Trivia: Born in New York City and brought up by his French parents in Geneva, Christopher Lambert briefly worked at the London Stock Exchange, then studied acting at the National Conservatory in Paris, where he was expelled after three years. He soon landed a role in the French film Le Bar Du Telephone (1980) and within two years had appeared in three French films. His English language debut was in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan (1984); an attractive, well-built man, he soon attracted a large following among women as a movie sex symbol, and in France he is something of a "pin-up." Lambert went on to work steadily in both American and French films, often in actioners. He is married to actress Diane Lane, with whom he appeared in Knight Moves (1992).

Trivia: One of the few movie "superstars" truly worthy of the designation, actor Sean Connery was born to a middle-class Scottish family in the first year of the worldwide Depression. Dissatisfied with his austere surroundings, Connery quit school at 15 to join the navy (he still bears his requisite tattoos, one reading "Scotland Forever" and the other "Mum and Dad"). Holding down several minor jobs, not the least of which was as a coffin polisher, Connery became interested in bodybuilding, which led to several advertising modeling jobs and a bid at Scotland's "Mr. Universe" title. Mildly intrigued by acting, Connery joined the singing-sailor chorus of the London roduction of South Pacific in 1951, which whetted his appetite for stage work. Connery worked for a while in repertory theater, then moved to television, where he scored a success in the BBC's re-staging of the American teledrama Requiem for a Heavyweight. The actor moved on to films, playing bit parts (he'd been an extra in the 1954 Anna Neagle musical Lilacs in the Spring) and working up to supporting roles. Connery's first important movie role was as Lana Turner's romantic interest in Another Time, Another Place (1958) -- although he was killed off 15 minutes into the picture. After several more years in increasingly larger film and TV roles, Connery was cast as James Bond in 1962's Dr. No; he was far from the first choice, but the producers were impressed by Connery's refusal to kowtow to them when he came in to read for the part. The actor played the secret agent again in From Russia With Love (1963), but it wasn't until the third Bond picture, Goldfinger (1964), that both Connery and his secret-agent alter ego became a major box-office attraction. While the money steadily improved, Connery was already weary of Bond at the time of the fourth 007 flick Thunderball (1965). He tried to prove to audiences and critics that there was more to his talents than James Bond by playing a villain in Woman of Straw (1964), an enigmatic Hitchcock hero in Marnie (1964), a cockney POW in The Hill (1965), and a loony Greenwich Village poet in A Fine Madness (1966). Despite the excellence of his characterizations, audiences preferred the Bond films, while critics always qualified their comments with references to the secret agent. With You Only Live Twice (1967), Connery swore he was through with James Bond; with Diamonds Are Forever (1971), he really meant what he said. Rather than coast on his celebrity, the actor sought out the most challenging movie assignments possible, including La Tenda Rossa/The Red Tent (1969), The Molly Maguires (1970), and Zardoz (1973). This time audiences were more responsive, though Connery was still most successful with action films like The Wind and the Lion (1974), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), and The Great Train Robbery (1979). With his patented glamorous worldliness, Connery was also ideal in films about international political intrigue like The Next Man (1976), Cuba (1979), The Hunt for Red October (1990), and The Russia House (1990). One of Connery's personal favorite performances was also one of his least typical: In The Offence (1973), he played a troubled police detective whose emotions -- and hidden demons -- are agitated by his pursuit of a child molester. In 1981, Connery briefly returned to the Bond fold with Never Say Never Again, but his difficulties with the production staff turned what should have been a fond throwback to his salad days into a nightmarish experience for the actor. At this point, he hardly needed Bond to sustain his career; Connery had not only the affection of his fans but the respect of his industry peers, who honored him with the British Film Academy award for The Name of the Rose (1986) and an American Oscar for The Untouchables (1987) (which also helped make a star of Kevin Costner, who repaid the favor by casting Connery as Richard the Lionhearted in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves [1991] -- the most highly publicized "surprise" cameo of that year). While Connery's star had risen to new heights, he also continued his habit of alternating crowd-pleasing action films with smaller, more contemplative projects that allowed him to stretch his legs as an actor, such as Time Bandits (1981), Five Days One Summer (1982), A Good Man in Africa (1994), and Playing by Heart (1998). Although his mercurial temperament and occasionally overbearing nature is well known, Connery is nonetheless widely sought out by actors and directors who crave the thrill of working with him, among them Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas, who collaborated with Connery on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), where the actor played Jones' father. Connery served as executive producer on his 1992 vehicle Medicine Man (1992), and continued to take on greater behind-the-camera responsibilities on his films, serving as both star and executive producer on Rising Sun (1993), Just Cause (1995), and The Rock (1996). He graduated to full producer on Entrapment (1999), and, like a true Scot, he brought the project in under budget; the film was a massive commercial success and paired Connery in a credible onscreen romance with Catherine Zeta-Jones, a beauty 40 years his junior. He also received a unusual hipster accolade in Trainspotting (1996), in which one of the film's Gen-X dropouts (from Scotland, significantly enough) frequently discusses the relative merits of Connery's body of work. Appearing as Allan Quartermain in 2003's comic-to-screen adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the seventy-three year old screen legend proved that he still had stamina to spare and that despite his age he could still appear entirely believeable as a comic-book superhero. Still a megastar in the 1990s, Sean Connery commanded one of moviedom's highest salaries -- not so much for his own ego-massaging as for the good of his native Scotland, to which he continued to donate a sizable chunk of his earnings.

