Trivia: Born in Ireland, Roma Downey studied at the London Drama Studio and earned numerous Broadway and off-Broadway stage credits, including a U.S. tour with Dublin's Abbey Players. Though she is most well-known for playing Monica on the CBS dramatic series Touched By an Angel, Downey also played Jackie Kennedy in the 1991 TV miniseries A Woman Named Jackie. She also appeared in several highly sentimental made-for-TV movies like Borrowed Hearts and A Child Is Missing. In 1998, she played Annie Sullivan to Moira Kelly's Helen Keller in Monday After the Miracle. Staying with emotive dramas, she next played Cassie Whitman in the U.K. television movies A Test of Love and A Secret Life. For her next few romantic comedies, she played opposite Tim Matheson in Second Honeymoon and opposite George Newbern in Sons of Mistletoe. Downey finally broke through to a leading role in a feature film with the family comedy Hairy Tale. Downey continued to work throughout the mid-2000s, and took on supporting roles in Funky Monkey (2004) and Come Dance at My Wedding (2009).

Trivia: Della Reese is one of the few performers to move easily between the religious community and the mainstream entertainment industry. Born in Detroit, MI, Reese started singing in gospel choirs at a very young age. In 1945, she joined a touring choir with legendary gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. As a student at Wayne State University, Reese former her own singing group called the Meditation Singers. After a regular gig at Detroit's Flame Showbar, she went on to sing with Erskine Hawkins & His Orchestra. During the '50s and '60s, she recorded pop vocal albums for Jubilee and RCA Victor, leading to several pop singles on the Billboard charts. She was also nominated for a Grammy award and is remembered as one of the first gospel singers to have a popular stage show in Las Vegas.Her television career started in 1969 as the guest host of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. She then made television history as the first black woman with her own prime-time variety show, Della. After singing on the nightclub circuit and making television guest appearances as herself, she joined the cast of Chico and the Man from 1976 to 1978. Despite her battle with illness in the early '80s, she continued acting steadily throughout the next few decades. Her other TV series appearances include Sanford and Son, It Takes Two, Charlie & Co., and The Royal Family. On the big screen, she played madam Vera in Eddie Murphy's Harlem Nights and Martin Lawrence's mother in A Thin Line Between Love and Hate. Her biggest television achievement is the CBS drama Touched By an Angel, which ran from 1994-2003. For her role of Tess, the wise guiding angel to Monica (Roma Downey), Reese won several Image Awards and Emmy nominations. Her other television work includes leading roles on the TV tearjerkers Miracle in the Woods, The Moving of Sylvia Myles, and Anya's Bell. She would appear in a number of projects in the years to come, like Expecting Mary and Me Again. An ordained minister, Reese helps to run the Los Angeles church association Understanding Foundation for Better Living.

Trivia: First stage role was in his high school's production of The Sound of Music. Directed a production of Grease while in high school. Was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at Mississippi State. Made his big-screen debut in the 1984 comedy Making the Grade. Appeared in the 1985 video for ZZ Top's "Sleeping Bag." First major TV role was on long-running soap the Young and the Restless. His Touched by an Angel role as Andrew the Angel of Death was originally a recurring one, but he was made a regular in the third season, and remained with the show until its conclusion in 2003.

