Trivia: In a business where public scandal and bad-boy behavior are the rule rather than the exception, Paul Newman is as much a hero offscreen as on. A blue-eyed matinee idol whose career successfully spanned five decades, he was also a prominent social activist, a major proponent of actors' creative rights, and a noted philanthropist. Born January 26, 1925, in Cleveland, OH, Newman served in World War II prior to attending Kenyon College on an athletic scholarship; when an injury ended his sports career, he turned to drama, joining a summer stock company in Wisconsin. After relocating to Illinois in 1947, he married actress Jacqueline Witte, and, following the death of his father, took over the family's sporting-goods store. Newman quickly grew restless, however, and after selling his interest in the store to his brother, he enrolled at the Yale School of Drama. During a break from classes he traveled to New York City where he won a role in the CBS television series The Aldrich Family. A number of other TV performances followed, and in 1952 Newman was accepted by the Actors' Studio, making his Broadway debut a year later in Picnic, where he was spotted by Warner Bros. executives.Upon Newman's arrival in Hollywood, media buzz tagged him as "the new Brando." However, after making his screen debut in the disastrous epic The Silver Chalice, he became the victim of scathing reviews, although Warners added on another two years to his contract after he returned to Broadway to star in The Desperate Hours. Back in Hollywood, he starred in The Rack. Again reviews were poor, and the picture was quickly pulled from circulation. Newman's third film, the charming Somebody Up There Likes Me, in which he portrayed boxer Rocky Graziano, was both a commercial and critical success, with rave reviews for his performance. His next film of note was 1958's The Long Hot Summer, an acclaimed adaptation of a pair of William Faulkner short stories; among his co-stars was Joanne Woodward, who soon became his second wife. After next appearing as Billy the Kid in Arthur Penn's underrated The Left-Handed Gun, Newman starred opposite Elizabeth Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, scoring his first true box-office smash as well as his first Academy Award nomination.After appearing with Joanne Woodward in Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! -- the couple would frequently team onscreen throughout their careers -- Newman traveled back to Broadway to star in Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth. Upon his return to the West Coast, he bought himself out of his Warner Bros. contract before starring in the 1960 smash From the Terrace. Exodus, another major hit, quickly followed. While by now a major star, the true depths of Newman's acting abilities had yet to be fully explored; that all changed with Robert Rossen's 1961 classic The Hustler, in which he essayed one of his most memorable performances as pool shark "Fast" Eddie Felson, gaining a second Oscar nomination. His third nod came for 1963's Hud, which cast him as an amoral Texas rancher. While a handful of creative and financial disappointments followed, including 1964's The Outrage and 1965's Lady L, 1966's Alfred Hitchcock-helmed Torn Curtain marked a return to form, as did the thriller Harper.For 1967's superb chain-gang drama Cool Hand Luke, Newman scored a fourth Academy Award nomination, but again went home empty-handed. The following year he made his directorial debut with the Joanne Woodward vehicle Rachel Rachel, scoring Best Director honors from the New York critics as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. The couple next appeared onscreen together in 1969's Winning, which cast Newman as a professional auto racer; motor sports remained a preoccupation in his real life as well, and he was the most prominent of the many celebrities who began racing as a hobby. He then starred with Robert Redford in 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which went on to become the highest-grossing Western in movie history. It was followed by 1971's W.U.S.A., a deeply political film reflecting Newman's strong commitment to social activism; in addition to being among Hollywood's most vocal supporters of the civil rights movement, in 1968 he and Woodward made headlines by campaigning full time for Democratic Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy.After directing and starring in 1971's Sometimes a Great Notion, Newman announced the formation of First Artists, a production company co-founded by Barbra Streisand and Steve McQueen. Modeled after the success of United Artists, it was created to offer performers the opportunity to produce their own projects. Newman's first film for First Artists' was 1972's Pocket Money, followed by another directorial effort, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. After a pair of back-to-back efforts under director John Huston, 1972's The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean and the next year's The Mackintosh