Trivia: Like so many others before him, Kris Kristofferson pursued Hollywood success after first finding fame in the pop music arena. Unlike the vast majority of his contemporaries, however, he could truly act as well as make music, delivering superb, natural performances in films for directors like Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah, and John Sayles. Born June 22, 1936, in Brownsville, TX, Kristofferson was a Phi Beta Kappa at Pomona College, earning a degree in creative writing. At Oxford, he was a Rhodes Scholar, and while in Britain he first performed his music professionally (under the name Kris Carson). A five-year tour in the army followed, as did a stint teaching at West Point. Upon exiting the military, he drifted around the country before settling in Nashville, where he began earning a reputation as a gifted singer and songwriter. After a number of his compositions were covered by Roger Miller, Kristofferson eventually emerged as one of the most sought-after writers in music. In 1970, Johnny Cash scored a Number One hit with Kristofferson's "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down," and that same year he released his debut LP, Kristofferson. Upon composing two more hits, Janis Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee" and Sammi Smith's "Help Me Make It Through the Night," Kristofferson was a star in both pop and country music. In 1971, his friend, Dennis Hopper, asked him to write the soundtrack for The Last Movie, and soon Kristofferson was even appearing onscreen as himself. He next starred -- as a pop singer, appropriately enough -- opposite Gene Hackman later that year in Cisco Pike, again composing the film's music as well. Another role as a musician in 1973's Blume in Love threatened to typecast him, but then Kristofferson starred as the titular outlaw in Sam Peckinpah's superb Western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. For Peckinpah, Kristofferson also appeared in 1974's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, followed by a breakthrough performance opposite Oscar-winner Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese's acclaimed Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. After a two-year hiatus to re-focus his attentions on music, he followed with a villainous turn in the little-seen Vigilante Force and the much-hyped The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea. Amid reports of a serious drinking problem, Kristofferson next starred as an aging, alcoholic rocker opposite Barbra Streisand in the 1976 remake of A Star Is Born, an experience so grueling, and which hit so close to home, that he later claimed the picture forced him to go on the wagon. In 1977, Kristofferson teamed with Burt Reynolds to star in the football comedy Semi-Tough, another hit. He next reunited with Peckinpah for 1978's Convoy. Hanover Street was scheduled to follow, but at the last minute Kristofferson dropped out to mount a concert tour. Instead, he next appeared with Muhammad Ali in the 1979 television miniseries Freedom Road. He then starred in Michael Cimino's legendary 1981 disaster Heaven's Gate, and when the follow-up -- Alan J. Pakula's Rollover -- also failed, Kristofferson's film career was seriously crippled; he received no more offers for three years, appearing only in a TV feature, 1983's The Lost Honor of Kathryn Beck, and performing his music. His comeback vehicle, the 1984 thriller Flashpoint, earned little attention, but Alan Rudolph's Songwriter -- also starring Willie Nelson -- was well received. In 1986, Kristofferson reunited with Rudolph for Trouble in Mind, and starred in three TV movies: The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James, Blood and Orchids, and a remake of John Ford's Stagecoach.Remaining on television, Kristofferson co-starred in the epic 1987 miniseries Amerika. The year following, he appeared in a pair of Westerns, The Tracker and Dead or Alive, and unexpectedly co-starred in the comedy Big-Top Pee-Wee. The 1989 sci-fi disappointment Millennium was his last major theatrical appearance for some years. In the early '90s, the majority of his work was either in television (the Pair of Aces films, Christmas in Connecticut) or direct-to-video fare (Night of the Cyclone, Original Intent). In many quarters, Kristofferson was largely a memory by the middle of the decade, but in 1995 he enjoyed a major renaissance; first, he released A Moment of Forever, his first album of new material in many years, then co-starred in Pharoah's Army, an acclaimed art-house offering set during the Civil War. The following year, Kristofferson delivered his most impressive performance as a murderous Texas sheriff in John Sayles' Lone Star. He turned in another stellar performance two years later in James Ivory's A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries. After a turn in the Mel Gibson vehicle Payback and Father Damien, Kristofferson again collaborated with Sayles, playing a pilot of dubious reputation in 1999's Limbo. In the decades to come, Kristofferson would remain active on screen, appearing in movies like He's Just Not That Into You, Fastfood Nation, and Dolphin Tale.

