Trivia: American entertainer Tina Turner first met her future husband-collaborator Ike Turner in 1959, when he was fronting a popular East St. Louis band called the Kings of Rhythm. From 1960 through 1975, the Ike and Tina Turner Revue toted 25 top-ten Rhythm and Blues hits, the most famous of which was that perennial wedding favorite, "Proud Mary." Turner broke loose from what had become an intolerable and abusive relationship in the mid-1970s, making an impressive solo movie debut as the ear-shattering Acid Queen in 1975's Tommy (five years earlier, she had been featured in the company of Ike in the Rolling Stones' concert documentary Gimme Shelter). As a non-singing film actress, Turner has thus far been confined to a showy villainous turn in 1985's Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Turner was portrayed (rather along Mother Teresa lines) by Angela Bassett in the 1993 biopic What's Love Got to Do With It?, which was based on Turner's own book (written with Kurt Loder) and which costarred Laurence Fishburne as Ike Turner.

Trivia: A respected actress of the stage, screen, and television, Angela Bassett has been one of the few African-American actresses to break Hollywood's color boundary. She has specialized in playing strong women familiar with adversity and has worked in genres from "chick flick" (Waiting to Exhale) to sci-fi action (Strange Days) to biography (What's Love Got to Do with It?), the last of which featured her in a star-making performance as Tina Turner.Born in New York City on August 16, 1958, Bassett was raised in St. Petersburg, Florida by her mother. Growing up in a household where money was tight, she was taught determination and independence. These values were called into service after an eleventh grade Upward Bound trip to Washington, D.C., when Bassett saw James Earl Jones in a Kennedy Center production of Of Mice and Men. Deciding that acting was her calling, she became involved in a number of local productions in St. Petersburg. She continued to act at Yale University, where she earned a scholarship; after completing a B.A. in African-American studies, she also spent three years at the Yale School of Drama. One of Bassett's mentors at Yale was the drama school's dean, stage director Lloyd Richards, who was so impressed with her talent that he cast her in two of his productions, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Joe Turner's Come and Gone. Although she enjoyed relative success on the stage, Bassett, like other African-American actors, had a difficult time finding roles in television and film.In 1986, Bassett made her screen debut in the cult favorite F/X. Following supporting roles in Kindergarten Cop (1990) and John Sayles' City of Hope (1991), she had her first significant screen role in John Singleton's acclaimed Boyz 'N the Hood, playing a struggling single mother. Two years later, after playing the wife of civil rights leader Malcolm X in Spike Lee's biopic and the Jackson Family matriarch in the made-for-TV The Jacksons: An American Dream, Bassett had her screen breakthrough as Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do with It?, a performance that earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe. As her newfound status allowed her to expand her range of work, Bassett went on to star in a series of diverse films. In 1995, a foray into futuristic action in Strange Days was complemented by a lead in the successful women's ensemble drama Waiting to Exhale (based on the novel by Terry McMillan), in which Bassett starred alongside Whitney Houston, Lela Rochon, and Loretta Devine. In 1998, she starred as the title character in another McMillan adaptation, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, playing a divorcee whose discontent is ably assuaged by a hunky twenty-year-old (Taye Diggs). The following year, she had a supporting role in Music of the Heart and again tried her hand at action in Supernova, a sci-fi thriller. Starring in former Orson Welles collaborator and blacklisted director John Berry's critically panned swansong Boesman and Lena in 2000, Bassett (along with co-star Danny Glover) earned praise for their sensitive performances as a troubled South African couple striving to seek stability in the face of Apartheid.Her career continued to evolve with a part in The Score in 2001. The next year she executive produced and starred in a biopic about civil rights figure Rosa Parks. She was part of the large ensemble John Sayles brought together for Sunshine State, and co-starred opposite Bernie Mac in the sports comedy Mr. 3000. In 2006 she played the mother in the spelling bee drama Akeelah and the Bee, and she continued to land parts in big-budget blockbusters such as Green Lantern and This Means War.Since 1997, Bassett has been married to actor Courtney B. Vance, whom she had known since their days at Yale.