Man, Newman reunited with Redford in The Sting, another triumph which won the 1973 Best Picture Oscar. He next appeared in the star-studded disaster epic The Towering Inferno, followed by 1975's The Drowning Pool, a sequel to Harper. His next major success was the 1977 sports spoof Slap Shot, which went on to become a cult classic.A string of disappointments followed, including Robert Altman's self-indulgent 1979 effort Quintet. The 1981 Absence of Malice, however, was a success, and for 1982's courtroom drama The Verdict Newman notched his fifth Best Actor nomination. He finally won the Oscar on his sixth attempt, reprising the role of Eddie Felson in 1986's The Color of Money, Martin Scorsese's sequel to The Hustler. After starring in two 1989 films, Blaze and Fat Man and Little Boy, Newman began appearing onscreen less and less. In 1991, he and Joanne Woodward starred as the titular Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, and three years later he earned yet another Academy Award nomination for his superb performance in Robert Benton's slice-of-life tale Nobody's Fool. His films since then have been fairly sparse and of mixed quality, with Joel Coen's and Ethan Coen's The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) being at the higher end of the spectrum and the Kevin Costner vehicle Message in a Bottle (1999) resting near the bottom. Newman again graced screens in 2000 with Where the Money Is, a comedy that cast him as a famous bank robber who fakes a stroke to get out of prison. For his role as a kindly crime boss in 2002's Road to Perdition, Newman became a ten-time Oscar nominee.Turning 80 in 2005, Newman nonetheless remained a presence in Hollywood. That year, audiences could see him on the small-screen in the critically-acclaimed HBO miniseries Empire Falls, for which he won a Golden Globe, and the following year, he lent his voice to the Pixar animated film Cars.Despite his movement away from Hollywood, Newman remained a prominent public figure through his extensive charitable work; he created the Scott Newman Foundation after the drug-related death of his son and later marketed a series of gourmet foodstuffs under the umbrella name Newman's Own, with all profits going to support his project for children suffering from cancer. Newman died on September 26, 2008 after a battle with lung cancer.

Trivia: Possessing a great dignity tempered by the humorous sparkle in her clear blue eyes, Jessica Tandy was among the grand dames of stage and screen. Like many of her peers, her distinguished acting career stretched back to the early 1930s, though rather than make her name on film, Tandy won much of her fame with her work on the stage.Born in London in 1909, Tandy studied drama at the Ben Greet Academy of Acting. She was sixteen when she made her professional stage debut in London, and just twenty-one when she took her first bow on Broadway. In 1932, Tandy made her first film appearance in Indiscretions of Eve (1932), but due to her extremely busy stage schedule did not appear in her second film, Murder in the Family, until 1938. In 1942, she married Canadian stage and screen actor Hume Cronyn (she had previously been married to actor Jack Hawkins from 1932 until 1940), and they remained professional and personal partners until Tandy's death in 1994.The couple moved to the States shortly after their marriage, and made their Hollywood debut together in Fred Zinnemann's The Seventh Cross (1944). For a long time, Tandy had her greatest success on the stage, beginning with her Tony-winning portrayal of Blanche DuBois in the first production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947. Despite the acclaim she received, she was passed by in favor of Vivien Leigh for the play's screen version. Tandy continued to work on the stage and appeared in a few more films through 1951, after which her film career became sporadic. One of her rare appearances was in Hitchcock's The Birds in 1963.It was after she won her second Tony while appearing with Cronyn in The Gin Game (1978) that Tandy's film career was renewed with a supporting role in John Schlesinger's Honky Tonk Freeway in 1981. The following year she appeared in The World According to Garp, and then starred in Merchant Ivory's The Bostonians in 1984. In the meantime, she won her third Tony for her work in 1983's Foxfire (she would win an Emmy in 1987 for the same role in the play's televised version). Tandy's film career then experienced a complete resuscitation in 1985, when she and Cronyn co-starred in Ron Howard's Cocoon; four years later, the then-80-year-old Tandy won an Oscar for her feisty performance as a Southern lady who befriends her black chauffeur in Driving Miss Daisy. She went on to have notable roles in films like Fried Green Tomatoes in 1991 and 1992's Used People. Before succumbing to ovarian cancer in September of 1994, Tandy completed the made-for-TV movie To Dance With the White Dog, in which she starred with Cronyn, and Nobody's Fool, the latter of which was dedicated to her memory.

