Trivia: It took versatile actor James Belushi several years to slowly come into his own, which wasn't an easy task following in the fiery footsteps of his flamboyant, self-destructive brother, the late comic John Belushi. Despite that obstacle, the easy-going actor with the crooked smile still managed to forge a respectable career playing co-leads in a variety of film genres, including comedy, action, and drama in roles ranging from a sleazeball thief to a cop to a party animal in a gorilla suit. Prior to his first television appearances, the Chicago-born actor earned a degree in Speech and Theater, and worked on-stage in The Pirates of Penzance and True West. Like John, James joined the notorious Second City improvisational comedy group. He also began making regular guest appearances on Saturday Night Live, where his brother became famous in the mid-'70s. Making his feature film debut playing James Caan's calm partner in 1981's Thief, James Belushi began acting under John Landis (who also directed his brother) in Trading Places (1983). He continued playing supporting roles and occasional leads -- most notably in Oliver Stone's Salvador with James Woods in 1986 -- but his big break came when he played a bad cop in 1988's Red Heat with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was equally popular in K-9 the following year. Although his subsequent films were not as successful, Belushi continued to grow as a dramatic actor. In 2001, Belushi began headlining the successful ABC sitcom According to Jim.

Trivia: Blonde, slim, and polished television actress Courtney Thorne-Smith first appeared as Stacy Hamilton on Fast Times, the television series spin-off of the successful teen movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. She made her film debut in the sports comedy Lucas, which also starred the rising young stars Winona Ryder, Corey Haim, and Charlie Sheen. When she did work on films, they were mostly lightweight comedies like Welcome to 18, Summer School, and Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise. Back on television, she appeared in the short-lived sitcom Day by Day and some TV movies before joining the cast of L.A. Law as Kimberly Dugan. Staying with TV dramas, she played Alison on the FOX soap opera Melrose Place from 1992-1997, and then she joined the cast of Ally McBeal and its truncated spawn Ally as Georgia Thomas. She also appeared in the Carrot Top movie Chairman of the Board. After a few guest-starring roles on Spin City, she moved over to ABC for the family sitcom According to Jim as Jim Belushi's wife, Cheryl.

Trivia: Though she worked consistently throughout the 1990s, Kimberly Williams made her biggest impression on movie audiences as the sweet ingenue in the remake of Father of the Bride (1991). Raised in New York, Williams began acting in commercials as a teenager. During her second year at Northwestern University, Williams got her feature film break when she was cast as protective father Steve Martin's soon-to-be-married daughter Annie in the (slightly) modernized version of the popular 1950s comedy Father of the Bride. Though the movie became a hit, Williams chose to finish college rather than head immediately to Hollywood, appearing only in the gentle nostalgia piece Indian Summer (1993) before she earned her degree. After school, Williams reunited with screen parents Martin and Diane Keaton to play the now-expectant mother Annie in the genial sequel Father of the Bride II (1995). Moving beyond gentle, crowd-pleasing comedy, Williams co-starred with TV heartthrob Jason Priestley in the hitman black comedy Coldblooded (1995), played Emilio Estevez's sister in the Vietnam drama The War at Home (1996), and appeared in the TV version of the Neil Simon play Jake's Women (1995). Williams' doe-eyed earnestness also won over a cadre of fans when she was cast as the female lead in the Edward Zwick/Marshall Herskovitz series Relativity in 1996, but the critically acclaimed show lasted only one season. Along with acting in Broadway and off-Broadway plays in the late '90s, Williams also played the young Sharon Stone in the film version of Sam Shepard's Simpatico (1999), joined the ensemble cast of the romantic comedy Just a Little Harmless Sex (1999), and starred as a contemporary young woman transported to fairytale land in the splashy NBC miniseries The 10th Kingdom (2000). That assignment seemed prophetic in retrospect, for Williams subsequently gravitated toward television projects and away from the big screen; she played Dana, sister-in-law of the titular suburbanite (Jim Belushi) on the popular ABC sitcom According to Jim (2001), and also began accepting leads in longform features. The majority of these projects constituted sentimental, family-friendly melodramas, such as the 2001 Follow the Stars Home (with Williams as a young woman deserted by her husband after she gives birth to a deformed baby) and the 2002 outing The Christmas Shoes (as a mother dying of congenital heart failure). Also in 2002, Williams turned up in Rodrigo García's drama Ten Tiny Love Stories, as one of several characters who deliver heartfelt monologues on their romantic lives. She married country singer Brad Paisley in 2003 and they have two children. Her film and television career includes Identity Theft, How to Eat Fried Worms, Eden Court, and Amish Grace.