Trivia: Lead actress, onscreen from the early '80s.

Trivia: A tall, intense, hulking actor who was a natural to play Frankenstein's monster in The Bride (1985), Clancy Brown has utilized his naturally menacing exterior for a career's worth of villainous roles, most notably in films such as Highlander and The Shawshank Redemption. With good looks that could be described as somewhat Neanderthal in nature, he has also found the occasional sympathetic portrayal, and been equal to the task of acting it. Clancy Brown was born on January 5, 1959, in Urbana, OH, the son of a newspaperman-turned-U.S. congressman. He was raised in both Urbana and Washington, D.C., and claims to have been introduced to acting by a neighbor who got him into Shakespeare at a young age. Brown acted in high school and during his teenage summers before enrolling at Northwestern University on a track scholarship as a discus hurler. He graduated with a degree in speech and went on to mix drinks in Chicago while working in local theater. Brown's first film role established the trend for how his services would be used throughout his career. He appeared as Viking in the Sean Penn "juvy" drama Bad Boys (1983), in which he threw around his muscle as one of the detention center's intimidators. Next he appeared in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) as the cowboy Rawhide, then as Highlander's sword-wielding embodiment of evil, Kurgan, in the 1986 cult classic. A succession of roles as bruising heavies, often corrupt cops, followed during the late '80s and '90s, in films such as Dead Man Walking (1996) and The Hurricane (1999). The most memorable among these was Captain Byron Hadley, the crooked prison guard with the deadly billy club in the multiple-Oscar-nominated The Shawshank Redemption (1994). In 1997, he played one of his more infrequent good guy roles as Sergeant Zim in Starship Troopers. From 1997-1998, he had a prominent recurring guest role as a doctor on NBC's ratings champ ER. His prolific television career also includes a role on the sci-fi series Earth 2 (1994). In 2002, Brown appeared among an ensemble cast in the HBO film The Laramie Project, which was about the beating death of gay Wyoming teen Matthew Shepard. The next year, he took on the prominant role of Brother Justin Crowe on HBO's cryptic period drama Carnivàle, joining another talented ensemble cast and once again tapping into his dark side. Brown's distinctive voice has been in high demand throughout his career, resulting in dozens of voice-over credits in animated features such as The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) and television series. Of course his distinctively brute face was still very much an important part of his career, with an onscreen role in the hit television series Lost serving well to provide viewers with a valuable history of the mysterious "hatch." A trip back in time found the hulking Brown assuming the role of a monstrous viking in director Markus Nispel's Pathfinder, and later that same year the actor could once again be spotted on the big screen in the Kevin Costner Coast Guard drama The Guardian. In 2008 he appeared in the college football film The Express, and the next year had small but crucial roles in the indie drama The Twenty, as well as Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! He continued to land small parts in bug budget Hollywood spectacles like the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Cowboys & Aliens, and Green Lantern.

