Trivia: One of Hollywood's most prominent strong, silent types, Kevin Costner was for several years the celluloid personification of the baseball industry, given his indelible mark with baseball-themed hits like Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, and For Love of the Game. His epic Western Dances with Wolves marked the first break from this trend and established Costner as a formidable directing talent to boot. Although several flops in the late '90s diminished his bankability, for many, Costner remained one of the industry's most enduring and endearing icons.A native of California, Costner was born January 18, 1955, in Lynnwood. While a marketing student at California State University in Fullerton, he became involved with community theater. Upon graduation in 1978, Costner took a marketing job that lasted all of 30 days before deciding to take a crack at acting. After an inauspicious 1974 film debut in the ultra-cheapie Sizzle Beach USA, Costner decided to take a more serious approach to acting. Venturing down the usual theater-workshop, multiple-audition route, the actor impressed casting directors who weren't really certain of how to use him. That may be one reason why Costner's big-studio debut in Night Shift (1982) consisted of little more than background decoration, and the same year's Frances featured the hapless young actor as an off-stage voice.Director Lawrence Kasdan liked Costner enough to cast him in the important role of the suicide victim who motivated the plot of The Big Chill (1983). Unfortunately, his flashback scenes were edited out of the movie, leaving all that was visible of the actor -- who had turned down Matthew Broderick's role in WarGames to take the part -- to be his dress suit, along with a fleeting glimpse of his hairline and hands as the undertaker prepared him for burial during the opening credits. Two years later, a guilt-ridden Kasdan chose Costner for a major part as a hell-raising gunfighter in the "retro" Western Silverado (1985), this time putting him in front of the camera for virtually the entire film. He also gained notice for the Diner-ish buddy road movie Fandango. The actor's big break came two years later as he burst onto the screen in two major films, No Way Out and The Untouchables; his growing popularity was further amplified with a brace of baseball films, released within months of one another. In Bull Durham (1988), the actor was taciturn minor-league ballplayer Crash Davis, and in the following year's Field of Dreams he was Ray Kinsella, a farmer who constructs a baseball diamond in his Iowa cornfield at the repeated urging of a voice that intones "if you build it, he will come."Riding high on the combined box-office success of these films, Costner was able to make his directing debut. With a small budget of 18 million dollars, he went off to the Black Hills of South Dakota to film the first Western epic that Hollywood had seen in years, a revisionist look at American Indian-white relationships titled Dances With Wolves (1990). The supposedly doomed project, in addition to being one of '90s biggest moneymakers, also took home a slew of Academy Awards, including statues for Best Picture and Best Director (usurping Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas).Costner's luck continued with the 1991 costume epic Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; this, too, made money, though it seriously strained Costner's longtime friendship with the film's director, Kevin Reynolds. The same year, Costner had another hit -- and critical success -- on his hands with Oliver Stone's JFK. The next year's The Bodyguard, a film which teamed Costner with Whitney Houston, did so well at the box office that it seemed the actor could do no wrong. However, his next film, A Perfect World (1993), directed by Clint Eastwood and casting the actor against type as a half-psycho, half-benign prison escapee, was a major disappointment, even though Costner himself garnered some acclaim. Bad luck followed Perfect World in the form of another cast-against-type failure, the 1994 Western Wyatt Earp, which proved that Lawrence Kasdan could have his off days.Adding insult to injury, Costner's 1995 epic sci-fi adventure Waterworld received a whopping amount of negative publicity prior to opening due to its ballooning budget and bloated schedule; ultimately, its decent box office total in no way offset its cost. The following year, Costner was able to rebound somewhat with the romantic comedy Tin Cup, which was well-received by the critics and the public alike. Unfortunately, he opted to follow up this success with another large-scaled directorial effort, an epic filmization of author David Brin's The Postman. The 1997 film featured Costner as a Shakespeare-spouting drifter in a post-nuclear holocaust America whose efforts to reunite the country give him messianic qualities. Like Waterworld, The Postman received a critical drubbing and did poorly with audiences. Costner's reputation, now at an all-time low, received some resuscitation with the 1998 romantic drama Message in a Bottle, and later the same year he returned to the genre that loved him best with Sam Raimi's baseball drama For Love of the Game. A thoughtful reflection on the Cuban missile crisis provided the groundwork for the mid-level success Thirteen Days (2000), though Costner's next turn -- as a member of a group of Elvis impersonating casino bandits in 3000 Miles to Graceland -- drew harsh criticism, relegating it to a quick death at the box office. Though Costner's next effort was a more sentimental supernatural drama lamenting lost love, Dragonfly (2002) was dismissed by many as a cheap clone of The Sixth Sense and met an almost equally hasty fate.Costner fared better in 2003, and returned to directing, with Open Range, a Western co-starring himself and the iconic Robert Duvall -- while it was no Dances With Wolves in terms of mainstream popularity, it certainly received more positive feedback than The Postman or Waterworld. In 2004, Costner starred alongside Joan Allen in director Mike Binder's drama The Upside of Anger. That picture cast Allen as an unexpectedly single, upper-middle class woman who unexpectedly strikes up a romance with the boozy ex-baseball star who lives next door (Costner). Even if divided on the picture as a whole, critics unanimously praised the lead performances by Costner and Allen.After the thoroughly dispiriting (and critically drubbed) quasi-sequel to The Graduate, Rumor Has It..., Costner teamed up with Fugitive director Andrew Davis for the moderately successful 2006 Coast Guard thriller The Guardian, co-starring Ashton Kutcher and Hollywood ingenue Melissa Sagemiller.Costner then undertook another change-of-pace with one of his first psychological thrillers: 2007's Mr. Brooks, directed by Bruce A. Evans. Playing a psychotic criminal spurred on to macabre acts by his homicidal alter ego (William Hurt), Costner emerged from the critical- and box-office failure fairly unscathed. He came back swinging the following year with a starring role in the comedy Swing Vote, playing a small town slacker whose single vote is about to determine the outcome of a presidential election. Costner's usual everyman charm carried the movie, but soon he was back to his more somber side, starring in the recession-era drama The Company Men in 2010 alongside Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones. As the 2010's rolled on, Costner's name appeared often in conjunction with the Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained prior to filming, but scheduling conflicts would eventually prevent the actor from participating in the project. He instead signed on for the latest Superman reboot, playing Clark Kent's adoptive dad on Planet Earth in Man of Steel.