Trivia: The son of the Los Angeles Times' drama editor, William Schallert was, along with Sydney Chaplin, one of the co-founders of Hollywood's highly regarded Circle Theatre troupe. Sent to Great Britain on a Fulbright Fellowship to study British repertory theatre, Schallert guest-lectured at Oxford on several occasion before heading home. A character actor of almost intimidating versatility, Schallert began his long film and TV career in 1951. While he appeared in films of every variety, Schallert was most closely associated with the many doctors (mad or otherwise), lab technicians and scientific experts that he played in such science fiction endeavors as The Man From Planet X (1951), Gog (1954), Them! (1954) The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) and The Monolith Monsters (1959). Director Joe Dante paid homage to Schallert's prolific horror-flick work by casting the actor in his Matinee, where he played yet another dabbler in Things Man Is Not Meant to Know in the film-within-a-film "Mant." Schallert's hundreds television credits could fill a book in themselves; the Nickelodeon cable network once tried to put together a montage of the actor's guest star appearances, touching only the tip of the iceberg. He was a regular on such series as Dobie Gillis (as literature teacher Mr. Pomfrit, who always dismissed his class as though announcing the beginning of the Indy 500), Get Smart (as a senile 97-year-old Navy admiral), The Nancy Drew Mysteries (as Nancy's attorney father) The New Gidget (as Gidget's professor father) The Nancy Walker Show, Little Women and Santa Barbara. His most famous TV role was as Patty Lane's ever-patient newspaper-editor dad on The Patty Duke Show, which ran from 1963 through 1966; over twenty years later, Mr. Schallert and Ms. Duke were touchingly reunited--again as father and daughter--on an episode of The Torkelsons (1991-92). William Schallert once served as president of the Screen Actors' Guild, a position later held...by Patty Duke. Shallert continued acting until the early 2010s; he died in 2016, at age 93.

Trivia: Whenever a script called for a wacky old lady, character actor Ellen Albertini Dow was there to play the part. After a lifetime as a teacher, the Cornell graduate made her television debut on an episode of the Twilight Zone in 1985 when she was in her late sixties. She spent the rest of the '80s making TV guest appearances on family sitcoms (Mr. Belvedere, The Golden Girls, Family Matters, and Newhart, just to name a few). On the big screen, she appeared in innumerable supporting roles as a grandma, nun, or any random old lady, leading to choir parts in both Sister Act and Sister Act 2. She got to exploit her comedic shtick regularly in 1996 when she joined the cast of the Nickelodeon series Kenan & Kel in the role of Ethel Quagmire. If a cameo can be considered a breakthrough, she at least gained face recognition as the old lady, Rosie, who raps in The Wedding Singer by appearing in the film's commercial. She continued playing the sassy granny role as Disco Dottie in 54, Mrs. MacKenzie in Ready to Rumble, and Tom Green's grandma in Road Trip. In 2001, she returned to the small screen to play Grandma Harriet on the WB series Maybe It's Me. At the age of 84, she lent her voice to Adam Sandler's animated feature Eight Crazy Nights. In 2005, she played the foul-mouthed Grandma Cleary in the the box-office smash Wedding Crashers. Albertini Dow continued to work, mostly in TV guest appearances, including spots on My Name is Earl and New Girl, until 2013. She died in 2015, at age 101.