Trivia: As the co-star of the landmark Bonnie and Clyde, actress Faye Dunaway helped usher in a new golden era in American filmmaking, going on to appear in several of the greatest films of the 1970s. Born January 14, 1941, in Bascom, FL, Dunaway was the daughter of an army officer. She studied theater arts at the University of Boston and later joined the Lincoln Center Repertory Company under the direction of Elia Kazan and Robert Whitehead. Between 1962 and 1967, she appeared in a number of prominent stage productions, including A Man for All Seasons and Arthur Miller's After the Fall, playing a character based on Marilyn Monroe. Dunaway's breakthrough performance came in an off-Broadway production of Hogan's Goat, which resulted in a contract with director Otto Preminger. She made her film debut in his 1967 drama Hurry Sundown, but the two frequently clashed, and she refused to appear in his Skidoo; after a legal battle, Dunaway was allowed to buy out the remainder of her contract, and she then starred in The Happening (1967).Still, Dunaway was virtually unknown when she accepted the role of the notorious gangster Bonnie Parker opposite Warren Beatty in Arthur Penn's 1967 crime saga Bonnie and Clyde. The picture was an unqualified success, one of the most influential films of the era, and she had become a star seemingly overnight, earning a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her sexy performance. Dunaway's next major role cast her with Steve McQueen in 1968's The Thomas Crown Affair, another major hit. However, her next several projects -- Amanti, a romance with Marcello Mastroianni, and the Kazan-directed The Arrangement -- stumbled, and although 1970's Little Big Man was a hit, Puzzle of a Downfall Child (directed by her fiancé, Jerry Schatzberg) was a disaster. Quickly, Dunaway was reduced to projects like the little-seen 1971 thriller La Maison Sous Les Arbres and the Western Doc. When they too failed, she retreated from films, first appearing on-stage in Harold Pinter's Old Times and then starring in the made-for-television The Woman I Love.After portraying Blanche du Bois in a Los Angeles stage adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire, Dunaway returned to the cinema in Stanley Kramer's 1973 drama Oklahoma Crude. Subsequent to her appearance in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers, she made headlines for her marriage to rocker Peter Wolf and was then cast in Roman Polanski's 1974 noir Chinatown. The performance was her best since Bonnie and Clyde, scoring another Academy Award nomination, and the film itself remains a classic. The success of The Towering Inferno later that same year confirmed that Dunaway's star power had returned in full, and she next co-starred with Robert Redford in the well-received thriller Three Days of the Condor. In 1976, Dunaway starred as an ambitious television executive in Sidney Lumet's scathing black comedy Network, and on her third attempt she finally won an Oscar. A British feature, Voyage of the Damned, and a TV-movie, The Disappearance of Aimee, quickly followed, and in 1978 she starred in the much-maligned thriller The Eyes of Laura Mars.After 1979's The Champ, Dunaway starred with Frank Sinatra in The First Deadly Sin. An over-the-top turn as Joan Crawford in the tell-all biopic Mommie Dearest followed in 1981, as did another biography, the TV feature Evita Peron. Her career was again slumping, a fate which neither the Broadway production of The Curse of an Aching Heart nor another telefilm, 1982's The Country Girl, helped to remedy. After 1984's Supergirl, Dunaway spent much of the decade on the small screen, appearing in a pair of miniseries -- Ellis Island and Christopher Columbus -- and in 1986 appearing as the titular Beverly Hills Madam. The 1987 feature Barfly found a cult audience, but almost without exception, Dunaway's subsequent films went unnoticed; even the 1990 Chinatown sequel The Two Jakes was a failure. In 1993, she starred in a short-lived sitcom, It Had to Be You, and continued to appear in little-seen projects. Dunaway's most prominent roles of the mid-'90s included a supporting turn as the wife of psychiatrist Marlon Brando in 1995's Don Juan DeMarco and as a barmaid/hostage in the directorial debut of actor Kevin Spacey, Albino Alligator (1996). In 1999, Dunaway gave a nod to her screen past with a cameo appearance in the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. That same year, she took on the more substantial role of Yolande d'Aragon in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc.As the new century began she had parts in The Yards and Festival in Cannes. In 2002 she had a part in the big-screen adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' The Rules of Attraction. She had a brief part in Tim Burton's Big Fish.In 2005 she appeared for one season as the lead judge on the acting reality series The Starlet, where she repeated the painful catchphrase, "don't call us, we'll call you," every time a contestant was dismissed from the program.She continued to work steadily in a variety of projects including Flick, Midnight Bayou, and 2010's A Family Thanksgiving.

