Trivia: Working as a Disneyland concessionaire in his teens, comedian Steve Martin's first experiences in entertainment were of the party performer variety -- he picked up skills in juggling, tap-dancing, sleight of hand, and balloon sculpting, among other things. He later attended U.C.L.A., where he majored in philosophy and theater before moving on to staff-writer stints for such TV performers as Glen Campbell, the Smothers Brothers, Dick Van Dyke, John Denver, and Sonny & Cher. Occasionally allowed to perform as well as write, Martin didn't go into standup comedy full-time until the late '60s, when he moved to Canada and appeared as a semi-regular on the syndicated TV variety series Half the George Kirby Comedy Hour. As the opening act for rock stars in the early '70s, Martin emulated the fashion of the era with a full beard, shaggy hair, colorful costumes, and drug jokes. Comedians of such ilk were common in this market, however, so Martin carefully developed a brand-new persona: the well-groomed, immaculately dressed young man who goes against his appearance by behaving like a lunatic. By 1975, he was the "Comic of the Hour," convulsing audiences with his feigned enthusiasm over the weakest of jokes and the most obvious of comedy props. His entire act a devastating parody of second-rate comedians who rely on preconditioning to get laughs, Martin became internationally famous for such catch phrases as "Excu-u-use me!," "Happy feet!," and "I am...one wild and crazy guy!" It was fun for a while to hear audiences shout them out even before he'd uttered them, but it wasn't long before Martin was tired of live standup and anxious to get into films. Though Martin had roles in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1977) and The Muppet Movie, Martin's true screen bow was The Jerk (1979), in which, with the seriousness of Olivier, he portrayed a bumbling, self-described poor black child-turned accidental millionaire. Had he been a lesser performer, Martin could have played variations on The Jerk for the remainder of his life, but he preferred to seek out new challenges. It took nerve to go against the sensibilities of his fans with an on-edge portrayal of a habitual loser in Pennies From Heaven (1981), but Martin was successful, even if the film wasn't. And few other actors could convincingly pull off a project like Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1983), wherein, and with utter conviction, he acted opposite film clips of dead movie stars. After a first-rate turn in All of Me (1984), in which he played a man whose body is inhabited by the soul of a woman, Martin's film work began to fluctuate in quality, only to emerge on top again with Roxanne (1987), a potentially silly but ultimately compelling update of Cyrano de Bergerac. Though he participated in a fair amount of misses in the '80s and '90s (Mixed Nuts (1994), Housesitter (1992), Leap of Faith (1992), and Sgt. Bilko (1996), to name a few), Martin was unarguably full of surprises, as witnessed in his unsympathetic portrayal in Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1989), his hilariously evil dentist in Little Shop of Horrors (1986), his angst-ridden father in Parenthood (1989), his smooth-talking Italian in My Blue Heaven, and his callow film producer in Grand Canyon (1991) -- though the public still seemed to prefer his standard comic performances in The Three Amigos (1986), Father of the Bride (1991), and L.A. Story (1991). Martin then went out on yet another artistic limb with A Simple Twist of Fate (1994) -- a film update of that high-school English-class perennial Silas Marner. After starring in a very dark role in David Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner (1997) and an unsuccessful return to comedy in The Out-of-Towners (1999), Martin again won acclaim for Bowfinger, a 1999 comedy-satire that cast him as its titular hero, an unsuccessful movie director trying to make a film without the aid of a real script or real star. Martin -- who also wrote the film's screenplay -- played the straight man against Eddie Murphy, once again impressing critics with his versatility. According to rumor, Martin based Heather Graham's character on former flame Ann Heche.In addition to his Hollywood activities, Martin is well-known for his intellectual pursuits. His play Picasso at the Lapin Agile was produced successfully off-Broadway, and he has contributed numerous humor pieces to The New Yorker magazine, and penned the bestselling novella Shopgirl. Martin was also a featured artist in the PBS documentary series Art 21: Art in the 21st Century and discussed the visual arts as an integral form of self-expression. The 2000's found Martin in a slew of smaller roles, including a cameo as a heckler in Remember the Titans (2000), and a supporting role in director Stanely Tucci's historical comedy drama Joe Gould's Secret (2000). In 2001's Novacaine, Martin found himself playing dentist for the second time in his life, though this dentist would be decidedly less sadistic than the one he had played in camp favorite Little Shop of Horrors (1986). Despite an all-star cast (besides Martin, Novacaine featured Oscar-winner Helena Bonham Carter and Laura Dern) the black comedy was dismally received. Luckily, 2003's odd-couple comedy Bringing Down the House with Queen Latifah, rapper and surprising Oscar nominee for her role in Chicago, fared relatively well in theaters. Martin teamed up with the likes of Brendan Fraser, Jenna Elfman, and Bugs Bunny in Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), in which he plays the evil Mr. Chairman, head of the monolithic Acme Corporation. A film version of Shopgirl starring Martin and Claire Danes is currently slated for a 2005 release. Martin would remain a vital comedic actor in the years to come, appearing in films like Baby Mama and It's Complicated.

