Trivia: Though his early career seemed to hold the promise of major stardom for actor Ryan O'Neal, matters didn't pan out and he has become more famous for his long-term live-in relationship with 1970s poster girl-turned-movie star-of-the-week actress Farrah Fawcett than any of his '80s and '90s films. Still, O'Neal is an appealing actor and his clean-cut good looks and reddish- blond hair give him an exuberant boyishness that belies his age. His first major role was that of Rodney Harrington on the television soap opera Peyton Place (1964-1969). O'Neal is the son of screenwriter Charles O'Neal and actress Patricia Callaghan O'Neal. A California native, he spent much of his childhood living abroad. As a young man, O'Neal sometimes got into trouble and at one point served a 51-day jail sentence for assault and battery after getting into a fight at a New Year's party. Before becoming an actor, O'Neal was a lifeguard and an amateur boxer who was a one-time Golden Gloves contender. In film and television, O'Neal started out as a stunt man on Tales of the Vikings, a German television series. His parents were working on the same show. Upon his return to the States, O'Neal continued finding work in small parts on television shows, getting his first regular acting job on the Western Empire (1962). Following the demise of Peyton Place, O'Neal made his feature debut in The Big Bounce (1969), but did not get his big break until he was chosen from 300 auditioners to play Oliver Barrett opposite Ally McGraw in Arthur Hiller's maudlin adaptation of Erich Seagal's best-seller Love Story- (1970). The film was a smash hit and landed O'Neal an Oscar nomination. Two more starring roles followed this success but it was not until he played an uptight professor who finds himself beleaguered by a free-spirited, love-struck Barbra Streisand in Peter Bogdanovich's What's Up Doc? (1972) that he rivaled the success of Love Story. It has been in light, romantic fare such as this that O'Neal has excelled. His next popular role was that of an exasperated con man in Paper Moon, the charming comedy that netted his co-star and real-life daughter, Tatum O'Neal, an Oscar. O'Neal then played the title role in Stanley Kubrick's slow-paced epic Barry Lyndon (1975). By the late '70s, O'Neal's career had gone into decline and he had begun appearing in such dismal outings as Oliver's Story (the 1978 sequel to his first big hit) and The Main Event (1979) which reteamed him with Streisand. The '80s were even tougher for O'Neal, even though he appeared regularly onscreen. In 1989, O'Neal turned up in the wrenching made-for-TV-movie Small Sacrifices, which starred his lover Fawcett. Two years later, he and Fawcett starred in the short-lived television sitcom Good Sports. He followed that up with a part in the body-switch comedy Chances Are. In the nineties he appeared in the showbiz satire Burn Hollywood Burn, and the quirky detective tale Zero Effect. As the 21st century began he could be seen opposite Al Pacino in People I Know, and in the 2003 comedy Malibu's Most Wanted. After seven years away from screen, he appeared in 2012's Slumber Party Slaughter. Before hooking up with Farrah in the early '80s, O'Neal was married to actresses to Joanna Moore and Leigh Taylor-Young. His children from those marriages, Tatum and Griffin O'Neal, are both actors as is his brother Kevin O'Neal.