Trivia: In terms of public recognition, the unabashedly voluptuous, raven-haired American actress Delta Burke will ere be tied to her role as Suzanne Sugarbaker, one of the two main proprietors of the Sugarbakers interior design firm, on the blockbuster CBS sitcom Designing Women (a role she carried from 1986-1991). But those who have followed Burke's career diligently know that her experience extends to dozens of additional series roles and telemovies, making her a veritable queen of prime time. Burke claims an enduring off-camera impact on the American fashion world as well, and is a best-selling author.Born in Orlando, FL, on July 30, 1956, Burke never met her biological father; she was raised by her single mother, Jean, and an adoptive dad, Frederick Burke -- an Orlando-area realtor. With an irrepressible beauty and the graciousness and charm of a southern debutante, Burke began working her way up through the pageant circuit, ascending from the Orlando Fire Department's "Miss Flame" contest to that of Miss Florida to the 1974 Miss America pageant -- which she promptly lost by failing to even make the top ten (an event that Burke later regarded as an enormous blessing in disguise). While celebrating her 20th birthday alone at a St. Augustine, FL, motel, a stalker assaulted her.The cumulative impact of this turmoil drove Burke to England, where she put herself through the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (via her pageant winnings) and trained as an actress. When she finally returned to the United States, Burke soon secured an agent, and landed parts in now-forgotten telemovies during the late '70s and very early '80s. The turns began inconspicuously, with a bit role in the Suzanne Somers made-for-TV movie Zuma Beach, but in 1979, Burke shot up to instant first billing, heavily typecast as a Scarlett O'Hara-like "Southern belle" in the made-for-television feature Charleston. Unfortunately, the picture aired to devastating reviews and disappointing ratings.Near the end of her three-season run as the star of the long-running HBO sitcom 1st & Ten from 1984-1987 (a Wildcats-like comedy with Burke as Diane Barrow, the owner of an NFL football team), Burke signed with producers Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason for the Sugarbaker role. Designing Women cast Burke, Dixie Carter, Jean Smart, and Annie Potts as the aforementioned Atlanta-area interior designers with a distinctly Southern flair. After debuting on September 29, 1986, the program bowed to sensational critical reviews and viewer raves. After flirting with ratings doom, the network ultimately gave the show a permanent slot in its Monday-evening schedule -- one that lasted until late May 1993.Burke's weight fluctuation generated an enormous amount of tabloid fodder, and created friction between her and the Thomasons, which ultimately led to Burke's termination at the end of the 1991 season. Not one to be daunted, the actress attempted to rebound with a 1992 ABC sitcom, Delta, that cast her as a country singer striving for elusive stardom. Yet this program (developed and produced through Burke's production company) failed to connect with a sizeable audience, and folded within one year.After a few starring roles in telemovies Burke landed a tremendous amount of off-camera success by manufacturing and marketing a line of plus-size clothes through her own clothing firm, Delta Burke Designs. Burke also authored and published a best-selling autobiography, Delta Style, in 1998. In the new millenium, the TV queen began to appear in her first big-screen features. She appeared in the Mel Gibson romantic comedy-fantasy What Women Want and voiced a pooch in the 2003 family comedy Good Boy!. The comedic melodrama Sordid Lives found her appearing in a long-running indie success. In 2006, she also returned to series television, in a temporary role as Bella Horowitz, on David E. Kelley's comedy drama Boston Legal. In 2008 she had a major role in the made-for-cable romantic comedy Bridal Fever.Off-camera, Burke famously married to Simon & Simon and Major Dad star (and fellow Southerner) Gerald McRaney in 1989.

Trivia: Performed with his older brother Ricky when they were both younger. Worked as a cook and dishwasher (when he wasn't singing on stage) at the Nashville Palace in the early 1980s. Storms of Life, his 1986 debut album, sold more than 4 million copies. Inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 1986. Has an uncredited cameo in Young Guns (1988). Appeared in seven episodes of Touched By An Angel and also lent the song "When Mama Prayed" to the series finale. Released Anniversary Celebration in 2011, a collection of duets and collaborations in honor of the 25 years since the release of his debut album. Suffered a stroke in 2013.

