Trivia: Both a member of Hollywood royalty and the Brat Pack, Emilio Estevez had the odds (and the press) against him when it came to forging a long-term career in show business. Yet, though he did become the butt of many jokes, Estevez has had the last laugh: he grew up into a prolific, if not acclaimed, actor/writer/director who managed to sidestep the celebrity pratfalls that befell his family and his Brat Pack colleagues.Born in New York on May 12, 1962, Estevez is the eldest son of actor Martin Sheen (formerly known as Ramon Estevez) and his wife, Janet. He grew up on Manhattan's Upper West Side with his two younger brothers, Ramon and Charlie, and his younger sister, Renée. Though Estevez started attending school in the New York public-school system, he transferred to a prestigious private academy once his father's career blossomed. In 1968, after Sheen landed a starring role in Catch-22 (1970), the family moved west to Malibu, CA. There, the young Estevez began writing short stories and poems. By the time he turned eight, he had already submitted a script to Rod Serling's Night Gallery television series (it was, unfortunately, rejected).When Estevez was 11, his father bought the family a portable movie camera. Estevez, his brother Charlie, and their friends, Sean and Chris Penn, and Chad and Rob Lowe, used it to make short films, which Estevez would often write. He then began acting in all the junior-high-school plays, including The Dumb Waiter, Hello Out There, and Bye, Bye, Birdie. While accompanying his father to the Philippine set of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), Estevez got his first professional acting role as a messenger boy in the film. His scene, however, did not make the picture's final cut. After returning home to attend Santa Monica High School, Estevez grew interested in sports and did not become involved with the drama department until his senior year. Uninspired by the usual high-school productions, he wrote an original play and drafted Sean Penn to direct it. Titled Echoes of an Era, the story was based on the life of a Vietnam vet whom Estevez met while staying in the Philippines. Around the same time, he landed his first professional stage role opposite his father in Mr. Roberts at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater in Jupiter, FL.Estevez made his small-screen debut right after graduating from high school. He appeared in the ABC Afterschool Special Seventeen Going on Nowhere (1980) before joining his father in the cast of To Climb a Mountain (1981), an installment of the religious television series Insight. In 1981, after returning from India where he served as his father's stand-in during the taping of Gandhi (1982), Estevez landed his first feature-film role opposite Matt Dillon in Tex (1982). The film marked the first of three adaptations of S.E. Hinton's books in which Estevez would appear. A year later, he starred in Francis Ford Coppola's unforgettable adaptation of Hinton's novel The Outsiders (1983), with Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, and Ralph Macchio.By 1983, Estevez found himself on the short list of young actors. Oliver Stone asked him to star in his Academy Award-winning Vietnam film Platoon (1986), but the director could not finance the project in time (Estevez's brother, Charlie, took the role five years later). Instead, Estevez decided to play a punk rocker-turned-car repossessor in Alex Cox's Repo Man (1984). Co-executive produced by former Monkee Mike Nesmith, the wacky comedy also starred cult favorite Harry Dean Stanton and was a lasting underground hit. Estevez next gave a successful reading for John Hughes' The Breakfast Club (1985), a film about five very different high-school kids who are forced to spend a Saturday together in detention. Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy rounded out the cast in what turned out to be the quintessential teen-angst film of the '80s.On the set of The Breakfast Club, Estevez refined a screenplay he had begun writing with Tom Cruise while working on The Outsiders. Based on another S.E. Hinton novel, That Was Then...This Is Now (1985) went into production under the auspices of Paramount and director Christopher Cain, with Estevez as its star. It opened to scathing reviews and little praise for its young writer, but was a moderate box-office success.Estevez's next role featured him as a recent college graduate opposite Rob Lowe, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, and Mare Winningham in St. Elmo's Fire (1985). The film debuted at the same time as a New York magazine cover story that labeled its actors (many of whom had worked together before) as the Brat Pack and elected Estevez as the "unofficial president" of the group. The actor immediately tried to shake the moniker with a part in Stephen King's directing debut, Maximum Overdrive (1986), but the film flopped. He then tried his own hand behind the camera. At age 23, he wrote, directed, and starred in Wisdom (1986), making cinematic history as the youngest feature filmmaker to take on all three roles. The picture, a meandering heist-road film, flopped.Estevez revived his career with Stakeout (1987), a hit action comedy that co-starred veteran actor Richard Dreyfuss, and Young Guns (1988), a successful youth-oriented Western helmed by That Was Then...This Is Now director Christopher Cain. The actor reprised his Young Guns role as Billy the Kid for its sequel, Young Guns 2 (1990), before writing, directing, and starring in Men at Work (1990). The buddy film, a comedy about two garbage men who become wrapped up in a murder case, also featured his brother, Charlie Sheen.After an embarrassing turn in the bizarre sci-fi thriller Freejack (1992), Estevez starred as a lawyer who is forced to coach a children's hockey team in Disney's triumphant The Mighty Ducks (1992). He filmed the spoof National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 (1993) and Another Stakeout (1993), before coaching the Mighty Ducks again in D2 (1994). Estevez then agreed to make a cameo appearance in the third installment of the franchise, D3 (1996), if Disney helped finance his own picture, The War at Home (1996). Estevez produced, directed, and starred in the Vietnam-era drama, along with his father and Academy Award winner Kathy Bates. Sadly, after premiering at the Austin Film Festival, The War at Home played in only three cities.In 1998, Estevez made a comeback as the cowboy in the TNT made-for-cable spaghetti Western, Dollar for the Dead. Two years later, he directed Rated X (2000), a Showtime original movie based on brothers Jim and Art Mitchell, the troubled directors of the infamous adult film Behind the Green Door. After casting himself as Jim, Estevez recruited his own brother Charlie to play Art -- a move which gave the heralded film added clout and a moneymaking edge. Its positive press also put both brothers back in the spotlight. Nevertheless, the actor-cum-director maintained a comparatively low profile over the following half-decade, with only a scant few film appearances here and there. 2005 broke the silence, with the release of the live performance film Culture Clash in AmeriCCa -- a documentary record of an infamously acerbic Hispanic-American comedy troupe (Richard Montoya, Ricardo Salinas, Herbert Siguenza). The picture -- which received severely limited distribution (read: only a few theaters across the country) -- went almost straight to video, and the few critics who did see it scourged it as an insult to spectators and to the film's subjects.Despite this and other disappointments on the filmmaker's spotty track record, however, expectations soared for his sixth turn in the director's chair -- which also marked his most ambitious outing to date. The massive period piece/ensemble drama Bobby (2006) darkly recounted -- via a multilayered and multi-plotted script and a massive, Altmanesque ensemble cast to rival even Altman's most impressive assemblages of talent -- the events in Los Angeles' Algonquin Hotel on June 6, 1968, the night Robert F. Kennedy was shot. The cast included William H. Macy, Martin Sheen, Demi Moore, Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone, and Elijah Wood. Four years later, Estevez returned to direct the reflective adventure drama The Way, in which he also appeared as the son of his real life father Sheen. The film told the tale of a father who travels overseas to recover his estranged son's body after learning he perished while walking the El camino de Santiago, and ultimately decides to complete his son's pilgrimage.