Trivia: Actor Will Patton successfully divides his time between mainstream and independent features, television films, and a stage career on and off-Broadway. Born and raised in North Carolina, the son of a Lutheran minister, Patton learned his craft at the North Carolina School of the Arts and at New York's Actor's Studio where he studied under Lee Strasberg. In addition, Patton studied at the Open Theater under Joseph Chaikin before making it to the New York stage. Patton has won two Obie Awards for Tourists and Refugees No. 2 and for Sam Shepard's Fool for Love. Patton also has had experience working at London's Royal Court Theatre. Upon his return to New York, Patton joined the experimental Winter Project troupe. During the 1970s, Patton performed in two soap operas, Search for Tomorrow and Ryan's Hope. Patton first appeared on film in the short underground film Minus Zero(1979). During the early '80s, Patton appeared in such New York-based independent films as Michael Oblowitz's King Blank and Variety (both 1983). After playing a small but important villainous role in Susan Seidelman's Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Patton was cast in his first big-budget film, Martin Scorsese's After Hours (1985), where he played a brutish boyfriend with a thing for leather and chains. His best portrayal of a villain can be found in the Gene Hackman-starring thriller No Way Out (1987). In the '90s he could be seen in The Rapture, In the Soup, Romeo Is Bleeding, Copycat, the infamous Kevin Costner project The Postman, and the Michael Bay blockbuster Armageddon. At the beginning of the 21st century Patton continued to remain busy with major roles in Remember the Titans, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Mothman Prophecies, and The Punisher, as well as smaller roles in diverse films like Into the West, Wendy and Lucy, Meek's Cutoff, and Brooklyn's Finest.