Trivia: Square-jawed, mellow-voiced character actor David Canary achieved his greatest prominence on television, in roles that typecast him as a "man's man" with an unmistakably tough edge but a smooth demeanor and approach. Born in Elwood, IN, Canary grew up in Ohio as the son of a JC Penney manager. He took to musical performance (as a baritone vocalist) during adolescence, then after high school attended the University of Cincinnati on a football scholarship and concurrently took classes at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, qualifying as the first person to combine studies at both institutions, graduating as a music major in voice from the university. During that period, the university theater director, Paul Rutledge, observed Canary's innate dramatic gifts and strongly encouraged the student to try out for roles in numerous productions, many of which he landed with great ease, thereby opening himself up to a talent all but unrecognized and untapped, and paving the way for a prestigious foray into acting that commenced with several years of summer stock. Canary began his professional acting career on-stage, in musicals, but he made his Broadway debut in the play Great Day in the Morning, opposite Colleen Dewhurst. His career was put on hold for a time when he was drafted into the U.S. Army and stationed at a base in Texas, but he made the most of it, entertaining the troops and winning the All Army Entertainment Contest for best popular singer. When his service time was completed, Canary returned to the theater, but it wasn't long before he moved into filmed work.As a professional actor, Canary divided his time between big- and small-screen outings, but placed his strongest emphasis on television. He is best known for two ongoing, multi-season series roles: Candy, a wanderer hired onto the Cartwright property as a ranch hand, on the immensely popular Western saga Bonanza (a part held from 1967 through 1970 and again during the final season of 1972-1973), and -- on a much different note -- long-running portrayals of twins Adam and Stuart Chandler on the ABC daytime drama All My Children. Canary retired from acting in 2013; he died in 2015, at age 77.

Trivia: In order to land the part of Bo Duke in the TV series The Dukes of Hazzard, John Schneider adopted a Cracker dialect and shambling good-ole-boy manner, claiming that he hailed from the tiny -- and fictional -- community of Snailville, Georgia. In fact, Schneider was born in Upstate New York, and was raised in Atlanta by his mom. During his teen years, Schneider picked up spending money by working as an entertainer at parties and public events, playing the guitar, telling jokes and performing a magic trick or two. He briefly attended the Georgia School of High Performance, hoping to become a race-car driver. His prowess behind the wheel enabled him to land his Dukes of Hazzard job, which he held down from 1979 to 1985, save for a brief 1982 walkout due to contract dispute. Schneider's Hazzard success allowed him to have both a recording career as a country music artist, and an ongoing presence on the small screen. In addition to numerous made-for-TV movies, he had a recurring role on the popular program Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Schneider gained a whole new legion of fans as the Earth father of Superman when he began playing Jonathan Kent on the teen-oriented superhero series Smallville in 2001. He returned to the big screen with a starring role in 2006's Collier & Co., which he also directed. He would also appear in movies like Super Shark and on the TV series Hero Factory. In 2013, he took a starring role in The Haves and Have Nots, a sopa opera created by Tyler Perry.

Trivia: Graduating cum laude from the University of Tulsa, Rue McClanahan studied acting with Uta Hagen and at the Perry-Mansfield school. After her professional debut with a Pennsylvania stock company in 1957, McClanahan headed to New York, where between acting gigs she worked as a waitress, took shorthand and sold blouses. Grabbing any opportunity available, she made her TV bow on a 1960 episode of the TV series Malibu Run, then appeared in a handful of exploitation films with come-hither titles like Five Minutes to Love (she played "Poochie, the girl from the shack," a credit she has since dropped from her resumé). She managed to find more prestigious work on the New York stage, starring in such well-received productions as MacBird, Jimmy Shine, Sticks and Bones and California Suite. She also played regular roles on the TV soap operas Another World and Where the Heart Is. A 1972 guest shot on Norman Lear's controversial series All in the Family led to her being cast as Vivian Harmon on Lear's popular sitcom Maude, a role she played until the series' cancellation in 1978. McClanahan's next project was her own starring series, 1978's Apple Pie, which unfortunately bit the dust after three shows. She went on to play the vitriolic Aunt Fran on the network version of Mama's Family (1983-85), then was co-starred with her Maude colleague Bea Arthur in The Golden Girls (1985-92). Her well-rounded portrayal of overly amorous museum worker Blanche Devereaux won her an 1986 Emmy award; she reprised the character in the Golden Girls spin-off Golden Palace (1992-93). The star of several made-for-TV movies, McClanahan co-produced and appeared in a brace of "dramedies," Mother of the Bride (1991) and Baby of the Bride (1992).