Trivia: Born Walter Willis -- an Army brat to parents stationed in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany -- on March 19, 1955, Bruce Willis grew up in New Jersey from the age of two. As a youngster, he developed a stutter that posed the threat of social alienation, but he discovered an odd quirk: while performing in front of large numbers of people, the handicap inexplicably vanished. This led Willis into a certified niche as a comedian and budding actor. After high-school graduation, 18-year-old Willis decided to land a blue-collar job in the vein of his father, and accepted a position at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deep Water, NJ, but withdrew, shaken, after a co-worker was killed on the job. He performed regularly on the harmonica in a blues ensemble called the Loose Goose and worked temporarily as a security guard before enrolling in the drama program at Montclair State University in New Jersey. A collegiate role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof brought Willis back in touch with his love of acting, and he instantly decided to devote his life to the profession.Willis made his first professional appearances on film with minor roles in projects like The First Deadly Sin, starring Frank Sinatra, and Sidney Lumet's The Verdict. But his big break came when he attended a casting call (along with 3000 other hopefuls) for the leading role on Moonlighting, an ABC detective comedy series. Sensing Willis' innate appeal, producers cast him opposite the luminous Cybill Shepherd. The series, which debuted in 1985, followed the story of two private investigators working for a struggling detective agency, with Willis playing the fast-talking ne'er-do-well David Addison, and Shepherd playing the prim former fashion model Maddie Hayes. The show's heavy use of clever dialogue, romantic tension, and screwball comedy proved a massive hit with audiences, and Willis became a major star. The show ultimately lasted four years and wrapped on May 14, 1989. During the first year or two of the series, Willis and Shepherd enjoyed a brief offscreen romantic involvement as well, but Willis soon met and fell in love with actress Demi Moore, who became his wife in 1987.In the interim, Willis segued into features, playing geeky Walter Davis in the madcap 1987 comedy Blind Date. That same year, Motown Records -- perhaps made aware of Willis' experiences as a musician -- invited the star to record an LP of blue-eyed soul tracks. The Return of Bruno emerged and became a moderate hit among baby boomers, although as the years passed it became better remembered as an excuse for Willis to wear sunglasses indoors and sing into pool cues.Then in 1988, Willis broke major barriers when he convinced studios to cast him in the leading role of John McClane in John McTiernan's explosive action movie Die Hard. Though up until this point, action stars had been massive tough guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, execs took a chance on Willis' every-guy approach to the genre - and the gamble paid off. Playing a working-class cop who confronts an entire skyscraper full of terrorists when his estranged wife is taken hostage on Christmas Eve, Willis' used his wiseacre television persona to constantly undercut the film's somber underpinnings, without ever once damaging the suspenseful core of the material. This, coupled with a smart script and wall-to-wall sequences of spectacular action, propelled Die Hard to number one at the box office during the summer of 1988, and made Willis a full-fledged movie star.Willis subsequent projects would include two successful Die Hard sequels, as well as other roles the 1989 Norman Jewison drama In Country, and the 1989 hit comedy Look Who's Talking, in which Willis voiced baby Mikey. Though he'd engage in a few stinkers, like the unsuccessful Hudson Hawk and North, he would also continue to strike told with hugely popular movies like The Last Boyscout , Pulp Fiction, and Armageddon.Willis landed one of his biggest hits, however, when he signed on to work with writer/director M. Night Shyamalan in the supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense. In that film, Willis played Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist assigned to treat a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) plagued by visions of ghosts. The picture packs a wallop in its final minutes, with a now-infamous surprise that even purportedly caught Hollywood insiders off guard when it hit U.S. cinemas in the summer of 1999. Around the same time, tabloids began to swarm with gossip of a breakup between Willis and Demi Moore, who indeed filed for divorce and finalized it in the fall of 2000.Willis and M. Night Shyamalan teamed up again in 2000 for Unbreakable, another dark fantasy about a man who suddenly discovers that he has been imbued with superhero powers and meets his polar opposite, a psychotic, fragile-bodied black man (Samuel L. Jackson). The movie divided critics but drew hefty grosses when it premiered on November 22, 2000. That same year, Willis delighted audiences with a neat comic turn as hitman Jimmy the Tulip in The Whole Nine Yards, which light heartedly parodied his own tough-guy image. Willis followed it up four years later with a sequel, The Whole Ten Yards.In 2005, Willis was ideally cast as beaten-down cop Hartigan in Robert Rodriguez's graphic-novel adaptation Sin City. The movie was a massive success, and Willis was happy to reteam with Rodriguez again the next year for a role in the zombie action flick Planet Terror, Rodriguez's contribution to the double feature Grindhouse. Additionally, Willis would keep busy over the next few years with roles in films like Richard Donner's 16 Blocks, Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation, and Nick Cassavetes' crime drama Alpha Dog. The next year, Willis reprised his role as everyman superhero John McClane for a fourth installment of the Die Hard series, Live Free or Die Hard, directed by Len Wiseman. Though hardcore fans of the franchise were not overly impressed, the film did expectedly well at the box office.In the latter part of the decade, Willis would keep up his action star status, starring in the sci-fi thriller Surrogates in 2009, but also enjoyed poking fun at his own persona, with tongue-in-cheek roles in action fare like The Expendables, Cop Out, and Red. He appeared as part of the ensemble in Wes Anderson's quirky Moonrise Kingdom and in the time-travel action thriller Looper in 2012, before appearing in a string of sequels -- The Expendables 2 (2012), A Good Day to Die Hard, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Red 2 (all 2013) and Sin City: A Dame to Die For (2014).