Trivia: From the opening moments of Menace II Society (1993) in which he commits a shocking double homicide, talented young actor Larenz Tate engrained himself into the public psyche as the virtual epitome of the random and senseless violence of the inner-city streets. And while subsequent roles in such similar projects such as Dead Presidents (1995) may have pigeonholed actors of lesser talent, versatile Tate has transcended his troubled ghetto-dwelling film persona to become an actor of impressive dramatic and comedic range. Born on the west side of Chicago in September 1975, Tate was the youngest of three siblings whose family moved to California when he was nine years old. Convinced by their parents to enter a drama program at the Inner City Cultural Center, the trio didn't take the lessons seriously until classmate Malcolm-Jamal Warner's ascent to fame after being cast on the hugely popular sitcom The Cosby Show. Subsequently realizing that they could parlay their efforts into a tangible form of success, the siblings began to receive small roles and in 1985 Tate made his small-screen debut in an episode of The Twilight Zone -- The Series. Following appearances in such popular television series as 21 Jump Street and The Wonder Years, Tate was cast in the made-for-television feature The Women of Brewster Place before receiving a recurring role in the popular family comedy series Family Matters (both 1989). Offers soon began pouring in and, following numerous small-screen roles, collaborative filmmaking siblings Albert and Allen Hughes approached Tate to star in their debut feature Menace II Society. A jarring vision of inner-city desperation and decay, the film found Tate channeling his substantial energy into creating a truly memorable character that audiences would not soon forget. Following up his breakthrough role with the little-seen but often-praised television series South Central, Tate would later appear in the family comedy-drama The Inkwell before re-teaming with the Hughes brothers for Dead Presidents (1995) and taking on the role of a love-stricken young poet in the romantic drama Love Jones (1997). With subsequent roles in such films as The Postman (as the automotively monikered Ford Lincoln Mercury), Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998), and 2000's Love Come Down, Tate continued to compel audiences well into the new millennium. Though a big theatrical release had eluded Tate for the first few years of the millennial turnover, the talented young actor would soon turn up opposite Laurence Fisburne in the high-octane Biker Boyz (2003). The thrills kept coming with a role in the action-packed Vin Diesel misfire A Man Apart, with a subsequent role in the Oscar underdog Crash affording Tate the ability to riff on the persona he had so successfully perfected in Menace II Society. Later that same year, Tate would play Quincy Jones to Jamie Foxx's Ray Cherles in director Taylor Hackford's critically-acclaimed biopic Ray. Upon taking back to the streets in director Vondie Curtis Hall's tense 2006 action entry Waist Deep, it was time to try to mediate a peaceful solution to a potentially-explosive situation when the cousin of Tate's character realizes that his car has been stolen with his son still inside. He joined the cast of the hit FX TV series Rescue Me in that shows fourth season, and stayed with the program until its conclusion in 2011.

Trivia: A struggling stage actress when she was cast in the Kevin Costner epic The Postman (1997), British actress Olivia Williams survived the film's meltdown with her reputation relatively intact. The daughter of lawyers, Williams earned a degree in English at Cambridge University before studying acting for two years with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Her training led to several stage roles, as well as to work with the Royal Shakespeare Company in both Stratford-upon-Avon and London. A four-month tour of Richard III featuring Ian McKellen brought Williams to the United States, and, following a supporting role in the made-for-TV adaptation of Emma (1997), she again found herself stateside to work on The Postman. Fortunately for Williams, she rebounded from The Postman with her role as Miss Cross, the fought-over love interest of a precocious 15-year-old and an embittered millionaire in the acclaimed comedy Rushmore (1998). She could be seen the next year starring opposite Bruce Willis in the enormously successful supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense. She continued to work steadily in films such as Born Romantic, The Man from Elysian Fields, A Knight's Tale, and Peter Pan. She was excellent in An Education as a sympathetic teacher, appeared in short-lived Joss Whedon series Dollhouse, and starred in Roman Polanski's politically-tinged thriller The Ghost Writer. In 2011 she had a main role in the action film Hanna and appeared as Countess Vronsky in Joe Wright's 2012 adaptation of the classic Anna Karenina.

Trivia: Manhattan-born character actor James Russo has been showing up in hard-bitten film supporting roles since 1981. In the otherwise teen-oriented Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Russo brought a welcome gust of reality as a nasty robber. His gangster characters have borne spell-it-out names like Bugsy (1982's Once Upon a Time in America) and Vince Hood (1984's Cotton Club). Even in such westerns as 1994's Bad Girls, James Russo could be counted upon to show up as a Bad Boy (in this instance, a worthy by the name of Kid Jarret).

Trivia: Best known as a talented rock & roll singer/songwriter of the '80s and '90s, the lanky, blonde Tom Petty has also made a few movie appearances.

