Trivia: Born August 10th, 1972, Texan model-turned-actress Angie Harmon's private life (and concomitant rise to fame) bear closer correlation to a fairy tale than to a factual account. Born Angela Michelle Harmon in the Dallas suburb of Highland Park in the late summer of 1972, Harmon never sought out celebrity; it beckoned to her. An "accidental" discovery by the esteemed Kim Dawson Modeling Agency and a win of Seventeen Magazine's cover-girl contest (at age 15) launched Harmon on the path to modeling, but once she reached Manhattan, Harmon discovered a deep-seated love of drama. Harmon then survived a series of not-so-prestigious early roles (including a very brief stint on the exploitationer Baywatch Nights and a turn as a dysfunctional suburbanite in John Duigan's ugly allegory Lawn Dogs), to establish herself as a respected and esteemed actress.Harmon first garnered national attention in the late '90s, as Abbie Carmichael, an assistant district attorney on the hit prime-time drama Law & Order -- a role she maintained for multiple seasons. Beginning in 2003, the actress segued from television into cinematic roles, with generally promising results. Her highest-profile turns include contributions to the family-oriented spy comedy Agent Cody Banks (2003), the action thriller End Game (2005), and the Jim Carrey/Téa Leoni comedy Fun With Dick and Jane (2005).Harmon made coast-to-coast headlines in March 2000 when she received a marriage proposal from then-boyfriend Jason Sehorn, a running back for the New York Giants, on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Sehorn popped the question in front of Elton John and a nationwide TV audience. Harmon immediately accepted on the air, and the two wed a short time later, parenting children in successive years before annoucing their split in 2014. In her private life, Harmon is also an outspoken born-again Christian and an advocate of conservative political causes. She and Sehorn co-hosted the Lifetime special Together: Stop Violence Against Women (2003) to spread awareness and prevention of domestic abuse. In fall 2007, Harmon took on a lead role in the ABC detective series Women's Murder Club as Lindsay Boxer, one of four women who band together to solve crimes in the city of San Francisco; the series was an instant success. In 2010, Harmon begun work on Rizzoli & Isles in the leading role of Detective Jane Rizzoli, a hard-working law enforcer entrusted with solving some of Boston's toughest cases.

Trivia: Los Angeles native Sasha Alexander honed her interest in acting with roles in school plays, but soon graduated to a professional career with roles on shortlived series like the drama Wasteland and the wild comedy Greg the Bunny, on which she shared an on-screen kiss with comedian Sarah Silverman. In 2003, Alexander took on the role of Agent Caitlin Todd on the series NCIS. She would play the role for many seasons to come, in addition to roles in movies like Yes Man and Love Happens, and other TV shows, like Rizzoli & Isles.

Trivia: Son of Beau Bridges, is a native Californian. Young Bridges began making his way into the family business at the tender age of nine with a supporting role in the 1982 made-for-television feature The Kid From Nowhere. Throughout the remainder of the decade, as well as the majority of the 1990s, one could always count on spotting Jordan in father Beau's many made-for-TV movies. Climbing the credits from The Thanksgiving Promise (1986) to The Defenders: Taking the First, it wasn't until 1999's Macbeth in Manhattan that young Bridges finally began to carve his own path in show business. He would play supporting roles in movies like Drive Me Crazy, Frequency, New Suit and Mona Lisa Smile. Bridges would go on to appear in movies like J. Edgar, as well as star on TV shows like Rizzoli & Isles and Conviction.

Trivia: At age 8, he attended local festivals and community events telling traditional Carolinas folk tales. At 10, he portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. in a community-theater production of A Night of Stars and Dreams. Appeared in commercials for McDonald's and Robitussin cough medicine. Wrote a 2000 episode for the Disney series The Famous Jett Jackson, in which he played the title role. Was in the 2009 video for Sugarbabes' "About a Girl."

Trivia: Husky American actor Bruce McGill made his film debut in Citizen's Band (1978), but it was his next film role, frat-brat "D Day" in National Lampoon's Animal House, that gained him a following. McGill repeated his D-Day characterization in the spin-off TV series Delta House (1979), then co-starred with David Hasselhoff in the 1980 weekly-TV version of the 1977 theatrical football comedy Semi-Tough. He went on to play a string of brusque authority types in films (Cliffhangers) and television (MacGiver, Live Shot). Fans of the fantasy series Quantum Leap (1989-93) may recall McGill's occasional guest shots, which ranged from mildly eccentric to truly weird. In 1987, Bruce McGill enjoyed one of his few feature-film leading roles in Waiting for the Moon. But it wasn't until the 1990s that casting directors really began to utilize McGill's unique range, and though he never won any awards, he shifted between film (A Perfect World, Timecop, The Insider) and television (Babylon 5, Star Trek: Voyager) with the skill of a seasoned pro. Any genre was fair game, and all were tackled with equal aplomb. At the dawn of the 2000s McGill seemed to shift his focus toward feature films, with roles in Ali, The Sum of All Fears, and Collateral helping to make him both a Michael Mann regular, and one of those welcomed faces that seems to turn up everywhere. Still TV just seemed to be in McGill's blood and after lending his voice to both Family Guy and The Cleveland Show he could be seen as a regular on the TNT detective series Rizzoli and Isles.