Trivia: James Coburn was an actor whose style allowed him to comfortably embrace drama, action, and comedy roles, and many of his best-known performances found him blending elements of all these styles in roles that overflowed with charisma and a natural charm. Born in Laurel, NE, on August 31, 1928, Coburn relocated to California as a young man, and first developed an interest in acting while studying at Los Angeles City College. After appearing in several student productions, he decided to take a stab at acting as a profession, and enrolled in the theater department at U.C.L.A. Coburn earned his first notable reviews in an adaptation of Herman Melville's Billy Budd, staged at Los Angeles' La Jolla Playhouse, which starred Vincent Price. In the early '50s, Coburn moved to New York City, where he studied acting with Stella Adler, and began working in commercials and live television. In 1958, Coburn won a recurring role on a Western TV series called Bronco, and scored his first film role the following year in Budd Boetticher's Ride Lonesome, starring Randolph Scott. For a while, Coburn seemed to find himself typecast as a heavy in Westerns, most notably in The Magnificent Seven, and later starred in two action-oriented TV series, Klondike (which ran for 18 weeks between 1960 and 1961) and Acapulco (which lasted a mere eight weeks in 1961). However, after a strong showing in the war drama Hell Is for Heroes, Coburn finally got to play a big-screen hero as part of the ensemble cast of 1963's The Great Escape. In 1964, Coburn got a chance to show his flair for comedy in The Americanization of Emily, and in 1965 he appeared in Major Dundee, the first of several films he would make with iconoclastic director Sam Peckinpah. In 1966, Coburn finally hit full-fledged stardom in Our Man Flint, a flashy satiric comedy which put an American spin on the James Bond-style superspy films of the period. Coburn's deft blend of comic cheek and action heroics as Derek Flint made the film a major box-office success, and in 1967 he appeared in a sequel, In Like Flint, as well as two similar action comedies, Duffy and the cult film The President's Analyst (the latter of which Coburn helped produce). Moving back and forth between comedies (Candy, Harry in Your Pocket), Westerns (Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), and dramas (The Last of Shelia, Cross of Iron), Coburn was in high demand through much of the 1970s. He also dabbled in screenwriting (he penned a script for his friend Bruce Lee which was filmed after Lee's death as Circle of Iron, starring David Carradine) and directing (he directed an episode of the TV series The Rockford Files, as well as handling second-unit work on Sam Peckinpah's Convoy). By the end of the decade, however, his box-office allure was not what it once was, although he remained a potent draw in Japan. Coburn remained busy in the 1980s, with supporting roles in theatrical films, larger roles in television projects, and voice-over work for documentaries. In 1979, Coburn was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and in the mid-'80s, when his illness failed to respond to conventional treatment, he began to cut back on his work schedule. But in the 1990s, a holistic therapist was able to treat Coburn using nutritional supplements, and he began appearing onscreen with greater frequency (he also appeared in a series of instructional videos on gambling strategies, one of Coburn's passions). He won a 1999 Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his intense portrayal of an abusive father in Paul Schrader's film Affliction, and the award kick-started Coburn's career. He would work on more than a dozen projects over the next two years, but Coburn then succumbed to a heart attack in 2002. Coburn was survived by two children, James H. Coburn IV and Lisa Coburn, his former spouse Beverly Kelly, and Paula Murad, his wife at the time of his death.

Trivia: Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan fortunately does not have to rely on his movie career to uphold his reputation as the single most influential rock musician of the 1960s. His best-known movie appearances include the concert film The Last Waltz and documentaries like Don't Look Back; but Dylan also appeared in other films, making his dramatic debut as a cowpoke named Alias in Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), in which he sings "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." Dylan went back to singing and composing until 1977's Renaldo and Clara, a four-hour-long largely improvised -- and universally panned -- production which Dylan himself wrote, directed, and starred in. It would be ten years before Dylan would once more flex his acting muscles in the long-on-the-shelf Hearts of Fire (1987), playing the tailor-made role of a retired rock legend. And though his roles leading into the new millennium consisted mainly of appearances in which he was billed as "Himself," Dylan's song "Things Have Changed" for the film The Wonder Boys (2000) brought the popular singer/songwriter his first Oscar for Best Music (Song).

Trivia: One of Hollywood's elder statesmen, Jason Robards Jr. had a rich, deep voice and authoritative aura that befit the distinguished citizens he often played. The son of stage and screen actor Jason Robards Sr., Robards kept alive his rich heritage throughout the second half of the 20th century.Born July 26, 1922, in Chicago, Robards was a military man before becoming an actor. He served seven years in the Navy, and was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked in 1941 (he later received the Navy Cross). Following his service, Robards moved to New York to pursue an acting career. He found work in incidental plays, radio soap operas, and live television dramas, driving a cab and teaching school to support himself. After a decade of obscurity, he rose to prominence in 1956 in the Circle in the Square production of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh. He appeared on Broadway the following year in Long Day's Journey Into Night, for which he won a New York Drama Critics Award. Following that success, he remained a busy and popular Broadway performer, and, in 1958, got the opportunity to appear with his father in The Disenchanted.Making his onscreen debut in The Journey (1959), Robards maintained a TV and screen career while continuing to work on the stage. He tended to appear in two or three movies per year during the '60s, including the acclaimed 1962 screen adaptation of Long Day's Journey Into Night and Sergio Leone's much lauded 1968 Western Once Upon a Time in the West. Two years after his role in the war epic Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), the actor was in a near-fatal car crash, but managed to make a complete recovery, returning to Broadway two years later. He ended the '70s by winning Oscars for his supporting roles in All the President's Men (1976) and Julia (1977), and was nominated for the same award for his portrayal of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes in Melvin and Howard (1980), The slew of awards and nominations during this period also served as a nice complement to the six Tony awards he had been nominated for between 1960 and 1974. In 1978, Robards returned to the material that had helped to cement his reputation by directing himself in a revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night, which opened at Brooklyn Academy of Music Opera House.Robards continued to act on-stage and in film throughout the '80s, in addition to working on a number of documentaries and made-for-TV movies. Among his more notable television portrayals were the title role in the acclaimed 1980 miniseries F.D.R.: The Last Year (1980) and a lead part in You Can't Take It With You (1984). He also participated in the 1982 documentary Burden of Dreams, a highly acclaimed film about the making of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. Robards' screen roles during that decade were usually limited to the part of the patriarch in such films as Square Dance (1987) and Parenthood (1989), although he was introduced to a younger audience with his lead in the 1989 comedy Dream a Little Dream, which featured Corey Haim and Corey Feldman and little else. Robards worked steadily throughout the '90s, taking on roles in such acclaimed features as Philadelphia (1993), A Thousand Acres (1997), and Beloved (1998). He also continued to appear in a number of TV miniseries. In 1999, Robards lent his voice to the widely lauded documentary The Irish in America: The Long Journey Home, further demonstrating that, in addition to being one of Hollywood's most respected figures, he was also one of its most versatile. One of Robards' last roles was a suitably complex one, a dying man longing for a reconciliation with his estranged son in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (1999). The actor died of cancer, himself, the following year.