Trivia: The daughter of onetime fashion model Tippi Hedren (Marnie) and actor Peter Griffith, Melanie Griffith witnessed her parents' divorce as a toddler. She relocated from Manhattan to Los Angeles in the custody of her mom at the age of four, when Alfred Hitchcock discovered Hedren and offered her a bid for movie stardom. Hedren soon married her second husband, film producer Noel Marshall, and relocated the entire family (including Griffith) to an Acton, California ranch, but at age 15 (c. 1972), Griffith broke out on her own. She started modeling professionally and struck up a live-in relationship with then-22-year-old Don Johnson. Thus commenced a notoriously rocky, complex romance of four years. It temporarily ended when Griffith and Johnson wed and divorced several months later. In the mean time, Griffith kick-started her acting career with promising films including the Arthur Penn-directed detective saga Night Moves (1975) and the Paul Newman mystery The Drowning Pool (1975).Problems with drugs and drinking followed Griffith and Johnson's divorce. It all came crashing down for the rising star in 1980, when she was hit by a car on Sunset Boulevard and seriously injured, with amnesia that lasted for several days and a fractured arm. Ultimately, she did survive, and launched a comeback in the 1980s, studying acting with the preeminent Stella Adler. Griffith made a distinct impression as porn star Holly Body in Brian DePalma's thriller Body Double (1984), and two years later received a wealth of critical acclaim for her role in Something Wild, a Jonathan Demme comedy. It cast her as a reckless spirit opposite an uptight Jeff Daniels. In many ways, however, 1988 witnessed Griffith's breakthrough; that year, she appeared in Robert Redford's The Milagro Beanfield War and starred in the Mike Nichols comedy Working Girl. For her work in the latter film, as a young career woman trying to conquer the New York business world, Griffith earned an Oscar nomination and no small amount of critical respect. Unfortunately, she then endured a series of less well-received outings, including Brian DePalma's widely panned Tom Wolfe outing The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), the John Schlesinger mystery Pacific Heights (1990) and director David Seltzer's period meller Shining Through (1992).While her acting career continued on its highs and lows, Griffith once again wed Johnson in 1989; their second union lasted until 1996. That same year, the actress married Spanish heartthrob Antonio Banderas following a much-publicized romance. She went on to do some of her best work in years in 1997 as the puffy, tragically misguided Mrs. Haze in Adrian Lyne's overlooked adaptation of Lolita. She then signed on to portray drug dealer James Woods's wife in the Larry Clark-directed addiction drama Another Day in Paradise (1998); unfortunately, the film failed to make a significant impact on critics. At about the same time, the actress portrayed a flippant movie star in Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998), and a nutty aspiring actress who totes her dead husband's head around in a hat box in the Antonio Banderas-directed Crazy in Alabama in 1999. Both films received negative-to-mediocre reviews. Griffith would continue to sign on for roles in the coming years, though subsequent projects were of somewhat lower profile, like the documentaries Light Keeps Me Company (2000) and Searching for Debra Winger (2002), as well as John Waters's outrageous black comedy Cecil B. Demented (2000), the romantic drama Tempo, and the crime thriller Shade.

