Trivia: Like many small-screen veterans who headline a hit network series for multiple seasons, the fresh-faced, genial American actor Richard Dean Anderson will forever be associated with one role -- that of Angus MacGyver, the multilingual, crack Special Forces agent and science expert capable of using common household substances and implements to perform feats of wonder, on the Henry Winkler-produced action-adventure series MacGyver. Although Anderson's resumé packs in a number of key telemovies and a recurrent starring role on the popular Stargate SG-1, the actor is best known for turning MacGyver into a veritable American icon for Gen-Xers during the mid- to late '80s and early '90s.Anderson was born on January 23, 1950, in Minneapolis, MN, to a schoolteacher father, Stuart Anderson, who taught English, humanities, and drama at an area high school, and an artist mother. During middle school and high school, Anderson's plans to embark on a career as a professional hockey player were curtailed by two unfortunate accidents in which he broke both arms, encouraging the young man to pursue drama as an alternate option. After high school, Anderson enrolled in both St. Cloud State University and Ohio University, where he studied acting, but -- feeling listless -- he dropped out before receiving his degree, and spent time in San Francisco and Manhattan, then moved permanently to L.A. In Southern California, Anderson held down gigs as a street mime, juggler, and aquatic performer at Marineland, then appeared in the stage production Superman in the Bones at the Pilgrimage Theatre.Aficionados of 1970s American television might recall that Anderson's "breakthrough" arrived not as MacGyver, but as Dr. Jeff Webber on the long-running ABC soap opera General Hospital, circa 1976 -- then in production for 13 years. Not long after two failed series attempts on CBS -- the adventure drama Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in 1982 and the Dennis Weaver-headlined military drama Emerald Point, N.A.S. in 1983 -- Anderson auditioned for Henry Winkler and others to portray MacGyver on that character's eponymous action series. The premise found MacGyver enlisting as a member of a "think tank" called "The Phoenix Foundation," devoted to traveling around the world and thwarting criminal activity. The program's gimmick revolved around scientist MacGyver's abhorrence of guns, and his ability to use seemingly innocent, harmless objects -- such a candy bar, a paperclip, a toothpick, and (of course) his ever-present Swiss Army knife -- to blow up buildings, escape from deathtraps, save lives, etc. Winkler and his co-producers purportedly gave Anderson the part because of his request to wear eyeglasses during the reading -- an act that suggested humility to them and thus meshed perfectly with the character. MacGyver debuted on ABC on September 29, 1985, and lasted seven seasons, retaining a faithful audience despite at least 11 shifts in its night and time slot. It finally wrapped on August 8, 1992. Two telemovies, MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday and MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis, aired in 1994, both produced by Anderson.Alongside the MacGyver series run and shortly thereafter, Anderson signed for key roles in several network telemovies, including Ordinary Heroes (1985), Through the Eyes of a Killer (1992, which uncharacteristically cast him as a psychotic stalker), Beyond Betrayal (1994), and the epic-length disaster miniseries Pandora's Clock (1996). These proved moderately successful, but Anderson's two additional attempts to produce a network series through his Gekko film production company during the early '90s (Firehouse and Legend) died quick deaths.Anderson nevertheless caught his second wind and returned to series television (garnering a loyal cult following among sci-fi buffs) as Col. Jack O'Neill in the 1997 series Stargate SG-1, which originated on Showtime. Adapted from the hit 1994 movie Stargate, the program found O'Neill emerging from semi-retirement and continually traveling to interstellar "stargate" portals to protect the universe from hostile alien invasions. Stargate SG-1 bowed to extraordinary reviews and ratings and became a permanent hit; Anderson stayed with the series through its eighth season, and appeared as a guest star occationally during the rest of its run. He would go on to appear on the spin off SGU Stargate Universe, as well as the dramedy series Fairly Legal.Though Anderson has never married, he has been romantically linked with such actresses as Marlee Matlin, Deidre Hall, Sela Ward, Teri Hatcher, and Lara Flynn Boyle, and the champion skater Katarina Witt. In 1996, Anderson entered an ongoing romantic relationship with Apryl Prose, and the two had a daughter, Wylie Quinn Annarose Anderson, born in August 1998. Anderson divides his time between residences in Vancouver, Los Angeles, and northern Minnesota.

Trivia: Hawaii-born actor Clyde Kusatsu has appeared in roles calling for a variety of indeterminate ethnic origins. Early film appearances included unbilled bits in Airport 75 (1975) and Alex and the Gypsy (1976). With his minor role as the Freighter Captain in Black Sunday (1977), Kusatsu began working his way up the featured-player ladder. On series television, Kusastu has had plenty of opportunity to display his talent in the roles of Ali in Bring 'Em Back Alive (1982) and Dr. Kenji Fushida in the Hawaii-based Richard Chamberlain vehicle Island Son (1989). In 1994, Clyde Kusastu was sixth-billed in the psychological nailbiter Dream Lover.

