Trivia: Despite her efforts to be taken seriously as an actress, Brooke Shields has been unable to escape her youth, during which time she found herself in the precarious position of simultaneously being idolized as a late-'70s icon of adolescent wholesome virginal innocence and being constantly photographed in manners verging on the mildly pornographic. Shields' early career was managed and pushed by her mother, Teri Shields, a small-time actress who placed her daughter in front of the camera before she was even one. As the Ivory Snow baby, Shields was once hailed as the "most beautiful baby in America." After spending many years hawking products, she was in such demand that her mother started marketing her under the logo "Brooke Shields & Co." Shields made her feature film debut in Alice Sweet Alice (1976), but did not become a bona fide star until French director Louis Malle cast her as a 12-year-old New Orleans prostitute who becomes the romantic obsession of a much older painter in Pretty Baby (1978). The film was released amidst great controversy because of the scenes in which Shields (or a body double representing her) appeared nude. But while she did participate in some adult scenes, those moments were handled with taste and discretion by Malle and his cinematographer, Sven Nyquist, and the general consensus was that Shields was not exploited in the film. Thus far, her acting in Pretty Baby remains Shields' best. Through her teens, Shields was among the world's top fashion models and her countenance was everywhere. Controversy again stirred when she did some provocative ads for Calvin Kline in which she was seen wearing a too tight pair of jeans and cooed, "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins." This was in contrast to her other ads in which she advised young girls to abstain from sex and a different campaign against smoking. At the peak of her fame, Shields appeared three times on the cover of Life magazine and once on the cover of Time. Her film career picked up around this time with appearances in such venues as King of the Gypsies (1978) and Wanda Nevada (1979), but her best-known film is the so-bad-it's-good The Blue Lagoon (1980) in which she and teenage hunk Christopher Atkins find themselves shipwrecked for years on a desert island. Ostensibly, the film is a tender tale about innocence and true love, but it's primarily a titillating romp filled with plenty of flesh shots of Shields and Atkins' taut, tanned, and partially clad bodies. In 1981, Shields tried her hand with a more serious role in Franco Zeffirelli's tepid teen romance Endless Love, but did not succeed. Shields decided it was time for college and so enrolled in Princeton, where but for the occasional appearance on a Bob Hope television special, made-for-TV movie, or other special event, she immersed herself in college life. While there, she majored in French Literature and also became interested in the theater, gaining experience in two regional productions of Love Letters. Shields graduated from Princeton with honors. Upon her graduation, Shields returned to acting full time and appeared in films that can most kindly be described as mediocre. In 1996, Shields was given her own situation comedy on NBC network's Suddenly Susan, where she played a single career girl struggling to reassemble her life following her breakup with her wealthy fiancé. Though never among the most natural and relaxed of actresses, Shields gradually grew into her role and proved to be a competent, charismatic comedy actress, turning in guest appearances on popular television shows such as That 70s Show, Nip/Tuck, Two and a Half Men, and Hannah Montana after Suddenly Susan went off the air in 2000. Meanwhile, on Broadway, Shields could bee seen in revivals of Grease, Cabaret, and Chicago before taking over the role of Morticia Addams in the Broadway musical version of The Addams Family. In 1997 Shields married tennis great Andre Agassi, but the union only lasted two years and in 2001 she was wed to television producer Chris Henchy.

Trivia: After only a handful of TV guest spots, New York-born actor Nestor Carbonell landed a starring role on the Brooke Shields sitcom Suddenly Susan. After the show's four-year run, Carbonell appeared on the cult superhero comedy The Tick as Batmanuel before being cast as the lead on the short-lived CBS drama Century City in 2004. In 2007, Carbonell took a recurring role on ABC's hit mindbender Lost as the mysterious and seemingly ageless Richard Alpert. Following that stint, he was cast along with Jimmy Smits as one of the leads on CBS's family drama Cane. Over the coming years, Carbonell would continue to find success on the small screen, starring on shows like Lost and Ringer, and appearing in movies like The Dark Knight Rises.

Trivia: Even by the unexacting standard of Hollywood's 1980s "brat pack," actor Judd Nelson seemed wildly undisciplined and self-indulgent on screen. One tends to conclude that Nelson (a former philosophy student and the son of a Maine politician) has played his screen characters as written: he was, after all, very well trained by famed drama coach Stella Adler, and came up from the exacting ranks of summer stock. Among his earliest screen assignments -- all in his watershed year of 1985 -- including the dope-smoking detentionee in The Breakfast Club, Kevin Costner's parachute-jumping fraternity pal in Fandango, and Ally Sheedy's philandering live-in boyfriend in St. Elmo's Fire. Always seeming to be on the verge of punching someone out, Nelson was well cast as a mercurial killer in 1989's Relentless. Like many brat-packers, Judd Nelson spent the 1990s transitioning into his career as an adult, but he hit his stride by 1996, when he joined the cast of the hit sitcom Suddenly Susan. In the years to come, Nelson would remain a consistent force on screen, appearing in movies like Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Grizzley Flats.

