Trivia: Best known for portraying time traveler Dr. Sam Beckett in the popular sci-fi series Quantum Leap, Scott Bakula is also a noted Broadway actor and occasional movie star, though it is in the last venue that he has had the least amount of success. The son of a musician, Bakula is said to have started his own rock band when he was in the fourth grade. He also sang with the St. Louis Symphony before attending the University of Kansas. Bakula launched his acting career as a teen in regional theater and as a stage actor specializes in musical comedy. He made his Broadway debut in 1983 in Marilyn: An American Fable. He started showing up regularly on television as a guest star on such series as My Sister Sam and Designing Women during the 1980s. In 1986, Bakula starred in an unsuccessful television series, Gung Ho! Two years later he headlined another unsuccessful one, Eisenhower and Lutz. In 1988, Bakula was nominated for a Tony for his work in Romance, Romance. The following year, he was cast in Quantum Leap and has since gained a cult following; in 1992, he won a Golden Globe and was nominated four more times. Bakula was also nominated for a quartet of Emmys. Bakula made his feature-film debut starring opposite Kirstie Alley in Sibling Rivalry (1990). Other notable film appearances include L.A. Story (1991) and My Family/Mi Familia (1995). In 1993, Bakula had a recurring role on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown as a love interest of Candice Bergen. He has also appeared in a number of television movies and in 1996, he had a stint in another short-lived series, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.Though he worked steadily in movies, television turned out to be his next great success when, in 2001, he took the part of Capt. Jonathan Archer on Star Trek: Enterprise, a program that lasted four seasons.In 2009 Bakula would star alongside Ray Romano and Andre Braugher in the well-respected comedy/drama series Men of a Certain Age, and landed in one of the best films of his career, Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!.

Trivia: Fans of the science fiction television series Quantum Leap will know supporting and character actor Dean Stockwell as the scene-stealing, cigar chomping, dry-witted, and cryptic hologram Al. But to view him only in that role is to see one part of a multi-faceted career that began when Stockwell was seven years old.Actually, his ties with show business stretch back to his birth for both of his parents were noted Broadway performers Harry Stockwell and Nina Olivette. His father also provided the singing voice of the prince in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1931). Stockwell was born in North Hollywood and started out on Broadway in The Innocent Voyage (1943) at age seven. Curly haired and beautiful with a natural acting style that never descended into cloying cuteness, he made his screen debut after contracting with MGM at age nine in Anchors Aweigh (1945) and continued on to play sensitive boys in such memorable outings as The Mighty McGurk (1946), The Boy With Green Hair (1948), and The Secret Garden (1949). He would continue appearing in such films through 1951 when he went into the first of several "retirements" from films. When Stockwell resurfaced five years later it was as a brooding and very handsome 20-year-old who specialized in playing introverts and sensitive souls in roles ranging from a wild, young cowboy in Gun for a Coward (1957) to a murderous homosexual in Compulsion (1958) to an aspiring artist who cannot escape the influence of his domineering mother in Sons and Lovers (1960). Stockwell topped off this phase of his career portraying Eugene O'Neill in Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962). Stockwell would spend the next three years as a hippie and when he again renewed his career it was in such very '60s efforts as Psych-Out (1968) and the spooky and weird adaptation of a Lovecraft story, The Dunwich Horror. During this period, Stockwell also started appearing in television movies such as The Failing of Raymond (1971). In the mid-'70s, the former flower child became a real-estate broker and his acting career became sporadic until the mid-'80s when he began playing character roles. It was in this area, especially in regard to comic characters, that Stockwell has had his greatest success. Though he claims it was not intentional, Stockwell has come to be almost typecast as the king of quirk, playing a wide variety of eccentrics and outcasts. One of his most famous '80s roles was that of the effeminate and rutlhess sleaze, Ben, in David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986). Stockwell had previously worked with Lynch in Dune and says that when the director gave him the script for Velvet, his character was not specifically mapped out, leaving Stockwell to portray Ben in any way he felt appropriate. The actor's intuition has proven to be one of his greatest tools and helped create one of modern Hollywood's most creepy-crawly villains. Whenever possible, Stockwell prefers working by instinct and actively avoids over-rehearsing his parts. His career really picked up after he landed the part of Al in Quantum Leap. Since the show's demise, Stockwell has continued to appear on screen, starring on series like Battlestar Galactica.