Trivia: American brothers Rob and Chad Lowe became actors in childhood (Chad would ultimately win an Emmy for his TV work). Rob was acting from the age of eight in 1972; seven years later, he was a regular on the TV series A New Kind of Family, playing the teenaged son of star Eileen Brennan. That series was shot down quickly, but Lowe's film career picked up when newspaper and magazine articles began aligning the handsome, sensitive young actor with the burgeoning Hollywood "brat pack," which included such new talent as Molly Ringwald, Matt Dillon, Charlie Sheen, and Anthony Michael Hall. Along with several fellow "packers" (Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and Emilio Estevez), Lowe starred in 1985's St. Elmo's Fire; this film and the earlier Hotel New Hampshire (1984) represent the most memorable projects in Lowe's otherwise negligible film output. In 1989, Lowe's already flagging film stardom received a severe setback when he was accused of videotaping his sexual activities with an underage girl (the evidence has since become a choice item on the sub-rosa video cassette circuit). Arrested for his misdeeds, Lowe performed several hours' worth of community service, then tried to reactivate his career. Since then, Lowe has matured into something of a brat-pack George Hamilton, successfully lampooning his previous screen image in such comedies as Wayne's World (1992) and Tommy Boy (1995).Though his comedic endeavors would continue throughout the 1990s in films such as Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) and its sequel, Lowe gained notice for such dramatic roles as that of the mute and strangely plague-immune Nick Andros in the long-anticipated TV miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand (1994). Lowe's roles throughout the '90s may have not been the prominently featured roles in A-list films that his early shooting-star may have suggested, though he did maintain steady work in an interesting variety of small-budget projects. Lowe's casting on the popular political drama The West Wing brought the actor back into the public eye in what many considered to be one of the most intelligently written dramatic series on television. His turn as quick-witted liberal speechwriter Sam Seaborn brought Lowe through the dark days of his scandalous past, back to an audience who may have forgotten his charm as an actor. He would stay with the series until 2005, all while continuing to pick new projects that involved creativity and an open mind. He tested his limits with roles in films like Salem's Lot and Thank You For Smoking, and in 2004, he began starring in his own TV series, playing Dr. Billy Grant on the crime drama Dr. Vegas. The show lasted until 2008, by which time he had already signed on for the prime time dramedy Brothers & Sisters, starring alongside Calista Flockhart. He had a major part in The Invention of Lying in 2009, and that same year he landed a regular gig on the well-reviewed NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. In 2011 he was the executive producer and one of the leads in the ensemble film I Melt With You.

