Trivia: Multi-talented actor/writer Paul Gross stayed true to his Canadian roots and became famous as the crime-busting Royal Canadian Mountie in the TV series Due South. Born in Calgary, Army brat Gross was inspired by his high school drama teacher to become an actor, and he entered the University of Alberta in Edmonton to study the craft. Leaving school early to forge a dual career as an actor and writer, Gross appeared in several TV productions and wrote the screenplay for Atom Egoyan's TV movie In This Corner (1985). By the late '80s and early '90s, he began to score more prominent roles in Canadian and American films, including the Canadian TV movies Getting Married at Buffalo Jump (1989) and Cold Comfort (1990), the well-received TV adaptation of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City (1993), the marital dramedy Married to It (1993), and the skiing drama Aspen Extreme (1993). Gross also worked again with Egoyan as the screenwriter for Egoyan's 1993 TV movie Gross Misconduct. After appearing in the Canadian features Paint Cans (1994) and Whale Music (1994), Gross became a primetime regular when his TV movie Due South (1994), about a Mountie who heads to Chicago to track a killer, became a series. Running from 1994 to 1998, Due South's hunky fish-out-of-water hero earned Gross an avid following on both sides of the Canadian border. After Due South went off the air, Gross continued to stick with Canadian TV, starring in the telefilm Murder Most Likely (1999). In the several years to follow, Gross would find success with a number of TV series, like Slings and Arrows, Eastwick, Men with Brooms, and The Yard.

Trivia: At age 17 was involved in a nearly fatal car accident. Originally enrolled at Northeastern University as a biochemical engineering major. First major TV role was on the Steve Bochco series Civil Wars.

Trivia: With her genuine smile, earthy beauty, and striking green eyes, Melina Kanakaredes staked her claim on daytime television in The Guiding Light before expanding her talents to numerous other popular series and, eventually, the silver screen.Born and raised in Akron, OH, the second-generation Greek-American was the third daughter of an insurance salesman and homemaker who began her career as an actress in a community theater production of Tom Sawyer at the age of eight. Later enrolling in Ohio State University to study music, dance, and theater but disheartened at poor inter-departmental relations, Kanakaredes opted for a conservatory education at Point Park College in Pittsburgh. Soon performing with the Pittsburgh Playhouse and appearing in commercials and industrial videos, Kanakaredes moved to New York after graduating magna cum laude and began working in dinner boat theater and off-Broadway productions. Taking her role as Greek immigrant Eleni Andros Cooper in The Guiding Light after being spotted by the William Morris Agency in 1991, Kanakaredes was nominated for two Emmys and soon began to expand to roles on NYPD Blue and OZ. Soon turning up in such features as The Long Kiss Goodnight and Rounders, the natural beauty began to gain even more footing in her feature aspirations with her turn in the Robert DeNiro heist-thriller The Score in 2001. Kanakaredes would spend the ensuing 2000's appearing frequently on TV, joining the cast of the police proceedural CSI: NY.

Trivia: Gordon Pinsent is one of Canada's busiest and most recognizable character actors. Many viewers remember Pinsent as the President of the United States in Colossus: The Forbin Project (1969). Kids have heard him as the voice of the title character in the animated HBO series Babar (1989-93). Pinsent's other weekly TV roles have included Sergeant Scott in The Forest Rangers (1964), the title character in Quentin Dergens MP (1966), Hap Shaughnessy in Red Green (1990- ) and Sergeant Frazer in Due South (1994-95). Gordon Pinsent has also occasionally written and directed, performing both functions in the 1968 Canadian feature film John and the Missus.

Trivia: Laurie Holden took one of her first on-camera bows as a teenager, in Michael Anderson's sex farce Separate Vacations (1986), then forked off into a series of programmers that included the 1989 Burt Reynolds cop drama Physical Evidence; the 1996 historical saga The Pathfinder, based on the novel by James Fenimore Cooper; and the 2004 animal picture Bailey's Billion$. Holden also found some success on the small screen, playing a memorable recurring role on the seminal sci-fi series The X-Files, that of Marita Covarrubias, a mysterious government worker who becomes an informant to Special Agent Fox Mulder starting in the fourth season of that show through the final one (1996-2002). She also had a supporting role, as Mary Travis, on the shortlived Western series The Magnificent Seven (1998-2000). Holden achieved her cinematic big break in 2001 -- when producers tapped her to appear as the sunny romantic interest of Jim Carrey in Frank Darabont's colossal fantasy The Majestic; Holden followed it up with an equally lucrative and exciting part in yet another A-list film: Debbie McIlvane in the effects-heavy summer blockbuster Fantastic Four (2005). She also essayed a prominant role, as a police woman, in the critically panned but fiscally successful horror opus Silent Hill (2006), adapted from the popular video game of the same title, and re-teamed with Darabont for both the 2007 Stephen King adaptation The Mist (2007), and the hit AMC zombie series The Walking Dead. In addition to her film and television work, Holden is active with such children's charities as Planet Hope and Feed the Children.

Trivia: Lead actress Jennifer Dale has appeared on screen since the '80s.

Trivia: Lead actress Linda Griffiths first appeared onscreen in 1983.