Trivia: Canadian-born actor Hume Cronyn was the son of a well-known Ontario politician. At his father's insistence, young Cronyn studied law at McGill University, but had by then already decided he wanted to be an actor; he made his stage bow with the Montreal Repertory Company at 19, while still a student. After taking classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and working with regional companies in Washington, DC and Virginia, Cronyn made it to Broadway in 1934. His first important role was as the imbibing, jingle-writing hero of Three Men on a Horse, directed and co-written by George Abbott. He remained with Abbott to work in Room Service and Boy Meets Girl - not only establishing himself as a versatile stage actor but also gleaning a lifelong appreciation of strict artistic discipline from the authoritarian Mr. Abbott. Cronyn went from one taskmaster to another when he made his film debut in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. The 32-year-old Cronyn quietly stole several scenes in the film as a fiftyish mystery-novel fanatic. Cronyn would remain beholden to Hitchcock for the rest of his career: He acted in Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944) and worked several times thereafter on the director's TV series; he adapted the stage play Rope and the novel Under Capricorn for Hitchcock's filmizations; and he sprang to the late director's defense when a dubious biography of Hitchcock was published in the mid-1980s. Though well-versed in Shakespeare and Moliere on stage, Cronyn was often limited to unpleasant, weasely and sometimes sadistic characters in films; one of his nastiest portrayals was as the Hitleresque prison guard Munsey in Brute Force (1947). A somewhat less hissable Cronyn appeared in The Green Years (1946), wherein he portrayed the father of his real-life wife Jessica Tandy, who was in fact two years older than he. Cronyn had married Tandy in 1942, a union that was to last until the actress' death in 1994. They worked together often on stage (The Fourposter, The Gin Game) and in films (Batteries Not Included), and delighted in giving joint interviews where they'd confound and misdirect the interviewer. Their daughter, Tandy Cronyn, matured into a fine actress in her own right. Seemingly indefatigable despite health problems and the loss of one eye, Cronyn remained gloriously active in films, television and stage into the 1990s, encapsulating many of his experiences in his breezy autobiography A Terrible Liar.

Trivia: Possessing a great dignity tempered by the humorous sparkle in her clear blue eyes, Jessica Tandy was among the grand dames of stage and screen. Like many of her peers, her distinguished acting career stretched back to the early 1930s, though rather than make her name on film, Tandy won much of her fame with her work on the stage.Born in London in 1909, Tandy studied drama at the Ben Greet Academy of Acting. She was sixteen when she made her professional stage debut in London, and just twenty-one when she took her first bow on Broadway. In 1932, Tandy made her first film appearance in Indiscretions of Eve (1932), but due to her extremely busy stage schedule did not appear in her second film, Murder in the Family, until 1938. In 1942, she married Canadian stage and screen actor Hume Cronyn (she had previously been married to actor Jack Hawkins from 1932 until 1940), and they remained professional and personal partners until Tandy's death in 1994.The couple moved to the States shortly after their marriage, and made their Hollywood debut together in Fred Zinnemann's The Seventh Cross (1944). For a long time, Tandy had her greatest success on the stage, beginning with her Tony-winning portrayal of Blanche DuBois in the first production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947. Despite the acclaim she received, she was passed by in favor of Vivien Leigh for the play's screen version. Tandy continued to work on the stage and appeared in a few more films through 1951, after which her film career became sporadic. One of her rare appearances was in Hitchcock's The Birds in 1963.It was after she won her second Tony while appearing with Cronyn in The Gin Game (1978) that Tandy's film career was renewed with a supporting role in John Schlesinger's Honky Tonk Freeway in 1981. The following year she appeared in The World According to Garp, and then starred in Merchant Ivory's The Bostonians in 1984. In the meantime, she won her third Tony for her work in 1983's Foxfire (she would win an Emmy in 1987 for the same role in the play's televised version). Tandy's film career then experienced a complete resuscitation in 1985, when she and Cronyn co-starred in Ron Howard's Cocoon; four years later, the then-80-year-old Tandy won an Oscar for her feisty performance as a Southern lady who befriends her black chauffeur in Driving Miss Daisy. She went on to have notable roles in films like Fried Green Tomatoes in 1991 and 1992's Used People. Before succumbing to ovarian cancer in September of 1994, Tandy completed the made-for-TV movie To Dance With the White Dog, in which she starred with Cronyn, and Nobody's Fool, the latter of which was dedicated to her memory.