Trivia: Youthful actor Andrew McCarthy went to prep school in New Jersey, lending to his classic, clean-cut good looks. A member the so-called Brat Pack of '80s Hollywood teen stars, McCarthy was usually cast as a good-guy leading man, basically sincere underneath his brooding teen angst. After studying theater at N.Y.U., he made his film debut in 1983 in the teen sex comedy Class with Rob Lowe and Jacqueline Bisset. In 1985, he appeared as the sulky writer Kevin in St. Elmo's Fire and the new Catholic school kid in Heaven Help Us. The next year, he was cast opposite Molly Ringwald as rich boy Blaine in John Hughes' Pretty in Pink. He later re-teamed with Ringwald for the dark romantic drama Fresh Horses. In 1987, he appeared opposite Kim Cattrall in the screwball comedy Mannequin and opposite Jami Gertz and Robert Downey Jr. in the addiction drama Less Than Zero. The same year, he portrayed Henry Hopper in the PBS American Playhouse production of Waiting for the Moon, based on the colorful lives of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. In 1989, McCarthy formed a winning comedy team with Jonathan Silverman for the goofy farce Weekend at Bernie's, a surprisingly funny hit. They re-teamed for the less-successful Weekend at Bernie's II in 1993. The next year, he appeared briefly in the critically acclaimed ensemble films The Joy Luck Club and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. In 1999, he married his college girlfriend, actress Carol Schneider. His youthful good looks enabled him to play Bobby Kennedy in the 2000 television miniseries Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. As the following years passed, McCarthy would find success on the series Lipstick Jungle, as well as in movies like The Spiderwick Chronicles, Camp Hell, Main Street, and Snatched.