Trivia: When heartthrob Antonio Sabato Jr. joined the cast of ABC's soap opera General Hospital in the spring of 1992, the show jumped from seventh to third in the daytime Nielsen Ratings. The relative newcomer inspired over 300 fan letters a week, appeared on the cover of TV Guide, and landed a coveted spot in People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People issue. He has since proven to be one of the hottest commodities to come out of daytime television, nabbing a series of prime-time roles, publishing a best-selling "beefcake" calendar, and modeling in the most successful Calvin Klein Underwear campaign in the company's history.A leap year baby, Sabato was born in Rome, Italy, on February 29, 1972. His father, Antonio Sabato Sr., a veteran Italian actor with credits in dozens of spaghetti Westerns and his mother, Yvonne, a real estate agent, moved Sabato and his sister to Beverly Hills in 1984. Knowing very little English, Sabato spent his time watching American television and taking ESL courses. He attended Beverly Hills High, where he took acting classes as a way to practice his new language and make friends. At 16, Sabato left school and temporarily moved to New York in an effort to experience life on his own.In 1989, after earning his G.E.D., Sabato decided to concentrate on acting. With his father's help, he secured a role in the 1990 Italian film Karate Rock. That same year, he appeared stateside as the topless hunk in Janet Jackson's video for "Love Will Never Do Without You." This led to Sabato's television debut as Jagger Cates, a good-hearted, hash-slinging boxer on General Hospital. For his performance in one of daytime's most memorable and brooding roles -- Jagger's moody leitmotif was Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" -- Sabato earned Soap Opera Digest Award nominations for Hottest Male and Outstanding Newcomer. Banking on his newfound fame, the actor began moonlighting in movies of the week, starring opposite Dallas' Linda Gray as a deadly Casanova in Moment of Truth: Why My Daughter? (1993) and Beverly Hills 90210's Shannon Dougherty as an escaped convict in Jailbreakers (1994).Sabato shocked fans when he abruptly left General Hospital in 1994 (though they did temporarily forgive him when he returned to the show for a brief cameo a year later). He subsequently joined the cast of NBC's Earth 2, a prime-time science fiction series about a group of humans who must flee Earth when it becomes uninhabitable. Developed by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and produced by Michael Dugan (Law & Order), Carol Flint (China Beach), and Mark Levin (The Wonder Years), the show had an impressive pedigree and was expected to be a smash hit. Yet, audiences did not buy into its futuristic premise, which featured Sabato as a rocket pilot; NBC canceled Earth 2 after only one season. Hesitant to commit himself to another series, Sabato signed on to appear as Amanda's (Heather Locklear) abusive ex-husband in six episodes of FOX's Melrose Place before starring in a succession of television films. In Her Hidden Truth (1995), he played a smitten cop who helps wrongfully convicted Kellie Martin clear her name. In If Looks Could Kill: From the Files of America's Most Wanted (1996), he portrayed real-life con artist and murderer John Hawkins. In Thrill (1996), he starred as an engineer who must put aside his fear of heights to rescue his daughter from a roller coaster that is rigged with a bomb.Meanwhile, fashion designer Calvin Klein saw If Looks Could Kill on television and personally requested to meet with Sabato. By the summer of 1996, the actor was the spokesperson for Calvin Klein Underwear, the company's first celebrity model since Mark Wahlberg four years earlier. During his tenure with Calvin Klein, Sabato appeared in a campaign photographed by Herb Ritts and on a 90-foot billboard in the middle of Times Square.In 1998, Sabato made his big-budget American debut opposite Wahlberg, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Bokeem Woodbine as a hired gun in The Big Hit. The following years saw Sabato headlining several low-profile television movies and independent films in the United States and Italy. He also guest starred on FOX's Ally McBeal and landed a recurring role on the WB's Charmed.Acting and modeling are not Sabato's only claims to fame. A fitness enthusiast, he published the best-selling exercise book No Excuses: Workout for Life in 1999. Sabato also owns his own production company, NAMTAB Productions (Batman spelled backwards), and is the celebrity spokesperson for the SAP United States Grand Prix Formula One race.