Trivia: Keb' Mo' draws heavily on the old-fashioned country blues style of Robert Johnson, but keeps his sound contemporary with touches of soul and folksy storytelling. He writes much of his own material and has applied his acoustic, electric, and slide guitar skills to jazz and rock-oriented bands, as well. Born Kevin Moore in Los Angeles to parents of Southern descent, he was exposed to gospel music at a young age. At 21, Moore joined an R&B band later hired for a tour by Papa John Creach and played on three of Creach's albums. Opening for jazz and rock artists such as the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jefferson Starship, and Loggins & Messina helped broaden Moore's horizons and musical abilities. He cut an R&B-based solo album, Rainmaker, in 1980 for Casablanca, which promptly folded. In 1983, he joined Monk Higgins' band as a guitarist and met a number of blues musicians who collectively increased his understanding of the music. He subsequently joined a vocal group called the Rose Brothers and gigged around L.A. Moore portrayed a Delta bluesman in a local play called Rabbit Foot in 1990 and later playing Robert Johnson in a docudrama called Can't You Hear the Wind Howl? He released his self-titled debut album as Keb' Mo' in 1994, featuring two Robert Johnson covers, 11 songs written or co-written by Moore, and his guitar and banjo work. Keb' Mo' performed a well-received set at the 1995 Newport Folk Festival. His second album, Just Like You, was equally well-received. Slow Down followed in 1998 and Door was issued two years later.

Trivia: Actress of stage, screen, and TV, Nell Carter moved to New York in 1968 and began as a singer in clubs and cabarets, then landed roles in a string of musicals. Her big break came with her performance in the Broadway musical Ain't Misbehavin' in 1978 (she repeated her role in the TV-version of the show). This led to a lead in the TV sitcom Gimme a Break, The show debuted in 1981 and made her nationally-known; the persona she created on the show was that of a bossy, love-lorn woman with a streak of self-deprecating humor. Besides the TV series, she went on to work as a singer in big clubs and in guest spots at big musical affairs, as well as hosting her own TV special Never Too Old to Dream in 1986.