Trivia: The acerbic, razor-tongued, take-no-prisoners comedian Kathy Griffin has built a career for herself -- as an actress and a standup performer -- around the schtick of being permanently under-respected by everyone (as the title of her TV series, My Life on the D List, suggests), and fighting back with her claws extended. Griffin is notorious for mercilessly skewering and taking potshots at worthy targets (particularly fellow celebrities and comedians) through her comedy, and has built a considerable career out of doing so.Born in Oak Park, IL, and raised in the Chicago area, to an electronics store manager father and a hospital administrator mother, Griffin reportedly wanted to become an actress from the age of five and frequently improvised elaborate stage and comedy acts for her family. Griffin attended Oak Park High School, and -- after graduation -- studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Institute in Southern California. In 1988, the then-28-year-old joined the now-infamous sketch comedy troupe the Groundlings, alongside such stars-to-be as Lisa Kudrow, Will Ferrell, and Julia Sweeney, where she evinced an extraordinary gift for improvisatory work. After the Groundlings, Griffin developed and honed a solo standup act, which -- as she later recalled -- opened numerous doors for her as an actress, including a turn as Lucy in the Bobcat Goldthwait vehicle Shakes the Clown (1992), a brief cameo in Pulp Fiction, and a small multi-episode role on Seinfeld. Griffin was particularly memorable in the latter, as Sally Weaver, the standup comedian whose act consists of trashing Jerry Seinfeld by revealing embarrassing details from his personal life. A cameo as herself in the SNL big-screen vehicle It's Pat (1994) reunited Griffin with fellow Groundling Sweeney. Beginning in 1996, Griffin parlayed her comic flair and small-screen experience into a standing role in the hit NBC sitcom Suddenly Susan, starring Brooke Shields; that program cast Griffin as Vicki Groener, magazine columnist Shields' not-so-subtly envious, über-saucy colleague. The program scored with viewers and ran for three seasons. Meanwhile, Griffin continued her big-screen roles, with turns in the 1995 omnibus picture Four Rooms (as Betty), the 1996 Ben Stiller-directed The Cable Guy (as Jim Carrey's mother), and Muppets from Space (1999), as an armed guard. Additional guest contributions on a myriad of sitcoms during the '90s and 2000s gave an added charge to the respective series casts.Griffin also starred in the aforementioned cable series Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List, which began airing on the Bravo network in 2004. The comically charged reality show cast Griffin as herself, battling through the experiences of everyday life -- such as training a new puppy and teaching a class as The Learning Annex. Griffin would continue to find huge success as a stand-up, as well as a show host on her own aptly titled talkshow, Kathy, which was canceled after two seasons.

Trivia: American actor Tim Conway was born in Willoughby, Ohio, but grew up in the curiously named community Chagrin Falls, a fact that he'd later incorporate for a quick laugh in many of his comedy routines, TV films and movies. After majoring in speech and radio at Bowling Green State University, Conway went into the Eighth Army Assignment Team, where, much in the manner of his later bumbling screen characters, he managed to "misplace" a boatload of 7500 replacement troops. Once the army was through with him (and vice versa), Conway secured a job answering mail for a Cleveland radio deejay; his letters were so amusing that he was given a position as a writer in the promotional department, then went on to direct a TV program called Ernie's Place. Whenever Ernie was short a guest, Conway showed up as "Dag Hereford," a so-called authority on several subjects who'd reveal himself to be a blithering simpleton. Comedienne Rose Marie happened to be in Cleveland in 1961, and upon catching Conway's routine recommended the young erstwhile comic to Steve Allen; Conway redid the Hereford bit for Allen's ABC variety series in the fall of '61, fracturing the audiences (and Allen) in three memorable appearances. Now that he was a full-fledged comic, he knew he couldn't continue performing under his real name, Tom Conway, since that was also the name of a well-known British actor; Allen advised Tom to "dot the O," and thereafter he was known as Tim Conway. In 1962, Conway was engaged to play the Doug Hereford-like role of Ensign Doug Parker on the wartime sitcom McHale's Navy, which lasted six seasons and made Conway a star. The actor made several attempts over the following decades to succeed as a solo TV star (witness his 1967 western comedy Rango on ABC), but none of his post-McHale's Navy series have been anything resembling hits. Still, Conway was always welcome as a supporting comic, and he scored major success with hysterically funny appearances opposite Harvey Korman on The Carol Burnett Show in the 1970s; Conway also enjoyed a measure of success as star or co-star of a number of Disney films and low-budget "regional" comedy pictures like The Prize Fighter (1978) and The Private Eyes (1980). In the late 1980s and '90s Conway starred in a popular series of satirical "how-to" home videos, playing a diminutive, dim-bulbed Scandinavian named Dorf; he also lent an acclaimed comedic cameo as a driving instructor to the action film Speed 2 (1997), and voiced a series of Christian-themed animated videos entitled Hermie & Friends, with such friends and colleagues as the late Don Knotts and Burnett co-star Vicki Lawrence. Conway would continue to appear on screen over the coming years, making memorable appearances on TV shows like 30 Rock and providing the voice of Barnacle Bob on the animated series Spongebob Squarepants.

