Trivia: David Carradine was born John Arthur Carradine, eldest son of John Carradine, the beloved and very busy character actor, whose roles encompassed everything from John Steinbeck's Reverend Casey to Bram Stoker's Dracula. David Carradine's early adult life was one of exploration -- though born in Hollywood, he tried on a lot of sides of living before he finally turned to acting as a profession. He worked with various community and semi-professional dramatic companies in San Francisco; hitchhiked his way to New York; did Shakespeare in Akron, OH, and parts of New Jersey; and all of the other things that aspiring would-be actors are supposed to do. He got a few early screen credits in television productions such as Armstrong Circle Theater ("Secret Document"), and in various series produced by Universal Pictures' ReVue television division, including episodes of The Virginian, Wagon Train, and Arrest & Trial, plus The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. He also made his big-screen debut thanks to Universal with a small role in the R.G. Springsteen-directed western Taggart (1964). His real professional breakthrough came a year later on the Broadway stage, however, in Peter Shaffer's The Royal Hunt of the Sun, in a cast headed by Christopher Plummer. He enjoyed an extended run in the Broadway production, which was accompanied by the first round of publicity for Carradine, even then focusing on his unpredictable, iconoclastic nature. He was lured back to Hollywood by the chance to star in the series Shane, based on the George Stevens movie and the Jack Schaefer novel. He was able to put his own stamp on the role, quite different from the portrayal that Alan Ladd had delivered in the film; but the viewing public had been swamped by westerns for a decade, and the series never had a chance to find an audience, lasting only 16 episodes. From 1967 until 1972, he was occasionally seen in one-off roles in dramatic series such as Coronet Blue and The Name of the Game, and was in a remake of Johnny Belinda with Mia Farrow and Ian Bannen, but was most often seen in westerns, including The Violent Ones (1967) and The McMasters (1969) (playing a Native American in the latter). In 1972 he was approached about the possibility of starring in a proposed series that was easily the most offbeat western ever considered by a network up to that time: Kung Fu. The public had long since lost interest in traditional westerns, but here was a story that combined a quest with a tale of pursuit and necessarily included philosophical conflict never before addressed in series television. The role appealed to Carradine, and he got the part of Kwai Chang Caine, the Chinese-American hero, despite knowing nothing of martial arts. Drawing on his ability as a dancer at his meeting with the producers, he was able to prove with one well-placed kick at a point above his head that he could pull it off. The series ran for three seasons, during which time Carradine put an increasing amount of himself into the portrayal. And the public responded, especially viewers under 40, who resonated to the character and the man behind it. Kung Fu became one of those odd cult shows, the fans of which were devoted beyond the usual casual weekly viewing. Carradine saw to it, however, even during the run of the series, that he kept busy on other projects, including the Martin Scorsese-directed Boxcar Bertha (1972), starring his paramour Barbara Hershey, and small roles in the Robert Altman revisionist detective film The Long Goodbye (1973) and Scorsese's Mean Streets (1973).Kung Fu made Carradine a star, but he eventually left the series, owing to disagreements with the producers. His withdrawal from the series could have damaged his career, but Carradine was fortunate enough to latch on to a script that Roger Corman was planning to produce -- a new kind of action movie, Death Race 2000 (1975), became a huge underground hit and proved that Carradine had some measure of big-screen appeal. He followed this up with Cannonball (1976) and other action pictures done for Corman. In the midst of those movies, he found the opportunity to star for the first time in a major, big-budget Hollywood feature, Bound for Glory (1976), portraying legendary folk singer/songwriter Woody Guthrie. Carradine put a lot of his own experience in music into the portrayal, and the movie was a critical success, though a box office disappointment. Good roles kept coming his way, however, not only through Corman but also from an unexpected quarter, Ingmar Bergman, who cast Carradine, in memorable turn, as a Jewish trapeze artist in The Serpent's Egg (1977), co-starring Liv Ullmann. Even some of the most routine movies in which he appeared during this period were often worth seeing solely for Carradine's performances, never more so than his work as Captain Gates in the submarine rescue drama Gray Lady Down (1978). Carradine made his directorial debut on a handful of episodes of Kung Fu. Upon leaving the series, he directed his first feature film, the drama You and Me (1975). The latter film co-starred Barbara Hershey and his brothers Keith Carradine and Robert Carradine were in the cast. His career across the next few decades involved a mix of major feature films, such as The Long Riders (1980), and offbeat smaller scale pictures such as Q (1982), interspersed with more personal projects such as Americana (1981), for which he served as screenwriter, director, and producer, as well as starring as a taciturn Vietnam veteran who heals himself and a troubled Midwestern town by refurbishing an old carousel. During the 1990s, he also returned to the role of Kwai Chang Caine in the series Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. Among the best elements of the series were Carradine's interactions with his co-star, Robert Lansing (another Hollywood iconoclast), especially in the late episodes, when the latter actor was terminally ill. Even when he was doing action features such as Lone Wolf McQuade (1983) -- in which he played the antagonist to real-life martial arts expert Chuck Norris' hero -- Carradine maintained a reputation for quality in the nature of his own work, which served him in good stead in the years to come. Longtime fans, appreciative of his work since his days on Kung Fu, could always depend on him to deliver a worthwhile performance, even if the vehicles in which he worked were less than stellar, as was often the case -- outside of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues -- in the 1990s. The stars finally lined up in his favor again in 2003, when Carradine appeared in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 with Uma Thurman, which led to his much-expanded part in the follow-up movie. Since those films, he has been busier than at any time in his career, with dozens of screen credits in the years that followed.Carradine has written two books, Spirit of Shaolin and the autobiography Endless Highway, and has made a pair of popular instructional videos, David Carradine: T'ai Chi Workout and David Carradine: Kung Fu Workout. When not working, the actor enjoys painting, sculpting, and performing music. He also wrote several songs for the 2003 film American Reel, in which he starred as struggling singer/songwriter James Lee Springer. Carradine has three children, one each from his first two marriages, to Donna Lee Brecht (1960-1968) and Linda Gilbert (1977-1983), and one with Barbara Hershey, with whom he lived from 1972 to 1975. In 2009, he was found dead, hanged in a Bangkok hotel. He was 72 years old.