Trivia: She is best known for creating a multitude of memorable comic characters, including Ernestine the telephone operator and the rotten five-year-old rugrat Edith Ann, on television and in her stage shows, but let it not be forgotten that Lily Tomlin is also a talented dramatic actress, something she has thus far only demonstrated in two films. She was born Mary Tomlin in Detroit, MI. She was studying premed at Wayne State University when she heard the stage calling and so dropped out to perform skits and characterizations in cabarets and coffeehouses. Tomlin made her television debut on The Garry Moore Show but didn't get her first real break until she became a regular on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In in 1970 and stayed through 1973. The series' machine gun pace proved the perfect outlet for Tomlin's offbeat humor and gave her the opportunity to hone her skills and develop her characters. She made an auspicious film debut with a touching dramatic role as a troubled gospel singer trying to deal with her hearing-impaired children and a womanizing Keith Carradine in Robert Altman's Nashville (1975), winning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress and a New York Film Critics award for the same category. Her next film, The Late Show (1977), was also more dramatic than comic and Tomlin again won kudos, though not in the form of awards, for her work. While she started off strongly in films, her subsequent output has been of uneven quality ranging from the entertaining All of Me (1984) to the abysmal Big Business (1988). But while her film career has never quite taken flight, Tomlin remained successful on-stage, in clubs, and on television. On Broadway, Tomlin has had two successful one-woman shows, Appearing Nitely (1976) and The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1986), which Tomlin made into a film in 1991. In 1996, Tomlin became a regular on the cast of the long-running sitcom Murphy Brown playing a canny news producer and foil for Candice Bergan's Murphy. That same year she would work for the first time with director David O. Russell on the film Flirting With Disaster. After returning to film with the demise of Murphy Brown, Tomlin took on supporting roles in a variety of films, such as Tea with Mussolini and Disney's The Kid. But television soon came calling again in the form of a recurring role on NBC's The West Wing as The President's eccentric personal secretary.In 2004, Tomlin teamed with Russell again for the ensemble comedy I Heart Huckabees. A subsequent visit to the animated town of Springfield found Tomlin dropping in on The Simpsons the following year, withg recurring roles on both Will and Grace and The West Wing preceding a turn as one-half of a sisterly singing act along with Meryl Streep in the 2006 Robert Altman radio-show adaptation A Prairie Home Companion. At the Oscar telecast in 2006 Streep and Tomlin presented Altman with a lifetime achievement award, delivering their speech in a style that emulated the distinctive rhythms of his films. That same year she leant her vocal talents to an animated film for the first time in her career providing the voice for Mommo in The Ant Bully, which coincidently also featured her Prairie Home Companion cohort Meryl Streep. She had a major role in Paul Schrader's The Walker, and provided a voice in the English-language version of Ponyo. She joined the cast of the award-winning cable series Damages in 2010 for that show's third season and was a series regular on Malibu Country in 2012-13, playing Reba McEntire's mother.

