Trivia: Louis Gossett Jr. ranks as one of the most respected African-American actors of stage, screen, and television. Tall, lanky, and bald-pated, Gossett was a basketball player in high school until a leg injury benched him and his interest turned toward acting. In 1953, at the age of 17, Gossett made his Broadway debut in Take a Giant Step, and ended up with a Donaldson Award for the year's best newcomer. Though working steadily on stage and television, Gossett was still interested in basketball. The New York Knicks drafted him out of college in 1958 and he played with them briefly before returning to performing. In 1961, Gossett reprised on film the role he played in the theatrical production of A Raisin in the Sun. It was a well-regarded beginning, and he continued to appear on stage and television, and beginning in 1967, the occasional feature film or television movie. During this early period, he also occasionally sang in nightclubs. Gossett did not become a bona fide star until his Emmy-winning performance in the landmark television miniseries Roots (1977). His career picked up considerably after that. In 1982, Gossett earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing a deceptively heartless drill sergeant in An Officer and a Gentleman. That same year, he also starred in another television series as the wise mentor to an alien prince in The Powers of Matthew Star (1982-1983). After the success of An Officer and a Gentleman, Gossett reprised his roll as the tough sergeant, albeit using different character names, in several films, including the Iron Eagle series, The Punisher (1989), and others. But though he makes an excellent rough guy, Gossett has showed a willingness to let his softer side show through in such made-for-TV movies as Sudie and Simpson (1990).

Trivia: Like her older half-sister Melissa (Little House on the Prairie), actress Sara Gilbert grew up on a television series, in this case, the long-running ABC sitcom Roseanne (1988-1997). She and her sister and her older half-brother, Jonathon Gilbert, are the third generation of a showbiz family. Her grandfather, Harry Crane, was a writer for The Honeymooners, her grandmother, Julia Crane, was a former Miss Brooklyn and a dancer, and her mother is a producer and talent manager. Gilbert made her professional debut in a television commercial at age six, and from there appeared in the television series Tales of the Apple Dumpling Gang (1982). She then played a small role in the made-for-TV movie Calamity Jane, which starred Jane Alexander. Gilbert's career slowed down after that and she did not appear on television until 1988 when she appeared in Runaway Ralph as part of the ABC Weekend Special. As Darlene Connor in Roseanne, Gilbert believably played a cynical, smart-mouthed, but sensitive foil for Roseanne. Gilbert showed versatility as a confused Daddy's girl who is victimized by a calculating Drew Barrymore in Poison Ivy (1989) and as a Southern child with a dark secret who is befriended by a gentle black man in the well-wrought Sudie and Simpson (1990). Gilbert has been twice nominated for an Emmy and has won three Youth in Film Awards. During the last couple seasons of Roseanne, Gilbert began attending Yale University where she studied art and photography. She has also been an avid supporter for various environmental causes through her affiliation with Earth Communications Office (ECO).She stayed away from acting for the most part until 2007 when she began making occasional appearances on the hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory often playing opposite her former Roseanne co-star Johnny Galecki. In 2010, she created the talk show The Talk, a knockoff of The View, and serves as an executive producer and co-host of the series.

Trivia: One of the actresses most indelibly associated with the descriptor "fiery redhead," Frances Fisher has enjoyed a long career as a respected stage, screen, and television performer. In addition to her professional work, she also earned recognition for her long relationship with Clint Eastwood, by whom she had a daughter.Born in Milford on Sea, England, Fisher spent much of her childhood traveling all over the world, thanks to her father's job as an international oil refinery construction supervisor. After time spent in England, Colombia, France, Canada, Brazil, Turkey, and Italy, the family settled in Orange, Texas, where Fisher completed her schooling. Deciding to follow her interest in theatre, she eventually moved to New York, where she subsequently enjoyed a 14-year stage career in regional and off-Broadway productions. During this time, she also became involved with the Actors Studio, where she studied with the legendary Lee Strasberg. Fisher segued into screen work via television, getting her start with regular roles on a number of soap operas. She began her film career with some help from Henry Jaglom, for whom she made her 1980 screen debut in Sitting Ducks, and went on to star in his Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (1983) and Babyfever (1994). Fisher spent the 1980s and 1990s appearing in a wide variety of film and TV productions, including the made-for-TV Lucy and Desi: Before the Laughter (1991), which cast her as Lucille Ball; Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992); the Texas Dust Bowl drama The Stars Fell on Henrietta (1995); James Cameron's Titanic (1997), in which she starred as Kate Winslet's mother; and The Big Tease (1999), a Scottish hairdressing mockumentary that featured her as a publicist in need of a new 'do.