Trivia: An actress whose fire-red mane sets the screen ablaze, Marcia Cross has carved out an impressive television career thanks to winning roles on such shows as Melrose Place and Desperate Housewives. With a resumé that reads like a "television's greatest hits" list from the mid-'80s through the new millennium, small-screen veteran Cross is hardly a new face to devoted TV viewers, and thanks to her role as über-perfectionist suburban homemaker Bree Van De Kamp on ABC's surprise hit Desperate Housewives, chances are she'll be sticking around for some time. A native of Marlborough, MA, who first discovered her love for acting while taking the stage for a sixth-grade production of The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Cross was soon setting her sites on New York's world-renowned Juilliard Drama School, where she would major in drama. In the years following her graduation, Cross made a name for herself in and around the New York stage, with performances in the Williamstown Theater Festival's production of La Ronde and the Hartford Stage Company's production of Twelfth Night serving as early career highlights. Appearances on shows like Cheers and Who's the Boss? got the actress started on screen, preparing her for the career landmark of being cast as Dr. Kimberly Shaw on 1992's Melrose Place. A direct descendent of Beverly Hills 90210 that lit the small-screen ablaze for much of the 1990s, Melrose Place occupied most of Cross' time, save for the occasional television guest appearance or feature role. Though she had only been slated to appear in one episode of Melrose Place, Cross' character proved so popular that producers went to great lengths to keep her on board, eventually going so far as to reach beyond the grave to keep the character alive. If it seemed like Cross' career was floundering somewhat in the wake of her Melrose Place success, a role in the WB's 2002 drama Everwood served well to bring her back into the collective conscience of television viewers. Though she would only remain with the series for one season, her furlough from the small screen proved to be short-lived when Cross returned stronger than ever in 2004 in the hugely popular dark comedy drama Desperate Housewives. Cast as a Martha Stewart-worshipping suburbanite whose obsession with perfection is slowly tearing her family apart at the seams, Cross used her keen skills in front of the camera to hold her own in an ensemble cast that included the likes of Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, and Nicollette Sheridan.

Trivia: Actor John Spencer was born John Speshock to a working-class family in Patterson, NJ, on December 20, 1946. He attended the Professional Children's High School in New York City, and while a student adopted the stage name John Spencer. Spencer began acting in his teens, and landed his first big break was he was cast as Henry Anderson on the TV series The Patty Duke Show. After the end of the show's run, Spencer resumed his education, enrolling at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ; he later transferred to New York University. In the early '70s, Spencer began pursuing a career as a stage actor in New York City, and in 1981, he won an Obie award for his performance in the play Still Life. In 1983, Spencer began working in film, appearing in supporting roles in two movies that year, War Games and Echoes. By the mid-'80s, Spencer was working steadily in movies and making frequent television guest shots; he was also earning increasing acclaim for his stage roles, receiving a Drama Desk Award nomination for his role in The Day Room in 1988.However, Spencer's first real brush with fame came in 1990, when he won the role of Tommy Mullany, a tough but goodhearted lawyer, on the hit TV series L.A. Law. While Spencer's regular guy looks seemed to rule him out of leading man roles, his success on L.A. Law established him as a first-call character actor, and he began scoring higher-profile roles in a variety of higher-profile films (such as Presumed Innocent, Copland, Forget Paris, and The Rock), while earning higher billing in made-for-TV movies, and appearing in stage roles as his schedule permitted. In 1999, Spencer's career received yet another boost when he was cast as Chief of Staff Leo McGarry on the acclaimed television series The West Wing; Spencer's work as part of the ensemble cast earned him a Screen Actor's Guild award in 2001 and 2002, and he was nominated for an Emmy five times for Best Supporting Actor, winning in 2002. In the same year that his character Leo suffered a heart attack on West Wing, Spencer sadly suffered the same fate: after a severe attack, he died among friends and family in a Los Angeles hospital in December, 2005. He was 58 years old.