Trivia: An alumnus of the USC drama department, brunette American leading lady Madolyn Smith accrued generous critical praise for her supporting work in such films as Urban Cowboy (1981) and All of Me (1984). Smith's major TV-movie accomplishments include such roles as Jihan Sadat in Sadat (1983), the seriously disturbed Dorothy Kovacs in Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter (1984), and Joseph P. Kennedy's actress-paramour Gloria Swanson in The Kennedys of Massachusetts. In 1986, she had a field day in the made-for-TV If Tomorrow Comes, playing an international con artist with a penchant for disguise. In her more recent appearances, the actress has been billed as Madolyn Smith-Osborne.

Trivia: Saturnine, generously bearded character actor Richard Libertini cut his comic teeth with Chicago's Second City Troupe. With MacIntyre Dixon, Libertini appeared in the nightclub comedy act "Stewed Prunes;" he then began toting up such New York stage credits as The Mad Show. From 1968's The Night They Raided Minsky's onward, Libertini has brightened many a film with his vast repertoire of chucklesome characterizations. Favorites include the looney General Garcia in The In-Laws (1979), who confers with a hand puppet before making crucial political decisions, and plot-galvanizing spiritualist Brahka Lasa in All of Me (1984). Richard Libertini's television contributions include a comedy-ensemble gig on The Melba Moore-Clifton Davis Show (1972), the recurring role of the Godfather on Soap (1977-78 season), supporting character Father Angelo in The Fanelli Boys (1990) and full-fledged leads in the sitcoms Family Man (1988) and Pacific Station (1991).

Trivia: Brusque character actor Dana Elcar was usually assigned roles calling for blunt imperiousness. He became especially handy in films and TV shows of the 1970s, portraying curt, dour, meticulously groomed authority figures at odds with dishevelled "hippie" and "gonzo" types. Elcar's first film after many years' stage work was 1968's Pendulum; other film credits include Soldier Blue (1969), W.C.Fields and Me (1976), and The Nude Bomb (1980). In 1985, Dana Elcar was cast as Peter Thornton, boss of troubleshooting Richard Dean Anderson, on the TV series MacGiver; Elcar continued playing the role into the 1990s, at which time the actor's real-life blindness required him to incorporate dark glasses and a cane into his characterization.

Trivia: African-American character actor Jason Bernard is one of those performers who seems to have never been out of work. Bernard's cinematic stock-in-trade has been stern authority figures: the parole officer in Car Wash (1976), the Mayor in Blue Thunder (1983), Judge Bochco in The Star Chamber (1983), Major Donovan in No Way Out (1987), and so forth. Bernard has appeared numerous times on television as a guest star and as a recurring character. Some of his most famous TV roles include Preston Wade in the daytime drama Days of Our Lives, mechanical whiz Fletch in the 1983 prime-timer High Performance, and the chronically humorless publishing executive Mr. Paul Bracken in the 1991 Fox sitcom Herman's Head. For his supporting role in the Lifetime network movie Sophie and the Moonhanger (1995), Bernard received a Cable Ace nomination. His last feature-film role was that of a judge in the Jim Carrey comedy Liar, Liar (1997). On October 16, 1996, the 58-year-old Bernard was driving in Hollywood when he suffered a fatal heart attack.

Trivia: Actress and comedy writer Selma Diamond may best be remembered as the feisty, whiskey-voiced bailiff Selma Hacker in the first year of the popular television sitcom Night Court, but she was involved in the entertainment industry many years before that. A native of Canada, Diamond graduated from a New York university and got her start selling ideas for cartoons and humorous stories to various magazines. She also became a comedy writer for such radio and television personalities as Milton Berle, Tallulah Bankhead, Sid Caesar and Groucho Marx. Diamond also appeared in a few films, especially during the early '80s. She died in 1985, after working for only a year on Night Court.