Trivia: Born December 17, 1974, in Los Angeles, Giovanni Ribisi began his career in network television, with recurring and guest roles on a number of shows, including The Wonder Years. As a teenager, he was typecast for several years as a dimwitted slacker in films and on television, with a memorable guest spot in an episode of The X-Files and a recurring role as Lisa Kudrow's brother on Friends. Ribisi was eventually able to break the grunge mold, first with a secondary role in Tom Hanks' That Thing You Do! (1996) and then in Richard Linklater's SubUrbia (1997). It was his role in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (1998) that caused many critics to dub him one of the leading actors of his generation, a status confirmed by his appearance on the cover of Vanity Fair with a number of fellow up-and-comers. Ribisi was given further opportunities to showcase his sleepy-eyed versatility in such films as 1999's The Mod Squad and The Other Sister. If Ribisi's best roles had been unfairly weighed down by an overabundance of commendable but little seen roles in the previous years, all this would change as the young actor began to focus increasingly on roles that were not only high quality, but high profile as well. His role in the high stakes 2000 drama The Boiler Room may have went largely unseen in theaters, but healthy word of mouth combined with an impressive cast of up and comers found the film an enduring shelf life on cable and DVD. After burning rubber in the fast and furious Nicolas Cage action thriller Gone in Sixty Seconds, Ribisi's memorable performance in director Sam Raimi's southern gothic flavored chiller The Gift preceded a touching turn in the affecting made-for-television drama Shot in the Heart. Ribisi's subsequent role as a conflicted police officer in the 2002 drama Heaven may have been a well-intended commentary on the state of crime and terrorism, but audiences largel dismissed the effort as pretentious tripe and the actor took a brief turn into blockbuster territory with Basic before a turn as an aloof, celebrity obsessed photogapher in director Sophia Coppola's art-house hit Lost in Translation. If his turn as a celebrity who turns convention in its head by stalking a fan in I Love Your Work didn't strike home with viewers, an appearance in the same year's Cold Mountain offered him the chance to flex his dramatic skills alongside an impressive cast that included Jude Law and Nicole Kidman. Of course Ribisi never was one to be predictable with his choice of roles, and following the romantic comedy Love's Brother he essayed a supporting role in the 2004 sci-fi thriller Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow. A handful of largely forgettable roles followed, and on the heels of recurring television roles in My Name is Earn and Entourage, Ribisi dove back into sci-fi with a role as villainous Chief Administrator Parker Selfridge in James Cameron's phenominally successful Avatar. And if Ribisi's performace in that film failed to make your skin crawl, his turn as a psychotic, heavily-tattooed drug dealer in the fast paced 2012 action thriller Contraband was sure to do the trick. He continued his villainous run as a stalker in the surprise hit film Ted (2012). Ribisi later re-teamed with his Ted director, Seth MacFarlane, in 2014's A Million Ways to Die in the West. He also appeared in the Oscar-nominated film Selma that same year.

Trivia: When asked why he decided upon becoming an actor, Joe Santos tended to trot out the tried-and-true rationale "because I failed at everything else." While attending Fordham University, Santos excelled at football, but lost interest in the sport after a few semi-pro years. By the time he was 30, Santos had been remarkably unsuccessful in a variety of vocations, including railroad worker, tree cutter, automobile importer and tavern owner. While working a construction job in New York, Santos was invited by a friend to sit in on an acting class. This seemed like an easy way to make a living, so Santos began making the audition rounds, almost immediately landing a good part on a TV soap opera. This gig unfortunately led nowhere, and for the next year or so Santos drove a cab for 10 to 11 hours a day. The novice actor's first big break was a part in the 1971 film Panic in Needle Park, which he received at the recommendation of the film's star (and Santos' frequent softball partner) Al Pacino. With the plum part of Sergeant Cruz in the four-part TV drama The Blue Knight (1973), Santos inaugurated a fruitful, still-thriving career in "cop" roles, the best and longest-lasting of which was detective Dennis Becker on the James Garner series The Rockford Files (1974-80). Joe Santos' other series-TV credits include the top-billed part of deadbeat dad Norman Davis in Me and Maxx (1980), Hispanic nightclub comic Paul Rodriguez' disapproving father in AKA Pablo (1984), and Lieutenant Frank Harper in the 1985-86 episodes of Hardcastle and McCormick. One of his final roles was a recurring gig on The Sopranos. Santos died in 2016, at age 84.