Trivia: Actress, tabloid fodder, provocative Vanity Fair cover piece: the husky-voiced brunette Demi Moore is nothing if not an unforgettable roadside attraction on the pop culture highway. Rising to prominence with a string of successful films during the '80s and early '90s, Moore became known for both her onscreen and offscreen ability to draw attention for everything from her grin-and-bare-it roles in films like Striptease to her well-publicized marriage to (and divorce from) Bruce Willis.Born Demetria Guynes in Roswell, NM, on November 11, 1962, Moore led a troubled childhood. To call it tumultuous would be something of an understatement: along with her mother, half-brother and stepfather, she moved no less than 30 times before her adolescence, thanks to her stepfather's job as a newspaper ad salesman. The problems that went along with such an itinerant lifestyle were compounded by the dysfunctional, sometimes abusive relationship between Moore's mother and stepfather. The latter committed suicide when Moore was 15, around the time that she discovered that he was not her biological father. She dropped out of school a year later and did some modeling in Europe. When she was 18, Moore married rocker Freddy Moore; the union lasted four years, during which time the actress landed her first role playing Jackie Templeton on the TV daytime drama General Hospital. Moore made her film debut in 1981, appearing in both the coming-of-age drama Choices and the schlock-tastic Parasite. Following a bit role in 1982's Young Doctors in Love, she had her first lead role in No Small Affair (1984) as an aspiring rock singer opposite Jon Cryer. Her real breakthrough came the next year, when she starred as an unstable member of a group of college friends in St. Elmo's Fire. Apparently, her onscreen instability mirrored her offscreen condition at the time; she was reportedly fired from the film at one point and then rehired after going into drug rehab. The film was a hit, and Moore, along with such co-stars as Emilio Estevez (to whom she was engaged for three years), Rob Lowe, and Ally Sheedy, became a member of the infamous "Brat Pack."Fortunately for Moore, she managed to avoid the straight-to-oblivion fate of other Brat Pack members, increasing her fame and resume with films like About Last Night (1986) and The Seventh Sign (1988). Her fame further increased in 1987 when she wed Bruce Willis in a Las Vegas ceremony presided over by singer Little Richard. In 1990, Moore had her biggest hit to date with Ghost, a romantic drama that cast her as the grieving girlfriend of the deceased Patrick Swayze. A huge success, Ghost secured Moore a place on the A-list, something she managed to sustain despite the subsequent twin flops of The Butcher's Wife and Mortal Thoughts, both released in 1991. That same year, Moore gained exposure of a different sort when she appeared nude and hugely pregnant on the cover of Vanity Fair; the resulting hoopla gained her more attention than either of her movies that year. She was back on the magazine's cover the following year, nude again but fetus-free and sporting a layer of artfully applied body paint. The controversy surrounding her cover-girl appearances may have helped Moore weather similar flak around her next feature, 1993's Indecent Proposal. The story of a woman (Moore) who agrees to a one-night stand with a wealthy man (Robert Redford) for one million dollars after she and her husband (Woody Harrelson) find themselves in dire financial straits, Proposal was decried by a number of feminist groups as well as various film critics and went on to be another big, if controversial, hit for Moore.Following the commercial success of Indecent Proposal, Moore's career hit something of a downward spiral. 1994's Disclosure proved a disappointment, and the following year's Now and Then (which she also produced) staged a similarly wan performance at the box office; however, it was Moore's other film that year, a "free,"or, as some would say, staggeringly misguided, adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, that had critics howling and audiences cowering like small children being forced to watch German expressionist films. An unintentionally hilarious rendering of the classic tale, it featured Moore's Hester Prynne exposing plenty of skin, luxuriating in what must have been one of Puritan New England's few hot tubs, having steamy sex on a shifting bed of grain, and walking off into the sunset with her beloved Reverend Dimmesdale (a moody Gary Oldman). Following this debacle, Moore took refuge on safer grounds, lending her voice to Disney's animated The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1996; however, that same year, she encountered another career pitfall in the form of Striptease. Based on Carl Hiaasen's satirical novel about a divorcée who turns to stripping so that she can raise money to win back custody of her daughter, the tonally inconsistent film proved a failure, despite titillating advertisements promising that Moore would bare all for audiences. The actress' career suffered a further blow with the disappointment of Ridley Scott's G.I. Jane in 1997, and she found herself getting more attention for her offscreen life as she was, by that point, embroiled in a very public divorce from Willis. The two formally separated in 1998. Although her career in front of the camera suffered, Moore managed to do well for herself as a producer. In 1997, she produced the hugely successful Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and served in the same capacity for its mega-hit sequels, 1999's Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and 2002's Austin Powers in Goldmember. In 2000, Moore returned to the screen to star in Alain Berliner's Passion of Mind, a psychological drama that cast the actress in a dual role as two women who lead different lives but are tied by a single identity.The year 2003 brought Moore back to the spotlight in a big way -- not only did the 41-year-old actress play the shockingly buff-bodied bad guy in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, she gave the paparazzi something of a godsend by dating Punk'd and That '70s Show heartthrob Ashton Kutcher, sixteen years her junior. The two wed in late September 2005, at a ceremony attended by hundreds, including Bruce Willis and his three daughters with Moore; they later divorced amid tremendous media scrutiny in 2011. Moore maintained a lower profile after this union, but returned to the spotlight for former flame Estevez's ambitious political period-ensemble Bobby, about the events leading up to Robert Kennedy's assasination. Among the star-studded cast, Moore was given a showy, standout role as an alcoholic lounge singer; there was room, too, for Kutcher, as an acid-dropping hippie. The film garnered decidedly mixed reviews, even if Moore attracted some attention for her part.In 2007 the actress joined the cast of director Bruce A. Evans's psychological thriller Mr. Brooks, as a tough-as-nails detective on the trail of Kevin Costner's titular, obsessive suburban serial killer. The movie suffered an ignominious fate at the box office, and Moore was singled out by critics for her implausibility. This didn't stop her from taking on new projects, however, starring with Parker Posey in the 2009 comedy Happy Tears in 2009, and playing the female lead in the 2011 Wall Street drama Margin Call, before joining the cast of the romantic comedy LOL in 2012.

