Trivia: With his short slender build, large brown eyes, and abundant hair, actor Ralph Macchio has often appeared to be the perennial adolescent -- a fact that has sometimes hindered his career. The actor is best known for his work in the phenomenally popular Karate Kid (1984), in which the then twenty-two year old actor played a troubled 14-year-old boy who is helped by a sage karate instructor. Macchio has been in show business most of his life; born in Long Island, he began performing in local musical productions as a young teenager. At 16, he began working in TV commercials, and before he had even graduated from high school had appeared in the adolescent comedy Up the Academy (1980), though he did not appear in another film until working in Francis Ford Coppola's epic of teenage rivalry The Outsiders (1983). Following the Karate Kid, Macchio began working in a series of minor films, such as the successful My Cousin Vinny (1992). He continued to work on television and on stage, even after his teen heart-throb days were over, appearing on Broadway opposite Robert De Niro in 1986 in Cuba and His Teddy Bears. He also appeared in the next two Karate Kid sequels, along with films like Dangerous Company and Too Much Sun. In 2002, Macchio tried his hand at screenwriting and directing, both helming and penning the short film Love Thy Brother. In 2006, the actor took a comedic turn in the sports comedy Beer League. Macchio would remain active for years to come, appearing most notably on the popular series Ugly Betty.

Trivia: Black character actor Joe Seneca almost always brought a sense of dignity and social consciousness to his roles. Born and raised in Cleveland, OH, he began performing with the Three Riffs song and dance trio. Early in his career, he penned songs such as "Break It to Me Gently" (co-written with Diane Lampert) and "Talk to Me." In 1981, Seneca made his Broadway debut in The Little Foxes with Elizabeth Taylor. He made his feature film debut seven years prior in The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3 (1974). Seneca has also appeared frequently on television on programs like The Cosby Show and in dramatic specials such as A Gathering of Old Men (1987). Seneca died on August 15, 1996, during an asthma attack while in his Roosevelt Island, NY, home.

Trivia: Brown-eyed, would-be Brat Packer Jami Gertz was discovered in a nationwide talent search by Norman Lear and she studied drama at N.Y.U. She got a tiny part in Franco Zeffirelli's Endless Love in 1981, making her film debut along with Tom Cruise. The next year she starred on the high school TV series Square Pegs along with Sarah Jessica Parker, and made several guest appearances on The Facts of Life. Supporting roles followed in Alphabet City, Quicksilver, Crossroads, and Solarbabies. In 1987 she played shy vampire girl Star in The Lost Boys, which may remain her most recognizable role. In the same year, she played the girl caught between Andrew McCarthy and Robert Downey Jr. in Less Than Zero and she got to romance teen idol Kirk Cameron in Listen to Me. The '90s marked the decline of her leading roles in teen dramas and she turned to comedies, off-Broadway theater, and mainstream dramas. She played Kirstie Alley's sister in Sibling Rivalry, Dylan McDermott's love interest in Jersey Girl, and Bill Paxton's girlfriend in Twister. Working back in television, she had recurring roles on Sibs, ER, Dream On, and Ally McBeal. After making several TV movies, she portrayed legendary comedienne Gilda Radner in the ABC special It's Always Something: The Gilda Radner Story. Living in L.A. with her husband and children, Gertz was cast as blue-collar wife and mother Judy Miller on the CBS sitcom Still Standing in 2002. In 2006 Gertz co-starred in director Scott Marshall's coming-of-age comedy Keeping Up With the Steins.