Trivia: Memorable both for his James Dean good looks and for his hit single "How Do You Talk to an Angel?," actor Jamie Walters began his career with appearances on the show Quantum Leap and in the John Travolta film Shout. In 1994, he joined the cast of the hit series Beverly Hills 90210 as Ray Pruit, love interest of Tori Spelling's character Donna. Walters also maintained a successful music career, though some fans of his music turned sour when Walters' character on the show began to abuse his girlfriend. After he left the show in 1996, he soon gravitated away from show business altogether, eventually becoming a certified firefighter and paramedic.

Trivia: British actor Roddy McDowall's father was an officer in the English merchant marine, and his mother was a would-be actress. When it came time to choose a life's calling, McDowall bowed to his mother's influence. After winning an acting prize in a school play, he was able to secure film work in Britain, beginning at age ten with 1938's Scruffy. He appeared in 16 roles of varying sizes and importance before he and his family were evacuated to the U.S. during the 1940 Battle of Britain. McDowall arrival in Hollywood coincided with the wishes of 20th Century-Fox executive Darryl F. Zanuck to create a "new Freddie Bartholomew." He tested for the juvenile lead in Fox's How Green Was My Valley (1941), winning both the role and a long contract. McDowall's first adult acting assignment was as Malcolm in Orson Welles' 1948 film version of Macbeth; shortly afterward, he formed a production company with Macbeth co-star Dan O'Herlihy. McDowall left films for the most part in the 1950s, preferring TV and stage work; among his Broadway credits were No Time for Sergeants, Compulsion, (in which he co-starred with fellow former child star Dean Stockwell) and Lerner and Loewe's Camelot (as Mordred). McDowall won a 1960 Tony Award for his appearance in the short-lived production The Fighting Cock. The actor spent the better part of the early 1960s playing Octavius in the mammoth production Cleopatra, co-starring with longtime friend Elizabeth Taylor. An accomplished photographer, McDowall was honored by having his photos of Taylor and other celebrities frequently published in the leading magazines of the era. He was briefly an advising photographic editor of Harper's Bazaar, and in 1966 published the first of several collections of his camerawork, Double Exposure. McDowall's most frequent assignments between 1968 and 1975 found him in elaborate simian makeup as Cornelius in the Planet of the Apes theatrical films and TV series. Still accepting the occasional guest-star film role and theatrical assignment into the 1990s, McDowall towards the end of his life was most active in the administrative end of show business, serving on the executive boards of the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A lifelong movie collector (a hobby which once nearly got him arrested by the FBI), McDowall has also worked diligently with the National Film Preservation Board. In August, 1998, he was elected president of the Academy Foundation. One of Hollywood's last links to its golden age and much-loved by old and new stars alike -- McDowell was famed for his kindness, generosity and loyalty (friends could tell McDowall any secret and be sure of its safety) -- McDowall's announcement that he was suffering from terminal cancer a few weeks before he died rocked the film community, and many visited the ailing actor in his Studio City home. Shortly before he was diagnosed with cancer, McDowall had provided the voiceover for Disney/Pixar's animated feature A Bug's Life. A few days prior to McDowall's passing, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences named its photo archive after him.

Trivia: Though she has several features and TV movies to her credit, Terry Farrell has thrived primarily as an actress on series television. Born Theresa Lee Farrell Grussendorf in Cedar Rapids, IA, Farrell moved to New York City to become a model. During her several years as a cover girl, she also studied acting and landed her first major role as an actress by playing a model on the short-lived TV series Paper Dolls (1984). While she continued her acting studies, Farrell had a small role in the Rodney Dangerfield comedy Back to School (1986) and appeared in the TV movies Beverly Hills Madam (1986) and The Deliberate Stranger (1986), a well-received docudrama on serial killer Ted Bundy. After she starred in the horror sequel Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992), Farrell attracted a following as Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1998). During her five years on Deep Space Nine, Farrell also appeared in the TV adaptation of Danielle Steel's Star (1993), the B-action movie Red Sun Rising (1994), and the TV thriller Reasons of the Heart (1996). After Deep Space Nine ended, the actress stayed with TV, signing on to play Reggie, the beautiful diner worker and occasionally sharp-tongued foil to Ted Danson's grumpy doctor on the CBS sitcom Becker (1998).