Trivia: Even by the unexacting standard of Hollywood's 1980s "brat pack," actor Judd Nelson seemed wildly undisciplined and self-indulgent on screen. One tends to conclude that Nelson (a former philosophy student and the son of a Maine politician) has played his screen characters as written: he was, after all, very well trained by famed drama coach Stella Adler, and came up from the exacting ranks of summer stock. Among his earliest screen assignments -- all in his watershed year of 1985 -- including the dope-smoking detentionee in The Breakfast Club, Kevin Costner's parachute-jumping fraternity pal in Fandango, and Ally Sheedy's philandering live-in boyfriend in St. Elmo's Fire. Always seeming to be on the verge of punching someone out, Nelson was well cast as a mercurial killer in 1989's Relentless. Like many brat-packers, Judd Nelson spent the 1990s transitioning into his career as an adult, but he hit his stride by 1996, when he joined the cast of the hit sitcom Suddenly Susan. In the years to come, Nelson would remain a consistent force on screen, appearing in movies like Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Grizzley Flats.

Trivia: Brown-eyed, chestnut-haired actress Ally Sheedy has been involved with acting for most of her life. The daughter of a literary agent mother, she began making commercials and appearing on-stage at the age of 15. She was something of a precocious author, as well: When only 12-years-old, she published a children's book, She Was Nice to Mice. (Sheedy has also been published in such periodicals as The New York Times). After high school, the New York-born actress headed west to the University of California where, in addition to her studies, she appeared in TV movies. She began her feature-film career at 21 playing adolescent girls in films such as Bad Boys and WarGames (both 1983), and joined the so-called Brat Pack in 1985 after appearing in John Hughes' The Breakfast Club and Joel Schumacher's St. Elmo's Fire. Despite the huge success of both films, many of her subsequent efforts were relative disappointments, and, by the early '90s, she had slipped into all but complete obscurity. However, her career was revived in 1998 thanks to a starring role as a drug-addicted lesbian photographer in the widely acclaimed High Art. Sheedy won raves for her raw, touching performance, and, in short time, again found herself working steadily. In 1999, she appeared in Allison Anders' Sugar Town and The Autumn Heart, the latter premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. In addition to her film work, Sheedy continued to work in the theater, taking over John Cameron Mitchell's title role in the popular New York production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a story about a German entertainer who is neither a man nor a woman but a fascinating composite of both. As the 21st century began, Sheedy continued to work steadily in varied projects like Happy Here and Now, Noise, Harold, and Life During Wartime -- Todd Solondz's sort-of sequel to his black comedy Happiness.