Trivia: A distinguished Canadian stage, radio, film, and TV actor, Eric Christmas is probably best known to American audiences as Mr. Carter in the two Porky's films of the 1980s, or as Senator Polk in The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1980), or Roland the Butler in Warren Beatty's Bugsy (1992). Christmas also played Morten Kill in Steve McQueen's courageous adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People (1979). Eric Christmas' TV-series assignments in America have included the roles of Ben Hampton in The Sandy Duncan Show (1972) and Harry "The Hunchback" Schanstra in Wiseguys (1987-1988 season).

Trivia: Good-ole-boy character actor Gailard Sartain first came to the attention of TV fans as a member of the comedy ensemble of The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (1976-77 season). Sairtain enjoyed more TV-screen time as dufus short order cook Willie Billie Honey in the 1978 syndicated comedy-variety weekly Hee Haw Honeys; cast as Willie Billie's younger sister, by the way, was one Kathie Lee Johnson, who went on to chatshow fame as Kathie Lee Gifford. In films, Sairtain was prominently featured as the Big Bopper in The Buddy Holly Story (1981) and as bucolic bumpkin Chuck in Jim Varney's Ernest flicks. Active into the 1990s, Gailard Sairtain usually shows up these days in featured roles as redneck Southern sheriffs and state troopers.

Trivia: Character actress of TV and movies, onscreen from 1953.

Trivia: American actress Peggy Feury has worked in several Broadway shows, on television and in films of the '70s and '80s. The New Jersey native, after attending Eastern drama schools and Barnard College, was closely associated with Actor's Studio. She then worked with Lee Strasberg as an artistic director and an instructor.

Trivia: American actress Nan Martin's first burst of activity was in the late '50s, when TV anthology work abounded. Her film appearances commenced with The Buster Keaton Story in 1957. She remained a busy character actress into the mid '70s, playing such roles as the mother of paralyzed skiier Jill Kinmont (Marilyn Hassett) in The Other Side of the Mountain (1975) and its 1978 sequel. In 1986, Nan Martin had a recurring TV role as typist Grace D'Angelo on the Jeffrey Tambor sitcom Mr. Sunshine.

Trivia: Tight-lipped, bespectacled American character actor Basil Hoffman made his first screen appearance in Lady Liberty (1972). Hoffman was at his brusque best playing cut-no-slack authority types. He was, for example, ideally cast as the gloriously named Principal Dingleman in the TV sitcom Square Pegs. Apparently a favorite of actor-director Robert Redford, Hoffman has been prominently featured in such Redford projects as All the President's Men (1976), The Electric Horseman (1979), Ordinary People (1980) and The Milagro Beanfield War (1988).

Trivia: British actor Hedley Mattingly primarily played character roles on television and only occasionally appeared in feature films of the 1960s. The London-born Mattingly launched his career as a Shakespearean actor. Following service in the Royal Air Force during WWII, he worked as the Front of House manager at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. Mattingly and his wife, costume designer Barbara Mattingly, emigrated to Canada in the early '50s. He became an actor for CBC Television and appeared in several dramas. The couple became Hollywood residents in the 1960s. Mattingly made his feature film debut in 1963, playing a chauffeur in Norman Jewison'sThe Thrill of It All. His subsequent film credits include King Rat (1965), Lost Horizon (1973), and All of Me (1984).

Trivia: Character actor Harvey Vernon came to Hollywood following his discharge from the Coast Guard after WWII. Over his busy and prolific career, he has appeared in films and television and has occasionally showed up on-stage. His film credits include MacArthur (1977) and Teen Wolf (1985). Vernon has worked most often in television appearing in series ranging from Charlie's Angels during the '70s to Moonlighting in the '80s, to such '90s hits as Cybill and ER. Vernon's stage credits include a Broadway stint in The Grass Harp.

Trivia: Supporting actress, onscreen from the '80s.