Trivia: A remarkably prolific and versatile talent, Gene Hackman was a successful character actor whose uncommon abilities and smart career choices ultimately made him a most unlikely leading man. In the tradition of Spencer Tracy, he excelled as an Everyman, consistently delivering intelligent, natural performances which established him among the most respected and well-liked stars of his era. Born January 30th, 1930 in San Bernardino, CA, Hackman joined the Marines at the age of 16 and later served in Korea. After studying journalism at the University of Illinois, he pursued a career in television production but later decided to try his hand at acting, attending a Pasadena drama school with fellow student Dustin Hoffman; ironically, they were both voted "least likely to succeed." After briefly appearing in the 1961 film Mad Dog Coll, Hackman made his debut off-Broadway in 1963's Children at Their Games, earning a Clarence Derwent Award for his supporting performance. Poor Richard followed, before he starred in 1964's production of Any Wednesday. Returning to films in 1964, Hackman earned strong notices for his work in Warren Beatty's Lilith and 1966's Hawaii, but the 1967 World War II tale First to Flight proved disastrous for all involved. At Beatty's request, Hackman co-starred in Bonnie and Clyde, winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination and establishing himself as a leading character player. After making a pair of films with Jim Brown, (1968's The Split and 1969's Riot), Hackman supported Robert Redford in The Downhill Racer, Burt Lancaster in The Gypsy Moths, and Gregory Peck in Marooned. For 1970's I Never Sang for My Father, he garnered another Academy Award nomination. The following year Hackman became a star; as New York narcotics agent Popeye Doyle, a character rejected by at least seven other actors, he headlined William Friedkin's thriller The French Connection, winning a Best Actor Oscar and spurring the film to Best Picture honors. Upon successfully making the leap from supporting player to lead, he next appeared in the disaster epic The Poseidon Adventure, one of the biggest money-makers of 1972. After co-starring with Al Pacino in 1973's Scarecrow, Hackman delivered his strongest performance to date as a haunted surveillance expert in Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 classic The Conversation and went on to tap his under-utilized comedic skills in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. Arthur Penn's grim 1975 thriller Night Moves and the Western Bite the Bullet followed before the actor agreed to The French Connection 2. While remaining the subject of great critical acclaim, Hackman's box-office prowess was beginning to slip: 1975's Lucky Lady, 1977's The Domino, and March or Die were all costly flops, and although 1978's Superman -- in which he appeared as the villainous Lex Luthor -- was a smash, his career continued to suffer greatly. Apart from the inevitable Superman 2, Hackman was absent from the screen for several years, and with the exception of a fleeting appearance in Beatty's 1981 epic Reds, most of his early-'80s work -- specifically, the features All Night Long and Eureka -- passed through theaters virtually unnoticed.Finally, a thankless role as an ill-fated war correspondent in Roger Spottiswoode's acclaimed 1983 drama Under Fire brought Hackman's career back to life. The follow-up, the action film Uncommon Valor, was also a hit, and while 1984's Misunderstood stalled, the next year's Twice in a Lifetime was a critical success. By the middle of the decade, Hackman was again as prolific as ever, headlining a pair of 1986 pictures -- the little-seen Power and the sleeper hit Hoosiers -- before returning to the Man of Steel franchise for 1987's Superman 4: The Quest for Peace. No Way Out, in which he co-starred with Kevin Costner, was also a hit. In 1988, Hackman starred in no less than five major releases: Woody Allen's Another Woman, the war drama Bat 21, the comedy Full Moon in Blue Water, the sports tale Split Decisions, and Alan Parker's Mississippi Burning. The last of these, a Civil Rights drama set in 1964, cast him as an FBI agent investigating the disappearance of a group of political activists. Though the film itself was the subject of considerable controversy, Hackman won another Oscar nomination. During the 1990s, Hackman settled comfortably into a rhythm alternating between lead roles (1990's Narrow Margin, 1991's Class Action) and high-profile supporting performances (1990's Postcards From the Edge, 1993's The Firm). In 1992, he joined director and star Clint Eastwood in the cast of the revisionist Western Unforgiven, appearing as a small-town sheriff corrupted by his own desires for justice. The role won Hackman a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. The performance helped land him in another pair of idiosyncratic Western tales, Wyatt Earp and The Quick and the Dead. In 1995, he also co-starred in two of the year's biggest hits, the submarine adventure Crimson Tide and the Hollywood satire Get Shorty. Three more big-budget productions, The Birdcage, The Chamber, and Extreme Measures, followed in 1996, and a year later Hackman portrayed the President of the United States in Eastwood's Absolute Power. In 1998, Hackman lent his talents to three very different films, the conspiracy thriller Enemy of the State, the animated Antz, and Twilight, a noirish mystery co-starring Paul Newman and Susan Sarandon. Moving into the new millennium with his stature as a solid performer and well-respected veteran well in place, Hackman turned up in The Replacements in 2000, and Heist the following year. 2001 also found Hackman in top form with his role as the dysfunctional patriarch in director Wes Anderson's follow-up to Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums. Hackman's lively performance brought the actor his third Golden Globe, this time for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.