Trivia: A darkly menacing supporting actor, Michael Carmine was memorable in Brian DePalma's Scarface.

Trivia: Character actor Dennis Boutsikaris is a frequent television guest star and leading man in made-for-TV movies. After a few fairly small roles in the feature films Crocodile Dundee II and The Dream Team, Boutsikaris was launched into star status on many sentimental Lifetime original movies, including And Then There Was One and Chasing the Dragon. Although he has had regular roles on Stat, The Jackie Thomas Show, and Misery Loves Company, he may be more recognizable for his recurring guest appearances on Law & Order and ER. He's also appeared in straight-to-video releases (The Three Lives of Karen) and TV miniseries (The Last Don). In addition, he seems to have made a lucrative living on the side as a voice actor recording books on tape. Boutsikaris has been known to specialize in ripped-from-the-headlines style of TV docudramas such as Victim of Love: The Shannon Mohr Story, Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story (in the role of Woody Allen, no less), and Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, a dramatization about the JonBenet Ramsey murder investigation.

Trivia: Character actress, onscreen from 1957.

Trivia: Raised outside of Chicago as the sixth of nine children, including older brother James, a founding member of the band Chicago. Left college in his junior year after seeing David Mamet's play, The American Buffalo, which inspired Pankow to enroll in the two-year training program at Chicago's St. Nicholas Theatre. Performed on Broadway (in his first stint) in Serious Money, The Iceman Cometh and as Mozart in Amadeus. Appeared in a numerous films of the late 1980s-early '90s, including To Live and Die in L.A., Talk Radio and Mortal Thoughts. Most recognized for his role as Ira Buchman, cousin of Paul Reiser's character, on the '90s NBC sitcom Mad About You. Returned to Broadway in the 2000s, performing in Twelve Angry Men, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Cymbeline. Took over the role of Merc Lapidus (from Thomas Haden Church) in 2011 on the Showtime/BBC show Episodes.

Trivia: Versatile character actor MacIntyre Dixon has played supporting roles in films and on television ranging from comedies (Alice's Restaurant) to Shakespearean dramas (Kevin Kline's innovative adaptation of Hamlet). At one time, Dixon and partner Richard Libertini performed in Stewed Prunes, a nightclub comedy revue.

Trivia: All evidence indicates that actor Michael Greene's first film assignment was an unbilled bit in 1965's The Cincinnati Kid. He continued accepting small roles into the 1970s, notably the motorcycle punk who gives Woody Allen a going-over in Play It Again Sam (1972) (curiously, Greene shows up in a later scene as a restaurant extra sitting directly across from Allen!). After several years' of faithful anonymous screen service, Greene was given a leading role in something called The Clones (1973) wherein Michael Greene plays a scientist who learns to his horror that he has been cloned by mad doctor Stanley Adams--thus paving the way for a climactic showdown between Greene and his synthetic look-alike.

