Trivia: The stepdaughter of the fire chief of Salisbury, MD, Linda Hamilton began her acting career with local children's theater groups. After college training and dramatic lessons conducted by former director Nicholas Ray, Hamilton was cast in a handful of inexpensive film programs. She briefly costarred in the prime-time TV soap opera Secrets of Midland Heights (1980) which led to an equally short stint on the weekly series King's Crossing (1982). Hamilton's stock in the film industry rose substantially when she was cast as Sarah Connor, the target for the homicidal intentions of futuristic android Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator (1984). No shivering ingenue, the agile and athletic Hamilton proved a formidable foe for the forces of evil in both The Terminator and its sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, where at times she came off tougher than the "kinder, gentler" Arnold. From 1987-1989, Hamilton starred as Catherine Chandler on the cult TV fantasy series Beauty and the Beast, eventually leaving the show to have her first child. In 1995 Hamilton earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance as a single mother who learns she has contracted AIDS in A Mother's Prayer, and though with the exception of Dante's Peak (1997) she stuck mainly to made-for-television movies in the following decade, notable guest spots on Showtime's Weeds and NBC's Chuck served as strong reminders of her onscreen charisma. Married to actor Bruce Abbot throughout much of the '80s, Hamilton later wed Terminator 2 director James Cameron, though their union ended after just two years.

Trivia: Ron Perlman grew up in the Washington Heights section of New York City, where his father was a radio/TV repairman and his mother an employee with the city's Department of Health. A profoundly unhandsome youth, Perlman was nonetheless very active in high school theater by virtue of his height (6-foot-2) and his deep, rolling voice. He continued studying drama at Lehman College and later at the University of Minnesota, where he graduated with a master's degree in theater arts. He went to work with New York's Classic Stage Company, an organization specializing in Elizabethan and Restoration plays. Perlman starred in several Manhattan and touring productions staged by Tom O'Horgan of Hair fame before accepting his first film role as a Neanderthal man in 1981's Quest for Fire. Emotionally drained, Perlman backed off from acting after finishing the movie, but was soon back in the groove, essaying such attention-getting roles as the hunchbacked Salvatore in The Name of the Rose (1986). Most often cast as brooding, inarticulate, villainous characters in films (such as Pap in 1993's The Adventures of Huck Finn), Perlman became best known for his performance as the beneficent, albeit hideously ugly, sewer-dwelling Vincent in the late-'80s TV series Beauty and the Beast. Though this remained the actor's defining role for years after the show's run had drawn to a close, he was busier than ever through the '90s. Appearing in everything from obscure arthouse hits (Cronos [1993] and The City of Lost Children [1995]) to voice-over work for television (Aladdin) and video games (Fallout, A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game) to overblown Hollywood blockbusters (Alien Resurrection), Perlman left few stones unturned in terms of flexibility and experimentation in new media. He continued this trend into the early 2000s, alternating between various arenas with remarkable ease and refusing to be pigeonholed, appearing in such high-profile releases as Titan A.E. (2000), Enemy at the Gates (2001), and Blade II (2002). Though his recognition factor seemed higher than ever, few could foresee the opportunity just ahead when Blade II and Cronos director Guillermo del Toro announced that Perlman would star in the film adaptation of Mike Mignola's popular comic book Hellboy, although it seemed highly unlikely that studios would invest the millions of dollars needed to bring the comic to life with an actor of such minimal "marquee value." They wanted Vin Diesel for the role, but del Toro, with the blessing and encouragement of character originator Mignola, eventually won out to have Perlman play the Nazi-creation-turned-superhero in the 2004 fantasy-action film.

Trivia: Halliwell's Filmgoers Companion states that British character actor Roy Dotrice had "a strong line in senile characterizations". Maybe so, but he certainly seemed chillingly cogent in his portrayal of Mozart's father in the Oscar-winning Amadeus. In films since 1965's The Heroes of Telemark, Dotrice has been equally busy on television: he was a regular on such series as Space: 1999 (1975-76), Going to Extremes (1986), Wizards (1986) and Beauty and the Beast (1987-1990, as "The Beast's" Father). Roy Dotrice is the father of actresses Karen and Michele Dotrice.

Trivia: Educated at Arcadia University and prepped for an acting career at AADA, Canadian-born Stephen McHattie billed himself as Stephen Smith during his earliest New York years. McHattie made his Broadway debut in 1968's The American Dream; two years later, he was seen in his first television production, The People Next Door. Though he has shown up in quite a few theatrical features (Belizaire the Cajun, Beverly Hills Cop), McHattie has most often been seen on TV, usually in such oddball roles as the grown-up protagonist in Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby (1976). He was a regular on the weekly series Highcliffe Manor (1979, as Reverend Glenville), Beauty and the Beast (1989, as the unspeakable Gabriel) and the "repertory company" Canadian anthology Scene of the Crime (1991); he also played two significant guest roles on the Fox Network's X Files. Stephen McHattie was married to actress Meg Foster.

