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: Mark-Paul Gosselaar became a TV teen idol as bleached-blond Zack on Saved by the Bell and spent the latter half of the 1990s trying to live down that legacy. Born in California to Dutch parents, Gosselaar had already made numerous TV guest appearances as a child actor by the time he was cast on Saved by the Bell in 1989. Though the perky high school/college sitcom made him a hit with the young audience, he had difficulties finding work after leaving the show in 1994. Still, he managed to land roles in TV and B-films, including Sticks and Stones (1996), Kounterfeit (1996), and the Western Brothers of the Frontier (1996). Confirming that his teen (and perhaps teen idol) years were behind him, Gosselaar played a college date rapist in She Cried No (1996) and co-starred with Hilary Swank in the college hazing TV movie Dying to Belong (1997). Moving to higher profile feature films, Gosselaar engaged in slightly more lighthearted college hijinks in MTV Films' black comedy Dead Man on Campus (1998). He was back on TV, however, playing young adults in two short-lived drama series, Hyperion Bay (1998) and D.C. (2000). In 2001, Gosselaar was finally able to truly graduate from Saved by the Bell to bona-fide grown-up roles when he was selected to take over for Rick Schroeder on the long-running gritty cop series NYPD Blue. His four year run with the series cemented the actor's new reputation as an adult actor, and he would go on to star on several other shows, like Commander in Chief, Raising the Bar, and Franklin & Bash. In 2015, secure in his adult career, Gosselaar reunited with some of his Saved By the Bell cast members for a skit on The Tonight Show.

Trivia: An actress whose fragile, fine-boned beauty has often gotten her cast as emotionally vulnerable, put-upon girlfriends, Claire Forlani has done strong work in this capacity in such films as Basquiat and Meet Joe Black. The daughter of an Italian father and a British mother, she was born in London on July 1, 1972. At the age of 11, she began studying dance and drama at London's Arts Educational School, where she trained for the next six years. She began her professional acting career in 1991, when she appeared in a number of productions for British television.After relocating with her family to San Francisco in 1993, Forlani made her American acting debut with a small but memorable role in the TV miniseries JFK: Reckless Youth (1993) as a young woman who dances her way into the heart and hormones of the young president. She subsequently had a minor part in Police Academy - Mission to Moscow (1994), and then landed more substantial work in Mallrats (1995) after impressing director Kevin Smith with her flawless impression of an immature young American. Forlani's work in Mallrats gave her enough exposure to garner the attention of various casting agents, as evidenced by her central role as the all-too accommodating waitress girlfriend of Basquiat's (1996) eponymous artist (Jeffrey Wright).The actress remained in troubled girlfriend mode for The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997), in which she played Beat icon Neal Cassady's suicidal paramour, and then literally flirted with death in Meet Joe Black (1998). The film cast Forlani in her biggest role to date, that of a young doctor who falls in love with Death, as personified with blond highlights by Brad Pitt; although the film itself was the object of much critical ire, Forlani escaped relatively unscathed. After playing yet another imperiled girlfriend in Mystery Men (1999), Forlani switched gears to play a neurotic college student who ends up in bed with her best friend (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) in the romantic comedy Boys and Girls (2000). Forliani stayed busy throughout the 2000s, winning praise for her work in the critically acclaimed fantasy drama Northfolk (2003), which also starred James Woods and Nick Nolte. She appeared in director Christopher Guest's playful send-up of Hollywood during awards season, For Your Consideration, in 2006, though she is better known for her portrayal of medical examiner Peyton Driscoll in CSI: NY (2006-2007). In 2008 she joined the cast of the supernatural thriller Not Forgotten to play a supporting role, and returned to the small screen in 2011 to play the part of Igraine in Camelot, a short-lived television series from STARZ.

Trivia: Grew up on Oregon. Would go see movies with his mom as a kid, and afterward they would discuss the acting, directing, costumes and music score. Began acting in drama camp at age 10. Is a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. Majored in business in college and interned at a real-estate company in Seattle. Was trained by a member of the Navy Seals for his role in Furious 7 (2015). Has done charity work with Wounded Warrior Project and Reach Out Worldwide.

Trivia: Swiss-born martial artist Daniel Bernhardt has followed in the violent footsteps of Belgian kickboxer Jean-Claude Van Damme as a handsome European-accented leading man in Hollywood action thrillers. After studying in the Swiss capital of Bern and modeling in Paris, Bernhardt literally took over for Van Damme in the second, third, and fourth incarnations of the Bloodsport film series. After starring in the low-budget debacle that is Future War, he kicked his way through the movies True Vengeance, Black Sea Raid, Perfect Target, and Global Effect. In 1998, he starred as Siro on the video game-inspired TV show Mortal Combat Conquest. In 2003, Bernhardt finally found a highly profitable outlet for his skills as Agent Johnson in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

Trivia: Pro-wrestler and model Torrie Wilson began her athletic career near her Idaho hometown, competing in high school sports like cheerleading and track and field. Later, she would go on to compete in fitness competitions, even taking home the top prize for Miss Galaxy in 1998. By the next year, Wilson was competing in World Championship Wrestling, and later, the World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment., which she would remain with until 2008.