Trivia: Blodgett, a lead actor, has been onscreen from 1967. He is also a screenwriter and novelist.

Trivia: Voluptuous "B"-movie actress Edy Williams started out with small, decorative roles in such films as The Naked Kiss (1964) and A House is Not a Home (1964), and such TV series as Batman and The Beverly Hillbillies. Her career really took off in the mid-1960s, when she became the protégé and briefly the wife, of nudie-movie king Russ Meyer. When Meyer briefly became the darling of the intelligentsia, he took Williams along for the ride, giving her starring roles in his major-studio releases Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) and The Seven Minutes (1971). Williams didn't seem to have any pretensions about her thespic abilities; she flaunted and revelled in her sexpot status, going so far as to pose for publicity photos in the freezer of a butcher shop. She was only sporadically active in films in the 1980s and 1990s, but as she enters her sixth decade, Edy Williams is assured yearly newspaper space for her flamboyant, outrageously outfitted appearances at the annual Cannes Film Festival and Academy Awards ceremonies.

Trivia: Black supporting actor, occasional lead, onscreen from 1969.

Trivia: Towering American character actor Charles Napier has the distinction of being one of the few actors to transcend a career start in "nudies" and sustain a successful mainstream career. Napier, clothed and otherwise, was first seen in such Russ Meyer gropey-feeley epics as Cherry, Harry and Raquel (1969) and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). Graduating from this exuberant tawdriness, Napier became a dependable film and TV villain, playing nasty characters in films like Handle With Care (1977) and Rambo (1984). Napier would continue to become an ever more familiar face throughout the 80's and 90's, with roles in movies like The Blues Brothers (1980), Married to the Mob (1990), Ernest Goes to Jail (1991) and the-Oscar winning Silence of the Lambs (1991), Philadelphia (1994), The Cable Guy (1996), and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) - just to name a few. He would also remain active in the realm of TV, appearing on shows like Walker, Texas Ranger and Roswell. The new millennium would find Napier playing roles on shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, as well as lending his voice to animated shows like The Simpsons, Squidbillies, and Archer. Napier passed away in October of 2011 at the age of 75.

Trivia: Though born in the American Midwest, Henry Rowland had heavily Teutonic facial features, making him an invaluable commodity in wartime films. Rowland "heiled" and "achtunged" his way through films ranging from 1942's Casablanca to 1975's Russ Meyer's Supervixens, in which he played a suspicious old coot named Martin Borman! Conversely, he showed up as an American flight surgeon in 1944's Winged Victory, billed under his military ranking as Corporal Henry Rowland. In his last years, Rowland continued playing such Germanic characters as the Amish farmer in 1975's The Frisco Kid.

Trivia: Canadian-born actress Haji developed a bit of a cult following after appearing in a few of nudie king Russ Meyer's exploitation films during the 1970s. The most famous of those was her starring role as the vile-tempered, knife-wielding Rosa.