Trivia: Thanks in large part to the independent film movement of the late '80s, the boyishly handsome James LeGros went from being an underrated bit player in Hollywood schlock to a well-respected character actor. A Minnesota native, LeGros found steady work when he migrated to Los Angeles after college in the early '80s, popping up as a guest star in such TV series as Knight Rider, and in Danny DeVito's directorial debut, the made-for-cable satire The Ratings Game (a.k.a. The Mogul). Sci-fi made up the bulk of LeGros' early feature-film roles, including the dreadful post-apocalyptic teen flop Solarbabies (1986) and the thriller sequel Phantasm II (1988).It was director Gus Van Sant who afforded LeGros the opportunity to show his skills with a meaty supporting role in 1989's much-acclaimed Drugstore Cowboy. As part of a quartet of drifters stealing their way across the Pacific Northwest, the actor held his own against the iconic Matt Dillon as well as newcomer Heather Graham. More challenging parts followed in the early '90s, including the psychological drama The Rapture (1991), Cameron Crowe's ensemble romantic comedy Singles (1992), and a pair of firearm-obsessed indies, Guncrazy and My New Gun (also 1992). Pairing with director Todd Haynes for his 1995 sophomore feature Safe, LeGros garnered more acclaim as a confidante/romantic interest for the mysteriously ailing character played by Julianne Moore. That same year, he hilariously sent up a narcissistic Hollywood actor -- not-so-secretly based on Brad Pitt -- in director Tom DiCillo's satire on the perils of indie filmmaking, Living in Oblivion.As the millennium drew to a close, LeGros would re-team with Moore in the ensemble dramedy The Myth of Fingerprints (1997), playing an eccentric New England townie who has a crush on Moore's icy, cosmopolitan yuppie. With the film, LeGros began a long-standing collaboration with the film's writer-director -- and Moore's real-life beau -- Bart Freundlich, who would go on to cast LeGros in his subsequent films, including the road movie World Traveler (2001), the family film Catch That Kid (2003), and the screwball relationship comedy Trust the Man (2006).In the intervening years, LeGros made a successful return to the medium that gave him his first break: television. He was exposed to perhaps his widest audience to date in 1998 on the venerable medical drama ER, and then on the popular series Ally McBeal, in 2000 and 2001. A starring role on Showtime's gritty, controversial terrorist drama Sleeper Cell followed in 2005.

Trivia: Actor Tom Aldredge is one of the few actors who are perhaps equally well remembered for careers on the screen and the stage. Aldredge made his Broadway debut in the musical The Nervous Set in 1959 when he was 31, and began making appearances on TV soon afterward, appearing in TV movies like The Mouse on the Moon and The Troublemaker in the early '60s. As the decades rolled on, Aldredge would continue to nurture his stage career, earning particular accolades for his performance in the Stephen Sondheim production Into the Woods. All the while, he racked up role after role in movies and on TV, playing memorable characters like Ozzie in 1973's Sticks and Bones and William Shakespeare on the CBS Festival of the Lively Arts for Young People in 1977 - for which he won a Daytime Emmy Award. He would also find no trouble picking up regular parts on television, co-starring in the series Ryan's Hope in the early 80s, and The Sopranos, Damages, and Boardwalk Empire in the 2000's. Aldredge passed away in July of 2011 at the age of 83.

Trivia: Actress Doris Belack was born in New York City in 1926. She began her acting career in the realm of television, appearing on shows like Treasury Men in Action and The Patty Duke Show in the '50s and '60s. Belack soon expanded her career to include the stage as well, most notably in Broadway productions like 1960's Semi-Detached and The Last of the Red Hot Lovers. She continued to act throughout the next several decades, and while she occasionally expanded her on-camera work to include movies (like 1982's Tootsie), she would find the most prolific success with television, making appearances on shows like The Doctors, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Mr. Belvedere, Picket Fences, Touched by an Angel, and Sex and the City. Belack also played recurring and starring roles on a number of shows, like Family Album, Doug, and Law and Order. Her last role came in 2008, when at age 82, she provided the voice of Maureen McReary for the video game Grand Theft Auto IV. Belack died in October 2011 at age 85.

Trivia: Actress Wendy Schaal made her feature-film debut in the teen comedy Records (1978). She subsequently went on to have a sporadic film career, the highlights of which include Innerspace (1987) and The 'Burbs (1989). Though she worked steadily through the 1990s, she disappeared from screens in the 21st century, making a triumphant comeback voicing Francine Smith on the FOX animated sitcom American Dad!