Trivia: With a look, attitude, and signature catchphrase as memorable to some as they were repellant to others, standup comic Larry the Cable Guy hit it big in the early 2000s by taking advantage of the red state/blue state culture wars of the time. As the decade lumbered on, the comedian -- like so many before him -- took advantage of his popularity on the live circuit to make inroads into film and television.The man who added the catchphrases "Git-R-Done" and "Lord, I Apologize" to the American lexicon claims he was born in the back of an El Camino during a Foghat concert, but was actually born Dan Whitney in Pawnee City, NE. His upbringing was conservative, traditional, and churchgoing, but that didn't mean that strip bars were out of the question when Larry reached 18 (maybe even a little earlier). Fascinated by this redneck life -- "redneck" being a term he is not only fine with, but endorses -- and always looking to comment on it, Larry used his humorous observations to captivate his friends, who dared him to try his hand at standup. He did in 1986 and the fans' reaction to his slow, approachable style had him hooked. Two years later, he relinquished his title as funniest bellhop at the Ramada Inn and set out for a career in comedy.His one-liner-filled act soon caught word-of-mouth fire in the South and brought him to the attention of television. Appearances on An Evening at the Improv and Comic Strip Live increased his fan base past rural America, but it was on the nationally syndicated Bob and Tom Show on radio that Larry got the most exposure. His success with radio continued when he became a regular on Jeff Foxworthy's country countdown show, The Foxworthy Countdown, and Larry soon started syndicating his "commentaries" to 14 markets across the country. In 2000, Foxworthy invited the comic to join his Blue Collar Comedy Tour, along with Bill Engvall. The successful tour grossed 15 million dollars, sold more than one million copies when released on DVD, and turned Larry into a superstar. His debut CD, Lord, I Apologize, appeared in 2001 and became the Dark Side of the Moon of the comedy charts -- sticking in the Top 20 for two years running.In 2002, a Comedy Central airing of Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie became the network's highest-rated movie in its 12-year history, even with the DVD widely available. Larry the Cable Guy: Git-R-Done became his first solo DVD in 2003, and a year later Larry, Foxworthy, and Engvall turned their tour into the highly rated television show Blue Collar TV. Wearing his redneckness as a badge of honor while hating political correctness and racism equally made Larry a hard target for detractors.The year 2006 was devoted mostly to film, with Larry starring in his own feature film, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, and supplying the voice of Mater in the animated Disney/Pixar film Cars. The former stalled at the box office as the latter, predictably, became one of the biggest hits of the year. He also appeared on the CD and DVD Blue Collar Comedy Tour: One for the Road that year, before trying his hand once again at headlining a film with the Iraq comedy Delta Farce.

Trivia: Yugoslavian-born Ivana Milicevic emigrated to the United States with her family in 1983, when she was nine years old. Raised in Michigan, the stunning young woman began modeling while she was still in high school and shortly after graduating, she began professional acting with minor appearances on TV shows like Seinfeld and in films like Jerry Maguire. As she racked up roles on her resumé, she began to score bigger parts, on series such as Love Monkey and in the James Bond film Casino Royale.

Trivia: African American actor Yaphet Kotto was one of the most prominent beneficiaries of the upsurge in black-oriented theatrical pieces of the late 1950s; he appeared in many prestigious Broadway and off-Broadway productions, taking regional theatre work rather than accept stereotypical "mainstream" roles in movies and TV. Kotto's first film was Nothing But a Man (1964), an independently produced study of black pride in the face of white indifference. Though he vehemently steered clear of most of the '70s blaxploitation fare, in 1972, Kotto produced, directed and wrote the feature film Speed Limit 65 (aka The Limit and Time Limit), a one-of-a-kind "black biker" film. The biggest production with which Kotto was associated in the early 1970s was the James Bond film Live and Let Die, in which, as the villainous Mr. Big, he was blown up in the final scene (a similarly grisly fate awaited Kotto in 1979's Alien). On television, Yaphet Kotto was a regular on the TV series For Love and Honor (1983) and Homicide: Life on the Streets (1992), and was seen as Ugandan president Idi Amin in the 1977 TV movie Raid on Entebbe.

