Trivia: The stepdaughter of the fire chief of Salisbury, MD, Linda Hamilton began her acting career with local children's theater groups. After college training and dramatic lessons conducted by former director Nicholas Ray, Hamilton was cast in a handful of inexpensive film programs. She briefly costarred in the prime-time TV soap opera Secrets of Midland Heights (1980) which led to an equally short stint on the weekly series King's Crossing (1982). Hamilton's stock in the film industry rose substantially when she was cast as Sarah Connor, the target for the homicidal intentions of futuristic android Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator (1984). No shivering ingenue, the agile and athletic Hamilton proved a formidable foe for the forces of evil in both The Terminator and its sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, where at times she came off tougher than the "kinder, gentler" Arnold. From 1987-1989, Hamilton starred as Catherine Chandler on the cult TV fantasy series Beauty and the Beast, eventually leaving the show to have her first child. In 1995 Hamilton earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance as a single mother who learns she has contracted AIDS in A Mother's Prayer, and though with the exception of Dante's Peak (1997) she stuck mainly to made-for-television movies in the following decade, notable guest spots on Showtime's Weeds and NBC's Chuck served as strong reminders of her onscreen charisma. Married to actor Bruce Abbot throughout much of the '80s, Hamilton later wed Terminator 2 director James Cameron, though their union ended after just two years.

Trivia: Ron Perlman grew up in the Washington Heights section of New York City, where his father was a radio/TV repairman and his mother an employee with the city's Department of Health. A profoundly unhandsome youth, Perlman was nonetheless very active in high school theater by virtue of his height (6-foot-2) and his deep, rolling voice. He continued studying drama at Lehman College and later at the University of Minnesota, where he graduated with a master's degree in theater arts. He went to work with New York's Classic Stage Company, an organization specializing in Elizabethan and Restoration plays. Perlman starred in several Manhattan and touring productions staged by Tom O'Horgan of Hair fame before accepting his first film role as a Neanderthal man in 1981's Quest for Fire. Emotionally drained, Perlman backed off from acting after finishing the movie, but was soon back in the groove, essaying such attention-getting roles as the hunchbacked Salvatore in The Name of the Rose (1986). Most often cast as brooding, inarticulate, villainous characters in films (such as Pap in 1993's The Adventures of Huck Finn), Perlman became best known for his performance as the beneficent, albeit hideously ugly, sewer-dwelling Vincent in the late-'80s TV series Beauty and the Beast. Though this remained the actor's defining role for years after the show's run had drawn to a close, he was busier than ever through the '90s. Appearing in everything from obscure arthouse hits (Cronos [1993] and The City of Lost Children [1995]) to voice-over work for television (Aladdin) and video games (Fallout, A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game) to overblown Hollywood blockbusters (Alien Resurrection), Perlman left few stones unturned in terms of flexibility and experimentation in new media. He continued this trend into the early 2000s, alternating between various arenas with remarkable ease and refusing to be pigeonholed, appearing in such high-profile releases as Titan A.E. (2000), Enemy at the Gates (2001), and Blade II (2002). Though his recognition factor seemed higher than ever, few could foresee the opportunity just ahead when Blade II and Cronos director Guillermo del Toro announced that Perlman would star in the film adaptation of Mike Mignola's popular comic book Hellboy, although it seemed highly unlikely that studios would invest the millions of dollars needed to bring the comic to life with an actor of such minimal "marquee value." They wanted Vin Diesel for the role, but del Toro, with the blessing and encouragement of character originator Mignola, eventually won out to have Perlman play the Nazi-creation-turned-superhero in the 2004 fantasy-action film.

Trivia: Halliwell's Filmgoers Companion states that British character actor Roy Dotrice had "a strong line in senile characterizations". Maybe so, but he certainly seemed chillingly cogent in his portrayal of Mozart's father in the Oscar-winning Amadeus. In films since 1965's The Heroes of Telemark, Dotrice has been equally busy on television: he was a regular on such series as Space: 1999 (1975-76), Going to Extremes (1986), Wizards (1986) and Beauty and the Beast (1987-1990, as "The Beast's" Father). Roy Dotrice is the father of actresses Karen and Michele Dotrice.

Trivia: Born in Indiana and raised in Minnesota, John McMartin attended college in both Illinois and New York. McMartin initially wanted to be a print or radio journalist, but opted instead for acting. His first big break was as Corporal Billy Jester in the 1959 off-Broadway operetta spoof Little Mary Sunshine, which won him both a Theatre World award and a bride (he married Cynthia Baer, one of the show's producers). After appearing in two Bob Fosse-directed productions, he enjoyed a long run as Gwen Verdon's nervous boyfriend Oscar in Fosse's Sweet Charity (1965). He went westward to repeat the role of Oscar in the 1969 film version of Charity, but preferred New York to Hollywood and returned to the stage. In 1971, he was cast as Benjamin Stone in the Stephen Sondheim hit Follies (nine years earlier, he'd been cut from Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum). He then spent several years playing classical-and non-musical-stage roles. Throughout his Broadway years, he made infrequent film and TV appearances; he played supporting roles in such movies as All the President's Men (1976) and Pennies from Heaven (1980), was briefly a regular on Falcon Crest, guested as Shelley Fabares' father on the sitcom Coach, and was seen in the made-for-TV features Separate but Equal (1991) and Citizen Cohn (1992). One of his most intriguing TV assignments was the 1965 pilot film for the never-sold lawyer series Higher and Higher, in which his co-stars were a couple of green kids named Sally Kellerman and Dustin Hoffman. In the 1990s, John McMartin scored a huge success as Captain Andy in producer Hal Prince's gargantuan revival of Show Boat.