Trivia: Lead actress Edney Beatie first appeared onscreen in 1990.

Trivia: New York native Alan North began his film career in 1971 with his role in Plaza Suite, which co-starred Walter Matthau and Maureen Stapleton. Henceforth, he would portray many secondary characters in an impressive string of high profile films. North was also frequently seen on stage as well as television. His most noticeable role on the small screen was for the early-'80s police spoof Police Squad, as Captain Ed Hocken. North died in early 2000, at the age of 79.

Trivia: Typically cast as a criminal or a cop, beefy, bald, American character actor Jon Polito has appeared on stage, television, and in feature films, notably the Coen brothers' Miller's Crossing (1990) and Barton Fink (1991). Polito can be recognized for his pencil-thin moustache. He launched his career on Broadway in 1977. In 1981, Polito debuted in the feature film The Killing Hour and then portrayed mobster Tommy Lucchese on the television series The Gangster Chronicles.

Trivia: Emigrated to the United Kingdom with his family at the age of 3. Is a member of the Royal Shakepspeare Company and appeared as Mephistopheles in Faust in 1995. Is the longest serving member of the Holby City cast - 15 years as of 2016.

Trivia: As the grizzled warrior Campbell in Braveheart, James Cosmo impressed filmgoers worldwide. His impassioned performance made it seem possible that such a man as Campbell really existed 700 years ago, a man who cared so much about his beloved Scotland that he could endure the bite of an English arrow, break it off, and go on fighting with Achillean fury. But it was not only Cosmo's formidable acting skills -- honed in scores of film and television productions dating back to the '60s -- that animated his performance. It was also his real-life love of Scotland. He believes his native country, small as it is, has a thousand and one other stories to tell just as exciting as Braveheart, and he has enlisted himself as actor, producer, and financier to bring them to the movie screen. For example, he singlehandedly engineered a project to construct Scotland's first film studio on a 40-acre site near Inverness. Both novice and experienced filmmakers will be welcome to reserve any of its sound stages. A nearby William Wallace Theme Park, named after the rebel leader depicted in Braveheart, will present reenactments of Wallace's rebellion against England between 1297 and 1305. Cosmo also was the brainchild of a major film project about Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796), a national hero who attracted 30,000 mourners to his funeral. Cosmo selected Edinburgh as the setting, Scottish writer Alan Sharp to pen the script, and Scottish composer Derek William Dick to write an overture. The film, entitled Clarinda, centers on the love affair between Burns and an Edinburgh woman, Agnes Maclehose. Another Scottish writer, the great historical novelist Sir Walter Scott, provided the material for a triumphal Cosmo performance in the TV miniseries Ivanhoe, shown worldwide. Cosmo portrayed Ivanhoe's estranged father, Lord Cedric, with the same fiery spleen of Campbell in Braveheart. However, Cosmo does not perform only in films about the age of the horse and sword. In the critically acclaimed Trainspotting, he played the father of an Edinburgh heroin addict. Cosmo also portrayed a World War II POW in the heralded 2001 film To End All Wars, Mr. Weston in the 1996 Gwyneth Paltrow version of Jane Austen's Emma, and an oil-rig worker in the 1994 TV series Roughnecks. In addition, he was the voice of Thelonius, an orangutan, in Babe: Pig in the City. Cosmo grew up in Clydebank in west central Scotland, where he received an education in a stalwart brick-and-mortar high school while the smell of the sea invaded classrooms and beckoned aspiring young adventurers to set sail for exotic climes. Clydebank was a shipbuilding city; there, craftsmen puzzled together great Cunard liners, including the Queen Elizabeth II. Although Cosmo did not go to sea, he did set sail for a journey through the world of drama. For his outstanding work onscreen and his charitable work off, he received the lifetime achievement award of the Sunday Mail/McEwan's People's Film Festival.