Trivia: Born R. Hanley Jaeckel (the "R" stood for nothing), young Richard Jaeckel arrived in Hollywood with his family in the early 1940s. Columnist Louella Parsons, a friend of Jaeckel's mother, got the boy a job as a mailman at the 20th Century-Fox studios. When the producers of Fox's Guadalcanal Diary found themselves in need of a baby-faced youth to play a callow marine private, Jaeckel was given a screen test. Despite his initial reluctance to play-act, Jaeckel accepted the Guadalcanal Diary assignment and remained in films for the next five decades, appearing in almost 50 movies and playing everything from wavy-haired romantic leads to crag-faced villains. Between 1944 and 1948, Jaeckel served in the U.S. Navy. Upon his discharge, he co-starred in Sands of Iwo Jima with John Wayne and Forrest Tucker. In 1971, Jaeckel was nominated for a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar on the strength of his performance in Sometimes a Great Notion. Richard Jaeckel has also been a regular in several TV series, usually appearing in dependable, authoritative roles: he was cowboy scout Tony Gentry in Frontier Circus (1962), Lt. Pete McNeil in Banyon (1972), firefighter Hank Myers in Firehouse (1974), federal agent Hank Klinger in Salvage 1 (1979), Major Hawkins in At Ease (1983) (a rare -- and expertly played -- comedy role), and Master Chief Sam Rivers in Supercarrier (1988). From 1991-92, Jaeckel played Lieutenant Ben Edwards on the internationally popular series Baywatch. Jaeckel passed away at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital of an undisclosed illness at the age of 70.

Trivia: A leading lady of Mexican cinema, Katy Jurado also found fame in Hollywood in the 1950s as a sultry supporting actress in such films as High Noon (1952) and Broken Lance (1954). Rather than abandoning her native country, however, Jurado remained a star of Mexican film as well as an esteemed character actress north and south of the border until she retired from movies in 1998.Born into a wealthy family, Jurado spent her early childhood in luxury until the family's lands were confiscated during the revolution. Nevertheless, her domineering grandmother continued to adhere to "aristocratic ideals," including staunch disapproval of Jurado's desire to become an actress after director Emilio Fernandez discovered her at age 16. Marrying actor/writer Victor Velazquez to escape her family's control, Jurado made her movie debut in No Maturas (1943). The talented sloe-eyed beauty quickly made her mark in the Mexican movie industry, winning three Ariels (Mexico's equivalent of the Oscar), including one for Luis Buñuel's El Bruto (1952). A divorced mother of two by her twenties, Jurado worked as a radio reporter, bullfight critic, and movie columnist between acting jobs to support her family. Spotted by Budd Boetticher and John Wayne at a bullfight, Jurado was subsequently cast in her first American film while on a trip to Hollywood, Boetticher's matador drama The Bullfighter and the Lady (1951). Though her English was still limited, and she learned her lines phonetically, Jurado garnered great critical acclaim for her second Hollywood picture, High Noon (1952). As upstanding marshal Gary Cooper's fiery ex-girlfriend, Jurado unforgettably locked horns onscreen with Cooper's prim bride Grace Kelly, and won a Golden Globe award.Refusing to be pigeonholed by signing a Hollywood studio contract, Jurado went home to Mexico between American roles, and continued to star in such Mexican fare as melodrama Nosotros Los Pobres (1957) during the 1950s. Nevertheless, she was still a frequent presence in Hollywood movies, particularly in Westerns. Jurado earned a supporting actress Oscar nomination for her performance as cattle baron Spencer Tracy's Indian wife in Broken Lance (1954) -- and lived up to her sexy image when she noted on the red carpet that her underwear was the same color as her crimson Oscar gown. She also appeared in Man From Del Rio (1956), Marlon Brando's One-Eyed Jacks (1960), courtroom drama The Trial (1955), and Burt Lancaster's circus extravaganza Trapeze (1955). Jurado's life became Hollywood tabloid fodder when her relationship with her Badlanders (1958) co-star Ernest Borgnine blossomed into a brief, rocky marriage. Married in 1959, Jurado had separated and reconciled with Borgnine amid accusations of spousal abuse by 1961; after wrangling over alimony, the divorce became final in 1964. Having moved to the U.S. to be with Borgnine, Jurado acted less often during the 1960s, including roles in the glossy Barabbas (1961), the Spanish film Un Hombre Solo (1964), the TV Western series Death Valley Days (1964), and the Elvis Presley flick Stay Away, Joe (1968). After attempting suicide in 1968, Jurado moved back home to Mexico for good.Although she worked occasionally in American films shot in Mexico, including co-starring with John Huston in The Bridge in the Jungle (1970) and a supporting role Sam Peckinpah's Western elegy Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), Jurado focused on Mexican movies, including El Elegido (1977) and Arturo Ripstein's La Seducción (1980), aging gracefully into a prominent character actress. After appearing alongside her former mentor Fernandez in Huston's somber drama Under the Volcano (1984), Jurado began to work behind the scenes in the Mexican industry, promoting her home state of Morelos to filmmakers. Even as she started garnering career laurels from the Santa Fe Western Festival in 1981 and the Mexican Film Promotion Trust in 1992, Jurado remained active, albeit infrequently, onscreen. After winning a special Ariel for lifetime achievement in 1997, Jurado made her last film, playing the leader of a religious cult in Ripstein's Buñuel-ian satire El Evangelico de Las Maravillas (1998). Still the pride of the Mexican film industry, Jurado passed away in 2002. She was survived by her daughter; her son was killed in a car accident in 1981.

