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: Joined the Navy after graduating high school and served in Vietnam. Settled in San Diego after leaving the Navy, writing scripts for PBS and eventually earning a scholarship to study at the University of California. His character Philip Banks from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was ranked #34 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time. Has a scholarship in his name at Thurgood Marshall College at UC San Diego.

Trivia: Blond, beefy, and standing six-foot-five, it is small wonder that professional wrestler Big John Studd specialized in playing heavies and bikers in such feature films as Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1990) and Caged in Paradise (1990). He made his film debut with a small role in Micki and Maude (1984). As a member of the World Wrestling Federation, Studd (born John Minton) was most famous during the 1980s for his feud with Andre the Giant, an ongoing battle that was featured in numerous professional wrestling videos.

Trivia: Born in Vicksburg, MS, in 1920, actress Beah Richards studied at Dillard University in New Orleans before pursuing an acting career on-stage in New York City. She appeared in Louis S. Peterson's off-Broadway play Take a Giant Step and in the film adaptation in 1959. In 1965, she received a Tony nomination for her role as Sister Margaret in James Baldwin's play The Amen Corner, and two years later she received an Academy Award nomination for her supporting role as Sidney Poitier's mother in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. She continued playing matriarch characters in the feature films Hurry Sundown, In the Heat of the Night, and The Great White Hope. During the '70s, she took over for Lillian Randolph as Bill Cosby's mother on The Bill Cosby Show, played Aunt Ethel on Sanford and Son, and played several grandmotherly characters in made-for-TV movies. More television appearances followed in the '80s, with recurring roles on Designing Women, Beauty and the Beast, Hill Street Blues, Roots: The Next Generations, and L.A. Law. In 1987, she received her first Emmy award for playing Olive Varden on Frank's Place. She has also directed plays at the Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center, appeared in her own one-woman show, and published several plays and novels, including the poetry collection A Black Woman Speaks and Other Poems. After playing the substance abuse counselor in Gus Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy, she made a bit of a comeback as Dr. Benton's (Eriq LaSalle) mother on the NBC medical drama ER and as Grandma Baby in Jonathan Demme's Beloved, based on the novel by Toni Morrison. She received an Emmy for her final television appearance as Gertrude Turner on the ABC drama The Practice. She died of emphysema in 2000.

Trivia: Severn Darden was born in New Orleans, educated at Mexico City College, and given his first professional acting opportunity at Virginia's Barter Theater. A charter member of the Compass Theater, the improvisational group that would later evolve into Second City, Darden distinguished himself as an "intellectual" monologist, effortlessly weaving allusions to Freud and Kant into his hilariously nonsensical ramblings. From 1963's Goldstein onward, Darden worked in films as a character actor and sometimes writer/director. He chalked up quite a few eccentric characterizations in films like Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966) and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). He was at the top of his form in The President's Analyst (1967) as Kropotkin, a gay Soviet counterintelligence agent who turns out (much to his own surprise) to be one of the film's heroes. The peripatetic Severn Darden settled down long enough to appear as a TV-series regular on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1977; as Popesco), Beyond Westworld (1980; as Foley), and Take Five (1987; as psychiatrist Noah Wolf).

Trivia: The daughter of actor Will Geer, Ellen Geer began her own stage career in the early 1960s. Among Ellen's first film roles were a nun in Richard Lester's Petulia (1968). and a hippie named Sunshine in Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude (1971). In 1971, Geer appeared as a regular on the brief TV sitcom The Jimmy Stewart Show, playing Stewart's daughter. Three years later, she co-starred with her father in the theatrical feature The Silence (1974), and also collaborated on the screenplay. Ellen Geer's more recent credits include the part of Rose in Patriot Games (1992) and its sequel, A Clear and Present Danger (1994).