Trivia: Many comics can be permanently tied to a trademark, from Rodney Dangerfield's "I don't get no respect" to Tim Allen's machismo-fueled grunting, but perhaps no stock phrase is more easily identifiable than that of schtickmeister Jeff Foxworthy. Foxworthy's slogan "You might be a redneck if..." endeared him to millions of American blue-collar types during the early to mid-'90s and served as a veritable staple of his approach to humor. Born in Atlanta, Foxworthy attended the Georgia Institute of Technology but dropped out prior to graduation and worked as an IBM technician during the early to mid-'80s, when he impetuously decided to enter an amateur standup contest. The then-nascent comedian won the competition -- an accomplishment that encouraged him to drop out of his IBM gig and step behind the microphone full-time. Foxworthy's debut book, presciently entitled, You Might Be a Redneck If... hit stores in 1989, followed by a CD, which racked up an astonishing 3.5 million copies -- making it the single most lucrative comedy record up through that time. Successive albums followed, in addition to a blizzard of Foxworthy (and "redneck") themed merchandise that grossed several million dollars per year in its prime. Unfortunately, the comedian's transition to filmed entertainment was a somewhat bumpy one; a domestically themed sitcom, The Jeff Foxworthy Show, premiered on ABC in 1995 but folded after only two seasons. Foxworthy encountered far greater success by pooling the resources of several similar comedians into a "Blue Collar" comedy troupe that toured throughout the country. Comprised of Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, and Larry the Cable Guy, the ensemble turned out a series of standup films and scored high ratings with their own sketch comedy series, Blue Collar TV (2004), presented as a kind of "redneck variation" on Saturday Night Live. Foxworthy also found considerable success by hosting the game show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (2007).

Trivia: For audiences around the world whose ears ring with the haunting and fateful revelation of a child tortured by terrifying visions of the afterlife, Haley Joel Osment may forever be linked to his role in what would rank among the most popular supernatural thrillers ever made, The Sixth Sense (1999). An Oscar nominee at the age of 11, Osment quickly became one of the most recognized and versatile young actors working in film, proving to audiences that his talents exceeded typecasting by constantly tackling new and challenging roles and characterizations.Born in Los Angeles, CA, on April 10, 1988, Osment set his acting career into motion, as many actors do, by appearing in commercials and taking small roles on television. Accompanied by his father to an audition for a Pizza Hut commercial and initially discouraged by the overwhelming amount of children vying for the role, Osment eventually stuck out the wait at his father's request and landed the role that would launch his career. Soon making his feature debut as the son of the titular shrimp slinger in the phenomenally successful Forrest Gump in 1994, Osment alternated between television (Murphy Brown and The Jeff Foxworthy Show) and film (Mixed Nuts and Bogus) while frequently appearing in such made-for-TV movies as The Ransom of Red Chief before making his breakthrough in director M. Night Shayamalan's The Sixth Sense.Following the success of The Sixth Sense with the well-intended but fatally flawed feel-good failure Pay It Forward, Osment escaped relatively unscathed as critics recognized the young actor's exceptional performance in what was otherwise a flop with critics and audiences alike. Imagination was the key to Osment's next project: director Steven Spielberg's long-anticipated, much-hyped A.I. An elaborately futuristic tale of an android that aspires to experience human emotion, A.I. was the first and only collaboration of two of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century, the late Stanley Kubrick (who conceived the story based on Brian Aldiss' short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long) and Spielberg. In addition to appearing onscreen, Osment lent his voice to a number of animated films in 2000 and 2001, including the Disney sequels The Hunchback of Notre Dame II and The Jungle Book II. After once again providing voice work for the comedy musical The Country Bears, Osment returned to the screen body intact with Secondhand Lions in 2003. Cast as an intorverted youngster whose irresponsible mother sends him off to spend his summer with his eccentric uncles in Texas, Osment's onscreen abilities were key in making his character's transformation from withdrawn child to responsible young man believable.