Trivia: Though he spoke most of his movie dialogue in a slow Western drawl, actor Slim Pickens was a pure-bred California boy. An expert rider from the age of four, Pickens was performing in rodeos at 12. Three years later, he quit school to become a full-time equestrian and bull wrangler, eventually becoming the highest-paid rodeo clown in show business. In films since 1950's Rocky Mountain, Pickens specialized in Westerns (what a surprise), appearing as the comic sidekick of Republic cowboy star Rex Allen. By the end of the 1950s, Pickens had gained so much extra poundage that he practically grew out of his nickname. Generally cast in boisterous comedy roles, Pickens was also an effectively odious villain in 1966's An Eye for an Eye, starting the film off with a jolt by shooting a baby in its crib. In 1963, director Stanley Kubrick handed Pickens his greatest role: honcho bomber pilot "King" Kong in Dr. Strangelove. One of the most unforgettable of all cinematic images is the sight of Pickens straddling a nuclear bomb and "riding" it to its target, whooping and hollering all the way down. Almost as good was Pickens' performance as Harvey Korman's henchman in Mel Brooks' bawdy Western spoof Blazing Saddles (1974). Slim Pickens was also kept busy on television, with numerous guest shots and regular roles in the TV series The Legend of Custer, B.J. and the Bear, and Filthy Rich.

Trivia: He began performing in early childhood, going on to appear in tent shows, vaudeville, and stock throughout the Southwest. He formed Chill Wills and the Avalon Boys, a singing group in which he was the leader and bass vocalist, in the '30s. After appearing with the group in several Westerns, beginning with his screen debut, Bar 20 Rides Again (1935), he disbanded the group in 1938. For the next fifteen years he was busy onscreen as a character actor, but after 1953 his film work became less frequent. He provided the voice of Francis the Talking Mule in the "Francis" comedy series of films. In the '60s he starred in the TV series "Frontier Circus" and "The Rounders." For his work in The Alamo (1960) he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. In 1975 he released a singing album--his first.

Trivia: Singer-actress Rita Coolidge, first appeared on screen in 1971. She is the former wife of singer/actor Kris Kristofferson.

Trivia: Birmingham-born R.G. Armstrong attended the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he was active with the Carolina Playmakers. On the New York stage since the 1940s, Armstrong is best remembered for creating the role of Big Daddy in the original 1955 Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. In film since 1957, Armstrong appeared in more than his share of westerns, usually as an able-bodied sheriff or thick-necked land baron. A frequent visitor to television, R. G. Armstrong was a regular on the 1967 adventure series T.H.E. Cat.

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

Trivia: Character actor Jack Dodson was perhaps best known for playing Howard Sprague, the county clerk on The Andy Griffith Show and its spin-off, Mayberry RFD. Before coming to Hollywood and joining the homespun series in 1967, Dodson was an established player on Broadway, having appeared in productions such as Our Town and You Can't Take It With You. After Mayberry folded in 1971, he went on to guest star on a wide variety of television series. He made his screen debut with a bit part in Munster Go Home (1966). He followed that with a small role in the Andy Griffith vehicle Angel in My Pocket (1968). Dodson's other film credits include The Getaway (1972), Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), and A Climate for Killing (1991).

Trivia: A graduate of Santa Monica Junior College, Jack Elam spent the immediate post-World War II years as an accountant, numbering several important Hollywood stars among his clients. Already blind in one eye from a childhood fight, Elam was in danger of losing the sight in his other eye as a result of his demanding profession. Several of his show business friends suggested that Elam give acting a try; Elam would be a natural as a villain. A natural he was, and throughout the 1950s Elam cemented his reputation as one of the meanest-looking and most reliable "heavies" in the movies. Few of his screen roles gave him the opportunity to display his natural wit and sense of comic timing, but inklings of these skills were evident in his first regular TV series assignments: The Dakotas and Temple Houston, both 1963. In 1967, Elam was given his first all-out comedy role in Support Your Local Sheriff, after which he found his villainous assignments dwindling and his comic jobs increasing. Elam starred as the patriarch of an itinerant Southwestern family in the 1974 TV series The Texas Wheelers (his sons were played by Gary Busey and Mark Hamill), and in 1979 he played a benign Frankenstein-monster type in the weekly horror spoof Struck By Lightning. Later TV series in the Elam manifest included Detective in the House (1985) and Easy Street (1987). Of course Elam would also crack up audiences in the 1980s with his roles in Cannonball Run and Cannonball Run II. Though well established as a comic actor, Elam would never completely abandon the western genre that had sustained him in the 1950s and 1960s; in 1993, a proud Elam was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame. Two short years later the longitme star would essay his final screen role in the made for television western Bonanza: Under Attack.