Trivia: Joan Chen has been one of a very few actors to have a viable career both in Hollywood and in Hong Kong. Whether playing a wizened Vietnamese peasant woman or the doomed Empress of China, she lends her characters a natural elegance and a beguiling vulnerability.Chen was born tp a family of doctors on April 26, 1961, in Shanghai, China. She tasted fame early in her life when she made her film debut in Xie Jin's Youth (1976) at age 14. She soon enrolled in the prestigious Shanghai Foreign Language Institute while making a couple more feature films, including Zhang Zheng's Little Flower (1979), which eventually won her a Best Actress Prize at the Hundred Flowers Awards (the Mainland Chinese equivalent of the Oscars). Having reached the pinnacle of fame in her own country, Chen made the unusual step to leave China -- not for Hong Kong as many later Chinese stars such as Gong Li and Jet Li did -- but for the United States. While studying at California State University in Northridge, she landed a small role in Wayne Wang's Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart (1985), a gentle portrait of Chinese-American family life.In true Hollywood style, she was summarily cast as May-May in the adventure-epic Tai-Pan (1986) after being spotted in the Lorimar parking lot. Though it was savaged by critics (Leonard Maltin called it "silly") and bombed at the box-office, Tai-Pan did allow Chen to segue into her breakthrough role. As Empress Wan Jung in Bernardo Bertolucci's Oscar-award winning The Last Emperor (1987), Chen brilliantly played a woman whose love and life are tragically destroyed by China's rigidly patriarchal culture and the machinations of fate. Hollywood roles being notoriously hard to land for Asian and Asian-American actors, Chen's newfound fame did not immediately lead to better movie offers. She appeared in such low-budget fare as The Blood of Heroes (1989) before she attracted public attention again as Josie Packard in David Lynch's TV series Twin Peaks. In 1993, she played a Vietnamese mother who suffers for a lifetime in a country at war in Oliver Stone's Heaven and Earth.That same year, she returned to Asia to make a pair of critically successful films. She played a supernatural temptress in Clara Law's Temptation of a Monk (1993), a historical epic with the sweep and visual flare of a Sergio Leone film with a pronounced erotic edge. The role was a brave one to tackle as it not only featured Chen as the movie's clear villain, but it also featuring an unusually graphic sex scene for a mainstream Chinese film. In Stanley Kwan's Red Rose, White Rose (1994), which was nominated for Berlin's Golden Bear, Chen played another deliciously evil vixen opposite Winston Chao. For her effort, she won a Best Actress Golden Horse award, Taiwan's equivalent of the Oscar. Her return to the U.S. was marked by another succession of subpar flicks, including On Deadly Ground (1994) and Judge Dredd (1995). Chen also co-produced and starred in The Wild Side (1995), a lesbian romantic thriller in which she played opposite a still-in-the-closet Anne Heche.In 1998, Chen made her directorial debut with Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl, a lyrical, harrowing tale about the loss of innocence and respect during the tumult of the Chinese cultural revolution. Featuring sumptuous cinematography and subtle, remarkably assured direction, Xiu Xiu won armfuls of international prizes, including a virtual sweep of the Golden Horse awards and a nomination for a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. In 1999, Chen climbed back into the director's chair and began production of Autumn in New York, starring Richard Gere and Winona Ryder.Over the next several years, Chen would cement her position as one of the most loved and respected actresses in film, especially on the Eastern side of the globe, appearing in movies like Sunflower, Lust, Caution, Love in Disguise, and 1911.

Trivia: Of Chinese-American nationality. Trained in the martial art of Kung Fu. Has portrayed Chinese ambassadors in The West Wing and Lost. Has voiced characters for tv shows and video games. Best known for Rush Hour (1998), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) and Starsky & Hutch (2004).

Trivia: Something of an old standby -- a stalwart -- whenever Hollywood needed to call on an Asian-American character actor during the '70s, '80s, '90s, and 2000s, James Saito made countless guest appearances on such blockbuster programs as M*A*S*H, The Fall Guy, and The A-Team, often without even so much as a character name. (The M*A*S*H appearances list him only as "South Korean" or "Korean Soldier.") From the early '80s onward, Saito's resumé started to incorporate a number of feature films; per the experiences of most character players, these pictures varied substantially in quality -- from the depths of Hot Dog... The Movie! (1983) to the heights of Buckaroo Banzai (1984) and Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995). In 2007, Saito landed one of his first regular series roles, as Dr. Chen on the spiritual drama Eli Stone.