Trivia: Possessing the sort of bland, familiarly handsome looks that make him equally effective at creating both instantly likable and inexplicably repelling characters, actor Dylan Walsh, born November 17th, 1963, generally specialized in the former. When he took to the latter, however, the unexpected change of pace could make for an extremely effective performance. Although audiences may recognize his face from such high-profile Hollywood fare as Congo (1995) and We Were Soldiers (2002), his most affecting roles have been in low-budget independent fare such as the low-key 2001 drama Jet Boy. A California native who graduated from Annandale High School in Virginia, Walsh wowed audiences as Atticus Finch in a high school stage production of To Kill a Mockingbird, giving signs of great things to come from the burgeoning actor. Subsequently gaining his footing as an actor with a recurring role on television's Kate and Allie, his first feature credit came with the 1989 Patrick Dempsey comedy Loverboy. His career truly beginning to gain momentum in the early '90s, Walsh's appearances in Betsy's Wedding (1990) and Nobody's Fool (1994) showed an actor just waiting for his breakthrough role. Although he would take the lead for the eagerly anticipated jungle adventure Congo, the film's dismal fate at the box office certainly didn't do anything for his career. Subsequent efforts such as Divided by Hate (1997) and Chapter Zero (1999) showed an actor capable of much more than what he was given with which to work. Admittedly taking roles just to pay the bills, Walsh was offered the lead in Calgary filmmaker Dave Schultz's dark psychological drama Jet Boy. Cast as a shady, morally ambiguous undercover cop who befriends a street smart orphan while attempting to take down a big-time drug dealer, the role offered some contrast to Walsh's recent performances, and simultaneously proved that he was fully capable of handling a leading dramatic role. Due to the success of Jet Boy, his career was somewhat reinvigorated and subsequent parts in We Were Soldiers and Blood Work paid testament to an actor regaining his footing after a few early falters. In 2003, Walsh donned scrubs for the critically acclaimed television series Nip/Tuck. In 2006 Walsh could be seen back up on the big screen as the buttoned-down boyfriend of Sandra Bullock's haunted character in the fantasy-flavored romantic drama The Lakehouse. Walsh changed his tune for The Stepfather (2009), which starred the actor as a sociopathic murderer. In 2010, he joined the cast of Secretariat in a supporting role as the husband of housewife-turned-horse racer Penny Cherry (Diane Lane).

Trivia: His irises tremble violently as the camera fixes on his glassy gaze, and before you know it, you've once again been entranced by the character with whom you're unsure if you should fear or sympathize. With the rare ability to convey the delicate blend of conflicting emotions that only the most effective character actors can convincingly portray, actor Pruitt Taylor Vince has crafted a successful film and television career playing introspective, often disturbed, loners teetering on the fringes of society. Though the portly Baton Rouge native's first onscreen role was to have been in director Jim Jarmusch's 1986 comedy drama Down by Law, his scenes were cut before the film hit theaters, and audiences would not get their first look at Vince until the release of Alan Parker's Angel Heart the following year. Vince owes something of a debt to the prolific director, since it was Parker's racially charged drama Mississippi Burning that first found audiences taking notice of the burgeoning, sometimes fearsome, actor. In 1990, Vince turned up in yet another of Parker's films, Come See the Paradise, though it was that same year's horrific thriller Jacob's Ladder that truly found Vince setting himself apart from the pack. If the 1990s had proven kind to Vince early on, it was his emotionally compelling role opposite Paul Newman in Nobody's Fool that truly began to give audiences an idea of what Vince was capable of as an actor. Cast as the village idiot who finds a sympathetic ear in Newman's character, Vince lent an uncanny depth to a character that may have otherwise been an instantly forgettable, two-dimensional role. Though Vince's early roles were indeed noteworthy thanks to his uncommon ability to exude repression and deeply rooted malaise as few other actors could, it wasn't until director James Mangold's cast him in the lead for his 1995 drama Heavy that Vince was truly given the opportunity to shine. Mangold did something that few mainstream Hollywood efforts would allow when he dared to offer the overweight and balding actor the dramatic lead -- the role of Victor Modina, a shy cook in a small-town restaurant who secretly longs for the love of an attractive young waitress (portrayed by Liv Tyler). With his expressive eyes (their sometimes discomforting vibration the result of a condition known as nystagmus) effectively conveying the desperation of a trapped animal longing to escape his suffocating existence, Vince's heartbreaking performance eloquently conveyed the internal distress and helplessness felt by his long-suffering character. Though the following years may not have offered Vince more roles the size or caliber of his part in Heavy, a series