Trivia: The son of a brewery owner, steely-eyed American character actor Paul Fix went the vaudeville and stock-company route before settling in Hollywood in 1926. During the 1930s and 1940s he appeared prolifically in varied fleeting roles: a transvestite jewel thief in the Our Gang two-reeler Free Eats (1932), a lascivious zookeeper (appropriately named Heinie) in Zoo in Budapest (1933), a humorless gangster who puts Bob Hope "on the spot" in The Ghost Breakers (1940), and a bespectacled ex-convict who muscles his way into Berlin in Hitler: Dead or Alive (1943), among others. During this period, Fix was most closely associated with westerns, essaying many a villainous (or at least untrustworthy) role at various "B"-picture mills. In the mid-1930s, Fix befriended young John Wayne and helped coach the star-to-be in the whys and wherefores of effective screen acting. Fix ended up appearing in 27 films with "The Duke," among them Pittsburgh (1942), The Fighting Seabees (1943), Tall in the Saddle (1944), Back to Bataan (1945), Red River (1948) and The High and the Mighty (1954). Busy in TV during the 1950s, Fix often found himself softening his bad-guy image to portray crusty old gents with golden hearts-- characters not far removed from the real Fix, who by all reports was a 100% nice guy. His most familiar role was as the honest but often ineffectual sheriff Micah Torrance on the TV series The Rifleman. In the 1960s, Fix was frequently cast as sagacious backwoods judges and attorneys, as in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).

Trivia: What do actors Gig Young, Anne Shirley, and L.Q. Jones have in common? All of them lifted their show-biz names from characters they'd portrayed on screen. In 1955, University of Texas alumnus Justice McQueen made his film debut in Battle Cry, playing a laconic lieutenant named L.Q. Jones. McQueen liked his character so much that he remained L.Q. Jones offscreen ever after (though he never made it legal, still listing himself as Justice Ellis McQueen in the 1995 edition of Who's Who). A natural for westerns both vocally and physically, Jones played supporting roles in several big-screen oaters, and was seen on TV as Smitty on Cheyenne (1955-58) and as Belden on The Virginian (1964-67). Jones gained a measure of prominence in the films of Sam Peckinpah, notably Ride the High Country (1961) and The Wild Bunch (1969). Turning to the production side of the business in the early 1970s, L. Q. Jones produced and co-starred in the 1971 film Brotherhood of Satan; he also co-produced, directed, adapted and played a cameo (as a porn-movie actor!) in the fascinating 1975 cinemazation of Harlan Ellison's A Boy and His Dog, a tour de force that won Jones a Hugo Award from America's science fiction writers.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the '60s.

Trivia: Fuzzy-faced actor Charles Martin Smith took time off from his studies at Cal State to make his cinema debut in The Culpepper Cattle Company (1972). Specializing in nerdish, owl-eyed teenagers during the early stages of his career, Smith scored a hit as Terry "The Toad" Field in the two American Graffiti movies of the mid-1970s. He was afforded a rare star part as real-life Canadian author Farley Mowat in Never Cry Wolf (1983), delivering what amounted to a one-man show as he braved the treacherous Arctic to study the so-called predatory behavior of wolves. Other Smith performances worth noting include ill-fated FBI accountant Oscar Wallace in The Untouchables (1987) and AIDS researcher Henry Jaffe in the made-for-TV And the Band Played On. Turning director with the sloppy but endearing "horror musical" Trick or Treat (1986), Charles Martin Smith has gone on to man the megaphone on the love-'em-or-hate-'em comedies Boris and Natasha (1992) and Fifty/Fifty (1993).

Trivia: A perpetually haggard character actor with hound-dog eyes and the rare ability to alternate between menace and earnest at a moment's notice, Harry Dean Stanton has proven one of the most enduring and endearing actors of his generation. From his early days riding the range in Gunsmoke and Rawhide to a poignant turn in David Lynch's uncharacteristically sentimental drama The Straight Story, Stanton can always be counted on to turn in a memorable performance no matter how small the role. A West Irvine, KY, native who served in World War II before returning stateside to attend the University of Kentucky, it was while appearing in a college production of Pygmalion that Stanton first began to realize his love for acting. Dropping out of school three years later to move to California and train at the Pasadena Playhouse, Stanton found himself in good company while training alongside such future greats as Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall. A stateside tour with the American Male Chorus and a stint in New York children's theater found Stanton continuing to hone his skills, and after packing his bags for Hollywood shortly thereafter, numerous television roles were quick to follow. Billed Dean Stanton in his early years and often carrying the weight of the screen baddie, Stanton gunned down the best of them in numerous early Westerns before a soulful turn in Cool Hand Luke showed that he was capable of much more. Though a role in The Godfather Part II offered momentary cinematic redemption, it wasn't long before Stanton was back to his old antics in the 1976 Marlon Brando Western The Missouri Breaks. After once again utilizing his musical talents as a country & western singer in The Rose (1979) and meeting a gruesome demise in the sci-fi classic Alien, roles in such popular early '80s efforts as Private Benjamin, Escape From New York, and Christine began to gain Stanton growing recognition among mainstream film audiences; and then a trio of career-defining roles in the mid-'80s proved the windfall that would propel the rest of Stanton's career. Cast as a veteran repo man opposite Emilio Estevez in director Alex Cox's cult classic Repo Man (1984), Stanton's hilarious, invigorated performance perfectly gelled with the offbeat sensibilities of the truly original tale involving punk-rockers, aliens, and a mysteriously omnipresent plate o' shrimp. After sending his sons off into the mountains to fight communists in the jingoistic actioner Red Dawn (also 1984) Stanton essayed what was perhaps his most dramatically demanding role to date in director Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas. Cast as a broken man whose brother attempts to help him remember why he walked out on his family years before, Stanton's devastating performance provided the emotional core to what was perhaps one of the essential films of the 1980s. A subsequent role as Molly Ringwald's character's perpetually unemployed father in 1986's Pretty in Pink, while perhaps not quite as emotionally draining, offered a tender characterization that would forever hold him a place in the hearts of those raised on 1980s cinema. In 1988 Stanton essayed the role of Paul the Apostle in director Martin Scorsese's controversial religious epic The Last Temptation of Christ. By the 1990s Stanton was a widely recognized icon of American cinema, and following memorably quirky roles as an eccentric patriarch in Twister and a desperate private detective in David Lynch's Wild at Heart (both 1990), he settled into memorable roles in such efforts as Against the Wall (1994), Never Talk to Strangers (1995), and the sentimental drama The Mighty (1998). In 1996, Stanton made news when he was pistol whipped by thieves who broke into his home and stole his car (which was eventually returned thanks to a tracking device). Having previously teamed with director Lynch earlier in the decade, fans were delighted at Stanton's poignant performance in 1999's The Straight Story. Still going strong into the new millennium, Stanton could be spotted in such efforts as The Pledge (2001; starring longtime friend and former roommate Jack Nicholson), Sonny (2002), and The Big Bounce (2004). In addition to his acting career, Stanton can often be spotted around Hollywood performing with his band, The Harry Dean Stanton Band.