Trivia: Coleman Francis is frequently compared to Edward D. Wood, Jr. as a filmmaker, and with good reason: their movies have similar characteristics, and even a couple of overlapping cast members. But Francis isn't remotely as well known as Edward D. Wood, Jr., though not through any lack of effort on his part. The actor-turned-filmmaker started making movies about a decade later than his younger contemporary Wood, and only made three movies as a writer/director/producer. But those three movies displayed degrees of ineptitude more pronounced than most of what was seen in any part of Wood's larger body of work. It is only the fact of that more limited output, and also the reality that Francis' personal life wasn't highlighted by such elements as transvestism (or a connection to the sexual underworld of the Truman/Eisenhower eras) -- all leading to the Tim Burton biographical film -- that has prevented Francis' discovery by a larger-scale public. In point of fact, Coleman Francis' three movies make parts of Wood's work look, by comparison, almost polished, and mostly well devised and executed. Francis was born in Oklahoma in early 1919, and later moved to Texas, and finally, in the 1940s, journeyed to California, with the intent of joining the movie business. He started turning up in uncredited roles in some low-budget Columbia Pictures titles in the late '40s, and by the early '50s could be glimpsed in small, mostly uncredited roles, primarily in lower-budgeted productions: he's a power plant employee in Killers From Space (1954) and a delivery driver in This Island Earth (1955). Amid these tiny assignments, he also started doing television, including appearances on Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, Dragnet, and Highway Patrol. In 1958, he got his first credited part, as a detective, in Irvin Kershner's Stakeout on Dope Street. By this time, he apparently saw that the real money and control in the business lay in the production end, and he started devising screenplays with the advent of the new decade. The first tangible result was The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961), a hopelessly amateurish sci-fi/horror film starring Wood alumnus Tor Johnson in the title role (and featuring Conrad Brooks, also a Wood player, in a small part). The movie was so ineptly made that a major part of a book could have been written about the errors in any given scene; indeed, next to Johnson's earlier films for Wood, much of The Beast of Yucca Flats had the look of a bad home movie. But Francis somehow soldiered on, making the even more amazingly threadbare (and incompetent) The Skydivers (1963) a couple of years later, and Night Train to Mundo Fine (aka, Red Zone Cuba) (1966) three years after that. Both were extremely low-budget productions, with seams showing throughout most scenes and shots. Francis' movies, with their incoherent plots, absurd characters, and portrayals (if that's the word; he mostly seems to have used friends in his movies, another point of comparison with Wood), and haphazard editing and assembly, were never taken seriously. The Beast of Yucca Flats, by virtue of its being science fiction, did make it to television in the early/middle 1960s, mostly on late-late-show programs by small stations outside of the major markets. Francis was one up on Wood in one very important respect, however, as he seems to have kept his acting career going -- something that Wood never could do -- and was still getting small roles in movies right up until 1970. What's more, where Wood sank lower and lower into the periphery of the movie business after 1960, when he ceased making his own movies, Francis somehow managed to remain within the orbit of filmmakers who still had a viable (and even rising) career. Several of his acting jobs, albeit mostly minuscule screen appearances, were in pictures made by directors who did attract attention as auteurs: Ray Dennis Steckler and Russ Meyer. The latter -- who may have peripherally identified with (or, more likely, pitied) the actor-turned-writer/director/producer -- used Francis in small roles in Motor Psycho (1965) and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). Alas, Francis had developed a serious weight problem by the 1960s that he was never able to get under control, and he died in 1973, officially of natural causes, although there seem to be conflicting accounts of the precise circumstances. His reputation, such as it is, has outlived him, however, mostly by virtue of The Beast of Yucca Flats; that and the other two movies he directed all turned up on Mystery Science Theater 3000, which greatly boosted his name recognition starting 25 years after his death.

Trivia: The reigning queen of the 1970s blaxploitation genre, Pam Grier was born May 26, 1949, in Winston-Salem, NC. An Air Force mechanic's daughter, she was raised on military bases in England and Germany. During her teen years the family settled in Denver, CO, where at the age of 18, Grier entered the Miss Colorado Universe pageant. Named first runner-up, she attracted the attention of Hollywood agent David Baumgarten, who signed her to a contract. After relocating to Los Angeles, Grier struggled to mount an acting career, and worked as a switchboard operator at the studios of Roger Corman's American International Pictures. Finally, with Corman's aid, she made her film debut in the 1970 Russ Meyer cult classic Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, followed by an appearance in Jack Hill's 1971 cheapie The Big Doll House. For several years, Grier languished virtually unnoticed in grindhouse fare like 1971's Women in Cages and 1973's Arena (aka Naked Warriors) before winning the title role in Hill's 1973 action outing Coffy. Playing a nurse seeking vengeance against the drug dealers responsible for her sister's descent into heroin addiction, Grier immediately rose to the forefront of the so-called "blaxploitation" genre, a group of action-adventure films aimed squarely at African-American audiences. Portraying the 1974 superheroine Foxy Brown, she became a major cult figure, as her character's fierce independence, no-nonsense attitude, and empowered spirit made her a role model for blacks and feminists alike. At the peak of her popularity, Grier even appeared on the covers of Ms. and New York magazines. Her films' often racy content also made her a sex symbol, and additionally she posed nude for the men's magazine Players. Successive action roles as gumshoe Sheba Shayne in 1975's Sheba, Baby and as the titular reporter Friday Foster further elevated Grier's visibility, but fearing continued typecasting she shifted gears to star opposite Richard Pryor in the fact-based 1977 auto-racing drama Greased Lightning. She did not reappear onscreen for four years, resurfacing to acclaim in 1981 as a murderous prostitute in Fort Apache, the Bronx; however, no other major roles were forthcoming, and she spent much of the decade appearing on television and in straight-to-cable features. A major role in the 1988 Steven Seagal action hit Above the Law marked the beginning of a comeback, and after appearing in 1993's Posse, Grier starred with fellow blaxploitation vets Jim Brown, Richard Roundtree, and Fred "the Hammer" Williamson in 1996's Original Gangstas, a throwback to the films of the early '70s. In 1997, the actress' career resurgence was complete with the title role in Jackie Brown, written in her honor by director and longtime fan Quentin Tarantino. Grier's tough, sexy portrayal of a jaded flight attendant earned praise from critics far and wide, as well as the promise of steady work. She could subsequently be seen in a consistently wide range of films, like Jawbreaker (1999), Holy Smoke (1999), The Invited, and Larry Crowne, in addition to a host of successful TV roles on shows like Smallville and The L Word.