of small-screen performances in the late '90s showed that his talent was, without question, as potent as ever. Following an unforgettable performance as a mentally unbalanced photographer who kidnaps Agent Scully (Gillian Anderson) in a 1996 episode of The X-Files ("Unruhe"), Vince's turn as a suspicious kidnapping suspect in the miniseries Night Sins and a disturbed serial killer in several episodes of Murder One proved that he could be chillingly effective in menacing roles. The latter role even proved so effective as to earn Vince an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. It was at this point that directors were truly beginning to discover the dramatic possibilities of casting Vince in their films, and his turn as a gifted musician and compelling storyteller proved a highlight of the wistful 1998 drama The Legend of 1900. Supporting performances in Mumford (1999), Nurse Betty (2000), The Cell (2000), and S1m0ne (2002) found Vince steadily becoming a recognizable face to mainstream audiences, and in 2002, he sent chills down the spines of suspense fanatics as the childlike accomplice in a harrowing kidnapping scheme in Trapped. Vince's skittishly ominous performance left viewers on the edge of their seats as he held a young girl (played by Dakota Fanning) hostage with instructions to kill her on a moment's notice, and the film utilized Vince's alternately innocent and threatening character to chilling effect. He again teamed with director Mangold for the 2003 thriller Identity, cast in a key role that proved elemental to the film's startling denouement. Vince also continued to take on guest-starring roles in such TV series as Alias and The Handler. After appearing in the 2003 Aileen Wuornos biopic Monster, Vince would play a priest in the 2004 comic-to-film adaptation of Hellblazer, entitled Constantine.

Trivia: Trained as an actor, Gene Saks organized a number of New York-based workshop organizations before making his Broadway debut. He began directing in 1963, helming such Neil Simon Broadway plays as Biloxi Blues and Brighton Beach Memoirs and such Simon-scripted films as Barefoot in the Park (1967), The Odd Couple (1968), and Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1986). Saks made his film acting bow in 1965, recreating his stage role as paranoid kiddie-show host Chuckles the Chipmunk in A Thousand Clowns. Saks was married to actress Beatrice Arthur, who co-starred in his 1974 film version of Mame, from 1950 to 1980.. In 1995 Saks directed the 1995 TV remake of the 1961 Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie. He died in 2015, at age 93.

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from the early '70s.

Trivia: One of the most original, versatile, and steadily employed actors in Hollywood, Philip Seymour Hoffman made a name for himself playing some of the most dysfunctional characters in movie history. Although he had been acting for years, most audiences were first introduced to the actor in the award-winning Boogie Nights, where he played a nebbishy soundman with a jones for Mark Wahlberg's Dirk Diggler. Imbuing his character with both humor and poignant complexity, Hoffman was one of the more memorable aspects of an unforgettable film.Born in Fairport, NY, in 1968, Hoffman trained at New York's Tisch School of Drama. Before breaking into film, he did a host of theater work, performing in New York, Chicago, and on a European tour. He made his film debut in the 1992 film Scent of a Woman, a critically acclaimed picture starring Al Pacino and Chris O'Donnell. Roles in a number of films of varying quality followed, including My New Gun (1992) and When a Man Loves a Woman (1994). The actor then nabbed a sizable role in Jan de Bont's 1996 tornado thriller Twister and the same year began an ongoing working relationship with Paul Thomas Anderson by appearing in his directorial debut Hard Eight. The crime drama, which also starred Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson, received positive critical attention, although it didn't create more than a minor blip at the box office. However, Hoffman's next feature and second collaboration with Anderson, Boogie Nights (1997), was both a critical and financial success, scoring a host of Academy Award nominations and simultaneously reviving the careers of some of its stars, such as Burt Reynolds and Mark Wahlberg, while providing a breakthrough for others, such as Heather Graham and Hoffman himself. He next appeared in the Robin Williams comedy Patch Adams (1998), and the same year starred in two critically acclaimed independent films, Todd Solondz's Happiness and Brad Anderson's Next Stop Wonderland. The prolific actor added an appearance in The Big Lebowski (also 1998) to his already impressive resumé. In addition to his burgeoning acting career, Hoffman won favorable notices for his directing debut with the off-Broadway In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings. Hoffman came into his own with three notable performances in 1999. He reunited with Paul Thomas Anderson to play empathic hospice nurse Phil Parma, one of the emotional anchors in Magnolia. His portrayal of upper-crust snob Freddie Miles in The Talented Mr. Ripley earned him strong notices from many critics. Hoffman's peers awarded him with a Screen Actors Guild nomination for his