Trivia: Rutanya Alda, born Rutanya Skrastins in Riga, Latvia, has been steadily appearing in American films since the late '60s. Alda, who was known as Ruth Alda in her earlier films, has also performed on stage and television in the U.S.

Trivia: A professional actor since his teens, Gene Evans made his first film appearance in 1947's Under Colorado Skies. Evans' gritty, no-nonsense approach to his craft attracted the attention of like-minded director Sam Fuller, who cast the actor in several of his 1950s film projects. Many consider Evans' portrayal as the grim, born-survivor sergeant in Fuller's The Steel Helmet (1951) to be not only the actor's best performance, but also one of the best-ever characterizations in any war film. Active in films until 1984, Gene Evans also co-starred in the TV series My Friend Flicka (1956), Matt Helm (1975) and Spencer's Pilots (1976).

Trivia: Believing real-life turmoil bred peerless creativity, Sam Peckinpah left an indelible mark on post-1960s cinema with a relatively small body of work that was not for the faint of heart, either in the audience or his collaborators. Peckinpah's unruly, incendiary vision turned such films as Ride the High Country (1962), The Wild Bunch (1969), and the non-Western Straw Dogs (1971) into forceful, complex ruminations on violence, morality, and manhood.Born in Fresno, CA, and raised on a ranch on nearby Peckinpah Mountain by his sober mother and judge father, descendants of pioneer settlers, Peckinpah learned to ride and shoot as a child and idolized his hardy Superior Court jurist grandfather. A boozing, violence-prone troublemaker by his teens, Peckinpah spent his senior year at military school, joining the Marines in 1943 after graduation. Enrolling at Fresno State College in 1947, Peckinpah discovered his calling when his schoolmate and first wife-to-be turned him on to drama. Relocating to Los Angeles to get his master's degree at U.S.C., Peckinpah began directing theater and took a job at KLAC-TV as a stagehand. He was subsequently fired from his menial job on Liberace's TV show for not wearing a suit. Peckinpah's luck changed when he was hired as Don Siegel's assistant at Allied Artists. Well matched in cinematic temperament, Siegel became Peckinpah's mentor as he learned the craft on five Siegel films. Peckinpah also began writing scripts for TV Westerns in 1955, contributing episodes to several shows, including Gunsmoke and Have Gun, Will Travel. Getting a shot at directing with an episode of Broken Arrow in 1958, Peckinpah further honed his skills with episodes of The Rifleman and The Westerner. Peckinpah got his first feature to direct when The Westerner star Brian Keith suggested him for The Deadly Companions (1961). Though more a vehicle for star Maureen O'Hara than the director, The Deadly Companions nevertheless helped Peckinpah land his second film, Ride the High Country (1962). A spectacular meditation on the passing of the West starring wizened screen cowboys Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott as two gunfighters confronting their mortality, Ride the High Country proved that Peckinpah could already enter his house justified as a filmmaker. The studio thought otherwise, dumping it on its first release; critical accolades and foreign film prizes, however, gave Ride the High Country another shot stateside. With a considerable budget and an unfinished script, Peckinpah embarked on his third Western, Major Dundee (1965), starring Charlton Heston and Richard Harris as two former comrades who clash during an Apache roundup. Shot in Mexico, the production of Major Dundee fell into chaos as Peckinpah fired crew members, fought with producers, and was threatened with grievous bodily harm by a (literally) saber-rattling Heston. When the studio decided to fire Peckinpah, however, Heston gave back his salary to let Peckinpah finish. After Peckinpah's cut came in at over two hours, though, he was ousted and the studio eviscerated the movie, removing scenes that reportedly gave Major Dundee even more thematic heft than Ride the High Country. The resulting mess left critics and audiences cold; Peckinpah's deteriorating reputation (and his obstreperousness) got him fired from The Cincinnati Kid (1965).Blackballed for several years, Peckinpah survived by writing scripts. By the time he got to direct again in the late '60s, the parameters of movie violence had changed. Reuniting with High Country cinematographer Lucien Ballard, stock company regulars Warren Oates and L.Q. Jones, and adding stars William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, and Robert Ryan to the mix, Peckinpah explosively probed the nature of mythic Western violence and moral relativity in The Wild Bunch (1969). Greeted by reactions ranging from "brilliant" to "sick," The Wild Bunch was only a modest hit, even after Warner Bros. cut ten minutes of exposition, but its impact on Hollywood cinema reverberated for years to come. Peckinpah followed The Wild Bunch with a distinctly different Western elegy, The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970). Starring Jason Robards as another Westerner who can't handle the end of the West, Cable Hogue was gentle and funny; its botched release, however, did it no justice. After this respite, Peckinpah returned to plumbing the depths of man's bestiality in his most controversial film, Straw Dogs (1971). Starring Dustin Hoffman as a nerdy American math teacher and Susan George as his wanton British wife, Straw Dogs chillingly surmised that even the most pacifist soul harbors an abyss of lethal, instinctual violence. Provoking heated objections to its rape scene in particular and visceral cruelty and nihilism in general, Straw Dogs nevertheless drew an audience and confirmed the potency of Peckinpah's methods. As if to prove his assertions that he himself abhorred the kind of violence portrayed in Straw Dogs, Peckinpah eschewed guns and bloodletting in his next film, Junior Bonner (1972). Another mild, wistful take on Western masculine values and their modern demise, Junior Bonner starred Steve McQueen as a rodeo rider past his prime who has a comic and sad return to his hometown. Though Junior Bonner was a poorly distributed financial failure, Peckinpah got along well enough with his former Cincinnati Kid star to re-team with McQueen for the more conventional action vehicle The Getaway (1972). The Getaway's success didn't prevent Peckinpah's next film, and last western, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), from turning into, as he put it, his "worst experience since Major Dundee." Locking horns with the studio during the Mexico shoot, the on-set battles escalated until the unit manager's threat during an argument to have Peckinpah killed resulted in a Peckinpah crony hiring local gunmen to off the unit manager. The hit was canceled and the manager exited; Pat Garrett was sloppily recut by the studio, and the incoherent release version failed. After the scenes were restored in 1988, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was revealed to be a fitting exit from the genre for Peckinpah. Peckinpah went on to throw himself into Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). A strange, bloody revenge story starring Warren Oates as a hapless American in Mexico determined to fulfill the title edict his way, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia was dumped in the U.S. and lavishly praised abroad. Always a hardcore alcoholic, Peckinpah discovered cocaine while shooting his next film, espionage actioner The Killer Elite (1975). Though The Killer Elite was a reasonably successful endeavor, one Peckinpah biographer later surmised that the cocaine addiction crippled Peckinpah's creative powers. Still, Peckinpah's sole war movie, Cross of Iron (1977), delivered a powerful antiwar message in depicting two philosophically opposed German officers on the Russian front in World War II. His final two films, comic trucker adventure Convoy (1978) and Robert Ludlum adaptation The Osterman Weekend (1983), however, were strictly mediocre. Though Peckinpah suffered a heart attack in 1979, he never retired. Along with branching out into music video with two clips for Julian Lennon, Peckinpah was preparing a Stephen King adaptation when he suffered a fatal heart attack in 1984. Peckinpah's five marriages (three to the same woman) all ended in divorce.