Trivia: Born Ermes Effron Borgnino in Hamden, CT, to Italian immigrants, Ernest Borgnine spent five years of his early childhood in Milan before returning to the States for his education. Following a long stint in the Navy that ended after WWII, Borgnine enrolled in the Randall School of Dramatic Art in Hartford. Between 1946 and 1950, he worked with a theater troupe in Virginia and afterward appeared a few times on television before his 1951 film debut in China Corsair. Borgnine's stout build and tough face led him to spend the next few years playing villains. In 1953, he won considerable acclaim for his memorable portrayal of a ruthless, cruel sergeant in From Here to Eternity. He was also praised for his performance in the Western Bad Day at Black Rock. Borgnine could easily have been forever typecast as the heavy, but in 1955, he proved his versatility and showed a sensitive side in the film version of Paddy Chayefsky's acclaimed television play Marty. Borgnine's moving portrayal of a weak-willed, lonely, middle-aged butcher attempting to find love in the face of a crushingly dull life earned him an Oscar, a British Academy award, a Cannes Festival award, and an award from both the New York Film Critics and the National Board of Review. After that, he seldom played bad guys and instead was primarily cast in "regular Joe" roles, with the notable exception of The Vikings in which he played the leader of the Viking warriors. In 1962, he was cast in the role that most baby boomers best remember him for, the anarchic, entrepreneurial Quentin McHale in the sitcom McHale's Navy. During the '60s and '70s, Borgnine's popularity was at its peak and he appeared in many films, including a theatrical version of his show in 1964, The Dirty Dozen (1966), Ice Station Zebra (1968) and The Wild Bunch (1969). Following the demise of McHale's Navy in 1965, Borgnine did not regularly appear in series television for several years. However, he did continue his busy film career and also performed in television miniseries and movies. Notable features include The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Law and Disorder (1974). Some of his best television performances can be seen in Jesus of Nazareth (1977), Ghost on Flight 401 (1978), and a remake of Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front (1979). In 1984, Borgnine returned to series television starring opposite Jan Michael Vincent in the action-adventure series Airwolf. That series ended in 1986; Borgnine's career continued to steam along albeit in much smaller roles. Between 1995 and 1997, he was a regular on the television sitcom The Single Guy. In 1997, he also made a cameo appearance in Tom Arnold's remake of Borgnine's hit series McHale's Navy.At age 80 he continued to work steadily in a variety of projects such as the comedy BASEketball, the sci-fi film Gattaca, and as the subject of the 1997 documentary Ernest Borgnine on the Bus. He kept on acting right up to the end of his life, tackling one of his final roles in the 2010 action comedy RED. Borgnine died in 2012 at age 95.

Trivia: In 1999, Doris Roberts achieved "overnight" stardom in the role of Marie Barone in the series Everybody Loves Raymond, going from working actress -- which she'd been for more than 40 years -- to being an instantly recognized performer. It was an improbable climb to the top rank of popular culture stardom. Roberts was born in St. Louis, MO, in 1925, to a family that was soon shattered when the father abandoned them. She had a difficult but loving childhood as her mother sought to provide for both of them by herself, and eventually Roberts gravitated toward the idea of an acting career. To do this, she had to work at any jobs that she could find, including clerk typist, to afford the lessons that she needed from teachers that included Lee Strasberg and Sanford Meisner. She made her first television appearance in the early '50s, in a Studio One production of Jane Eyre, and made the usual rounds between theater and television. Her theatrical debut came on the a stage at New York's City Center in 1955, and she was Shirley Booth's understudy in the theatrical version of the comedy Desk Set. She distinguished herself in the role of Mommy in the original production of Edward Albee's The American Dream, and since the early '60s, had carved a niche for herself in maternal and neighborly roles, on both stage and screen. Following her screen debut in Jack Garfein's New York-filmed drama Something Wild (1961), she tended more toward comedy (albeit often black comedy), with performances in Jack Smight's No Way to Treat a Lady, where she played the skeptical onlooker whose questions and low-key intervention save the life of a would-be victim; Leonard Kastle's The Honeymoon Killers (1970), in which she played the roommate of the nurse-turned-murderer played by Shirley Stoler; and Alan Arkin's Little Murders (1971), where she played Elliott Gould's mother. Female comics seemed to perceive Roberts' gifts as an actress especially well, as she got two of her better roles, in A New Leaf (1971) and Rabbit Test (1978), from Elaine May and Joan Rivers, respectively. Although she began appearing in television in the 1950s, with appearances on Ben Casey, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Baretta, All in the Family, The Streets of San Francisco, Rhoda, Soap, and Barney Miller, Roberts didn't start to make a lasting impression in the medium -- which would become her vehicle for stardom -- until the 1970s. She was supposed to have a role in a proposed new series starring Mary Tyler Moore, but when that series failed to sell, she was cast in the role of Donna Pescow's mother in the series Angie (1979), which got Roberts her first real notice by the public or the press. After that, the television appearances grew more frequent, and finally in 1983, she joined the cast of Remington Steele midway through the series' run, as Mildred Krebs, an IRS investigator-turned-secretary-turned-detective, working alongside Pierce Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist, and often stealing the show with her low-key comedic work. Roberts' first marriage ended in divorce, and her second, to novelist William Goyen, ended when he died in 1983 -- her son from her first marriage, Michael Cannata, has been her manager since the 1970s. It was a dozen years after Remington Steele, and some notable guest star appearances on shows like St. Elsewhere, that she landed the role of Marie on Everybody Loves Raymond. Since then, she has been a guest on talk shows and an acting celebrity, with a brace of Emmy nominations to her credit.In 2003 Roberts published the book Are You Hungry, Dear?: Life, Laughs and Lasagna, and the following year she was appointed a cultural ambassador by the U.S. Department of State. But back on the small screen Roberts was more recognizable than ever before, with appearances in Grey's Anatomy, Hot in Cleveland, and Desperate Housewives keeping her as active as ever. Roberts continued to work steadily until her death in 2016, at age 90.