Trivia: Mare Winningham is a critically acclaimed performer on stage, television, and occasionally feature films. She began her career performing a song on TV's notorious Gong Show. While playing Maria in a high school production of The Sound of Music, opposite classmate Kevin Spacey, Winningham was spotted by Hollywood agent Meyer Mishkin who landed her a role in the short-lived TV Western series The Young Pioneers in 1978. This led to her first TV movie, Special Olympics. For her role as an independent-minded farmer's daughter in 1980's Amber Waves, she won an Emmy. That year, Winningham made her feature-film debut starring opposite Paul Simon in Robert M. Young's One-Trick Pony. She fared better in her next film, Threshold (1981), where she played the recipient of an artificial heart. Winningham then went on to play a number of supporting roles and the occasional lead in a series of unremarkable films. She continues to fare much better on television, where she has appeared in popular films such as The Thorn Birds (1983) and Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues (1984). She was part of the ensemble in the Gen X touchstone St. Elmo's Fire in 1985 and went on to appear in Shy People, Miracle Mile, the Tom Hanks with a dog vehicle Turner and Hooch, and Wyatt Earp. She earned long-deserved award recognition in 1995 for playing a successful singer struggling with her drug-addicted sister in Georgia. Her work in that film garnered her an Oscar nomination Best Supporting Actress, and she won that award at that year's Independent Spirit Awards. She had a recurring role on the hit medical drama ER at the close of the '90s. As the 21st century began she maintained her status as a first-class character actress appearing in a variety of projects such as Snap Decision, The Adventures of Ociee Nash, and Dandelion. She enjoyed a recurring role on Grey's Anatomy, but she found even greater small screen success with back to back Emmy nominations for Best Supporting actress in a movie or miniseries in 2011 and 2012 with her work in Mildred Pierce and Hatfields & McCoys.

Trivia: Bronx-raised actor Martin Balsam was the oldest of three children of a ladies' sportswear salesman. "Actors are bums" was dad's reaction when Balsam announced his intention of going into show business; still, young Martin took full advantage of lunch breaks from his "real" jobs to rehearse for amateur theatricals. After World War II, Balsam joined New York's Actors Studio, supporting himself by waiting on tables and ushering at Radio City Music Hall. During his formative years he was briefly married to actress Joyce Van Patten; their daughter Talia Balsam would later become a successful film and TV performer. Working steadily if not profitably in nightclubs and TV, Balsam made his first film, the Actors Studio-dominated On the Waterfront, in 1954. Averaging a movie and/or a play a year starting in 1957 (among his best-known film roles were Juror #1 in Twelve Angry Men [1957] and the unfortunate detective Arbogast in Psycho [1960]), Balsam went on to win a Tony for the Broadway play I Know You Can't Hear Me When the Water's Running, an Obie for the off-Broadway production Cold Storage, and an Academy Award for his performance as Jason Robards' older brother in the 1965 film version of A Thousand Clowns. Unfortunately for Balsam, the Oscar was as much a curse as a blessing on his career, and soon he was playing little more than variations on his Thousand Clowns role. In 1979, he was engaged by Norman Lear to play "lovable bigot" Archie Bunker's acerbic Jewish business partner Murray Klein on the CBS sitcom Archie Bunker's Place; he remained with the series until 1981. In 1991, Balsam appeared in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear, the remake of a film in which Balsam had co-starred (in an entirely different role) in 1962.