Trivia: Actor Dub Taylor, the personification of grizzled old western characters, has been entertaining viewers for over 60 years. Prior to becoming a movie actor, Taylor played the harmonica and xylophone in vaudeville. He used his ability to make his film debut as the zany Ed Carmichael in Capra's You Can't Take it With You (1938). He next appeared in a small role in the musical Carefree(1938) and then began a long stint as a comical B-western sidekick for some of Hollywood's most enduring cowboy heroes. During the '50s he became a part of The Roy Rogers Show on television. About that time, he also began to branch out and appear in different film genres ranging from comedies, No time for Sergeants (1958) to crime dramas, Crime Wave (1954). He has also played on other TV series such as The Andy Griffith Show and Please Don't Eat the Daisies. One of his most memorable feature film roles was as the man who brought down the outlaws in Bonnie and Clyde. From the late sixties through the nineties Taylor returned to westerns.

Trivia: American actor Elisha Cook Jr. was the son of an influential theatrical actor/writer/producer who died early in the 20th Century. The younger Cook was in vaudeville and stock by the time he was fourteen-years old. In 1928, Cook enjoyed critical praise for his performance in the play Her Unborn Child, a performance he would repeat for his film debut in the 1930 film version of the play. The first ten years of Cook's Hollywood career found the slight, baby-faced actor playing innumerable college intellectuals and hapless freshmen (he's given plenty of screen time in 1936's Pigskin Parade). In 1940, Cook was cast as a man wrongly convicted of murder in Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), and so was launched the second phase of Cook's career as Helpless Victim. The actor's ability to play beyond this stereotype was first tapped by director John Huston, who cast Cook as Wilmer, the hair-trigger homicidal "gunsel" of Sidney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon (1941). So far down on the Hollywood totem pole that he wasn't billed in the Falcon opening credits, Cook suddenly found his services much in demand. Sometimes he'd be shot full of holes (as in the closing gag of 1941's Hellzapoppin'), sometimes he'd fall victim to some other grisly demise (poison in The Big Sleep [1946]), and sometimes he'd be the squirrelly little guy who turned out to be the last-reel murderer (I Wake Up Screaming [1941]; The Falcon's Alibi [1946]). At no time, however, was Cook ever again required to play the antiseptic "nerd" characters that had been his lot in the 1930s. Seemingly born to play "film noir" characters, Cook had one of his best extended moments in Phantom Lady (1944), wherein he plays a set of drums with ever-increasing orgiastic fervor. Another career high point was his death scene in Shane (1953); Cook is shot down by hired gun Jack Palance and plummets to the ground like a dead rabbit. A near-hermit in real life who lived in a remote mountain home and had to receive his studio calls by courier, Cook nonetheless never wanted for work, even late in life. Fans of the 1980s series Magnum PI will remember Cook in a recurring role as a the snarling elderly mobster Ice Pick. Having appeared in so many "cult" films, Elisha Cook Jr. has always been one of the most eagerly sought out interview subjects by film historians.