role as a cross dresser in Flawless opposite Robert De Niro. He returned to the Broadway stage with fellow Anderson regular John C. Reilly to play very different brothers in Sam Shepard's True West. They took a risk by switching the lead roles every three days. Their hard work earned critical raves, and each was nominated for a Tony award. In 2000, Cameron Crowe cast Hoffman as Crowe's childhood hero Lester Bangs in Almost Famous, and David Mamet tapped him to be part of the impressive ensemble in State and Main.Hoffman maintained his status as one of the most respected and hardest-working actors in the new decade by delivering an excellent supporting turn in Red Dragon as an unctuous tabloid reporter. That same year he co-starred in Spike Lee's 25th Hour, and played the bad guy for old collaborator Paul Thomas Anderson in the offbeat romantic comedy Punch-Drunk Love. 2002 also saw the release of Love Liza, a very low-budget film scripted by Hoffman's brother and directed by actor Todd Louiso that starred Phil as a grieving husband addicted to huffing gas fumes. The next year found Hoffman starring as a gambling addict in the small scale Canadian drama Owning Mahowny, and turning in a memorable supporting performance as an amoral preacher in the big screen adaptation of Cold Mountain. Hoffman was in theaters again at the beginning of 2004 as the best friend in the Ben Stiller comedy Along Came Polly. He was also part of yet another outstanding ensemble in the small screen adaptation of Richard Russo's Pulitzer prize-winning novel Empire Falls.In 2005, Hoffman took the role of a lifetime when he assumed the title role in Bennett Miller's Capote. The film had critics in agreement that Hoffman's portrayal of complex and idiosyncratic real-life author Truman Capote was the stuff of Hollywood legend. Hoffman not only mastered the character's distinct body-language and speech but also hauntingly interpreted the subtle psychological and emotional self that made the character whole-leading many to declare that he very nearly made the film everything it was. The performance earned him the Oscar for Best Actor, as well as a Golden Globe and countless other accolades. The attention also provided a boost in profile for the actor who had for so long proved his worth in the background. After playing the bad guy in the third Mission Impossible movie opposite Tom Cruise, Hoffman had a remarkable 2007, a year that saw him play a central part in three well-regarded films. His conniving brother in Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead was a model of self-loathing fermenting into fatal action. In addition to a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor, his highly-educated, emotionally fractured brother to Laura Linney's neurotic sister in The Savages offered him the chance to play numerous subtle and sharply observed scenes with her, the first meeting of these two revered performers. But it was his turn as the intense CIA operative in Charlie Wilson's War that won Hoffman the most widespread praise including Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor.Hoffman continued to solidify his status as one of his generation's finest actors in 2008 with two very different roles. By choosing to play the lead in Charlie Kaufmann's directorial debut Synecdoche, New York, Hoffman again displayed his fearlessness, as well as his desire to work with the very best writers and directors he can find. That willfully difficult film never connected with mainstream audiences, but that was not true at all for Hoffman's other picture of 2008, Doubt. John Patrick Shanley's cinematic adaptation of his own award-winning play earned acting nominations for Hoffman and his three costars (Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis) from both the Screen Actors Guild, and the Academy.Over the following years, Hoffman would continue to appear in a variety of interesting films, like Pirate Radio, The Ides of March, and Moneyball. In 2012 he again collaborated with Paul Thomas Anderson, playing a cult leader in the drama The Master opposite Joaquin Phoenix. For his work in that movie, Hoffman got a Best Supporting Actor nomination from both the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The following year, he appeared in the smash The Hunger Games: Catching Fire as rebel Gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee. Sadly, personal problems cut his illustrious career short, as Hoffman was found dead in his apartment of an apparent drug overdose at age 46.

Trivia: Catholic University was the alma mater of American actor Philip Bosco -- or would have been if he hadn't been expelled. Bosco would not collect a college degree until age 27, after a long stint as an Army cryptographer. Most comfortable in classical stage roles, Bosco has found it expedient to don modern garb for most of his movie work. After a one-shot screen appearance in 1968's A Lovely Way to Die, Bosco didn't step before the movie cameras again until 1983, making up for the lost years with supporting appearances in such films as Trading Places (1983), The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), Three Men and a Baby (1987), Working Girl (1988) and Shadows and Fog (1992). Philip Bosco won a Tony Award for his performance in the popular door-slamming farce Lend Me a Tenor.

