Trivia: Broad-shouldered American actor Ken Wahl has proven time and again that he's more than just a mass of muscle. After a handful of supporting roles, Wahl entered cult-film Valhalla with his starring role as a Bronx-Italian highschooler in The Wanderers (1979). Arguably, his best screen role was as the "see no evil" partner of conscience-stricken cop Paul Newman in Fort Apache, the Bronx (1981). His many film appearances aside, Wahl's popularity rests with his three-year performance as underground cop Vinnie Teranova in Wiseguys (1987-90), which was impressive enough to make viewers forget Wahl's earlier series-TV stint in the unlamented adventure series Double Dare (1985).

Trivia: After building a career as a character actor playing dozens of military men and cops, Ken Jenkins founds steady work and notoriety in 2001 when he was cast as Chief of Medicine Dr. Bob Kelso on NBC's Scrubs. Born in New Boston, OH, Jenkins began acting on the stage in the 1960s and continued to be a presence in the theater world throughout the '70s and into the '80s before transitioning to a screen career. His film roles included such varying and prominent features as Matewan and The Abyss, and his TV work included work on everything from Newhart to Star Trek: The Next Generation. In 1991, Jenkins got his first taste of regular series work when he was cast on the acclaimed family drama Homefront, which lasted two seasons. More supporting work followed before the creators of Scrubs came knocking and offered the role for which he would come to be best known. He would appear on the show until 2010, after which he took on a recurring role on the series Cougar Town.