Trivia: With a cool stoic gaze suggesting unmentionable thoughts lurking somewhere deep behind those deep, blank eyes, popular character actor Peter Stormare offered American audiences slightly discomforting comic relief in Joel and Ethan Coen's popular dark comedy Fargo (1996), though his versatility and adaptability have since led him to roles in everything from major Hollywood blockbusters to the stripped-down Dogma 95 efforts of eccentric Danish director Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark (2000). Born Peter Rolf Stormare in Arbra, Sweden, on August 27th,1953, the dynamic Nordic actor began his career with an 11-year stint with the Royal National Theater of Sweden. Aside from appearing in such productions as Don Juan and The Curse of the Starving Class, Stormare would pen such original plays as El Paso and The Electric Boy. Later earning positive critical reception in such classic Shakespearian productions as King Lear, the actor made his big-screen debut, and began a 15-year association with legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, with a brief appearance in Fanny and Alexander in 1982. Later earning positive critical reception for his role in the legendary filmmaker's stage adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet in 1988, Stormare continued to gain career trajectory with numerous memorable stage and film roles in his native country. In 1990, Stormare became the Associate Artistic Director at the Tokyo Globe Theatre and made his American screen debut as a neurochemist who questions Robin Williams' experimental medical tactics in the touching Awakenings. Subsequently appearing in numerous international films (Freud's Leaving Home [1991] and Damage [1992]), Stormare hit his stateside stride with his chilling turn as a woodchipper-happy kidnapper in Fargo. Though he would continue to make appearances in such Swedish efforts as Ett Sorts Hades and Bergman's In the Presence of a Clown (1996 and 1997 respectively), his Hollywood star was on the rise with memorable roles in such increasingly mega-budgeted efforts as The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) and Armageddon (1998). Equally adept in comparatively low-budget efforts such as director George Romero's Bruiser (2000) and the aforementioned Dancer -- two roles which couldn't possibly be more polar opposites -- Stormare branched out into sitcom territory with his turn as Julia Louis-Dreyfuss' enamored superintendent in the ill-fated Watching Ellie in 2002. It wasn't long before Stormare was back on the silver screen, and with the same year potential blockbuster triple threat of The Tuxedo, Windtalkers, and Minority Report, it appeared as if Stormare's unique talents were as in-demand as ever. 2002 also found the established actor branching out with his role as producer of the romantic comedy The Movie Nut and His Audience.In 2005 he joined the cast of The Brothers Grimm in the role of an interogator, and took on a regular role in the television drama Prison Break. Stormare made guest appearances on a variety of television stand-outs throughout the 2000s, among them including Weeds, Monk, Entourage, and Hawaii Five-0.