Trivia: Though he spent most of his childhood in Japan and Europe, Joe Morton, along with his mother and remaining family, moved from Germany to New York after the passing of his father. While he hadn't given acting an incredible amount of thought during his adolescence, Morton decided to pursue a career in the performing arts during his first day at Hofstra University. After his first professional acting job in an off-Broadway production of A Month of Sundays, Morton was cast in Hair (1968), and subsequently became a well-known name within Broadway circles. Morton's role in Raisin, a musical version of A Raisin in the Sun, earned him a Tony nomination. Though he didn't manage to snag the award, the young actor nonetheless found work on several popular television shows of the time, including M*A*S*H and Mission: Impossible. By the late '70s, Morton had appeared in a variety of equally acclaimed films, such as The Outside Man (1973), Between the Lines (1977), and ...And Justice for All (1979).After continuing his work in television, Morton made his first leading-man feature-film appearance as "The Brother," an intergalactic escaped slave, in John Sayles' 1984 hit The Brother From Another Planet. A year later, Morton could be seen in a supporting capacity alongside Lori Singer and Keith Carradine in the post-noir romantic drama Trouble in Mind (1985). Though Morton found no small amount of work during the 1980s, it wasn't until 1991 that he would play one of the most recognizable roles of his career: the cyborg-components researcher in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. However, Terminator 2 was by no means the peak in his career -- that same year, he reunited with Sayles and played a frustrated city councilman in City of Hope. In 1994, Morton portrayed a police captain in Speed, and, after a recurring role on NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street, starred in two highly lauded films: The Walking Dead (1995), in which he played a deeply religious marine, and Lone Star (1996), another John Sayles film. By this stage in his career, Morton had developed a reputation for playing scientists and government officials, and his role as an explosives expert in Executive Decision (1996) was no exception. However, Morton was certainly not incapable of more emotional fare, as demonstrated in his performance in HBO's Miss Evers' Boys, which won three Emmy awards in 1997. In 1998, Morton further avoided typecasting with his role in Blues Brothers 2000 as Cabel Chamberlain, the son of music man Curtis (Cab Calloway) from the original film.The early 2000s proved an equally busy time for Morton, who, aside from participating in numerous documentaries and made-for-television features, continued his role as Leon Chiles in NBC's Law & Order, and began regularly appearing as Dr. Steve Hamilton on the WB's Smallville. During this time, he could also be seen in supporting performances for What Lies Beneath (2000), Bounce (2000), and Ali (2001). 2003 found Morton playing another government agent in Paycheck, while 2004 brought another opportunity altogether -- Morton took the director's seat for Sunday on the Rocks. Also that year, Morton joined director Rob Cohen to film Stealth. A recurring role on the Pentagon television drama E-Ring found the actor continuing on his impressive television run, with a supporting role in the 2006 feature The Night Listener serving well to keep Morton's feature credits expanding as well.A contributing narrator of the long-running PBS series The American Experience, Morton became a familiar voice to television viewers who refused to switch their brains off for prime-time viewing. But it was recurring roles in both The Good Wife and Eureka that helped to keep him a familar face to more casual TV fans.

Trivia: Lead actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: The son of actors Harry Carey and Olive Golden, Harry Carey Jr. never answered to "Harry" or "Junior"; to his friends, family and film buffs, he was always "Dobe" Carey. Raised on his father's California ranch, the younger Carey spent his first six adult years in the Navy. While it is commonly assumed that he made his film debut under the direction of his dad's longtime friend John Ford, Carey in fact was first seen in a fleeting bit in 1946's Rolling Home, directed by William Berke. It wasn't until his third film, Three Godfathers (dedicated to the memory of his father) that Carey worked with Ford. Honoring his promise to Harry Sr. that he'd "look after" Dobe, Ford saw to it that the younger Carey was given a starring assignment (along with another of the director's proteges, Ben Johnson), in Wagonmaster (1950). Though he handled this assignment nicely, exuding an appealing earnest boyishness, Carey wasn't quite ready for stardom so far as the Hollywood "higher-ups" were concerned, so he settled for supporting roles, mostly in westerns. John Ford continued to use Carey whenever possible; in 1955's The Long Gray Line, the actor has a few brief scenes as West Point undergraduate Dwight D. Eisenhower. Carey was also featured on the "Spin and Marty" segments of Walt Disney's daily TVer The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-59). In later years, Carey's weather-beaten face was seen in choice character assignments in films ranging from The Whales of August (1987) to Back to the Future III (1990); he was also hired by such John Ford aficionados as Peter Bogdanovich, who cast Carey as an old wrangler named Dobie (what else?) in Nickelodeon (1976), and as an ageing bike-gang member named Red in Mask (1985). In 1994, Harry Carey Jr. published his autobiography, Company of Heroes. Carey died of natural causes at age 91 in late December 2012.

Trivia: Picking up acting as a second career later in life, Allan Arbus was initially known for being a photographer. Married to famed photographer Diane Arbus, the pair built up an extensive business in the late 1940s and early 1950s, shooting artwork for fashion magazines like Glamour and Vogue. After the pair divorced, Arbus moved to California to try his hand at acting. He quickly won roles in two Robert Downey Sr. films, Putney Swope (1969) and Greaser's Palace (1972). Soon after, he landed his most memorable role, Major Sidney Freedman, the psychiatrist on-duty at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, on M*A*S*H. Arbus was never a regular cast member, only appearing as a recurring guest star, which left him free to pursue other projects, frequently appearing as a guest star on a number of TV shows like The Odd Couple, Taxi and Starsky and Hutch. His final on-screen appearance was in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in 2000. Arbus passed away in 2013 at age 95.