Trivia: Wanted to be a ballerina, but was rejected from the Royal Ballet; as a result, she suffered from anorexia and spent three months in psychiatric hospital as part of her recovery. Made her stage debut at age 16 as a chorus girl at a theatre in Colchester, England. Discovered on the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are that one of her ancestors was imprisoned in the infamous Tower of London, and another was accused of plotting to kill King Charles II. Released her debut novel, Not Quite Nice, in 2015.

Trivia: Long a familiar presence on the New York stage and TV scene, Louis Guss has specialized in blue-collar ethnic roles. Guss' earliest screen credit was as Dominic in Harry and Tonto (1974). His showiest screen portrayal was as Raymond Coppomaggi in the irresistible romantic comedy Moonstruck (1987). On network television, Louis Guss was seen as Uncle Bennie on the 1991 sitcom Man in the Family.

Trivia: Doing for bald men what no amount of Minoxodil ever could, Patrick Stewart won international fame for his portrayal of Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the popular TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation. Before earning immortality for his ability to handle a phaser convincingly, Stewart was known as a stage actor of great talent in his native Britain, where he had been performing since he was a teenager.Born in Mirfield, Yorkshire, England on July 13, 1940, Stewart was performing in various drama groups by the age of twelve. After leaving school at fifteen, he went to work as a junior reporter for a local newspaper. He quit the job after being told by the paper's editor that he was spending too much time at the theatre and not enough on the newspaper and worked for a year as a furniture salesman to pay for drama school. He was accepted at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1957, and two years later made his professional stage debut in a production of Treasure Island. Stewart went on to enjoy a prolific and acclaimed stage career, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966 and remaining with it for the next twenty-seven years. He also began to work on the big and small screens, and in the early 1980s started popping up in a number of popular films like Excalibur (1981) and Dune (1984). In 1987, he was chosen to play Picard on Next Generation. Certain that he would be fired from the series, Stewart reportedly refused to unpack his bags for six weeks. Although more than one snarky observer spent the first year of the series making idiot jokes about Stewart's bald pate, the actor--and the show--proved to be a hit. Stewart stayed with Next Generation for seven seasons, and then reprised his role for a string of successful Star Trek films: 1994's Star Trek Generations, 1996's Star Trek: First Contact, 1998's Star Trek: Insurrection and 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis.In addition to his work with the Next Generation series and films, Stewart also continued to work on the stage and in various films. In 1995, he had a hilarious turn as a flamboyant, acid-tongued interior decorator in Jeffrey, while in 1997 he tried his hand at intrigue with a part in The Conspiracy Theory. The following year, he appeared on the small screen, giving a terrific portrayal of the obsessive Captain Ahab in Moby Dick. Though a new Star Trek film every few years may not have been quite enough to keep the legions of sci-fi addicts satisfied, Stewart scored brownie points among fans by taking an impressive turn as Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men (2000), X2: X-Men United (2003), and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). On the stage, Stewart enjoyed acclaim for a number of productions, particularly a one-man production of A Christmas Carol, which he performed in numerous theatrical venues around the world, winning numerous awards for his portrayal. He also earned extensive praise for his portrayal of Prospero in the Broadway production of The Tempest in 1996. Interestingly, Stewart, though appreciative of his star status, has repeatedly bristled at the notion that his lack of hair is "sexy," à la Yul Brynner. In regards to his reluctant sex symbol status, he has stated that he would much rather be judged on the basis of his acting ability rather than his appearance.