Trivia: Bruce MacLeish Dern is the scion of a distinguished family of politicians and men of letters that includes his uncle, the distinguished poet/playwright Archibald MacLeish. After a prestigious education at New Trier High and Choate Preparatory, Dern enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, only to drop out abruptly in favor of Lee Strasberg's Actors' Studio. With his phlegmatic voice and schoolyard-bully countenance, he was not considered a likely candidate for stardom, and was often treated derisively by his fellow students. In 1958, he made his first Broadway appearance in A Touch of the Poet. Two years later, he was hired by director Elia Kazan to play a bit role in the 20th Century Fox production Wild River. He was a bit more prominent on TV, appearing regularly as E.J. Stocker in the contemporary Western series Stoney Burke. A favorite of Alfred Hitchcock, Dern was prominently cast in a handful of the director's TV-anthology episodes, and as the unfortunate sailor in the flashback sequences of the feature film Marnie (1964). During this period, Dern played as many victims as victimizers; he was just as memorable being hacked to death by Victor Buono in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1965) as he was while attempting to rape Linda Evans on TV's The Big Valley. Through the auspices of his close friend Jack Nicholson, Dern showed up in several Roger Corman productions of the mid-'60s, reaching a high point as Peter Fonda's "guide" through LSD-land in The Trip (1967). The actor's ever-increasing fan following amongst disenfranchised younger filmgoers shot up dramatically when he gunned down Establishment icon John Wayne in The Cowboys (1971). After scoring a critical hit with his supporting part in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), Dern began attaining leading roles in such films as Silent Running (1971), The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), The Great Gatsby (1974), and Smile (1975). In 1976, he returned to the Hitchcock fold, this time with top billing, in Family Plot. Previously honored with a National Society of Film Critics award for his work in the Jack Nicholson-directed Drive, He Said (1970), Dern received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of an unhinged Vietnam veteran in Coming Home (1978), in which he co-starred with one-time Actors' Studio colleague (and former classroom tormentor) Jane Fonda. He followed this triumph with a return to Broadway in the 1979 production Strangers. In 1982, Dern won the Berlin Film Festival Best Actor prize for That Championship Season. He then devoted several years to stage and TV work, returning to features in the strenuous role of a middle-aged long distance runner in On the Edge (1986).After a humorous turn in the 1989 Tom Hanks comedy The 'Burbs, Dern dropped beneath the radar for much of the '90s. He would appear in cult favorites like Mulholland Falls and the Walter Hill Yojimbo re-make Last Man Standing (both 1996), as well as The Haunting (1999) and All the Pretty Horses (2000). As the 2000's unfolded, Dern would continue to act, apperaing most notably in film like Monster and Django Unchained.Formerly married to actress Diane Ladd, Bruce Dern is the father of actress Laura Dern.

Trivia: During the early '70s, country & western artist Ronee Blakley was a favorite singer/songwriter of Bob Dylan and had a fairly successful singing career. In film, she penned a few songs for Welcome Home Soldier (1972). She made a stellar acting debut in 1975 playing Barbara Jean, a tragic, frail singer (alleged to be loosely patterned after Loretta Lynn) who is nearly destroyed by fame in Robert Altman's Nashville. Blakley is said to have written much of the part herself and was so convincing in the role that it won her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She has continued to pursue a career in film, but has since been relegated to leading and supporting roles in low-budget and independent features ranging from Walter Hill's The Driver (1978) and Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) to Someone to Love (1987). In 1985, Blakley directed and starred in the docudrama I Played It for You.

Trivia: Lead and supporting atcor, onscreen from 1956.

Trivia: New York-born actor Joseph Walsh -- who is probably best remembered under the name Joey Walsh, as a child actor and juvenile player -- enjoyed a busy career from the end of the 1940s until the mid-1960s. Although most of his work was confined to the small-screen, as a child actor Walsh managed to play key supporting roles in two feature films that couldn't have been too much more different in tone or purpose. In 1952, he was seen by millions of filmgoers (and millions more television viewers in decades to come) as Peter in Samuel Goldwyn's opulent Technicolor production of Hans Christian Andersen, starring Danny Kaye, a gently whimsical account of the career of the renowned children's story author. And the following year, he was seen by far fewer filmgoers in Edward Dmytryk's The Juggler, starring Kirk Douglas in a story of a psychologically unhinged Holocaust survivor on the run in Israel. Around and after those two big-screen offerings, Walsh was seen on numerous dramatic anthology shows, and in episodes of series ranging from The Greatest Show On Earth and Bonanza to Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea, broken up by an uncredited appearance in the comedy-drama feature Captain Newman, M.D. (1964). He re-emerged in the early 1970s as an actor (and co-author and producer) of the Robert Altman movie California Split (1974), which was based on Walsh's own experiences.