Trivia: Providence-born character actor Ron McLarty gained fame in the 1980s as Sgt. Frank Belson on Spencer for Hire. Following that, he appeared on ABC's infamous short-lived Cop Rock and was a staple guest-player on everything from Law and Order to Sex and the City throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. In 2007, he was cast as the father of Parker Posey and Lauren Ambrose on the Fox comedy series The Return of Jezebel James.

Trivia: Despite over four decades in the industry, actress Peggy Lipton is best known for a role she played in 1968, that of undercover cop Julie Barnes in The Mod Squad (1968-1973). However, prior to life as Julie Barnes, Lipton had participated in The John Forsythe Show (1965-1966) and starred alongside Kurt Russell in Mosby's Marauders, a critically praised three-part tale from The Wonderful World of Disney series. After the finale of The Mod Squad (and the reunion in 1979's The Return of the Mod Squad), Lipton played supporting roles in Purple People Eater and Keenen Ivory Wayans' I'm Gonna Git You Sucka! (both 1988). Before long, another television role launched Lipton's name back into the mainstream -- David Lynch's surreal drama series Twin Peaks (1990-1991), which featured Lipton in the role of Norma Jennings.Lipton reprised her Twin Peaks role in 1992, though, unlike The Return of the Mod Squad, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was a feature-film prequel to the television series. Lipton continued to make sporadic appearances in film and television throughout the '90s -- she had decided to focus most of her attention on raising a family rather than pursuing acting full-time -- and played a small, supporting role in Kevin Costner's ill-conceived film The Postman in 1997. In 2000, Lipton worked with Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Jason Leigh in director Tamra Davis' coming-of-age drama Skipped Parts, and went on to perform in Michael and Mark Polish's Jackpot in 2001. She also turned up on the popular spy series Alias in 2004 as the duplicitous mother of the similarly deceptive government agent Lauren Reed (Melissa George). Peggy Lipton was married to composer/producer Quincy Jones from 1974-1989, and the former couple have two daughters together.

Trivia: With his bald head and beefy exterior, Hollywood character player Rex Linn quickly built up an acting resumé replete with many portrayals of toughs, feds, cops, thugs, and -- occasionally -- unremarkable, beleaguered everymen. Born in the panhandle of the Lone Star State, Linn came of age in the small Texas town of Spearman. He discovered a lingering interest in drama during his teenage years, but buckled under the weight of discouragement from an acting coach, and put acting on the shelf to focus on career pursuits in banking and the oil industry. Dissatisfied with these fields, Linn convinced an Oklahoma talent agent to sign him, and made the leap from commercials to feature roles with his portrayal of serial murderer Fred Epps in the Peter Masterson-directed thriller Night Game (1989), opposite Roy Scheider. The pleasure of this experience prompted Linn to head to the West Coast, where he worked construction, landed intermittent acting assignments, and studied the craft under the tutelage of Silvana Gallardo in Studio City, CA. Linn was memorable as the rogue treasury agent who assists terrorist John Lithgow in the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Cliffhanger (1993), which brought the actor the recognition he so persistently sought and led to a series of supporting roles in dozens of feature films. Linn's portrayal of Frank McLaury in Wyatt Earp (1994) marked the first in a series of several onscreen collaborations with Kevin Costner that also included the romantic comedy Tin Cup (1996) and the laborious sci-fi epic The Postman (1997). Linn also landed guest appearances on such series as JAG and 3rd Rock From the Sun. He is best known, however, for his fine portrayal of Miami-Dade Police Department detective Frank Tripp on the hit crime series CSI: Miami.

Trivia: One of the more promising actors to emerge during the late-1990s Teen Invasion, Shawn Hatosy got his start in commercials and theatre. The Maryland native first broke into film with a miniscule role in the 1995 Home for the Holidays, and two years later appeared in a string of films, with his most notable role being the high school student who stands up for an outed Kevin Kline in In & Out. He gained further recognition the following year as a football player battling alien teachers in The Faculty, and in 1999 had a number of substantial roles: he could be seen as the protagonist of the Farrelly Brothers' coming-of-age comedy Outside Providence, as a young Nick Nolte in Simpatico, and as the guy who teaches Natalie Portman a few things about life in Wayne Wang's Anywhere But Here. As the new century got under way, Hatosy could be seen in a variety of projects including Down to You, 11:14, and the indie hit The Cooler. He continued to work steadily in projects such as Faith of My Fathers, Alpha Dog, Factory Girl, and Nobel Son. He landed a major part in the cop series Southland, and found time during his work on that show to appear in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and Michael Mann's historical gangster film Public Enemies.