Trivia: Perhaps no popular film artist in history inspired quite so many conflicting opinions and emotions as actor/comedian Jerry Lewis. Often reviled in his native United States but worshipped as a genius throughout much of Europe and especially France, Lewis took slapstick comedy to new realms of absurdity and outrageousness, his anarchic vision dividing audiences who found him infantile and witless from those who applauded the ambitions of his sight gags, his subversions of standard comedic patterns, and his films' acute criticisms of American values. Regardless of opinion, he was not only one of the biggest stars of the postwar era but also one of the most powerful, and as the writer, director, and producer of many of his features, he qualified as a comic auteur firmly in the tradition of Chaplin and Keaton.Born Joseph Levitch in Newark, NJ, on March 16, 1926, he was the son of borscht-belt comics, spending the majority of his childhood living with relatives but joining his parents each summer as they performed in the Catskills. From the age of five on, Lewis occasionally performed in his parents' act, and later quit high school in order to travel with his own comedy routine, which consisted primarily of mocking famous entertainers while their records were played off-stage. His early years as a performer were lean, and he often resorted to work as a soda jerk, a theater usher, an office clerk, or any one of a number of short-lived jobs. During the summers, he too made the rounds of the Catskills' borscht circuit, but otherwise enjoyed little success.In 1946, Lewis met another struggling performer, a handsome singer named Dean Martin. Later that year, while playing Atlantic City's 500 Club, another act abruptly quit the show, and Lewis suggested Martin to fill the void. Initially the two performed separately, but one night they threw out their routines and teamed on-stage, a Mutt-and-Jeff combo whose wildly improvisational comedy quickly made them a star attraction along the Boardwalk. Within months, Martin and Lewis' salaries rocketed from 350 to 5,000 dollars a week, and by the end of the 1940s, they were the most popular comedy duo in the nation. In 1949, they made their film debut in George Marshall's My Friend Irma, and their supporting work proved so popular with audiences that their roles were significantly expanded for the sequel, the following year's My Friend Irma Goes West. With 1951's At War With the Army, Martin and Lewis earned their first star billing. The picture established the basic formula of all of their subsequent movie work, with Martin the suave straight man forced to suffer the bizarre antics of the manic fool Lewis. Critics often loathed the duo, but audiences couldn't get enough. In all, they made 13 comedies for Paramount, among them 1952's Jumping Jacks, 1953's Scared Stiff, and 1955's Artists and Models, a superior effort directed by Frank Tashlin. For 1956's Hollywood or Bust, Tashlin was again in the director's seat, but the movie was the team's last; after Martin and Lewis' relationship soured to the point where they were no longer even speaking to one another, they announced their breakup following the conclusion of their July 25, 1956, performance at the Copacabana, which celebrated to the day the tenth anniversary of their first show.Working again as a solo performer, Lewis also served as producer on his first post-Martin star vehicle, 1957's The Delicate Delinquent. Reviews were good, and later that same year he starred in The Sad Sack. With 1958's Rock-a-Bye Baby, he teamed again with Tashlin, the first of six Lewis comedies the director helmed; they next united for The Geisha Boy. Under Norman Taurog, Lewis returned in 1959 with Don't Give up the Ship. At the time of its release, he signed an exclusive contract with Paramount for ten million dollars and 60 percent of his box-office profits, the biggest payday of its kind in Hollywood history; at its peak, his popularity was so great that he even starred in a DC Comics book. Lewis celebrated his success by making another feature for Taurog, 1960's Visit to a Small Planet, before returning to work under Tashlin for Cinderfella.With 1960's The Bellboy, Lewis made his directorial debut. Here his comic vision began to truly take flight, with only a bare-bones plot and virtually no dialogue to best serve his ambitious gags. He also directed and produced 1961's The Ladies' Man, a lavishly filmed, vicious satire on American femininity, followed by The Errand Boy, another collection of sight gags which earned favorable comparison to the work of Jacques Tati. Under Tashlin, Lewis next starred in 1962's It's Only Money. Returning to the director's chair, he filmed his masterpiece, The Nutty Professor, a comic retelling of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tale which, while dismissed by American critics, solidified his following among European filmgoers, especially the staff of the influential Cahiers du Cinema.In between 1963's Who's Minding the Store? and 1964's The Disorderly Orderly, both written and directed by Tashlin, Lewis also helmed The Patsy, his most ambitious work to date. In 1965's The Family Jewels, he not only wrote and directed, but also played seven different roles. The picture was among his first not to become a major box-office success. He subsequently traveled to France to star in John Rich's Boeing Boeing. There "Le Roi du Crazy" (as he was dubbed) was met by adoring fans and critics with a three-week film festival, as well as a complete retrospective at the Cinematheque Francais. However, the feature was Lewis' last for Paramount, who found his insistence upon complete artistic control to be at odds with the increasingly disappointing box-office showings of his films.In 1966, after landing at Columbia to direct and star in Three on a Couch, Lewis hosted his first Labor Day telethon to raise funds in support of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The star-studded event quickly became an institution, annually bringing in millions upon millions in charitable contributions. Lewis next starred in the Gordon Douglas space comedy Way, Way Out, followed by 1967's The Big Mouth, which he directed and co-wrote. He next appeared in Jerry Paris' Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River and George Marshall's Hook, Line and Sinker, subsequently directing (but, for the first and only time, not starring) in 1969's One More Time. None of the movies found favor with audiences or critics, however, and after the failure of 1970's Which Way to the Front?, Lewis' career in Hollywood was in grave condition. While seeking funding for his next project, in 1971 he wrote a book, The Total Filmmaker. With financing from the Swedish-based Cinema and Film Enterprises, in 1972 Lewis mounted The Day the Clown Cried, a disturbing tale focusing on a famous clown forced by the Nazis to lead children to their deaths in the gas chambers. Widely speculated to be either a transcendent masterpiece or an obscene failure, the radical feature was never released, remaining trapped in legal limbo. Lewis spent the remainder of the decade out of film, appearing instead in the disastrous Broadway production Helzapoppin' as well as in concert and on the lecture circuit. Finally, in 1979 he wrote, directed, and starred in Hardly Working; though not released until two years later because of financial entanglements, the movie proved to be a major success, grossing over 50 million dollars in North America alone.In late 1982, Lewis was declared clinically dead after suffering a massive heart attack. He was miraculously revived, and the excessive lifestyle that led to his near-death experience became the subject of his 1983 feature Smorgasbord, which later premiered on HBO as Cracking Up before finally bowing in theaters in 1985. In the meantime, Lewis garnered some of the best reviews of his career for his work in Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy, but his performance did not lead to work in other major Hollywood productions. As a result, he traveled to France, appearing in the 1984 comedies To Catch a Cop and Par Ou T'es Rentre? on T'a Pas Vue Sortir. The dismal Slapstick of Another Kind also arrived in 1984, with only small roles in the 1987 telefilm Fight for Life and Susan Seidelman's 1989 effort Cookie, as well as an extended supporting turn in the television series Wiseguy. By the 1990s, Lewis experienced something of a resurgence. Although he remained unable to secure directorial work, he did appear in the major studio films Mr. Saturday Night and Funny Bones. Additionally, he starred on Broadway in a successful revival of Damn Yankees and in 1996, The Nutty Professor was remade by Eddie Murphy.