Trivia: Eric Roberts is an acquired taste: those watching his movies fall into two distinct camps -- they either love him and consider him one of Hollywood's most intense and underrated actors, or they loathe him and consider him a pretentious, shameless ham. Both viewpoints are not without merit for Roberts has seen many ups and downs in his career. Tall and dark-haired, with a chiseled face, swarthy complexion, and arresting eyes, the young Roberts had the look of a classic movie rebel and off-screen displayed an arrogance and self-possession coupled with a tendency toward womanizing, drug abuse, and behavior that created a bad boy image on and off the screen. A serious car accident roughened his facial features and led to the second phase of his career during the '80s in which he primarily played villains; he spent the third phase during the late '90s trying to establish himself as a character actor. Growing up in Atlanta, GA, Roberts was no stranger to actors and the theater as his parents ran a successful acting and writing school from their home. A terrible stutterer as a child, Roberts and his father discovered that he could speak normally if he memorized his speeches ahead of time. Thus Roberts participated in his father's classes as a form of therapy. It was while watching English character actor Robert Donat during a late-night showing of Goodbye Mr. Chips that Roberts became inspired to become a movie actor. He made his acting debut at age five playing a cripple in a locally produced Saturday morning TV show, The Little Pioneers. He also performed for poor kids on his father's "showmobile." Roberts was quite close to his father, who taught him the spiritual side of acting, but after his parents divorced, became estranged from his mother, who married a man Roberts detested. He was however, a loving brother to his younger sisters, Julia and Lisa, both of whom became actresses. Roberts began experimenting with drugs at age 11 and by 13 was an avowed pot smoker. Later, he admitted that smoking dope was a way of coping with his broken family and that the drug in many ways arrested his emotional development. During his late teens, Roberts' father sacrificed much to send him to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. By the time he finished training, Roberts was a hardcore Method actor, something that somewhat hindered his personal life as he was unable to easily disassociate from his characters after appearing in a film. In 1976, Roberts' first break was portraying Ted Bancroft in the daily soap Another World. He disliked the job and left to work off-Broadway until agent Bill Treusch discovered him and helped Roberts land the role of a young man who is crowned a gypsy leader by his dying grandfather in King of the Gypsies. The film flopped at the box office, but like his two subsequent films, it has become a cult favorite among video fans. Roberts then appeared in a television movie before starring his next feature as a handsome sailor who falls for Texas divorcée Sissy Spacek in The Raggedy Man (1981). In June that year, Roberts was involved in a serious car crash while driving home from visiting his much older lover Sandy Dennis. He was comatose for three days afterwards with a bruised brain and much facial trauma, a broken collarbone, and an injured hand. No longer suitable for the same roles as before, Roberts bounced back with what became his most famous role, that of the sleazy Paul Snider, the man who killed actress Dorothy Stratten, in Bob Fosse's disturbing Star 80 (1983). The actor made a chilling villain and after playing another bad guy in The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), found himself typecast. Roberts proved well suited to those roles and received an Oscar nomination for playing an escaped convict in Runaway Train (1985). After that, Roberts chose quick money over artistic integrity and played in a long series of B-movies and direct-to-video fare; while he disappeared from mainstream view, he still maintained a loyal following. Meanwhile the career of his sister Julia Roberts, who made her debut co-starring opposite Roberts in Blood Red (1988), became the most popular female star of the late '80s. Though both were in Hollywood, the formerly close siblings argued and have remained bitter and estranged. In 1987, a drugged Roberts was arrested for harassing a woman and for striking a police officer. He spent 36 hours in jail, pleaded guilty for harassment, and had all other charges dropped. In 1991, he made Hollywood news for a bitter breakup with his live-in girlfriend, Kelly Cunningham. He lost the battle for custody of their daughter, Emma. The next year he married again. Careerwise, Roberts' tempestuous personality and lifestyle did little to make him bankable to studios. In 1995, Roberts gave up drugs and has worked on becoming a more ingratiating, congenial person. That year he made a comeback with his first romantic lead in It's My Party, playing an AIDS-afflicted homosexual who hosts one last bash for family and friends before committing suicide. His hope was that the film would allow him to return to his original dream of becoming a great character actor. In 1996, he played the Master in a new installment of the long-running Dr. Who saga.

Trivia: The quiet yet dynamic screen presence of actor Joe Mantegna has made him one of the most powerful supporting actors in Hollywood. Born in Chicago, Mantegna made his acting debut in the 1969 production of Hair. He then joined Chicago's Organic Theatre Company. In 1978, he debuted on Broadway in Working; he also helped write Bleacher Bums, an award-winning play. Still, he did not become well-known until he played a recurring role on the TV show Soap. By 1983 he'd returned to Chicago, where he began working with playwright David Mamet. While playing the lead in Mamet's play Glengarry Glen Ross (1983), Mantegna won a Tony. When Mamet began making films, Mantegna became his actor of choice in works such as House of Games (1987) and Homicide (1991). Prior to that, the actor had played small roles in a number of other films. He also continues to play in a variety of movie genres, working with some of Hollywood's top directors. Mantegna turned producer in 1998 with the crime comedy Jerry and Tom. That trend continued on the small screen as Montenga produced such shows as Midway USA's Gun Stories, Shooting Gallery, and QuickBites, but it was his role as a regular on the CBS series Joan of Arcadia that really kept him in the public eye. Continually returning to his recurring role as Fat Tony on The Simpsons over the next decade, Montegna joined the cast of the hit television series Criminal Minds in 2007, and recieved an Emmy nomination for his performance in the successful mini-series The Starter Wife that same year.