Trivia: As the eldest member of the Cusack acting dynasty -- the sister of John, Joan, Susie, and Bill Cusack -- Ann Cusack was raised, like her siblings, in the affluent Chicago suburb of Evanston, but achieved fame and success as a comedic actress somewhat later than the others. Born in 1961, Cusack received her formal education at the Piven Theater Workshop (studying basic improvisation with Joyce and Byrne Piven) and later at New York University's Tisch School for the Arts, where she studied dramatic performance under the aegis of the legendary playwright and theatrical and film director David Mamet. Cusack landed her premier feature-film role at the age of 30, as Shirley Baker, a WWII-era baseball player with a more than slight illiteracy problem, in Penny Marshall's summer 1992 comedy A League of Their Own (alongside Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna, and Rosie O'Donnell). In the process, Cusack imparted to the film some of its biggest and most unanticipated laughs -- no mean feat, given that cast.The turn did not go unnoticed, and parts rolled in steadily for the remainder of the 1990s and into the 2000s. The characterizations began small, with low billing -- such as that of a waitress in Harold Becker's poorly received 1993 thriller Malice, and that of a TV woman in Mike Nichols' 1996 La Cage aux Folles redo The Birdcage. Not long after, however, Cusack received her highest television billing (up through that time) when cast as Karen Foxworthy, TV wife and second-string to redneck-obsessed comedian Jeff Foxworthy, in the second season (1996-1997) of the short-lived sitcom The Jeff Foxworthy Show. Unfortunately, the show folded in 1997.The parts continued unabated, however, in films of varying reception. Cusack teamed up with her brothers John and Bill and sister Joan, as well as Dan Aykroyd and Minnie Driver, in the sadly overlooked dark comedy Grosse Pointe Blank (1997, a work that John co-produced and co-scripted). Ann fared worse (as did the entire cast) by signing on for a re-team with director Mike Nichols in that helmer's 2000 turkey What Planet Are You From?, starring Annette Bening and Garry Shandling. Cusack then made intermittent appearances on such series programs as Charmed and Frasier during the late '90s and early 2000s. In 2006, Cusack essayed the supporting role of Deanna in Aaron Wiederspahn's The Sensation of Sight (2006), a moody, evocative drama (and festival cause célèbre) about a dissatisfied middle-class man (David Strathairn) who drops out of his life and takes a job selling encyclopedias.

Trivia: Though he would return to higher education nearly three decades later, Texas native G.W. Bailey left college and spent the mid-'60s working at local theater companies. Determined to establish an acting career for himself, a young Bailey moved to California in the 1970s and worked in a variety of settings. From appearances on television's Starsky and Hutch and Charlie's Angels to stage productions of Shakespearian classics, Bailey, despite his lack of professional experience, proved a surprisingly versatile actor. He did not, however, attain significant mainstream recognition until 1981, when he was cast as pool-hall con artist Private Rizzo in CBS's long-running series M*A*S*H. The exposure led to five large supporting roles on a variety of feature-length television dramas, and ultimately, a very different type of performance all together: that of the imposing yet incompetent Lieutenant Harris in the lowbrow cop comedy Police Academy (1984). His Police Academy role was reprised as sequels were churned out in rapid succession, and he was cast as a similarly inept authority figure in 1987's Mannequin.Though the 1980s found Bailey immersed in fairly unmemorable film roles (mainly comedies and dark thrillers), he was able to forge a more than respectable resumé in the realm of television movies, including the popular Murder in Texas (NBC, 1981), On Our Way (CBS, 1985), Spy Games (ABC, 1991), and Dead Before Dawn (ABC, 1993). His television roles offered a G.W. Bailey quite unlike Lieutenant Harris, and he was able to develop a following and a steady reputation as a supporting actor. Eventually, he was able to add "college graduate" to his list of accomplishments, as his mid-'90s stint at Southwest Texas State University proved successful as well. In 2004, Bailey lent his vocal chords to Disney's animated musical Western Home on the Range.He was cast as Lt. Provenza on The Closer, a show that would be for a time the highest rated scripted program on basic cable, and he would stay on the show for its entire run.