Trivia: He studied theater at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After establishing himself prominently on the American stage, he began appearing in silents beginning with The Gilded Lily (1921). He appeared in more than 100 films, the last of which was the Elvis Presley vehicle Wild in the Country (1961). He starred in a number of silents, often as a clean-living rural hero; in the sound era he began playing character roles, almost always as an arch villain. Due to a serious eye infection, he was absent from the big screen in the '50s. He was the father of actor Jason Robards, with whom he appeared on Broadway in 1958 in The Disenchanted.

Trivia: Actor Barry Sullivan was a theater usher and department store employee at the time he made his first Broadway appearance in 1936. His "official" film debut was in the 1943 Western Woman of the Town, though in fact Sullivan had previously appeared in a handful of two-reel comedies produced by the Manhattan-based Educational Studios in the late '30s. A bit too raffish to be a standard leading man, Sullivan was better served in tough, aggressive roles, notably the title character in 1947's The Gangster and the boorish Tom Buchanan in the 1949 version of The Great Gatsby. One of his better film assignments of the 1950s was as the Howard Hawks-style movie director in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). Sullivan continued appearing in movie roles of varying importance until 1978. A frequent visitor to television, Barry Sullivan starred as Sheriff Pat Garrett in the 1960s Western series The Tall Man, and was seen as the hateful patriarch Marcus Hubbard in a 1972 PBS production of Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest.

Trivia: Known to his devotees as "El Indio" because of his mixed parentage, Emilio Fernandez was not yet out of his teens when his participation as an officer in Mexico's Huerta rebellion earned him a 20-year prison sentence. Escaping to the United States in 1923, Fernandez worked as a Hollywood extra and bit player, returning to Mexico when granted amnesty in 1934. His directorial career began in 1941 with La Isla de la Pasion. Within a few years he was Mexico's foremost filmmaker specializing in populist dramas, many of them starring his wife, Columba Dominguez. His 1943 film Maria Candelaria won a Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize, while his 1946 adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Pearl, starring his favorite actor Pedro Armendariz and photographed by his longtime collaborator Gabriel Figueroa, earned several additional awards. His fame and prestige did nothing to quench his personal combustibility; notorious in cinematic circles as the only prominent director who ever actually shot a film critic, he later served six months of a four-and-a-half year sentence for manslaughter after killing a farm laborer during an argument. In the '50s Fernandez's prestige declined as the quality of his films slackened and he returned to acting; however, every few years he also directed. In the '60s and '70s he appeared in a number of American films.

Trivia: Bruce MacLeish Dern is the scion of a distinguished family of politicians and men of letters that includes his uncle, the distinguished poet/playwright Archibald MacLeish. After a prestigious education at New Trier High and Choate Preparatory, Dern enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, only to drop out abruptly in favor of Lee Strasberg's Actors' Studio. With his phlegmatic voice and schoolyard-bully countenance, he was not considered a likely candidate for stardom, and was often treated derisively by his fellow students. In 1958, he made his first Broadway appearance in A Touch of the Poet. Two years later, he was hired by director Elia Kazan to play a bit role in the 20th Century Fox production Wild River. He was a bit more prominent on TV, appearing regularly as E.J. Stocker in the contemporary Western series Stoney Burke. A favorite of Alfred Hitchcock, Dern was prominently cast in a handful of the director's TV-anthology episodes, and as the unfortunate sailor in the flashback sequences of the feature film Marnie (1964). During this period, Dern played as many victims as victimizers; he was just as memorable being hacked to death by Victor Buono in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1965) as he was while attempting to rape Linda Evans on TV's The Big Valley. Through the auspices of his close friend Jack Nicholson, Dern showed up in several Roger Corman productions of the mid-'60s, reaching a high point as Peter Fonda's "guide" through LSD-land in The Trip (1967). The actor's ever-increasing fan following amongst disenfranchised younger filmgoers shot up dramatically when he gunned down Establishment icon John Wayne in The Cowboys (1971). After scoring a critical hit with his supporting part in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), Dern began attaining leading roles in such films as Silent Running (1971), The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), The Great Gatsby (1974), and Smile (1975). In 1976, he returned to the Hitchcock fold, this time with top billing, in Family Plot. Previously honored with a National Society of Film Critics award for his work in the Jack Nicholson-directed Drive, He Said (1970), Dern received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of an unhinged Vietnam veteran in Coming Home (1978), in which he co-starred with one-time Actors' Studio colleague (and former classroom tormentor) Jane Fonda. He followed this triumph with a return to Broadway in the 1979 production Strangers. In 1982, Dern won the Berlin Film Festival Best Actor prize for That Championship Season. He then devoted several years to stage and TV work, returning to features in the strenuous role of a middle-aged long distance runner in On the Edge (1986).After a humorous turn in the 1989 Tom Hanks comedy The 'Burbs, Dern dropped beneath the radar for much of the '90s. He would appear in cult favorites like Mulholland Falls and the Walter Hill Yojimbo re-make Last Man Standing (both 1996), as well as The Haunting (1999) and All the Pretty Horses (2000). As the 2000's unfolded, Dern would continue to act, apperaing most notably in film like Monster and Django Unchained.Formerly married to actress Diane Ladd, Bruce Dern is the father of actress Laura Dern.