Trivia: Educated at Yale and the Sorbonne, Sam Waterston, born November 15th, 1940, is far more than the "general purpose actor" he was pegged to be by one well-known film historian. A respected player on the stage, screen, and television, Waterston has cultivated a loyal following with his quietly charismatic, unfailingly solid performances. After beginning his career on the New York stage -- where he has continued to perform throughout his long career -- Waterston made his film debut in The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean in 1966. For a long time, his film career was not nearly as remarkable as his work on the stage and television, although non-New York audiences were made acutely aware of the depth and breadth of Waterston's talents when, in 1973, he starred in the television adaptation The Glass Menagerie (appearing alongside Katherine Hepburn) and -- also on TV -- in Tony Richardson's A Delicate Balance. The following year, the actor further impressed television audiences when he starred as Benedick in the CBS TV adaptation of Joseph Papp's staging of Much Ado About Nothing. Also in 1974, Waterston proved to be the best of the screen's Nick Carraways when he was cast in that expository role in the The Great Gatsby; subsequent films ranged from the midnight-movie favorite Rancho Deluxe (1975) to the unmitigated disaster Heaven's Gate (1981). In the late '70s, Waterston was "adopted" by Woody Allen, joining the director's ever-increasing unofficial stock company for such films as Interiors (1978), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), September (1987), and Crimes and Misdemeanors. Waterston was nominated for an Academy award for his powerful portrayal of a conscience-stricken American journalist in The Killing Fields (1984); three years later he appeared in Swimming to Cambodia, Spalding Gray's acclaimed documentary about the making of the film. Subsequent film appearances included a turn as Kathleen Turner's hilariously timid husband in Serial Mom (1994) and a role in Ismail Merchant's The Proprietor in 1996.However, Waterston has continued to make his greatest mark on television, starring in the acclaimed The Nightmare Years in 1989 and in the similarly lauded series I'll Fly Away and Law & Order. In addition, he has gained a certain amount of fame playing Abraham Lincoln multiple times: In 1988, he starred in Gore Vidal's Lincoln on television, while he won a Tony nod playing him in the Lincoln Center production of Abe Lincoln in Illinois and supplied the president's voice for Ken Burns' documentary The Civil War.Though Waterson is most recognizable for his work in Law & Order, he took on a variety of other television roles throughout the 1990s and 2000s, among them including a turn as the District Attorney Forrest Bedford in I'll Fly Away (the role would win him an Golden Globe). In 2012, Waterson joined the cast of HBO's The Newsroom.

Trivia: A renowned theater actress, Julie Harris also augmented her reputation with strong performances in a number of film and TV roles, despite her aversion to the Hollywood "glamour star" trip. Born to a well-to-do Grosse Pointe, Michigan, family, Harris opted to pursue acting at Yale Drama School rather than make her society debut at age 19. She landed her first Broadway part one year later. Harris' career was truly launched at age 25, however, by her star-making performance as troubled pre-teen tomboy Frankie in Carson McCullers' play The Member of the Wedding in 1950. Reprising her role in the film adaptation of The Member of the Wedding (1952), Harris scored an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in her first major film appearance. Though she did not win, she did win the first of five Tony Awards in 1952 for her Broadway turn as Berlin cabaret singer Sally Bowles in I Am a Camera. Along with the well-received film version of I Am a Camera in 1955, Harris starred in perhaps her best-known film that same year: Elia Kazan's East of Eden. As initially-coquettish Abra, Harris became a sensitive yet sensible romantic lead opposite an anguished James Dean in his legendary debut. With this trio of films, Harris became part of the 1950s cinematic turn toward performative "realism" exemplified by Method actor icons Dean and Marlon Brando (despite her own impatience with the Method after an Actors Studio stint).Harris continued to avoid typecasting by playing a number of different roles in TV, theater, and movie productions throughout the subsequent decades. On film, Harris showed her considerable range as a kindly social worker in the film version of Rod Serling's teleplay Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962), one of the highly disturbed human guinea pigs in the original (and far superior) version of The Haunting (1963), a frustrated nightclub chanteuse in the Paul Newman p.i. vehicle Harper (1966), and a troubled wife in Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). On stage, Harris' specialty became playing famous women throughout history, including Tony-award winning performances as Joan of Ark in The Lark (1956), Mary Todd Lincoln in The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (1973) (adapted for TV in 1976), and Emily Dickinson in The Belle of Amherst (1977).After surviving a bout with cancer in 1981, Harris achieved considerable fame with a new audience by playing Lilimae Clements on the TV nighttime serial Knot's Landing from 1981 to 1988. After she left the show, Harris returned to films, after nearly a decade, as Sigourney Weaver's friend in Gorillas in the Mist (1988). Harris kept busy throughout the 1990s with supporting roles in several films, including Housesitter (1992) and the George A. Romero/Stephen King chiller The Dark Half (1993), as well as starring roles onstage and in TV films, including Ellen Foster (1997). She was awarded the National Medal of the Arts in 1994. Harris would continue to act throughout the decades to come, memorably appearing in TV movies like Little Surprises and Love is Strange. Harris retired from on-screen acting in 2009, and eventually passed away in 2013. She was 87.