Trivia: Jo Anderson has appeared on stage, television, and in feature films of the '80s and '90s. Fans of the defunct television series Northern Exposure will remember her for playing Roslyn, one of the founders of the town of Cicely on the memorable episode "Cicely" in 1992.

Trivia: Upon graduation from the Actor's Studio, Manhattan-born Lance Henriksen spent nearly two decades playing villains. An agreeable-looking fellow offscreen, Henriksen portrayed the foulest of murderers, rapists, perverts, extraterrestrials, and other antisocial types on the stage (Richard III) and screen. He made his first film, It Ain't Easy, in 1972 (although his studio bios list his screen debut as Dog Day Afternoon in 1975), then concentrated his skills on the melodramatic requirements of The Jagged Edge (1985), Johnny Handsome (1989), Jennifer Eight (1992), Dead Man (1995), and many others. In interviews, Henriksen claimed to "live" his parts while portraying them, which, he admitted, was a self-defeating practice. A close friend of director James Cameron, Henriksen posed for Cameron's preliminary character sketches for the robotic antagonist of the 1984 thriller The Terminator. The producers liked the sketches but not Henriksen, and the role instead went to Arnold Schwarzenegger. In compensation, Cameron saw to it that Henriksen was cast as a heroic android in his 1986 film Aliens.In the years that followed Henriksen gained reputation as an actor who could bring compelling nuance to even the most mundane of roles. Moving into the 1990s Henriksen did indeed appear in a number of forgettable films, but the ones that did leave an impression on audience did so with remarkable zeal. From his menacing role as the head of a tribe of nomadic vampires in Near Dark to a tortured portrayal of a vengeful father in Pumpkinhead, Henriksen's colorful characters consistantly elevated what may have been dismissive, two-dimensional players in the hands of a lesser actor. After reprising his role as Bishop in the troubled Alien 3, Henriksen packed heat as an over the top hunter of human's in Hong Kong action film director John Woo's American debut Hard Target. By this point the dedicated actor had earned a reputation for doing whatever it takes to make his characters truly memorable, and a scene in the climactic showdown of Hard Target found him continuing to chew scenery evern after he accidentally caught on fire (a scene that actually made it into the final cut of the film)! Henriksen's role as a cocky gunfighter in director Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead proved without question a highlight of his roles from the '90s. In 1996 Henriksen made quite an impression on television audiences as the lead character in producer Chris Carter's shortlived X-Files spin-off Millennium. As a former FBI profiler with a unique gift for peering into the minds of some of the nation's most feared criminals, Henriksen gained his most notable exposure to date and longtime fans ate it up. Unfortunately the series only ran for three seasons and Henriksen was back to his old bag of tricks in a seemingly undending series if B-movies. It certainly appeared as if Henriksen was becoming less choosy with his roles, and though the integrity he would bring to those roles generally helped him to stay afloat in a sea of forgettable efforts, it appeared as if the waters were finally threatening to overtake him. While it was indeed a relief to see Henriksen back on the big screen in Scream 3, there was little even he could do to make The Mangler 2 more watchable. Fortunately during this period, actors were becoming more prominant in video games, and Henriksen's distinct voice lent notable atmosphere to such efforts as Red Faction II and Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse. Henriksen's role in the suprisingly agreeable horror sequel Mimic: Sentinel helped to lend the movie some weight even if his actual screentime amounted to a little more than ten minutes, and if a wince of pain could be heard following the announcement of his involvement in Hellraiser: Hellworld fans could at least hold out hope for a return to the franchise that helped to launch his career in the long-anticipated Alien vs. Predator. Unfortunately, it didn't, though Henrickson continued to enjoy success in voice roles, among them including When a Stranger Calls (2006), a teen horror film in which he voiced the role of a serial killer who stalks his victims over the phone before hunting them down, and Superman: Braniac Attacks, in which he voiced the character of Brainiac (2006). Henrickson took on a starring role in Abominable (2006), which followed the effort to save a group of girls from death by Yeti. 2007 was another busy year for the actor, who worked in a slew of horror films including Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud and The Seamstress, as well as the crime thriller Bone Dry. In 2008 he joined the cast of Pistol Whipped, an action thriller following a down-and-out man hired to kill a notorious gangster. In 2011 he worked alongside Lauren Holly in Scream of the Banshee, another supernatural horror, and played Henry Gale in The Witches of Oz (2011), a fantasy adventure following the tales of an adult Dorothy Gale battling to keep the Wicked Witch of the West from crossing into her reality.

Trivia: Lead actor, onscreen from The Final Terror (1981).