Trivia: Lead actress, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Japanese actor Mako, born Makoto Iwamatsu, has spent most of his professional career in the United States. His first important film appearance was as Po-Han, Steve McQueen's assistant machinist, in The Sand Pebbles (1966), a performance that earned him an Oscar nomination. He remained in films into the 1990s, playing choice character parts in such films as Hawaiians (1967), Conan the Destroyer (1984), and Rising Sun (1993). Mako's TV credits include the role of Major Oshira on the weekly Hawaiian Heat (1984) and the 1990 TV movie Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes.

Trivia: Dependable American character actor Bill Lucking has seldom had any professional "down time" since his 1969 film debut. In 1980 alone, Lucking showed up in four movies, not to mention any number of TV programs. One of his more rewarding film assignments was in Doc Savage (1975) as the doc's trusted cohort Renny. In addition to his many TV-movie appearances (e.g. Brother Matthias in 1991's Babe Ruth) and guest spots, Bill Lucking has had regular weekly roles on Big Hawaii (1977, as ranch foreman Oscar Kalahani), Shannon (1981, as NYPD detective Norm White), The A-Team (1983-84, as the team's nemesis Col. Lynch), Jessie (1984, as Sgt. McClellan) and Outlaws (1986, as bank robber Harland Pike).

Trivia: Askew is a supporting actor onscreen beginning with Cool Hand Luke (1967).

Trivia: Saturnine character actor Martin Landau was a staff cartoonist for the New York Daily News before switching to acting. In 1955, his career got off to a promising beginning, when out of 2,000 applicants, only he and one other actor (Steve McQueen) were accepted by Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. Extremely busy in the days of live, Manhattan-based television, Landau made his cinematic mark with his second film appearance, playing James Mason's henchman in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959). In 1966, Landau and his wife Barbara Bain were both cast on the TV adventure/espionage series Mission: Impossible. For three years, Landau portrayed Rollin Hand, a master of disguise with the acute ability to impersonate virtually every villain who came down the pike (banana-republic despots were a specialty). Unhappy with changes in production personnel and budget cuts, Landau and Bain left the series in 1969. Six years later, they costarred in Space: 1999 a popular syndicated sci-fi series; the performances of Landau, Bain, and third lead Barry Morse helped to gloss over the glaring gaps in continuity and logic which characterized the show's two-year run. The couple would subsequently act together several times (The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island (1981) was one of the less distinguished occasions) before their marriage dissolved.Working steadily in various projects throughout the next few decades, Landau enjoyed a career renaissance with two consecutive Oscar nominations, the first for Francis Ford Coppola's Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), and the second for Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Landau finally won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's 1994 Ed Wood; his refusal to cut his acceptance speech short was one of the high points of the 1995 Oscar ceremony. He would continue to work over the next several years, appearing in movies like City of Ember and Mysteria, as well as on TV shows like Without a Trace and Entourage.