Trivia: One of Hollywood's elder statesmen, Jason Robards Jr. had a rich, deep voice and authoritative aura that befit the distinguished citizens he often played. The son of stage and screen actor Jason Robards Sr., Robards kept alive his rich heritage throughout the second half of the 20th century.Born July 26, 1922, in Chicago, Robards was a military man before becoming an actor. He served seven years in the Navy, and was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked in 1941 (he later received the Navy Cross). Following his service, Robards moved to New York to pursue an acting career. He found work in incidental plays, radio soap operas, and live television dramas, driving a cab and teaching school to support himself. After a decade of obscurity, he rose to prominence in 1956 in the Circle in the Square production of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh. He appeared on Broadway the following year in Long Day's Journey Into Night, for which he won a New York Drama Critics Award. Following that success, he remained a busy and popular Broadway performer, and, in 1958, got the opportunity to appear with his father in The Disenchanted.Making his onscreen debut in The Journey (1959), Robards maintained a TV and screen career while continuing to work on the stage. He tended to appear in two or three movies per year during the '60s, including the acclaimed 1962 screen adaptation of Long Day's Journey Into Night and Sergio Leone's much lauded 1968 Western Once Upon a Time in the West. Two years after his role in the war epic Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), the actor was in a near-fatal car crash, but managed to make a complete recovery, returning to Broadway two years later. He ended the '70s by winning Oscars for his supporting roles in All the President's Men (1976) and Julia (1977), and was nominated for the same award for his portrayal of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes in Melvin and Howard (1980), The slew of awards and nominations during this period also served as a nice complement to the six Tony awards he had been nominated for between 1960 and 1974. In 1978, Robards returned to the material that had helped to cement his reputation by directing himself in a revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night, which opened at Brooklyn Academy of Music Opera House.Robards continued to act on-stage and in film throughout the '80s, in addition to working on a number of documentaries and made-for-TV movies. Among his more notable television portrayals were the title role in the acclaimed 1980 miniseries F.D.R.: The Last Year (1980) and a lead part in You Can't Take It With You (1984). He also participated in the 1982 documentary Burden of Dreams, a highly acclaimed film about the making of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. Robards' screen roles during that decade were usually limited to the part of the patriarch in such films as Square Dance (1987) and Parenthood (1989), although he was introduced to a younger audience with his lead in the 1989 comedy Dream a Little Dream, which featured Corey Haim and Corey Feldman and little else. Robards worked steadily throughout the '90s, taking on roles in such acclaimed features as Philadelphia (1993), A Thousand Acres (1997), and Beloved (1998). He also continued to appear in a number of TV miniseries. In 1999, Robards lent his voice to the widely lauded documentary The Irish in America: The Long Journey Home, further demonstrating that, in addition to being one of Hollywood's most respected figures, he was also one of its most versatile. One of Robards' last roles was a suitably complex one, a dying man longing for a reconciliation with his estranged son in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (1999). The actor died of cancer, himself, the following year.

