Trivia: Before deciding upon an acting career, Philadelphia-born Linda Fiorentino briefly flirted with the notion of becoming a lawyer. Fiorentino fans consider her first year of filmmaking her most rewarding, and her inaugural movie role as an erstwhile, love-struck artist in Vision Quest (1985) among her finest performances. After a conventional heroine stint in Gotcha! (1985), she raised eyebrows (and temperatures) as a mellow sculptress with a predilection for kinky sex games in the bizarre After Hours (1985). But Fiorentino was seldom well served in later pictures, hampered by too many nondescript performances in ensemble films. Then came her startling portrayal of the utterly amoral "black widow" Bridget in John Dahl's low-budget sleeper The Last Seduction (1994). In a less rule-bound world, the actress would have been nominated for an Oscar, but the film was, unfortunately, shown on cable TV before its theatrical release, thus rendering it ineligible for the Academy race. The success of The Last Seduction and Fiorentino's widely praised performance provided the resuscitation her career needed, but subsequent lead roles in a series of complete turkeys -- most notably the David Caruso thriller Jade (1995) and Dahl's Unforgettable (1996) -- quickly negated the film's positive effects. Fiorentino did enjoy a measure of acclaim for her role as Jesus Christ's only living descendent in Kevin Smith's Dogma (1999), and she continued to work steadily in all sorts of films, including Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Ordinary Decent Criminal, in which she played one of the loves of a charismatic Dublin criminal (Kevin Spacey).

Trivia: Through a cruel twist of fate, American actor Sam Elliott came to films at just the point that the sort of fare in which he should have thrived was dying at the box office. A born cowboy star if ever there was one, the stage-trained Elliot made his debut in a tiny role in the 1969 western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Within a few years, the western market had disappeared, and Elliot had to settle for standard good-guy roles in such contemporary films as Lifeguard (1976). Never tied down to any one type, Elliot's range has embraced sexy "other men" (Sibling Rivalry [1989]) and vicious rapist/murderers (the TV movie A Death in California [1986]). Still, one yearned to see Elliot playing frontiersmen; fortunately, the western genre had not completely disappeared on television, and Elliot was well-served with such hard-riding projects as The Sacketts (1977), I Will Fight No More Forever (1981), The Shadow Riders (1982), Houston: The Legend of Texas (1986) and Conagher (1991), in which he appeared with his wife, actress Katherine Ross. When westerns began showing up on the big screen again in the 1990s, Elliot was there, prominently cast as Virgil Earp in Tombstone (1993) and the made-for-cable sagebrusher The Desperate Trail (1995). Awarded Bronze Wrangler trophies for his involvement in Conagher, The Hi-Lo Country, and You Know My Name, Elliot also made an impression on Cohen Brothers fans with a memorable performance as the laid back Stranger in the cult hit The Big Lebowski. A featured role in the 2000 made for television remake Fail Safe found Elliot hanging up his duster to revisit rising Cold War tensions, and later that same year he would finally make the leap into the new millennium with his role as a presidential aid in Rod Lurie's Oscar-nominated hit The Contender. Rewarded with a double hernia as a result of his intense training efforts to prepare for a role in the 2002 Vietnam War drama We Were Soldiers, the then fifty-seven-year-old endured the pain through the entire production and put of surgery until shooting had wrapped. Though Elliot would remain in the armed forces to portray a military general hell-bent on destroying the Hulk in 2003, his onscreen authority would weaken somewhat when he was cast as a cancer-riddled Marlboro Man in the 2005 comedy Thank You for Smoking. After traveling to the far corners of the globe to carry out a little vigilante justice in the 2006 made for television thriller Avenger, Elliot would next break a little new ground by venturing into the world of animation by lending his distinctive voice to the character of Ben the Cow in Steve Oedekerk's rural family romp Barnyard. He co-starred with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig in The Golden Compass (2007), a film adaptation of the first installment of the wildly successful book series from author Philip Pullman. In 2009 he took on a role in the award winning comedy drama Up in the Air, and co-starred as an eccentric billionaire in director Tony Krantz's The Big Bang in 2011. He joined Robert Redford and Julie Christie to play a supporting role in 2012's comedy drama The Company You Keep.