Trivia: Like so many other prominent actors of the 1970s, the versatile James Caan rose to success on the strength of his riveting performance in The Godfather. Born March 26, 1939, in the Bronx, NY, Caan decided to pursue a career in acting while attending college and in 1960 was accepted by Sanford Meisner into the Neighborhood Playhouse. After making his debut off-Broadway in I Roam, he landed in the Broadway production of Mandingo but exited after just four performances because of artistic difficulties with star Franchot Tone. Caan then landed in television, where he became a busy character actor; he made his film debut in an unbilled performance in 1963's Irma La Douce, followed by a meatier role in Lady in a Cage the following year. The 1965 Howard Hawks auto-racing drama Red Line 7000 was his first starring role, followed two years later by the Hawks Western El Dorado, which cast him opposite John Wayne and Robert Mitchum; in 1968, Caan starred in Robert Altman's Countdown, and in 1969, he appeared in Francis Ford Coppola's The Rain People. Caan shot to fame thanks to a poignant performance in the 1970 television movie Brian's Song, in which he played the ill-fated Chicago Bears star Brian Piccolo; his turn as the similarly ill-fated Sonny Corleone in Coppola's 1972 masterpiece The Godfather solidified his stardom and earned him an Academy Award nomination, but his subsequent films, including 1973's Slither and the next year's Freebie and the Bean, failed to live up to expectations. After earning a Golden Globe bid for his work in 1974's The Gambler, Caan briefly appeared in 1974's The Godfather Pt. 2 before co-starring with Barbra Streisand in the hit Funny Lady, followed by Norman Jewison's futuristic parable Rollerball. When both 1975's Sam Peckinpah thriller The Killer Elite and 1976's Harry and Walter Go to New York met with failure, Caan's career took a downward turn, and apart from cameo appearances in both Mel Brooks' Silent Movie and the star-studded A Bridge Too Far, he was largely absent from screens for a time. He also made any number of ill-considered decisions; he and Coppola were unable to come to terms for Apocalypse Now, and he also rejected roles in hits including One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Superman, and Kramer vs. Kramer.By the end of the decade, Caan's career had hit the skids, as projects including the 1978 Western Comes a Horseman (co-starring Jane Fonda) and the following year's Neil Simon drama Chapter Two all failed to live up to expectations. His directorial debut in 1980's Hide in Plain Sight fared no better, although Michael Mann's thriller Thief garnered a cult following; when 1982's Kiss Me Goodbye bombed, Caan disappeared from sight for the next five years. Finally, in 1987, Caan resurfaced, starring in Coppola's war drama Gardens of Stone; the next year's science fiction picture Alien Nation was a hit, as was his next major project, Rob Reiner's 1990 feature Misery. After 1991's For the Boys failed to connect with audiences, Caan spent much of the decade in prominent supporting roles which showcased his smart, edgy persona; among the more high-profile were 1992's Honeymoon in Vegas, 1996's Eraser, and the wonderful indie hit Bottle Rocket.Caan would prove over the coming decades that he liked to work, appearing in projects that ran the gamut from big to small. He'd appear in comedies like Mickey Blue Eyes and Elf, thrillers like City of Ghosts and In the Shadows, indie films like Lars Von Trier's Dogville and Tony Kaye's Detachment. Caan would also delight audiences on the small screen with a starring role on the TV series Las Vegas from 2003 to 2007,

Trivia: African-American actor Bob Minor gained his cinematic entree as a stuntman. His earliest speaking roles came by way of the blaxploitation pictures of the '70s. Two of the more profitable examples of this genre were Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974), both of which starred Pam Grier and featured Minor in supporting roles. The actor occasionally surfaced in mainstream films designed for a more generic audience, notably The Deep (1978) (as Wiley), White Dog (1982) and Glory (1989) but even after attaining this filmic level he couldn't quite escape such exploitation flicks as Swinging Cheerleaders (1976). Bob Minor worked with regularity on television, just missing consistent weekly work in such never-purchased pilots as Friendly Persuasion (1975), Dr. Scorpion (1978) and Samurai (1979).

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the '70s.