Trivia: The product of a profoundly unhappy home life, Andie MacDowell was compelled to make her own way from an early age. The Gaffney, SC, native spent her teenage years working a number of minimum-wage jobs before dropping out of Winthrop College when she was a sophomore in order to become an Elite model. Her innocent, well-scrubbed good looks were not only suited to her job as a cosmetics model, but, in 1984, they won her the role of Jane Porter in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. Unable to overcome her natural Carolina cadence, MacDowell's lines were dubbed by Glenn Close in the film -- the first and last time that audiences were denied the actress' warm, relaxing vocal shadings. Joining the Brat Pack brigade with St. Elmo's Fire (1985), MacDowell just as quickly broke away from it with her riveting performance in sex, lies and videotape (1989); her role as a dissatisfied housewife earned her a number of accolades, and helped to establish her as a "serious" actress.MacDowell's likability enabled her to weather such disasters as Hudson Hawk (1991) and Bad Girls (1994), and allowed her to shine in a number of other films, including Groundhog Day (1993), Short Cuts (1993), and the hit romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). Although she starred in a series of disappointing films during the late '90s, she remained highly visible, popping up in such movies as Unstrung Heroes (1995), The Muse (1999), and Town and Country (2000). She earned good reviews playing a middle-age woman infatuated with a younger man in Crush, but the film was poorly distributed and little seen. She appeared in a string of direct-to-video efforts including the supernatural thriller The Last Sign opposite Tim Roth. She returned to the multiplexes after landing a major part in the Queen Latifah film Beauty Shop in 2005. The next year she lent her distinct vocal qualities to the 2006 animated film Barnyard, twenty years after having her voice dubbed out of her film debut.In 2010 MacDowell surpised her fans with a villainous turn in the tense low-budget thriller As Good As Dead, which was quickly followed by an appearance as Vi Moore (a role originally played by Diane Wiest) in Craig Brewer's remake of Footloose.

Trivia: Blonde, loquacious American actress Joyce Van Patten was being sent out for modelling assignments at the age of eight months. Her stagestruck mother advertised Van Patten and older brother Dick as "the Van Patten Kids," ready and willing to step into any juvenile roles available. At age 5, Joyce made her Broadway debut in Love's Old Sweet Song, which also featured Dick. Joyce was nine years old when she won the Donaldson award for her performance in the stage drama Tomorrow the World. She interrupted her stage career for a brief marriage at age 16 (her equally brief second marriage was to actor Martin Balsam), then at 20 played her first adult role in the Broadway comedy Desk Set. Her first film assignment was an unbilled bit in the Manhattan-lensed Fourteen Hours (1951), and her first regular TV stint was on the CBS soap opera As the World Turns in the late '50s. Joyce has since been seen on a weekly basis in such TV series as The Danny Kaye Show (1963-66), The Good Guys (1968) (as Herb Edelman's good-natured wife), The Don Rickles Show (1972) (as Don's goodnatured wife) and The Mary Tyler Moore Hour (1979) (as Mary's personal secretary, yet again good-natured). Joyce Van Patten's films have included The Goddess (1958), I Love You Alice B. Toklas (1968), St. Elmo's Fire (1984), and a rare "bitchy" appearance as the antagonistic athletic coach in The Bad News Bears (1976).

Trivia: Trained at the Theatre Institute, 19-year-old Jenny Wright had already been acting for seven years when she made her off-Broadway bow in 1980's Album. The following year, Wright showed up as one of the groupies in that midnight-movie perennial Pink Floyd: The Wall. She went on to important roles in The World According to Garp (1982), St. Elmo's Fire (1983), and Lawnmower Man (1992). Jenny Wright's TV manifest included the starring part of Doreen Duncan in the 1990 weekly Capitol News.

Trivia: Comedian and actor Blake Clark grew up in Georgia and fought in the Vietnam War before hitting the small screen in the early 1980s in a string of guest starring spots on shows like M*A*S*H, Moonlighting, and St. Elmo's Fire. During this time, he was also featured in comedy specials on HBO, NBC, and ABC. The roles kept pouring in for the gruff-voiced actor, who landed a regular role on Home Improvement in 1994. He played Tim Taylor's friend Harry, who owned the hardware store where Tim spent much time and money. Clark also had recurring roles on The Drew Carey Show, The Jamie Foxx Show, and Boy Meets World (as Shawn's father, Chet). On the big screen, Clark became a favorite of Adam Sandler and was cast in many of his movies, including The Waterboy, Little Nicky, Mr. Deeds, and 50 First Dates. Clark also replaced the late Jim Varney as the voice of Slinky Dog in 2010's Toy Story 3.

Trivia: Black supporting actress, onscreen from the late '70s.

Trivia: Supporting and occasional lead actor Whip Hubley (born Grant Hubley) made his film debut in St. Elmo's Fire (1985). He has gone on to appear in feature films and television films. His sister, Season Hubley, is an actress.