Trivia: Morgan Freeman has enjoyed an impressive and varied career on stage, television, and screen. It is a career that began in the mid-'60s, when Freeman appeared in an off-Broadway production of The Niggerlovers and with Pearl Bailey in an all-African-American Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968. He went on to have a successful career both on and off-Broadway, showcasing his talents in everything from musicals to contemporary drama to Shakespeare. Before studying acting, the Memphis-born Freeman attended Los Angeles Community College and served a five-year stint with the Air Force from 1955 to 1959. After getting his start on the stage, he worked in television, playing Easy Reader on the PBS children's educational series The Electric Company from 1971 through 1976. During that period, Freeman also made his movie debut in the lighthearted children's movie Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow? (1971). Save for his work on the PBS show, Freeman's television and feature film appearances through the '70s were sporadic, but in 1980, he earned critical acclaim for his work in the prison drama Brubaker. He gained additional recognition for his work on the small screen with a regular role on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives from 1982 to 1984. Following Brubaker, Freeman's subsequent '80s film work was generally undistinguished until he played the dangerously emotional pimp in Street Smart (1987) and earned his first Oscar nomination. With the success of Street Smart, Freeman's film career duly took off and he appeared in a string of excellent films that began with the powerful Clean and Sober (1988) and continued with Driving Miss Daisy (1989), in which Freeman reprised his Obie-winning role of a dignified, patient Southern chauffeur and earned his second Oscar nomination for his efforts. In 1989, he also played a tough and cynical gravedigger who joins a newly formed regiment of black Union soldiers helmed by Matthew Broderick in Glory. The acclaim he won for that role was replicated with his portrayal of a high school principal in that same year's Lean on Me.Freeman constitutes one of the few African-American actors to play roles not specifically written for African-Americans, as evidenced by his work in such films as Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), in which he played Robin's sidekick, and Clint Eastwood's revisionist Western Unforgiven (1992). In 1993, Freeman demonstrated his skills on the other side of the camera, making his directorial debut with Bopha!, the story of a South African cop alienated from his son by apartheid. The following year, the actor received a third Oscar nomination as an aged lifer in the prison drama The Shawshank Redemption. He went on to do steady work throughout the rest of the decade, turning in memorable performances in films like Seven (1995), in which he played a world-weary detective; Amistad (1997), which featured him as a former slave; Kiss the Girls (1997), a thriller in which he played a police detective; and Deep Impact, a 1998 blockbuster that cast Freeman as the President of the United States. Following an appearance opposite Renee Zellweger in director Neil LaBute's Nurse Betty, Freeman would return to the role of detective Alex Cross in the Kiss the Girls sequel Along Came a Spider (2001). Freeman continued to keep a high profile moving into the new millennium with roles in such thrillers as The Sum of All Fears (2002) and Stephen King's Dreamcatcher, and the popular actor would average at least two films per year through 2004. 2003's Jim Carrey vehicle Bruce Almighty cast Freeman as God (a tall role indeed, and one he inherited from both George Burns and Gene Hackman). The story finds the Supreme Being appearing on Earth and giving Carrey temporary control over the universe - to outrageous comic effect. By the time Freeman appeared opposite Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood in Eastwood's acclaimed 2004 boxing drama Million Dollar Baby, his reputation as one of Hollywood's hardest-working, most-respected actors was cemented in place. When Freeman took home the Best Supporting Actor Oscar at the 77th Annual Academy Awards for his performance as the former boxer turned trainer who convinces his old friend to take a scrappy female fighter (Hilary Swank) under his wing, the award was considered overdue given Freeman's impressive body of work.The Oscar reception lifted Freeman to further heights. In summer 2005, Freeman was involved in three of the biggest blockbusters of the year, including War of the Worlds, Batman Begins and March of the Penguins. He joined the cast of the first picture as the foreboding narrator who tells of the destruction wrought by aliens upon the Earth. The Batman Begins role represented the first in a renewed franchise (the second being 2008's The Dark Knight), with the actor playing Lucius Fox, a technology expert who equips Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) with his vast assemblage of gadgetry. Freeman also provided narration for the most unpredictable smash of the year, the nature documentary March of the Penguins.That fall, Miramax's drama An Unfinished Life cast Freeman in a difficult role as Mitch, a bear attack victim reduced to near-paraplegia, living on a derelict western ranch. The picture was shelved for two years; it arrived in cinemas practically stillborn, and many critics turned their noses up at it. After a brutal turn as a sociopathic mob boss in Paul McGuigan's Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Freeman reprised his turn as God in the 2007 Bruce Almighty sequel Evan Almighty; the high-budgeted picture flopped, but Freeman emerged unscathed. Versatile as ever, he then opted for a much different genre and tone with a key role in the same year's detective thriller Gone, Baby, Gone. As written and directed by Ben Affleck (and adapted from the novel by Dennis Lehane) the film wove the tale of two detectives searching for a missing four-year-old in Boston's underbelly. He returned to the Batman franchise in The Dark Knight, a film that broke box-office records, in 2008, and he would stick with the franchise for its final installment, The Dark Knight Rises, in 2012. Freeman would remain a top tier actor in years to come, appearing in such films as Red, Invictus (which saw him playing Nelson Mandela), Conan the Barbarian, and The Magic of Belle Isle.