Trivia: A talented and handsome blond actor who has also shown a marked interest behind the camera, Ryan Hurst may have been destined to pursue a career in film considering his father's notable television career and his mother's occupation as an acting coach. Born in Los Angeles, CA, in 1976, Hurst found early commercial work before completing his primary education at Santa Monica High School. After an early appearance in a Spam commercial and a few helpful tips from mom and dad, the youth began to hit his stride on the stage. In addition to role his portrayal of Brutus in Julius Caesar and his work in such familiar plays as Harvey and Guys and Dolls, Hurst staged his own adaptation of the well-loved Cyrano de Bergerac for the Santa Monica Civic Light Opera and received a Best Performance award from Backstage West for his Canon Theater production of The Last Night of Ballyhoo. Television roles in Saved by the Bell: The New Class and Boston Common followed, and in 1997 Hurst made his feature debut in the Kevin Costner epic The Postman. Subsequent roles in such high-profile releases as Saving Private Ryan and Patch Adams (both 1998) continued to find his budding career flourishing; with a small role in 2000's The Rules of Engagement, Hurst also contributed behind the camera (he shot the 16 mm montage) and then turned up in the sports drama Remember the Titans (also 2000). Continuing to rise to the top of the credits with each film role, Hurst's roles in We Were Soldiers and Lone Star State of Mind (both 2002) were a testament to his remarkable versatility.

Trivia: Graduated from the College of William and Mary with a degree in economics. Moved shortly after college to Los Angeles to learn comedic improv at the Groundlings Theater. Made his theatrical debut in the United Kingdom in the musical Buddy, where he played the lead role of Buddy Holly and performed for Queen Elizabeth. Originally appeared in the British version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?; he later moved to become a regular in the US version. Tours through the United States with the improv group called Whose Live Anyway?; the group is made up of him and of his former Whose Line Is It Anyway? cast mates. His son Chase took Esten's Nashville TV daughter Lennon Stella to his senior prom.

Trivia: Was a professional tennis player, and gave lessons to executives in Los Angeles prior to his acting career.Has been acting since 1993.Decided to become a standup comedian in 2002 after being on stage for the first time.Is very active on social media.Is an avid golf player.

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: Began acting in college and was nominated for an Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship. Received ALMA Award nominations (in 1996 and '97) for his role on the TV series Dangerous Minds. Relocated from L.A. to New Mexico in 2005 after being cast on the ABC Family drama Wildfire, which was filmed in the Albuquerque area. Opened an acting studio in New Mexico in 2007 with his wife Carmen, an actress who has appeared on AMC's Breaking Bad.

Trivia: With short blonde hair and a lean frame, Mary Stuart Masterson has played many tomboys throughout her acting career. Born to director Peter Masterson and actress Carlin Glynn, she made her film debut in The Stepford Wives at the age of nine. As a teenager, she appeared on Broadway in Alice in Wonderland and played tough girl Dani in Heaven Help Us. She studied anthropology at N.Y.U. and returned to acting in 1987 to star in Some Kind of Wonderful as quintessential '80s tomboy Watt, her most recognizable role. After appearing with her folks in Francis Ford Coppola's Gardens of Stone and opposite Robert Downey Jr. in Chances Are, she played a pregnant woman who gives up her baby to Glenn Close and James Woods in Immediate Family. The '90s saw good roles in successful movies like the ensemble comedy Married to It, the tearjerker Fried Green Tomatoes, and the offbeat romance Benny & Joon. However, she also appeared in some unsuccessful films like the revisionist Western Bad Girls and the sentimental romance Bed of Roses. She then turned to television for a lead in the TV period drama Lily Dale (directed by her father) and her own short-lived series, Kate Brasher. In 2000, she married television director Damon Santostefano and went on to win a Tony for her work in the Broadway musical revival Nine.