Trivia: American leading man Craig Sheffer was first seen on a nationwide basis on the TV-serial circuit. He played Ian Hayden on the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live, and was cast as the teenaged son of Michael Goodwin and Leigh-Taylor Young on the 1983 prime time serial The Hamptons. Sheffer's earliest starring assignment in films was as the best friend of troubled teenager Emilio Estevez in That Was Then...This Is Now (1985). Among Craig Sheffer's more recent films are A River Runs Through It (1992) (in which he played the older brother of Brad Pitt), Fire in the Sky (1993), and Sleep With Me (1994) (top-billed, as the apex of a romantic triangle which included Eric Stoltz and Meg Tilly). He remained a steadily-working actor, often in indie films. His credits include A Season in Purgatory, Flypaper, and Miss Evers' Boys. In the 21st century he could be seen in Maze, Deep Core, and Killer Buzz before landing the role of Keith Scott on the television series One Tree Hill. In 2007 Sheffer wrote and directed the ensemble comedy American Crude. He starred in the 2008 thriller While She Was Out, and in 2012 he was the lead in Clive Barker's Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut.

Trivia: With the role of Steve Bushak in 1990's The Freshman, actor Frank Whaley inaugurated a fruitful film career. Whaley went on to be prominently featured in three 1991 pictures. He played real-life guitarist Robby Krieger in The Doors, and two leading roles: the hapless tourist caught up in literary espionage in Back in the U.S.S.R. (1991) and the feckless night watchman with both a runaway heiress and a gang of burglars on his hands in Career Opportunities (1991). Whaley has continued averaging two to three film appearances per annum; would that the films themselves were more profitable than the likes of Swing Kids (1993) and A Midnight Clear (1993).

Trivia: An actor whose well-scrubbed Midwestern good looks have served him well in a wide variety of roles, Bradley Whitford was born in Madison, WI, on October 10, 1959. Whitford developed an interest in acting while in high school, and after graduating in 1977, he attended Wesleyan University, where he majored in English and Theater. After completing his studies at Wesleyan, he went on to receive a master's degree in Theater from the Juilliard Theater Center, and began pursuing an acting career in New York. Whitford made his screen debut in 1985 in a low-budget thriller called Dead As a Doorman, but received a good bit more attention for a supporting role in a 1986 TV movie, C.A.T. Squad, directed by William Friedkin. In 1987, Whitford appeared in both the New York and Los Angeles productions of Sam Shepard's drama Curse of the Starving Class; while in L.A. with the play, Whitford was cast as Jack Ford in the TV movie The Betty Ford Story. After returning to New York, Whitford continued to alternate stage roles with film assignments, and by the early '90s was appearing in a steady stream of supporting roles in such films as Presumed Innocent, A Perfect World, and Philadelphia. However, Whitford soon began scoring more substantial roles on television, including a recurring role as Norman Gardner on the series NYPD Blue and a memorable turn as a distraught father-to-be on the Emmy-award winning "Love's Labor's Lost" episode of E.R. In 1999, Whitford's finally scored the role that made him famous when he was cast as Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman on the TV series The West Wing (created by Aaron Sorkin, whose play A Few Good Men had featured Whitford in its Broadway cast). Whitford's work on the series eventually earned him an Emmy Award in 2001; the same year, he was also recognized as part of the show's ensemble cast by the Screen Actor's Guild Awards (also honored with Whitford was John Spencer, who had appeared with him in the movie Presumed Innocent).Whitford appeared in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in 2005, as well as the critically acclaimed comedy drama Bottleshock in 2008. The actor enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in 2012 for his turn as a ruthless, yet oddly likable businessman in director Joss Whedon's popular horror comedy Cabin in the Woods.

Trivia: On stage from 1960, towering African-American actor Rockne Tarkington has been most often seen in movie and TV adventure fare. Those who were weaned on the Saturday morning kiddie shows of the 1960s will remember Tarkington as Morgan, the fearless islander eternally called upon to rescue hero Frank Aletter and heroine Ronne Troup in the live-action "Danger Island" segments of The Banana Splits Adventure Hour. In the evening hours, Tarkington could be seen on an occasional basis as jungle veterinarian Rao on the Tarzan series. Numbering among his feature film credits are such heart-pounders as Ice Pirates (1984), Death Before Dishonor (1987) and Fists of Steel (1990). Curiously, in Kevin Costner's blood-spattered Wyatt Earp (1994), Rockne Tarkington played the relatively passive role of a stablehand.

Trivia: Supporting actor Michael Huddleston, the son of actor David Huddleston, made his film debut in The World's Greatest Lover (1977) and has gone on to have a steady, though low-key, career.