Trivia: Like many Chicago born-and-bred actors, Harvey Korman cut his acting teeth at that city's Goodman Theatre. He sold aluminum siding door-to-door while waiting for his Big Break, taking the occasional Broadway walk-on, TV commercial and cartoon voice-over. His earliest significant TV exposure came about during his four seasons (1963-67) as a regular on The Danny Kaye Show. He went on to join The Carol Burnett Show in 1967, remaining with the series until its 1977 demise and winning four Emmies in the process. Korman's versatility was only part of his appeal; it was also a stitch to watch him try to maintain a straight face while enduring the antics of fellow comic actor Tim Conway. One recurring sketch on the Burnett series, "The Family," later spun off into the TV series Mama's Family. While Korman had played Mama's (Vicki Lawrence) vituperative son-in-law Ed on the Burnett Show "Family" sketches, his principal contribution to Mama's Family was confined to his weekly introductory comments as "Alastair Quince"; he also directed a 1983 special based on the "Family" principals, Eunice. Most of Korman's other TV-series projects were lukewarm single-season affairs like The Harvey Korman Show (1978), Leo and Lizz in Beverly Hills (1986) and The Nutt House (1989). Korman's finest film work can be found in his antic appearances in the films of Mel Brooks, especially his portrayal of greedy land baron Hedley Lamarr in 1974's Blazing Saddles. One of his later projects was the voice of the Dictabird in the 1994 box-office hit The Flintstones -- a piquant piece of casting, inasmuch as Korman had supplied the voice of "The Great Gazoo" in the original Flintstonesanimated television series of the 1960s. Korman died of unspecified causes in May 2008.

Trivia: The year (give or take a few) was 1929: Stepping on to the stage of New York's Mecca Theatre was 3-year-old Rose Marie Mazetta, offering a surprisingly full-throated rendition of the torch ballad "What Can I Say, Dear, After I Say I'm Sorry." By the time she'd finished dancing her Charleston, Rose Marie had won a trip to Atlantic City and a spot on a major radio program. Amazingly, Rose Marie's father, a professional singer-musician, had nothing to do with this star-making turn: the girl had been entered in the contest by her next-door neighbors. By 1932, Rose Marie--or rather, "Baby Rose Marie"--was one of the hottest stars on the NBC radio network. Her raspy, insinuating singing style was mature beyond her years, so much so that some people wrote into NBC, angrily accusing them of passing off an adult midget as a child. She successfully toured in vaudeville, was spotlighted in a handful of movies (the best-known was 1933's International House), then disappeared completely at the age of 12. No, Rose Marie wasn't washed up; her family had moved from New York to New Jersey and had placed their daughter in a convent school. Resuming her career at 17 as "Miss Rose Marie," the former child sensation endured a few lean years before establishing herself as a comedienne. Wearying of traversing the nightclub circuit by the 1950s--she now had a husband and daughter to look after--Rose Marie began accepting guest-star assignments on such dramatic TV series as Jim Bowie, Gunsmoke and M Squad. She was also seen in continuing roles on the video sitcoms Love That Bob and My Sister Eileen, and was co-starred with Phil Silvers in the 1953 Broadway musical Top Banana. In 1961, Carl Reiner cast Rose Marie as wisecracking, man-chasing Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show. The close-knit camaraderie of her Dick Van Dyke co-stars helped her survive the untimely death of her husband, jazz musician Bobby Guy. Rose Marie's post-Van Dyke projects have included such films as Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title (1966) and Cheaper to Keep Her (1980), frequent appearances on the daytime quiz show The Hollywood Squares, and regular roles on the prime time TVers The Doris Day Show (1969-71, as Myrna Gibbons), Scorch (1992, as Edna Bracken) and Hardball (1994, as Marge Schott-like baseball club owner Mitzi Balzer).