Trivia: One of the most popular film personalities in the world, Jackie Chan came from a poverty-stricken Hong Kong family -- so poor, claims Chan, that he was almost sold in infancy to a wealthy British couple. As it turned out, Chan became his family's sole support. Enrolled in the Chinese Opera Research Institute at the age of seven, he spent the next decade in rigorous training for a career with the Peking Opera, excelling in martial arts and acrobatics. Billed as Cheng Lung, Chan entered films in his mid-teens, appearing in 25 productions before his 20th birthday. Starting out as a stunt man, Chan was promoted to stardom as the potential successor to the late Bruce Lee. In his earliest starring films, he was cast as a stone-cold serious type, determined to avenge Lee's death. Only when he began playing for laughs did Chan truly attain full celebrity status. Frequently referred to as the Buster Keaton of kung-fu, Chan's outlook on life is a lot more optimistic than Keaton's, but in his tireless devotion to the most elaborate of sight gags and the most awe-inspiring of stunts (many of which have nearly cost him his life), Chan is Keaton incarnate. From 1978's The Young Master onward, Chan has usually been his own director and screenwriter. His best Hong Kong-produced films include the nonstop action-fests Project A (1983), Police Story (1985), Armour of God (1986), and the Golden Horse Award-winning Crime Story (1993) -- not to mention the multiple sequels of each of the aforementioned titles. Despite his popularity in Europe and Asia, Chan was for many years unable to make a dent in the American market. He tried hard in such films as The Big Brawl (1980) and the first two Cannonball Run flicks, but American filmgoers just weren't buying.At long last, Chan mined U.S. box-office gold with 1996's Rumble in the Bronx, a film so exhilarating that audiences never noticed those distinctly Canadian mountain ranges looming behind the "Bronx" skyline. Chan remained the most popular Asian actor with the greatest potential to cross over into the profitable English-speaking markets, something he again demonstrated when he co-starred with Chris Tucker in the 1998 box-office hit Rush Hour. In 2000 Chan had another success on his hands with Shanghai Noon, a comedy Western in which he starred as an Imperial Guard dispatched to the American West to rescue the kidnapped daughter (Lucy Liu) of the Chinese Emperor.He maintained his status as one of the biggest movie stars in the world throughout the next decades in a series of films that include Rush Hour 2, The Tuxedo, Shankghai Knights, The Myth, Rush Hour 3. He enjoyed his biggest U.S. hit in quite some time starring in the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid opposite Jaden Smith. Even with his hits in the English-language world, Chan continued to work in China as well, as both an actor and a producer. In 2016, he won an Honorary Academy Award for his more than 50 years of service to the film industry.

Trivia: An Italian-American character actor with a beefy physique, no-nonsense expression, and intimidating presence, Danny Aiello came to acting late in life, having been a bus driver, a transport labor official, a night-club bouncer, and (he claims) an occasional thief. He began performing at an improvisational night spot. As he was approaching middle age, he appeared in a regional theater production of Jason Miller's That Championship Season, for which he won a Most Outstanding Newcomer award. Aiello made his screen debut in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), and he went on over the next 15 years to play a succession of tough guys, cops, brutes, slobs, and "ordinary guys" in a wide variety of movies, but broke out of that mold when he portrayed Cher's fiancée in Moonstruck (1987). For his portrayal of a pizza parlor owner in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing two years later, Aiello received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. He went on to become one Hollywood's more prolific character actors; between 1989 and 1996, he appeared in 26 feature films. The actor's first lead role came in the title part of Ruby (1992). In addition to his screen work, Aiello has also appeared frequently on Broadway, and in 1976, he won a Theater World Award for his Broadway debut in Lampost Reunion. His work in TV movies includes the acclaimed A Family of Strangers (1980).

Trivia: Massive, heavily bearded American actor Paul L. Smith had been a professional athlete before gravitating to films in the late '70s. His first important role was as the brutal, depraved Turkish prison guard Hamidou in Midnight Express (1978). Consigned by his size and weight to play villains (or at the very least, bullies), Smith was cast as Bluto, eternal nemesis to Popeye the Sailor and Olive Oyl, in the 1980 film/musical misfire Popeye. After several years of giving his all in abnormal roles in such films as Dune (1984) (as Beast Rabban), Red Sonya (1985) (as Falkon) and Caged Fury (1986) -- with a few side trips to Europe to make spaghetti westerns -- Smith gradually began to get parts that allowed him to play a recognizable human being. Paul L. Smith's appeared in 1994's Maverick as a Russian prince who travels to America for the express purpose of shooting Indians. The performance might have been broad and overstated, but at least Smith was believable -- and, despite the gross political incorrectness inherent in the role, he was even likable.