Trivia: During her nine-year (1975-1984) tenure as Barbara Cooper on TV's One Day at a Time, Valerie Bertinelli grew from a chubby, awkward 15-year-old with only a smattering of bit-part credits into a polished actress and bona fide sex symbol. When Bertinelli "married" her One Day co-star Boyd Gaines in a 1982 episode, the ratings went through the roof, while many a male viewer's heart sank. One year earlier, Bertinelli had been a bride for real; her marriage to rock star Eddie Van Halen was kept under wraps by the series' producers for fear of damaging the actress' "Little Miss Perfect" image. Bertinelli's son by Van Halen was named Wolfgang, as in Mozart. While still a One Day regular, Bertinelli made the first of many TV-movie starring appearances in 1979's Young Love, First Love; later small-screen projects -- most of them packaged by Bertinelli's own production company, Bertinelli Inc. -- included The Princess and the Cabbie (1981), I Was a Mail Order Bride (1982), Shattered Vows (1984), The Seduction of Gina (1984), Silent Witness (1985), and Pancho Barnes (1988). Conversely, her theatrical-feature credits are limited, but include C.H.O.M.P.S. (1979) and Ordinary Heroes (1985). In the years since One Day at a Time, Valerie Bertinelli has starred in the short-lived TV series, Sydney (1990) and Café Americain (1993).At the beginning of the 2000s, she landed a recurring role on Touched By an Angel. In 2005 she filed for divorce from Eddie Van Halen, and a few years later she would be the star of yet another series, the TV Land sitcom Hot In Cleveland opposite Wendy Malick, Jane Leeves, and Betty White.

Trivia: The handsome and sturdy Hispanic-American actor Alexis Cruz chalked up an impressive array of bit and supporting roles from the 1980s onward -- mainly in A-list Hollywood features, and usually of an ethnic nature. He appeared very briefly as Charlie in James Toback's woefully underrated freewheeling comedy The Pick-Up Artist (1987), with Robert Downey Jr. and Molly Ringwald, and -- that same year -- played an equally small role in Arthur Hiller's female "buddy comedy" Outrageous Fortune, starring Shelley Long and Bette Midler. Cruz survived enlistment in a couple of ugly and unmemorable productions, including the 1988 family-oriented telemovie Gryphon and the 1989 Robert Wise musical Rooftops, then shifted gears somewhat and made a fast track for the small screen. On television, Cruz is probably best known as Skaara and Klorel on Stargate SG-1; his resumé also includes guest spots on such blockbuster series as NYPD Blue and ER and more prominent roles on Touched by an Angel and American Family. In 2006, Cruz received one of his highest billings to date as the impossibly hip and street-smart Martin Allende, a member of attorney Sebastian Shark's (James Woods) legal team.

