), and the college date rape drama Silencing Mary (1998). Though Hart continued to produce and star in Sabrina, she also attempted to parlay her TV fame into movie stardom with the romantic comedy Drive Me Crazy (1999). The film, however, failed to perform as well as the Britney Spears tune that gave it its title. Hart raised eyebrows that same year when she tried to shed her squeaky-clean adolescent image with a racy photo spread and interview in men's magazine Maxim. Neither gambit affected Sabrina, although Hart and the series moved from the family-oriented ABC lineup to the youth-savvy WB in 2000. She lent her vocal talents to the Batman Beyond series, and continued to work steadily in made-for-TV fare like Rent Control, Holiday in Handcuffs, and My Fake Fiance. In 2010 she teamed up with fellow former child star Joey Lawrence for TV series Melissa & Joey that ran on the ABC Family channel.

Trivia: Born in Montreal, Quebec, Caroline Rhea launched herself on the path to stardom in 1986, when the then-22-year-old moved to Manhattan and enrolled in the New School for Social Research's standup comedy program. On the side, Rhea cut her chops by practicing at the standup club Catch a Rising Star, and the success of those engagements yielded additional bookings, not simply at Big Apple venues, but on such national television programs as Comic Strip Live and Caroline's Comedy Hour. Rhea segued into scripted television programs and features around 1996, with roles on such sitcoms as Sabrina the Teenage Witch and The Drew Carey Show, before hitting a watershed moment in her career: the launch of her own eponymous series, the talk program The Caroline Rhea Show (which followed her guest-hosting of The Rosie O'Donnell Show). Unfortunately, Rhea's talk show folded less than a year after its 2002 premiere, but Rhea continued to build her own reputation, with popular standup bookings across the U.S. and Canada, appearances on talk programs such as Live with Regis and Kelly, and small roles in movies. She played Candi in the disastrous Tim Allen holiday comedy Christmas With the Kranks (2004) and Gloria in the Mark Rosman-directed teen movie The Perfect Man (2005), and hosted the popular series The Biggest Loser, a reality series in which contestants compete to determine who can lose the most weight. In 2006, Rhea also hosted the made-for-cable standup special Caroline Rhea: Rhea's Anatomy, which found her offering witty divertissements on such subjects as post-40 pregnancy and age-disparity romances.

Trivia: Grew up in Huntington Beach, California.Moved to New York after graduating from American Academy of Dramatic Arts to start her professional acting career.Is also an accomplished writer, having co-written A Cup of Joe, Wonderland and Literatti with her writing partner Dennis Bailey.Is a founding member of the Celebrity Action Council of the City Light Women's Rehabilitation Program at the Los Angeles Mission.Is the founding director of Momentum, which was one of the first organizations in New York created to assist people with AIDS.

Trivia: Born in 1977, actress Lindsay Sloane enjoyed a series of assignments during her adolescent years, including a stint on The Wonder Years (as Alice Pedermeir, the girlfriend of high schooler Chuck Coleman) and another on Sabrina the Teenage Witch. In her early years, she found herself somewhat typecast in playing the quirky best friends of female lead characters, but shortly after her 20th birthday, she aggressively changed her image (by virtue of rhinoplasty) and scored a key role as a cheerleader, Big Red, in the farcical sports comedy Bring It On (2000). Following enlistment in a couple of very short-lived television series (the 2000 Grosse Pointe and the 2001 Going to California), and an assignment as Albert Brooks' daughter in the comedy remake The In-Laws (2003), Sloane chalked up a series of parts in big-screen outings, including In The Land of Women (2007), The Accidental Husband (2007), and Over Her Dead Body (2008).

Trivia: Martin Mull intended to become a painter when he enrolled in the Rhode Island School of Design, but his Scaramouche-like sense of the ridiculous led to a career as a nightclub comedian. The deceptively conservative-looking Mull is widely recognized as one of the most accomplished satirists in show business. Even before he gained TV fame, Mull's barbed comedy albums had earned him a following on the college campus circuit. His first major TV assignment was Mary Hartman Mary Hartman (1976-77), where he was seen as Garth Gimble, an ill-tempered wife beater who ended up being impaled by a Christmas tree. When Mary Hartman Mary Hartman producer Norman Lear developed the spin-off series Fernwood Tonight in 1977, Mull was brought back as glad-handing emcee Barth Gimble, Garth's twin brother. In films since 1978, Mull is often called upon to portray an underhanded or vacillating CEO (vide Mister Mom). His well-groomed mustache and tweedy appearance served him well as Colonel Mustard in the 1985 movie version of the venerable board game Clue. Back on television, Mull has etched such indelible comic characterizations as Leon Carp, Roseanne Connor's gay boss, on Roseanne (1988- ), and the leading roles of Martin Crane in Domestic Life (1984) and Dr. Doug Lambert in His & Hers (1990). In collaboration with Allan Rucker, Martin Mull was the creator/writer of a devastating series of lampoonish "cultural studies" books and TV specials, under the blanket title The History of White People in America.