Trivia: Black supporting actor Al Fann began his career onstage and first appeared onscreen in the '70s.

Trivia: Though he was born in Washington, D.C., African-American film and television actor Tim Russ came of age in Turkey, where he attended Izmir High School for a brief period. Russ returned to the Big Apple prior to graduation and enrolled in Rome Academy, then studied theatrical arts at Saint Edwards University (as an undergraduate) and at Illinois State University (as a graduate student).Russ launched his film career on an exciting note, with his portrayal of blues legend Robert Johnson in Walter Hill's defiantly individualistic cinematic fable Crossroads (1986); he also delighted schtick fans the following year as the trooper hopelessly lost in the desert in Mel Brooks' gag-laden sci-fi spoof Spaceballs, and landed a plum supporting role in Clint Eastwood's homage to Charlie Parker, Bird (1988). Though Russ' subsequent work during the late '80s and the '90s occasionally dipped into exploitation -- such as his involvement in the lurid bedroom thriller Night Eyes 2 (1991) -- the actor also landed in more respectable fare from time to time. For instance, he joined the cast of the Billy Crystal comedy drama Mr. Saturday Night (1992) and appeared in a few episodes of the popular Will Smith sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.Russ left his most memorable mark, however, on Trekkies -- first with some appearances on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, then with his evocation of Lt. Commander Tuvok on Star Trek: Voyager -- a role he carried from 1995 through 2001. In 2007, Russ returned to comedy, playing sarcastic doorman Frank on the Christina Applegate sitcom Samantha Who?, and playing Principal Franklin on the Disney series iCarly.

Trivia: Western film star Harry Carey was the Eastern-born son of a Bronx judge. Carey's love and understanding of horses and horsemanship was gleaned from watching the activities of New York's mounted policemen of the 1880s. He worked briefly as an actor in stock, then studied law until a bout of pneumonia forced him to quit the job that was paying for his education. He reactivated his theatrical career in 1904 by touring the provinces in Montana, a play he wrote himself. In 1911, Carey signed with the Bronx-based Biograph film company, playing villain roles for pioneer director D. W. Griffith. Though only in his mid-30s, Carey's face had already taken on its familiar creased, weatherbeaten look; it was an ideal face for westerns, as Carey discovered when he signed with Hollywood's Fox Studios. Under the guidance of fledgling director John Ford, Carey made 26 features and two-reelers in the role of hard-riding frontiersman Cheyenne Harry. Throughout the 1920s, Carey remained an audience favorite, supplementing his acting income with occasional scripting, producing and co-directing assignments. At the dawn of the talkie era, Carey had been around so long that he was considered an old-timer, and had resigned himself to playing supporting parts. His starring career was revitalized by the 1931 jungle epic Trader Horn, in which he appeared with his wife Olive Golden. While he still accepted secondary roles in "A" features (he earned an Oscar nomination for his performance as the Vice President in Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington [1939]), Carey remained in demand during the 1930s as a leading player, notably in the autumnal 1936 western The Last Outlaw and the rugged 1932 serial Last of the Mohicans. In 1940, Carey made his belated Broadway debut in Heavenly Express, following this engagement with appearances in Ah, Wilderness (1944) and But Not Goodbye (1944). By the early 1940s, Carey's craggy face had taken on Mount Rushmore dimensions; his was the archetypal "American" countenance, a fact that director Alfred Hitchcock hoped to exploit. Hitchcock wanted to cast Carey against type as a Nazi ringleader in 1942's Saboteur, only to have these plans vetoed by Mrs. Carey, who insisted that her husband's fans would never accept such a radical deviation from his image. Though Carey and director John Ford never worked together in the 1930s and 1940s, Ford acknowledged his indebtedness to the veteran actor by frequently casting Harry Carey Jr. (born 1921), a personable performer in his own right, in important screen roles. When Carey Sr. died in 1948, Ford dedicated his film Three Godfathers to Harry's memory. A more personal tribute to Harry Carey Sr. was offered by his longtime friend John Wayne; in the very last shot of 1955's The Searchers, Wayne imitated a distinctive hand gesture that Harry Carey had virtually patented in his own screen work.