Trivia: An architecture student, Fernando Rey interrupted his studies to fight in the Spanish Civil War against the Frangiste. He entered films as an extra in 1940. Resembling a Goya painting come to life, the cadaverous Rey is best remembered internationally for his appearances in such Luis Bunuel projects as Viridiana (1961), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), and for his work in such costume epics as The Last Days of Pompeii (1960), The Castillians (1961), and the made-for-TV Jesus of Nazareth. In 1977, he won a Cannes Film Festival award for his work in Elisa Vida Mia. Often cast as a world-weary, cosmopolitan villain, Fernando Rey's most celebrated performance within this character range was as drug lord Alain Charnier in the two French Connection pictures of the 1970s.

Trivia: French supporting actor Bernard Fresson was discovered on-stage by noted director Alain Resnais, who cast Fresson in Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959). Prior to becoming an actor, Fresson had studied law in Paris. Since his debut, Fresson appeared steadily in numerous French films, particularly those of Resnais.

Trivia: French actor Jean-Pierre Castaldi has enjoyed a long career as an actor in French films before crossing over to international cinema. Starting out in the theater, he appeared on-stage alongside notable French theatrical legend Sacha Guitry. On television, he made a name for himself on the long-running crime series Les Enquêtes du commissaire Maigret in 1967. After a few more television appearances, he worked in dramas and crime stories, including L'Affaire Dominici with Gérard Depardieu. He made his U.S. breakthrough as Inspector Raoul Diron in John Frankenheimer's French Connection II. The next year he appeared in the James Bond entry Moonraker as a jet pilot. Castaldi moved on to comedies throughout the '80s. During this time, he began collaborating with screenwriter/director Claude Zidi for many film projects including Promotion Canape, Ma Femme Me Quitte, and Profil Bas. On the international circuit, he appeared in the West German production Palace and the Italian film A Fine Romance with Marcello Mastroianni. He worked with Roberto Benigni in Asterix & Obelix Vs. Caesar, based on the popular European comic book. In 2002, Castaldi starred in the Hollywood snowboarding-terrorism movie Extreme Ops. He stayed with Hollywood films the next year for the action-comedy George and the Dragon.

Trivia: An English major in college, Ed Lauter worked as a stand-up comic before entering films in 1971. The tall, menacing Lauter has generally been typecast as humorless, easily corruptible authority figures. He was at his meanest as the vindictive Captain Knaur in Robert Aldrich's The Longest Yard. His TV credits include such roles as Sheriff Cain in BJ and the Bear (1979-80) and General Louis Crewes in Stephen King's The Golden Years (1991). In 1976, Ed Lauter was afforded a rare leading role--and a sympathetic one to boot--in the made-for-TV murder mystery Last Hours Before Morning (1976). Lauter appeared in the 2005 remake of The Longest Yard and had a small role in the Oscar-winning film The Artist (2011). He also had a recurring role on the TV series Shameless. Lauter passed away in 2013 of mesothelioma at age 74, with several films in post-production, awaiting release.

Trivia: British actress Cathleen Nesbitt took the first step toward a career that would span nine decades when she made her stage debut in the 1910 London revival of Pinero's The Cabinet Minister. While appearing with the Irish Players, Nesbitt made her first journey to America in 1915, where she would star in the Broadway premiere of Playboy of the Western World. After four years in the U.S., Nesbitt returned to England in 1919, where she concentrated on classic roles and where she would make her first film in 1922. Hundreds of stage roles later, Ms. Nesbitt appeared in her first American movie, 1954's Three Coins in the Fountain. Two years later, she played Mrs. Higgins in the Broadway hit My Fair Lady. When she accepted a co-starring role as William Windom's mother in the 1963 TV sitcom The Farmer's Daughter, some observers opined that this would be the capper of her long career. Not so: Cathleen Nesbitt had over 15 years of work still in her, including the demanding role of an octogenarian drug addict in The French Connection II. And in 1981, at the age of 92, Ms. Nesbitt again portrayed Mrs. Higgins in the Broadway revival of My Fair Lady. Cathleen Nesbitt wrote her autobiography, A Little Love and Good Company, in 1973.

Trivia: Following Korean War service as a paratrooper, Hal Needham drifted into movies as a bit player. His remarkable physical dexterity and willingness to "take it" enabled him to rise up the professional ladder from stuntman to stunt coordinator to 2nd unit director. A longtime chum of Burt Reynolds (himself an ex-stuntman), Needham was given his first chance to direct a theatrical feature with Reynolds' Smokey and the Bandit (1977); the film was a huge hit, assuring Needham future assignments as both director and scriptwriter. The 1980 Reynolds vehicle Hooper was widely recognized as Reynolds and Needham's tribute to the entire fraternity of Hollywood stunters. For television, Needham directed several installments 1989 Burt Reynolds adventure series B. L. Stryker (1989) and the pilot for the syndicated adventure semi-weekly Bandit (1994); there was also a 1992 animated cartoon series titled Stunt Dawgs, wherein the central character was named Needham. Founder of the troubleshooting aggregation Stunts Unlimited (which also served as the title of a 1980 TV movie), Needham has also served as chairman for another movie-industry organization, Camera Platforms International. In addition, Hal Needham is owner of the "world's fastest car," the Budweiser Rocket, now on display at the Smithsonian Institute. Needham was awarded an Honorary Oscar in 2012 for his innovations, just one year before he died at age 82.

Trivia: Popular French leading man, supporting actor, composer, and pop music star Philippe Leotard was discovered by famed director Francois Truffaut and made his film debut in Truffaut's Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent (Two English Girls) (1971). In 1982, Leotard won a Cesar Award for La Balance (1982). His 1997 album Je Rave Que Je Dors was among the French Top 50.