Trivia: Though best known for portraying rather ditzy blondes in television series such as Three's Company and Step by Step, there is much more to Suzanne Somers than meets the eye. In addition to acting, Somers has found success as an author, poet, entrepreneur, spokeswoman, nightclub performer and talkshow hostess. The daughter of a secretary and high school athletic coach, Somers briefly attended a private Catholic School until she was expelled for passing notes to her friends. Following graduation from public school, Somers attended Lone Mountain College in San Francisco. Marrying and divorcing early, Somers had a child to support, so she sought out modelling and acting work, with a few stints as a cocktail waitress. TV bit roles and fleeting appearances in such San Francisco-based films as Bullitt (1968) led to a decorative girl-friday job on a TV game show hosted by Alan Hamel, whom she eventually married. Always just on the brink of stardom, Somers took whatever job came along, gaining a measure of attention as the mysterious "blonde in the car" in the 1973 film American Graffiti (a role later expanded for the film's reissue after Somers became famous). One audition struck gold in 1977 when Somers was cast as the dumbest of dumb blondes Chrissy on the ABC sitcom Three's Company where Somers scored a hit with viewers. This being the Fonzie/Farrah Fawcett Majors era of TV idolatry, Somers was suddenly catapulted into sex-symbol status, with one of her "pin-up" photos selling 500,000 copies. This sudden fame led Somers to insist upon a salary raise - but the producers weren't prepared to pay $100,000 weekly for an actress previously receiving $30,000, nor did they want to give her a percentage of profits. Somers tried to break her contract, but was held to it by the producers, who forced her into what was virtually an extra role, limiting her weekly appearance to one minute, physically separated from her co-stars. Somers was off the show by 1980, and up until 1986 rarely appeared on television. Instead, Somers found success headlining a Las Vegas show where she pulled down $100,000 for each performance. The comeback began with a 1986 syndicated situation comedy, She's the Sheriff, which lasted two years. In the '90s, Somers began marketing exercise equipment products such as the Thighmaster and Buttmaster, via television infomercials. The products' success have made Somers a millionaire...again. She was the mom on the long-lived ABC sitcom Step By Step throughout the 1990s, also appearing in Serial Mom and No Laughing Matter. As the new century began she became a fitness guru by writing multiple books about aging, appearing in the 2009 documentary How to Live Forever in that capacity.

Trivia: Cortese, a supporting actor, has been on screen since the late '70s.

Trivia: American actor Michael Nouri is best known for his performance as Ben Hurley in the 1983 hit film Flashdance. Though he has been gainfully employed as a film actor, Nouri has been busier on television. He played the title role in the 1986 TV movie Quiet Victory: The Charlie Wedemeyer Story, and was heard as one of the "star voices" on the daily syndicated cartoon series Challenge of the Gobots (1986). In the realm of daytime drama, Nouri was seen on a regular basis in Search for Tomorrow and Somerset. Michael Nouri has also starred in several prime time TV series, few of which survived past season one: He played amorous voice teacher Giorgio Balanci on Beacon Hill (1975), a handsome 500-year-old vampire on Cliffhangers (1979), Lucky Luciano on The Gangster Chronicles (1981), minor league baseball manager Joe Rohner in Bay City Blues (1983), and detective Joe Forney on Downtown (1986).

Trivia: The son of character actor Ed Begley, Sr., he began acting while still a teenager, appearing on the TV series My Three Sons when he was 17. Begley performed as a stand-up comic at colleges and nightclubs and worked briefly as a TV cameraman before landing a string of guest appearances on TV series such as Happy Days and Columbo. He debuted onscreen in Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972), going on to play small roles in a number of minor films; by the mid '70s he was getting somewhat better roles in better films. Begley became well-known in the '80s, portraying Dr. Erlich on the TV series St. Elsewhere; for his work he received an Emmy nomination. His success on TV led to much better film roles, but he has never broken through as a big-screen star.

Trivia: Born in Ottawa in 1965, Canadian fashion model-turned-actress Kelly Rowan attended Toronto's Northern Secondary School and the University of Western Ontario, and moved into film roles during her collegiate years -- initially with bit parts in locally produced features such as the period drama The Long Road Home (1989) and Tibor Takacs' horror outing The Gate (1987). Meanwhile, Rowan did print modeling on the side to support herself. She relocated to Southern California shortly thereafter and took her Hollywood bow with guest spots on prime-time television series including Dallas and Growing Pains, and a feature debut with a small role as Peter's mother in Steven Spielberg's fantasy adventure Hook (1991). Numerous additional assignments followed, in both telemovies (Adrift, 1993) and theatrically released features (Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh, 1995) though it was only via her multi-season portrayal of Kirsten Cohen on the prime-time soaper The O.C. (2003) that she truly began to shine. In 2007, Rowan scored prominent billing opposite Freddie Prinze Jr. and Taryn Manning in Vanessa Parise's romantic comedy Jack and Jill vs. the World.

Trivia: African-American character actor James Pickens Jr. sustains one of the longest and fullest Hollywood resumés in recent memory, just in terms of sheer volume of work. Soap opera devotees may remember Pickens for one of his earliest achievements -- his portrayal of Zack Edwards on the long-running daytime drama Another World, from 1986 through 1990. Pickens subsequently divided his time between characterizations on such prime-time programs as Roseanne and Murder, She Wrote, and small roles in A-list Hollywood features. At least in the early years, these films were often, though not always, action vehicles with predominantly black casts, such as the Ice-T and Ice Cube action thriller Trespass (1992), the Wesley Snipes and Dennis Hopper cop picture Boiling Point (1993), and the bullet-ridden Hughes Brothers pictures Menace II Society (1993) and Dead Presidents (1995). Back on the small screen, Pickens could be seen on such popular series as The X-Files, The Practice, NYPD Blue, Six Feet Under, and Philly. Also, in spring 1998, he joined episode writer Larry David and co. as the detective who threw Jerry and his cronies in the slammer on the much-anticipated series finale of Seinfeld; David and Pickens re-teamed several years later for two 2005 episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Pickens drew his greatest attention and acclaim, however, when he ascended from bit player to a prominent supporting role as Chief of Surgery Richard Webber on the blockbuster medical drama Grey's Anatomy. This series premiered in 2005 to sensational ratings and quickly became an American institution, thanks in no small part to Pickens's work.

Trivia: Liane Curtis, a lead actress, has been on screen since the late '80s.