Trivia: A skilled actress with the unique ability to toggle between tough-as-nails conviction and all-too-human vulnerability, actress Catherine Dent possesses the sort of classy timeless beauty that -- when combined with modern sensibility -- makes her the perfect addition to the cast of the acclaimed television police drama The Shield. Though she has received widespread recognition for her role as the street-smart officer Danielle "Danny" Sofer on the series, Dent has also made impressive appearances on the big screen with memorable supporting roles in such features as Auto Focus and 21 Grams. Dent is a Baton Rouge, LA, native who studied her craft at the North Carolina School of the Arts. It didn't take long for the ambitious actress to make her feature debut opposite screen legend Paul Newman in the 1994 drama Nobody's Fool. Her subsequent roles opposite Jim Carrey and Ashley Judd in The Majestic and Someone Like You proved that Dent had what it takes to make it in Hollywood. She did stage work in both Broadway and regional theater giving testament to her deep-rooted love of acting. Though she was an increasingly familiar face to television viewers throughout the '90s -- thanks to guest roles in The X-Files, Frasier, Law & Order, and The Sopranos -- it was a recurring role in the long-running soap One Life to Live (beginning in 1997) that truly put Dent on the map with television viewers. That same year, Dent made a lasting impression by joining the cast of The Shield; she also made her first foray into science fiction territory as a mother whose contact with extraterrestrials profoundly affects her life in the Steven Spielberg produced Sci Fi Channel miniseries Taken. A supporting role in 21 Grams was quick to follow, with a substantial role in the 2005 black comedy The Unseen, assuring audiences that they'll be seeing plenty more of Dent in the years to follow.

Trivia: Supporting player, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Character actress Alice Drummond built a solid background in theater before regularly playing interesting older ladies in film and television. During the '60s, she played Nurse Jackson on the gothic TV series Dark Shadows. Her early work was mostly confined to the stage, though, and by 1970 she had earned a Tony nomination for her performance in The Chinese & Dr. Fish. During the '80s she appeared in many feature films and television shows, usually in roles like eccentric old ladies on Night Court. One of her most recognizable parts was the librarian who is chased by a ghost through the New York Public Library in the opening scene of Ghostbusters. During the '90s, she got a few more substantial roles, like a patient in Awakenings and Ray Finkle's mother in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. She found meager success with independent comedy dramas in the late '90s, starting with Adrienne Shelly's I'll Take You There. In 2001 she played Aunt Millie in Tom Rice's The Rising Place and in 2003 she was Grandma Dottie in Peter Hedges' Pieces of April. Drummond died in 2016, at age 88.

Trivia: While some may not recognize Margo Martindale's name, many recognize her face. An actress onscreen from the early '90s, Martindale's list of memorable roles is long, and the character actress found a strong niche playing mothers (Million Dollar Baby) grandmothers (Hannah Montana: The Movie), and generally maternal figures (Practical Magic). Martindale even parodied her own typecasting, playing the mother of the title character in the biopic spoof Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Martindale would continue to act at a furious pace for years to come, appearing in movies like Secretariat, and on shows like Justified and A Gifted Man.

Trivia: Trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse, Elizabeth Wilson made her first Broadway appearance as Christine Schoenwalder in the original 1953 production of William Inge's Picnic. Christine Schoenwalder served as Wilson's entrée into films when Picnic was transferred to the Big Screen in 1956. She continued racking up such impressive Broadway credits as Desk Set and The Tunnel of Love throughout the fifties. During the next two decades, Wilson found her particular niche in uptight maternal roles, notably such characters as Marjorie Newquist in the stage and screen versions of Jules Feiffer's Little Murders and Harriet in Joseph Papp's production of Stick and Bones, which earned her an Emmy. She was a favorite of director Mike Nichols, who cast her in The Graduate (1967, as Benjamin Braddock's mother), Catch 22 (1970) and Day of the Dolphin (1973). On television, Elizabeth Wilson had regular roles in such series as East Side/West Side (1963) Dark Shadows (1966-71, as Mrs. Hopewell) and Doc (1975). In 1980, she played office snitch Roz Keith in 9 to 5 and later played the main antagonist in The Addams Family (1991). Wilson continued to work in film and TV movies in her later years, playing the Van Doren matriarch in Quiz Show (1994) and Sara Delano Roosevelt in Hyde Park on Hudson (2012). Wilson died in 2015, at age 94.