Trivia: Actress Janine Turner was trained at New York's Professional Children's School. (She can still do a mean tap-dance if called upon.) Though she endured the usual audition rounds while seeking out acting and modelling work, Turner's break came by way of fortuitous happenstance--at 17, she was spotted while standing in a supermarket checkout line by TV producer Leonard Katzman, who asked her to read for a small part on "Dallas." Two years later she was cast as kleptomaniac espionage agent Laura Templeton on TV's "General Hospital," a role that required her to dye her coffee-brown hair blonde. Turners's film debut was in Young Doctors in Love (1982), a spoof of daytime dramas that costarred several other soap regulars. In 1990, Turner was cast as fiesty Alaskan mail pilot Maggie O'Connell on the quirky prime-time series "Northern Exposure," a role that made her a major star. She continued to essay the part until the series' demise in 1995. Turner's more recent assignments have included a standard damsel-in-distress turn in the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Cliffhanger (1993), and a series of automobile advertisements, each as graceful and classy as Turner herself. In the years to come, Smith would remain active on screen, starring on the series Strong Medicine, and appearing on Friday Night Lights.

Trivia: Born December 19, 1972, quick-witted actress Rosa Blasi has gained as much attention for her sharp sense of humor as she has for her prowess as a serious stage performer, and thanks to a high-profile role on the long-running Lifetime medical drama Strong Medicine, she finally found her footing as a television actress after years of supporting roles on the small screen. Cast as single mother and Latino medico Dr. Luisa "Lu" Delgado on Strong Medicine, Chicago native Blasi gradually won over viewers thanks to her winning performance as an inner-city medical specialist who suddenly finds her clinic merging with the prestigious Rittenhouse Hospital.Having made her stage debut at the tender age of eight, Blasi was no stranger to the spotlight when she joined the Piven Performance Company and Second City in an effort to sharpen her skills as a performer, and thanks to roles on such popular sitcoms as Frasier, Becker, and The Drew Carey Show, the emerging actress grew increasingly comfortable on the small screen as well as the boards. In early 2006, Blasi took up her Strong Medicine role, which carried on for many seasons; meanwhile, she found time for movie roles as well. A dramatic part in the Showtime movie Noriega: God's Favorite preceded a fleeting appearance as the wife of Bill Pullman's ill-fated character in the horror hit The Grudge in 2004, with both offering fine examples of Blasi's undeniable onscreen charisma. In addition to her onscreen acting career, Blasi does frequent voice-over work and has become a regular fixture on the talk-show circuit.

Trivia: Best known for playing unapologetically mature, assertive, and intelligent adult women, African-American supporting actress Jenifer Lewis originally launched her career as a vocalist, singing in a church choir in Kinloch, MO. Lewis' passion (and gift) for singing carried her to the Great White Way, where she appeared in a number of sell-out Broadway musicals -- including Ain't Misbehavin' and Dreamgirls. She subsequently migrated to the West Coast for a string of appearances in TV programs such as Roc, A Different World, Murphy Brown, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, Touched by an Angel, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and graduated to features in 1992. The films in which Lewis has appeared run the gamut of quality, from outstanding (What's Love Got to Do With It?, 1993) to satisfactory (Sister Act, 1992; The Preacher's Wife, 1996) to downright abominable (Frozen Assets, 1992); many, however, demonstrated her fine gifts. More recently, Lewis attained some much-deserved recognition (and ascended to higher than usual billing) with her multi-season portrayal of Lana Hawkins in the prime-time medical drama Strong Medicine (2000).

Trivia: Supporting actor Philip Casnoff appeared on screen beginning in the '80s.

Trivia: Born Starlet Marie Jones in Badin, NC, on March 24, 1962, and raised both there and in Trenton, NJ, the African-American reporter, legal expert, news correspondent, and talk-show powerhouse Star Jones attended Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville, NJ, and graduated in 1980. She subsequently enrolled in Washington, D.C.'s American University, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts, and the University of Houston Law Center, where she earned her Doctor of Jurisprudence. Around 1991, Jones was doubling up her in-court work with broadcast turns when the then newly established Court TV brought her on board to comment on William Kennedy Smith's rape trial. This led, in time, to guest appearances as a pundit on NBC's long-running Today Show, and Jones parlayed those spots into a full-time position as the legal correspondent for Today and the NBC Nightly News, where her job involved discussing the legal technicalities and ramifications of the O.J. Simpson and Rodney King trials on the air. Jones' enormous success commenting on the Simpson case landed her a new syndicated series, Jones & Jury, and in 1995 she became the senior correspondent and chief legal analyst for Inside Edition, offering exhaustive insights into the Simpson case. In fact, during this period, she became the only reporter, per se, to interview Simpson during his civil trial. In 1997, Jones and Barbara Walters teamed up to create The View, a daytime talk show aimed expressly at women, which they co-hosted, alongside such television notables as Meredith Vieira, Joy Behar, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. The program involves the aforementioned women sitting around a table and openly discussing social issues relevant to women. It received the 2003 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show. After nine seasons with The View, Jones was terminated by the show's producers circa 2006, allegedly for excessive discussion of her own wedding on the program, and for violating network policy by promoting companies, on the air, that supplied goods and services for the wedding. Later, Jones debuted as a film actress, opposite Danny DeVito, Kathy Bates and Ron Livingston, in the straight-to-video Relative Strangers. She had previously worked as a television actress in such popular series as All My Children, Strong Medicine, Soul Food, Sports Night, and Less Than Perfect. Though obese for years, Jones underwent a tremendous weight-loss procedure, to such a degree that she was not only slim and lithe, but virtually unrecognizable. She married banker Al Scales Reynolds on November 13, 2004. The couple divided their time between Manhattan and East Hampton, NY. Jones is also the author of two books, the essay collection You Have to Stand for Something or You'll Fall for Anything (1998) and Shine: A Physical, Emotional and Spiritual Journey to Finding Love (2006).

Trivia: Massachusetts native Christine Elise began her onscreen career in the late '80s, kicking off her resumé at a furious pace. She began appearing in multiple films and TV shows every year, including a recurring role on the series China Beach and a role on the popular night-time soap Beverly Hills 90210. She would go on to play Harper Tracy on ER throughout its second season, and to make appearances on shows like Charmed and Law & Order: Special Victim's Unit. Elise also appeared in the documentary American Hardcore in 2005, in which she discussed the punk scene she experienced in high school.