Trivia: Curvaceous blonde Jenny McCarthy has tried to forge an acting career based on the strength of her vivacious and sometimes raunchy persona, but has had only moderate success. Prior to entering the entertainment industry as a Playboy centerfold, McCarthy studied nursing at Southern Illinois University. While scrambling through her second year, she decided that modelling would be more lucrative and dropped out. Though she possesses a wholesome, athletic beauty, her figure proved too voluptuous for high fashion modelling, so she marched to the Chicago offices of Playboy, handed them photos of herself and ended up chosen Miss October 1993. She was subsequently elected Playmate of the Year. This, in turn, led to an erotic video pictorial. Despite her notoriety as a pinup girl, McCarthy's initial bid for stardom in Hollywood met with failure, until her manager/boyfriend Ray Manzella doggedly convinced executives at MTV to audition her for the network's upcoming game show Singled Out, a ludicrous riff on The Dating Game in which contestants made fools of themselves to win dates with beautiful or handsome strangers. She won the part of co-host and soon proved herself the show's one redeeming feature. Realizing her potential, the network hired McCarthy as a vee-jay and then allowed her to develop her own show, which ended up a short-lived sketch comedy show. She then starred in the short-lived NBC sitcom, The Jenny McCarthy Show (1997). She made her film debut with a tiny role in Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995) and had her first major role in the abysmal comedy The Stupids, as a neurotic film star opposite comedian Tom Arnold. In 1998, McCarthy co-starred in David Zucker's BASEketball. She had a supporting role in the comedy Diamonds.McCarthy had the distinction of appearing on both Scream 3, and the spoof Scary Movie 3. She published two books about pregnancy and motherhood. She wrote and starred in the romantic comedy Dirty Love, but the film had a limited theatrical run. In 2006 she appeared as a very sexy mom in the teen comedy John Tucker Must Dies, and she gained some off-screen notoriety by being romantically involved with Jim Carrey. She joined The View as a co-host for a season in 2013. She is an outspoken advocate for autistic children, and courted some controversy when she defended the theory that immunization booster shots cause the disorder.

Trivia: In films from the mid-'60s, American actor Richard Bull was seen in The Satan Bug (1965), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Secret Life of an American Wife (1969), Newman's Law (1971), and several other major Hollywood productions. Many of these roles were bits or atmosphere characters: guards, policemen, and the like. Television afforded Bull larger character roles, especially in the sitcom field. Within a ten-year period (1964-1974), he guested on Gidget, Family Affair, Gomer Pyle, USMC, The Andy Griffith Show, My 3 Sons, Room 222, and Bewitched (as pilgrim John Alden in a "flashback" episode). He also had a recurring role as a ship's doctor on the mid-'60s fantasy weekly Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. From 1974 through 1982, Richard Bull played store proprietor Nels Oleson, the even-tempered, long-suffering husband of overbearing Harriet Oleson on Little House on the Prairie. Bull continued to appear in films and episodes of TV shows until his death in 2014 at age 89.

Trivia: Wrote and acted in 1997's Paradise Falls, which won awards at the Atlanta Film Festival, the Hollywood Film Awards, and WorldFest Charleston. Son Jackson Bridgers acted with him in two separate series: Deadwood and Justified. Won Best Actor award at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival for his star turn in The Woman. In 2012, he wrote and directed a short film, The Birthday Present, starring his daughter Kate. Started an independent film production company, Travelin' Productions, with friend Michael Hemschoot.

Trivia: Judd Apatow fans will have no difficulty remembering character actor Gerry Bednob, given his visible and highly memorable turn as Mooj, the diminutive, short-tempered, expletive-spouting older gentleman who works in the local electronics shop opposite Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) in The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005). Actually, this Indian-American player of film and television remained extremely prolific, and enjoyed multiple collaborations with Apatow that both preceded and succeeded Virgin. A native of Trinidad (with East Indian ancestry), Bednob originally attended the University of Toronto as a sociology major -- a field far removed from acting, though Bednob had naturally played the role of class clown in school for years, which seemed to predestine him for stage and film. He briefly worked as a high school guidance counselor, then made a go at stand-up comedy at a club called Yuk-Yuks, and his triumphant success in that venue (over the course of two years) inspired him to move to Los Angeles. In the City of Angels, Bednob won a major stand-up competition and performed on The Merv Griffin Show, then landed appearances on The Wonder Years and Mad About You, and in the Pauly Shore comedy Encino Man (1992), as well as the Apatow situation comedy Undeclared. Virgin, however, brought about his broadest exposure and recognition. Bednob reteamed with producer Apatow for a role in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, then signed on for a colorful supporting role in writer-director Kevin Smith's raunchy sex farce Zack and Miri Make a Porno opposite Elizabeth Banks and Apatow mainstay Seth Rogen.