Trivia: Singer-actress, onscreen from the '70s.

Trivia: Alison La Placa is a gifted comic actress who has been working steadily since the early '80s, including starring roles in several highly anticipated (but ultimately unsuccessful) television series. Born in New Jersey in 1959 and raised in Lincolnshire, IL, a suburb outside of Chicago, La Placa set her sights on an entertainment career and trained in musical theater. As a practical matter, however, her career has been much more oriented toward comedy, which she describes as being essentially musical theater without the music. Her first shot at stardom came in 1983, at age 23, when she portrayed Elyse in the television pilot spin-off of Barry Levinson's feature film Diner. That series failed to sell, and her subsequent work included parts in Fletch (1985) and Voyage of the Rock Aliens (1988). She also made appearances on Cheers and Remington Steele, and by the second half of the 1980s, she had found her firm niche in television, starting with the series Duet (1987) on the FOX network, which led to a starring role on the short-lived FOX series Open House (1989). After being cast in a few more failed series, including The Jackie Thomas Show (1992) and Tom (1994, in which she played Tom Arnold's wife), La Placa finally found success when she joined the cast of The John Larroquette Show in 1994. Since then, La Placa's most memorable work was seen on the 1997 season of the series Friends, as Rachel's boss Joanna, whose involvement with Matthew Perry's Chandler -- including a ferociously funny performance in the episode "The One With the 'Cuffs" -- led to some delightful comedic situations. With those credits behind her, La Placa bids fair to be seen in television comedy for years to come.

Trivia: Pronounced "shy," like the colloquial term for his hometown of Chicago, Chi McBride didn't get into acting until he was 30 years old. He is probably most recognized for his role as principal Steven Harper on Fox's Boston Public. Before his first movie, he worked for a phone company, trained as a gospel singer, and joined the hip-hop band Covert. With McBride as a producer and vocalist, the band released their first and only album For Your Bootay Only in 1991. Not soon after, he started appearing as a guest star on Fox sitcoms, including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. His feature-length debut happened a year later in Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation. Billed as simply Chi, he then gained small roles for the Eddie Murphy movie The Distinguished Gentleman and the Tina Turner story What's Love Got to Do With It? In 1993, McBride found a spot for himself on NBC for The John Larroquette Show, playing the janitor Heavy Gene. Teaming up next with the Hudlin brothers, he then appeared in the HBO Twilight Zone-style trilogy Cosmic Slop, hosted by George Clinton. His next few diverse projects were supporting roles in Peter Jackson's horror comedy The Frighteners, Bill Duke's period crime flick Hoodlum, and the action thriller Mercury Rising. McBride's first leading role came in the form of the short-lived and controversial UPN sitcom The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, playing the stuffy English title character who was mistakenly enslaved to Abraham Lincoln. After appearances in Gone in 60 Seconds and Disney's The Kid, he found his well-known spot on Boston Public. While gaining high marks for his role on the David E. Kelley drama, McBride parlayed his increased notoriety into a number of higher-profile big-screen roles.2002 found McBride as a police captain in the intense cop-thriller Narc, and the over-the-top Chief in the comedy Undercover Brother. And while the following year saw Boston Public cancelled, the free-time afforded to McBride by the show's end only allowed him to sign on to roles in two of 2004's most anticipated films, the Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks dramedy The Terminal and I, Robot, an action sci-fi flick starring Will Smith. Over the course of the next decade the reliable McBride became increasingly active on the small screen, essaying recurring roles on such hit shows as House and Pushing Daisies. Later, in 2012, he voiced the role of Nick Fury in the animated superhero series Ultimate Spider-Man.

Trivia: American actress Elizabeth Berridge graduated from the Strasberg Institute. Her extensive stage work was followed by her breakthrough performance in the Oscar-winning Amadeus. As the wide-eyed wife of Mozart, Ms. Berridge was exquisite in her candy-munching scene with the duplicitous Salieri (F. Murray Abraham). Elizabeth Berridge has also appeared in such films as The Funhouse (1981) (her screen debut as a screaming teen), Five Corners (1988) and Montana (1990).

Trivia: Actress Betty White got her start in local Los Angeles television as the "telephone girl" for video emcee Al Jarvis. By early 1950 she was one of the stars of the daily, five-hour series Hollywood on Television. One of the highlights of this program was a husband and wife sketch titled "Life With Elizabeth," which when committed to film and syndicated nationally in 1953 became White's first starring TV sitcom. She went on to headline her own network variety series in 1954, then co-starred with Bill Williams in the weekly TV domestic comedy Date With the Angels (1957), which without Williams was retitled The Betty White Show in early 1958. For the next 15 years she made guest appearances on various variety and quiz show efforts, and toured the straw-hat theatrical circuit in such plays as Critics Choice and Who Was That Lady, often appearing opposite her husband, TV personality Allen Ludden. Two years after hosting the 1971 syndicated informational series The Pet Set, she guest-starred as libidinous "Happy Homemaker" Sue Ann Nivens on the fourth season opener of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. This Emmy-winning episode led to White being cast as an MTM regular; she remained with the series until its final episode in 1977. She then starred on her own short-lived sitcom (again titled The Betty White Show) before returning to the guest-star circuit. In 1985, she joined the cast of TV's The Golden Girls as middle-aged grief counselor Rose Nyland. This top-rated program lasted seven seasons before metamorphosing into the rather less successful Golden Palace (1992). White was a regular on the 1995 series Maybe This Time, and in 1997 she won an Emmy for her one-shot appearance on The John Laroquette Show. She was in the films Hard Rain and The Story of Us, as well as Lake Placid. In 2003 she was cast in Bringing Down the House, and in 2008 provided a voice for the American version of Ponyo. White developed a new generation in fans when she became the subject of a successful online campaign to get her to host Saturday Night Live - which she did in 2010, along with winning the SAG award for Life time Achievement. The year before, she had a part in the hit Sandra Bullock vehicle The Proposal. She also became the star of year another successful TV show when she was cast in the female-centric sitcom Hot in Cleveland. She lent her voice to the 2012 adaptation of The Lorax.