Trivia: Actor Paul Roebling spent most of his career on-stage, but he also periodically showed up in a few feature films and on television. Roebling, along with Robert Duvall and Roebling's wife, lga Bellin, teamed up in 1972 to produce Tomorrow. Roebling made his acting debut in the feature drama Prince of the City (1981). In addition to his acting credits, Roebling also narrated the PBS documentary The Civil War.

Trivia: Often citied as one of America's most beloved dramatists, Horton Foote has shown an unmatched ability to capture the very essence of small-town life, a talent that has become the life-blood of his career since its earliest days. From his Oscar-winning and unforgettably moving adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) to such introspective original works as Tender Mercies (1983) and The Trip to Bountiful (1985), Foote had a way of crafting characters who speak directly to the soul with honesty and sincerity. Born in Wharton, TX, Foote left home at the age of 16 to study acting. Realizing that he would likely have to relocate to the West Coast, he gained experience at the Pasadena Playhouse in California and later in New York, though the good roles still eluded him. Foote's solution to this dilemma was to write them for himself, and the actor soon discovered his true talent as a writer. His work for the stage quickly led to work in television drama, and, before he knew it, he was writing for such respected programs as Playhouse 90 and Studio One during television's Golden Age. His plays The Chase and The Trip to Bountiful proved that his unique style of small-town drama was equally effective on the stage or screen. Foote's career eventually led him to Hollywood, where his screenplays for Storm Fear (1955) and To Kill a Mockingbird began to attract serious attention. In 1966, Foote's play The Chase was adapted into a feature film starring Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, and Angie Dickinson. Foote worked sporadically through the 1960s and '70s, and, in 1983, he re-teamed with To Kill a Mockingbird actor Robert Duvall for the affecting drama Tender Mercies. Not only was the film a critical success, but it also earned Academy Awards for both its star and screenwriter. The Trip to Bountiful was adapted for the screen two years later, and found actress Geraldine Page cast in the role of an aging mother desperate to revisit the town where she grew up (which was based on Foote's hometown). Many of the writer's plays were adapted to the screen throughout the 1980s, and, in 1992, Foote adapted John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men for stars Gary Sinise and John Malkovich. As the '90s progressed, Foote worked frequently in television on such efforts as Lily Dale (1996), Old Man (1997), and Alone (also 1997).

Trivia: To call George Plimpton merely an actor is woefully inadequate. Plimpton has also been a bullfighter, an orchestra conductor, a baseball and football player, a boxer, a circus performer and a tennis pro. He has indulged in each of these activities precisely once. George Plimpton's principal career was writing, something he pursued while at Harvard (he was an editor of the Harvard Lampoon) and while serving on the editing staff of Paris Review in the '50s and Horizon and Sports Illustrated in the '60s. Early in his career, Plimpton determined that the best way to write with expertise on a subject was through first-hand experience. Thus he fought bulls in Spain with Ernest Hemingway, played football with the Detroit Lions, was matched with tennis champ Pancho Gonzalez and bridge expert Osward Jacoby, and survived a few rounds with champion boxer Archie Moore. And he acted. He was a Bedouin extra in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), a bit player in The Detective (1968), and the character Bill Ford in Paper Lion (1968), a film based on Plimpton's own account of his brief football career (Alan Alda played Plimpton). From his experience playing a bit role as a gunned-down desperado in John Waynes Rio Lobo (1970), Plimpton fashioned an entire one-hour network TV special! Easily recognizable in later days thanks to his lucrative lecture and commercial endorsements, George Plimpton's acting assignments in recent years have been on the basis of his personality rather than as a stunt: Jodie Foster gave him a particularly suitable role as a William Buckley-type talk-show moderator in Little Man Tate (1991). Increasingly prominant on the screen throughout the 1990s, Plimpton essayed numerous small roles in such popular films as L.A. Story (1991), Nixon (1995), Good Will Hunting (1997) and Edtv (1999). As the 1990s gave way to the new millennium Plimpton was still going strong despite the effects of the passing years, and in 2001 alone he essayed a supporting role in the comedy Just Visiting and provided voiceover work for the short film Bullet in the Brain. On September 25, 2003, the world lost one of its most flamboyant and entertaining literary icons when George Plimpton died in his sleep in his New York apartment. He was 76.

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.