Trivia: Before he inaugurated his professional career, African-American actor Paul Winfield received a well-rounded education: He trained at the University of Portland, Los Angeles City College, Stanford, U.C.L.A., the University of Hawaii, and the University of Santa Barbara. After stage work, Winfield received his first major Hollywood break as Paul Cameron on the TV sitcom Julia (1968-1971). In films from 1969, he received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of a fiercely proud sharecropper in Sounder (1972). Back on the small screen, he earned Emmy nominations for his interpretation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1978 miniseries King and his work as Dr. Huguley in 1979's Roots: The Next Generation. An indispensable purveyor of authoritative roles, he has played several judges, winning a 1994 Emmy for his performance in this capacity on TV's Picket Fences. Paul Winfield has also been seen on a regular basis in three television series, playing Julian C. Barlow in the 1989-1990 episodes of 227, Isaac Tuhle in Wiseguy (1987-1991), and a no-nonsense Magic Mirror (voice only) in the 1987 Cinderella spoof The Charmings. In 2004, not long after playing a small role in a remake of Sounder, Winfield suffered a heart attack and passed away at the age of 62.

Trivia: A performer widely regarded as one of the most distinguished and eloquent actors of his or any generation, Ossie Davis combined an overwhelming amount of dramatic talent and instinct (evident via both stage and film work) with an indomitable fervor for social crusade. A native of Cogdell, GA, and a graduate of Howard University, Davis moved to Harlem at an early stage and trained with the Rose McClendon players. The actor then drew a considerable amount of attention -- alongside wife since 1948 Ruby Dee -- for helping to spearhead the American civil rights movement in the 1940s, over 20 years before it caught fire with the general public and mass media. Their combined efforts culminated in involvement with the triumphant March on Washington of August 1963, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech. In subsequent years, Davis also helped Dr. King raise money for the Freedom Riders and delivered a poignant eulogy at the funeral of Malcolm X. Meanwhile, Davis and Dee both established themselves as forces in theater and on film. Davis himself debuted on Broadway in 1946, and took his film bow with the 1950 No Way Out, but 13 years passed before his sophomore cinematic effort, the 1963 Gone Are the Days -- an adaptation of his own play Purlie Victorious. Unfortunately, the actor spent much of the '60s appearing in programmers that were either underappreciated (Shock Treatment, 1964) or unworthy of his talents (Sam Whiskey, 1969), and didn't fully realize his potential until he scripted and directed the 1970 Cotton Comes to Harlem, a gritty crime comedy (with a predominantly African-American cast including Godfrey Cambridge and Redd Foxx) that almost singlehandedly jump-started the blaxploitation movement and predated Sweet Sweetback and Shaft by a year. Several additional directorial projects followed throughout the 1970s and '80s and found Davis growing deeper and more profound, and setting his sights higher; these included the ambitious -- if not quite successful -- Kongi's Harvest (1971) and the finely-wrought, socially charged coming-of-age drama Black Girl (1972), arguably Davis' best film. Unfortunately, Davis' third and fourth efforts behind the camera, Gordon's War (1973) and Countdown at Kusini (1976), disappointed on many counts, relegating him (for better or worse) back to acting. He appeared in the racially themed, made-for-television dramas Roots (1977), King: The Martin Luther King Story (1978, in which he played Dr. King Sr.), and Roots: The Next Generations (1979), then -- around a decade later -- achieved a career resurgence thanks to the intelligence and bravura of wunderkind Spike Lee, who cast Davis in six major films: School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Jungle Fever (1991), Malcolm X (1992, as an off-camera narrator), Get on the Bus (1996), and She Hate Me (2004). Two of those films also included Dee in the cast. Davis also enjoyed a renewed profile on television during the early '90s when he was tapped to play a regular character on the charming and laid-back Burt Reynolds sitcom Evening Shade (1990-1994); he portrayed Ponder Blue, the series' narrator and the owner of a barbecue restaurant. Davis remained not only active but astonishingly prolific over the following ten years. Subsequent projects included small supporting roles in Grumpy Old Men (1993), The Client (1994), and Doctor Dolittle (1998), and participation in a series of documentaries, among them Christianity: The First Thousand Years (1998) and We Shall Not Be Moved (2001). Davis died in February 2005, in Miami, while shooting the movie Retirement. He was 87. Davis and Dee co-authored a dual autobiography, In This Life Together, in 1998.