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).

Trivia: The son of legendary martial artist Bruce Lee and his wife Linda, Brandon Lee did not plan to become an action star like his father. A professionally trained actor, he hoped to play mostly dramatic roles. But, like the older Lee, he was a skilled martial artist and used this talent to break into the movie business. Brandon's tragic death on the eve of his dramatic film breakthrough was both eerily reminiscent of his father's untimely demise and a tremendous loss to movie fans.Born on February 1, 1965 in Oakland, CA, Lee spent his early years in Hong Kong, where he learned Cantonese and studied the martial art of Jeet Kun Do. He was only eight when his father died suddenly of a brain edema, and his mother moved Lee and his younger sister Shannon back to the States. They settled first in Seattle and then in Rolling Hills, CA, where Lee acquired the reputation of a troubled, wild child. He dropped out of high school twice, and was expelled from the private Chadwick School in Palos Verdes only months before graduation. After finally receiving his diploma from Miraleste High School, he studied drama at Boston's Emerson College and commuted to New York for private acting lessons at the Lee Strasberg Institute.In 1985, after getting his feet wet in several off-Broadway plays, Lee moved to Hollywood. He worked as a script reader before landing a role in the television film Kung Fu: The Movie (1987) with David Carradine. Lee then returned to Hong Kong to appear in the Cantonese film Legacy of Rage (Long zai jiang hu) (1987). Starring roles opposite Ernest Borgnine in Laser Mission (1990) and Dolph Lundgren in Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991) soon followed. His next U.S. vehicle, Rapid Fire (1992), had audiences on their feet with its nonstop fighting sequences (which Lee choreographed himself).Thus, the actor was poised for true stardom when he landed the lead in director Alex Proyas' The Crow. It was his dream project: An adaptation of James O'Barr's graphic novel, The Crow promised to combine Lee's captivating stunts with a brooding gothic atmosphere and a tight revenge-driven story line. He was shooting his character's death scene on location in Wilmington, NC, when an improperly cleaned prop gun fired a dummy tip into his midsection. The tip tore through Lee's abdomen and lodged in his spine. After losing a considerable amount of blood, he died on the operating table at New Hanover Regional Medical Center at 1:04 P.M. on March 31, 1993.Lee, who had planned to marry his longtime girlfriend that April, was laid to rest next to his father at Lakeview Cemetery in Seattle. His friend Polly Bergen held a memorial service for Lee at her California home. Over 400 people showed up to pay their respects to the young actor, including Kiefer Sutherland, Steven Seagal, David Hasselhoff, and David Carradine. After much deliberation, Proyas and his production team finished The Crow as a tribute to its star. Distributed by Miramax, the film opened in 1994 and sold out theaters across the nation. It amassed quite a following, inspiring a television show and two sequels and transforming Lee into a cult hero.

Trivia: Raised in Richmond, CA. Decided to pursue acting while in college. Stage debut came in 1977's The Year of the Dragon with the San Francisco-based Asian American Theatre Company. Appeared in the 1981 off-Broadway production of Family Devotions. Played Data's father in the 1985 film The Goonies. His first TV series was the 1994 syndicated drama Valley of the Dolls. Provided the voice for Jimmy Ho on Fox's animated comedy The PJs. Likes to ride, build and restore single-speed bikes.

Trivia: The story goes that Benson Fong was a California grocer when, in 1943, he was asked by a talent scout if he'd like to be in a movie (Asian types were, of course, highly sought after during the War years). Actually, Fong had been accepting occasional movie bit parts as early as 1937. After his requisite wartime appearances as hateful Japanese soldiers and courageous Chinese freedom fighters, Fong showed up as Charlie Chan's "number three son" Tommy in four Monogram-produced "Chan" programmers. On the advice of his friend Gregory Peck, Fong added to his acting income by becoming a successful restaurateur, with several top eateries in the southern California region to his name. Active in films into the 1980s, Benson Fong also showed up from time to time on TV, notably as "The Old One" on Kung Fu.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the '80s.