Trivia: Born in Houston in 1949, actress Loretta Devine rose to fame on-stage in the original Broadway production of Dreamgirls before parlaying her acclaim into a career in film and television. Her first major onscreen role came in 1987, when she was cast as a resident advisor on the Cosby Show-spin-off A Different World. Though she left the series after the first season, it was far from her final gig as a TV series regular.Throughout the early '90s, Devine appeared in small supporting roles in features films such as Class Act and Amos & Andrew as well as a number of TV guest spots on shows ranging from Roc to Picket Fences. In 1995, Devine's career was given a shot in the arm when she was cast as one of the leads in Waiting to Exhale, an ensemble film that proved to be a success with both critics and audiences. More supporting work followed, and in 2000 she was cast as a lead on David E. Kelley's Fox drama Boston Public, a show that would go on to be nominated for multiple Emmys over the course of its four seasons on the air.Devine's career came full-circle in 2006 when she was cast in a small role in the film adaptation of Dreamgirls, the stage musical that launched her career. The following year, she was cast as a regular on ABC's supernatural legal drama Eli Stone.In 2010 she appeared in the American remake of Death at a Funeral, the comedy Lottery Ticket, and Tyler Perry's ambitious For Colored Girls. In 2011 she appeared in Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family, and the next year she had a role on the TV series The Client List.

Trivia: Juvenile actress Dana Hill burst into the public's consciousness with her poignant portrayal of a molestation victim in the made-for-TV movie Fallen Angel (1981). Hill was able to play adolescents and teenagers well into her 20s, essaying meaty supporting roles in such films as Shoot the Moon (1981), Cross Creek (1983) and National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985). On TV, she was seen as Gabby, daughter of Mimi Kennedy, in The Two of Us (1981), and as Ginger in Sugar and Spice. Her on-screen work radically curtailed by chronic illness--she would succumb to diabetes at the age of 32--Dana Hill flourished as a voiceover artist, lending her distinctively throaty vocal timbre to such TV cartoon series as Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, Widget the Worldwatcher, The Goof Troop, Droopy, Master Detective, Bonkers, and Duckman.

Trivia: An alumnus of the famed Groton Academy prep school, tall, blonde, wild-eyed character-actor Gerritt Graham has specialized in roles that have been anything but scholarly. Graham was starred in the seminal Brian DePalma features Greetings (1969) and Hi, Mom (1970), stealing the first-mentioned film as the hilariously manic JFK assassination-conspiracy theorist. Many of his mainstream film appearances have been in comedy potboilers unworthy of his talents: exceptions include De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise (1974) in which Graham was both funny and ferocious as the Rocky Horror-ish "Beef," and Louis Malle's Pretty Baby (1978), in which he was cast as Highpockets, Susan Sarandon's scuzzy, abusive boyfriend. Gerrit Graham's TV-series assignments have included wacky neighbor Leonard Scribner in Stockard Channing's Just Friends (1979), trucker Cliff Buttram in Sugar and Spice (1990), and the voice of the title character's judgmental father in the animated The Critic (1994).

Trivia: An imposing figure of both TV and the stage, 4'11" actor Leslie Jordan's physical stature belies his talent. Garnering massive acclaim for his portrayal of Brother Boy in the Broadway production of Sordid Lives, Jordan would go on to reprise the role for a film adaptation of the play. This led to a successful onscreen career as a character actor, making numerous guest appearances over the years on shows like Boston Legal, Ugly Betty, and Will & Grace. In 2008, he took on the role of Brother Boy once again, as Sordid Lives was adapted into a TV series for the Logo network.