Trivia: Oprah Winfrey rose from poverty and a troubled youth to become the most powerful and influential woman in television and, according to Forbes Magazine, the world's most highly paid entertainer. Though primarily recognized as a talk show hostess, Winfrey also produces and occasionally acts in television movies and feature films. Winfrey's parents, who never married, were teens when she was born in rural Mississippi. She was originally named Orpah after a woman from the Book of Ruth but a spelling mistake on the birth certificate changed it to Oprah. She spent her childhood growing up in abject poverty on her deeply religious grandmother's farm. When she was older, Winfrey moved in with her mother in Milwaukee, WI. This proved a difficult time as Winfrey alleges she was repeatedly sexually molested by male relatives. Winfrey became a bit of a wild child during her early teens, experimenting with sex and drugs until the age of 14 when she gave birth to a premature baby. It died shortly after, and upon recovering, Winfrey chose to live with her father in Nashville. It was under his stern guidance that Winfrey found discipline, stability, and the inspiration to excel in school and change her life. When she was 19, Winfrey became a part-time radio reporter for station WVOL, Nashville, and also began studying speech and performing arts at Tennessee State University. She dropped out in 1972 during her sophomore year to become an anchor at Nashville's WTVF-TV. She was the first black woman to hold that position. In 1976, she moved to WJZ-TV and after a stint as a reporter was promoted to co-anchor. Two years after her arrival, Winfrey was slotted (with some trepidation by producers who weren't sure how audiences would respond to a host who was neither white nor thin) to host their talk show People Are Talking. Their worries were unfounded for the charming, empathetic Winfrey's show was a hit and remained so for eight years. In 1984, Winfrey took a major risk and accepted a job hosting a Chicago morning talk show, one that aired at the same time as the nationally top-rated, Chicago-based Phil Donahue talk show. This time it was her fears that had no basis for she soon found herself neck and neck in the ratings with Donahue. Her show also went nationwide through King World Syndicate and as she expanded the operation, the money began rolling in. With the purchase of a large downtown production facility, Winfrey was able to become the third woman in the American entertainment industry -- after Mary Pickford and Lucille Ball -- to own her own studio. She named it Harpo, which is, of course, "Oprah" spelled backwards. Using her considerable business acumen, Winfrey translated her show into a multi-million-dollar business, making her the wealthiest black woman in the U.S. Her show was groundbreaking for several reasons, but most of all because Oprah was unafraid to bare her soul and her own past experiences in front of audiences whereas most talk show hosts remained reserved in regard to their personal lives. Though it was difficult, she made public her past abuse, her drug problem during her twenties, and her struggle with obesity. In this latter area, Oprah, took a lot of heat from unkind critics who were unable to cope with the notion that a round woman could possibly be considered attractive, intelligent, and vital. She endured cruel jokes and jibes until she finally decided to lose weight, first with a radical liquid diet -- which only temporarily took off her weight -- and then with a rigorous fat-free diet and exercise regimen that kept her weight off. Like Donahue and the other talk show hosts of the day, Winfrey's program tended toward sensationalism designed to appeal to our most morbid curiosities. Subject-wise, she had begun hitting all-time lows by 1994. That year, she was to turn 40 and was thinking heavily about which direction her life might turn, both professionally and personally. There was a question whether or not she would even continue taping the show. She ultimately decided to stay on the air, but only after publicly promising to move her show to a higher, more uplifting level.In addition to her reign as "queen of the daytime talk shows," Winfrey has also proven herself a gifted actress. In 1985, she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress with her film debut as Sofia in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple. Later, she began working behind the scenes, executive producing and starring in Donna Deitch's acclaimed 1989 television movie The Women of Brewster Place, which later became a short-lived series.After the success of her book club, Winfrey began producing popular films based on some of her favorite contemporary written works. Along with executive-producing made-for-television adaptations such as David and Lisa, Tuesdays with Morrie, and Oprah Winfrey Presents: The Wedding, she served as producer on the 1998 big-screen adaptation of Toni Morrison's Beloved, a film she also costarred in.Winfrey continued to be a powerful force in the world of day-time television in 2003, when she spun off a regular segment from her show featuring psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw into McGraw's own daily program, Dr. Phil. Oprah founded a television channel (OWN -- Oprah Winfrey Network) after the final episode of the Oprah Winfrey show aired on May 5th, 2011.

Trivia: To the millions who tune in to get their music information from MTV, he's the solemn voice who has delivered the good, the bad, and the ugly on celebrities. News correspondent Kurt Loder has withstood the obnoxious Jesse Camp trend, the out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new trend, and everything in between. Loder started at MTV in 1988 as anchor of the music news program The Week in Rock, which evolved into 1515, and has covered various teen-culture topics such as drug abuse and neo-Nazi bands. Not to be pigeonholed as merely a spouter of news reports, Loder has also interviewed everyone from Madonna to the Who. Raised in New Jersey, he spent three years in the U.S. Army and, before coming back to the States, was a journalist in Europe. After his return, he wrote for Circus Magazine in the late '70s and then spent nine years as a writer/senior editor at Rolling Stone, to which he still contributes. Loder has also written for Esquire, Details, and Time. He also does daily news reports for MTV Radio Network. The result of his writing talents not only earned him a New York Times best-seller, but a major motion picture as well. His biography on the tempestuous life of Tina Turner during her years with abusive husband Ike, I, Tina, was the basis for the movie What's Love Got to Do With It starring Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne. He has also written liner notes for the 1990 Led Zeppelin box set and the various-artists We Will Fall: The Iggy Pop Tribute, among others, and has played himself in a few movies, including Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 and Airheads.