Trivia: Ron Silver was known for his extraordinary stage presence and high-energy portrayals of a variety of offbeat characters in films and on television. A native New Yorker, Silver studied Chinese at State University of New York at Buffalo and drama at the Herbert Berghof Studio and the Actors Studio. After receiving his bachelor's from S.U.N.Y., Silver earned a master's degree in Chinese history at the College of Chinese Culture in Taiwan and then returned to New York to study at the aforementioned acting studios. 1976 was a big year for Silver who debuted as a comedian in feature films (Tunnelvision), television (The Mac Davis Show), and theater (El Grande de Coca-Cola). He was also a regular cast member between 1976 and 1978 on the sitcom Rhoda, and then appeared in several made-for-television movies before appearing in Semi-Tough (1977). His feature film career picked up in the early '80s, but he did not get his first big break until he starred opposite Anne Bancroft in Sidney Lumet's Garbo Talks (1984). Silver earned critical acclaim in 1989 for starring in Philip Saville's Fellow Traveler as a Hollywood screenwriter forced to flee his family and friends to avoid getting blacklisted during the early '50s. That same year, Silver won a Tony and a Drama Desk Award for starring in David Mamet's Speed-The-Plow and scored a second film coup in Paul Mazursky's adaptation of author Isaac Bashevis Singer's Enemies, A Love Story. In the years to follow,, the busy Silver, who juggled his time between the three entertainment forms, became a respected mid-range star who could be counted on to deliver consistently strong, fine performances. As the '90s progressed, he moved into more lead roles playing everything from psychopaths (Blue Steel [1990]), senators (Time Cop [1994]), sleazy lawyers (in the TV medical drama Chicago Hope [1994- ]), and scientists (The Arrival [1996]). Silver died of esophageal cancer in 2009 at the age of 62.

Trivia: Lead actress Patricia Charbonneau was first seen on screen in Desert Hearts (1986).

Trivia: Like many another contemporary movie and TV favorite, Stanley Tucci is a graduate of the drama department at SUNY-Purchase. Tucci made his film bow in 1985's Prizzi's Honor, after which he specialized in playing lowlifes and scuzzbags, despite his offscreen credentials as a loyal friend and loving family man. Some of his more memorable appearances were as Rick Pinzolo in TV's Wiseguy (1987-1989), a minor-league thug named Vernon in Beethoven (1992), and a Middle-Eastern assassin in The Pelican Brief (1993). Tucci acquired a fan following of sorts for his slimy year-long role of Richard Cross on the weekly TV series Murder One (1995).In 1996, Tucci broke loose from his established screen persona by playing an ambitious Italian-American restaurateur in Big Night, the most delightfully "gastronomic" film since Like Water for Chocolate. The art-house favorite was a sheer labor of love for Tucci, who served as its producer, co-wrote its script with his cousin Joe Tropiano, and shared directorial duties with his friend Campbell Scott. Tucci again directed two years later with The Impostors, a farcical comedy that cast him and longtime friend Oliver Platt as two stowaways on an ocean liner. Unlike Big Night, however, the film did not do well with audiences or critics. After starring in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1998) as Puck and In Too Deep (1999) as a police supervisor, Tucci again stepped behind the camera, this time to direct Joe Gould's Secret (2000). A historical drama about an eccentric man (Ian Holm) living on the streets of Greenwich Village, it received a very enthusiastic reception at the 2000 Sundance Festival, where it premiered. The early 2000s seemed to be a winning period for the versatile actor, with Tucci also taking home the Best Supporting Actor in a television movie award for his role in Conspiracy (2001). That same year he appeared in America's Sweethearts as an intense movie mogul. He continued doing solid work even when the finished films were sometimes lacking. He played in the Jennifer Lopez hit Maid in Manhattan, Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition, the American remake of Shall We Dance?, and landed his largest role in a major Hollywood production when Steven Spielberg cast him as the ambitious, officious manager of The Terminal. Tucci lent his voice to the animated film Robots in 2005, and the next year earned solid notices for his work as a fashion magazine editor loyal to the diva editor in chief Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada.The highly-respected character actor continued to work steadily in a variety of projects, but a pair of high-profile supporting roles in 2009 earned him strong reviews and awards consideration. As the husband to Julia Child in Julie & Julia, Tucci got to work opposite Meryl Streep yet again in another box-office hit, but it was his creepy turn as a child killer in the big screen adaptation of The Lovely Bones that earned him Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe, and Academy Award nominations.In 2010 he appeared opposite Cher in Burlesque, and was a loving father in the sleeper hit Easy A. In 2012, Tucci was cast as the announcer and emcee Caesar Flickman in the hit adaptation of the smash novel The Hunger Games. Tucci continued to be a work horse, appearing in seven films in 2014, including Transformers: Age of Extinction and a cameo in Muppets Most Wanted.

Trivia: Supporting actor Anthony Denison has appeared onscreen since the '80s.