Trivia: Brenda Strong's offscreen name might not immediately register with Seinfeld fans, but they will immediately identify the character actress after learning that she played the grating Sue Ellen Mischke, one of Elaine Benes's thorn-in-the-flesh nemeses, on that seminal American sitcom. Actually, Strong's television-heavy resumé reads like a best-of prime-time series list -- including not only Seinfeld, but Ally McBeal, Nip/Tuck, Gilmore Girls, 7th Heaven, and others. Strong remains best known, however, for her pivotal contribution to Desperate Housewives as the ill-fated Mary Alice Young, a social-climbing hausfrau who commits suicide in the opening episode of the program, and then hangs around (in a regular voice-over) to offer acerbic observations from the afterlife about her backstabbing earthbound friends. Once Desperate Housewives ended in 2012, Strong joined the continuation of the series Dallas, playing Ann Ewing, Bobby's wife.In addition to her television work, Strong also landed bit parts in such features as Spaceballs (1987), The Craft (1996), and Starship Troopers 2 (2004). In 2009 she appeared in Melora Hardin movie You. Strong hosted a series of exercise videos in the early 2000s as well, among them Yoga 4 Fertility (2001) and Yoga 4 Partners (2002).

Trivia: Born Andrea Kay Pyle in Houston, TX, a six-month-old Pyle was given the fateful nickname of "Little Missi," which would stick to her throughout her childhood and to the present day. Pyle was infatuated with acting by the age of 13, and attended Germantown High School in Tennessee, one of the top three performing-arts high schools in the United States. While there, Pyle was tapped as a lead singer in several musical productions, though her eventual goal remained a career in television and film. After graduation from Germantown High, Pyle was accepted to the prestigious North Carolina School of the Arts and was cast as the female lead in a series of Shakespearean productions. During the summer, she crossed the Atlantic to attend the Oxford School of Drama in England, where she further honed her acting skills.By 1996, Pyle had made her film debut in The Cottonwood, which followed a group of wannabe actors hoping to use their lottery winnings to score big in Hollywood. Pyle's breakout role, however, wouldn't come until several years later, when she played a supporting role as a love-struck alien in Galaxy Quest alongside Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver. Though the early 2000s did little to bring Pyle much in the way of mainstream success, they nonetheless helped the actress develop a loyal fan base; her performances in The Wayne Brady Show, Ally McBeal, and Josie and the Pussycats (all 2001) were solid enough to grab the attention of several prominent casting directors. Surely enough, by 2003, Pyle had been chosen for a supporting role in Bringing Down the House with Steve Martin and Queen Latifah, as well as a small but indelible role in Tim Burton's big-budget fantasy comedy Big Fish (2003). In 2004, Pyle worked with Ben Stiller in Along Came Polly and lent her support to Soul Plane and 50 First Dates. Working with Stiller proved a lucky experience for Pyle, who accepted a larger supporting role in Stiller's Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), which also stars fellow Galaxy Quest alumni Justin Long. When she isn't filming, Pyle continues her work with the all-female sketch comedy group Bitches and Funny.

Trivia: Born October 2, 1954, it's no surprise that Lorraine Bracco, with her thick Brooklyn accent, was raised in a working-class neighborhood in New York City, but her twenties were not as predictable. Relocating to Europe, she spent several years living in France as a fashion model and working in radio, TV commercials, and films. She appeared in the Lina Wertmuller crime thriller Un Complicato Intrigo Di Donne, Vicoli E Delitti along with American actor Harvey Keitel, to whom she would be married for ten years. Moving back to New York to study acting with Stella Adler and the Actor's Studio, she made her U.S. debut as a hooker in The Pick-Up Artist (also with Keitel) and later starred as a Queens housewife in Ridley Scott's Someone to Watch Over Me. After a couple roles in Sing and The Dream Team, she received an Oscar nomination for her work as mobster Henry Hill's wife in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas, making her a full-blown movie star overnight. She continued working in features for the remainder of the '90s, most notably opposite Sean Connery in Medicine Man, as the whip-cracking Delores Del Rio in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and as Leonardo DiCaprio's long-suffering mother in The Basketball Diaries.Then in 1999, when Bracco got the stellar role of Dr. Jennifer Melfi on the hit HBO series The Sopranos. Bracco stayed with the series until 2007, playing the understated psychiatrist of mob boss Tony Soprano, and picking up several Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild awards over the years. The show kept her busy, but the actress continued to pursue other projects, playing a nervous mother in Penny Marshall's Riding in Cars With Boys , and taking on a recurring role on the series Lipstick Jungle. In 2010 Bracco co-starred in the comedy Son of Morning, and directed the ensemble drama Love and Distrust (starring Robert Downey, Jr., James Franco, and Amy Adams) the same year. Bracco took on a recurring role as Angela Rizzoli in the television series Rizzoli & Isles (2010-2012), and continues to work in film and television.