Trivia: With his devil-may-care attitude and potent charisma, Jack Nicholson emerged as the most popular and celebrated actor of his generation. A classic anti-hero, he typified the new breed of Hollywood star -- rebellious, contentious and defiantly non-conformist. A supremely versatile talent, he uniquely defined the zeitgeist of the 1970s, a decade which his screen presence dominated virtually from start to finish, and remained an enduring counterculture icon for the duration of his long and renowned career. Born April 22, 1937 in Neptune, New Jersey, and raised by his mother and grandmother, Nicholson travelled to California at the age of 17, with the intent of returning east to attend college. It never happened -- he became so enamored of the west coast that he stayed, landing a job as an office boy in MGM's animation department. Nicholson studied acting with the area group the Players Ring Theater, eventually appearing on television as well as on stage. While performing theatrically, Nicholson was spotted by "B"-movie mogul Roger Corman, who cast him in the lead role in the 1958 quickie The Cry Baby Killer. He continued playing troubled teens in Corman's 1960 efforts Too Soon to Love and The Wild Ride before appearing in the Irving Lerner adaptation of the novel Studs Lonigan. He did not reappear on-screen prior to the 1962 Fox "B"-western The Broken Land. It was then back to the Corman camp for 1963's The Raven. For the follow-up, The Terror, he worked with a then-unknown Francis Ford Coppola and Monte Hellman. A year later, he enjoyed his second flirtation with mainstream Hollywood in the war comedy Ensign Pulver. Under Hellman, Nicholson next appeared in both Back Door to Hell and Flight to Fury. Together, they also co-produced a pair of 1967 Corman westerns, Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting. A brief appearance in the exploitation tale Hell's Angels on Wheels followed before Nicholson wrote the acid-culture drama The Trip, which co-starred Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda. He also penned 1968's Head, a psychedelic saga, and wrote and co-starred in Psych-Out. After rejecting a role in Bonnie and Clyde, Nicholson was approached to star in the 1969 counterculture epic Easy Rider. As an ill-fated, alcoholic civil-rights lawyer, Nicholson immediately shot to stardom, earning a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar nomination as the film rose to landmark status. Nicholson appeared briefly in the 1970 Barbra Streisand musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, followed by Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces, in which his notorious diner scene remains among the definitive moments in American cinematic history. The film was much acclaimed, earning a "Best Picture" Oscar nomination; Nicholson also received a "Best Actor" bid, and was now firmly established among the Hollywood elite. He next wrote, produced, directed and starred in 1971's Drive, He Said, which met with little notice. However, the follow-up, Mike Nichols's Carnal Knowledge, was a hit. After accepting a supporting role in Henry Jaglom's 1972 effort A Safe Place, Nicholson reunited with Rafelson for The King of Marvin Gardens, followed in 1973 by the Hal Ashby hit The Last Detail, which won him "Best Actor" honors at the Cannes Film Festival as well as another Academy Award nomination. Nicholson earned yet one more Oscar nomination as detective Jake Gittes in Roman Polanski's brilliant 1974 neo-noir Chinatown, universally hailed among the decade's greatest motion pictures. The next year, Nicholson starred in Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger, then delivered a memorable supporting turn in the musical Tommy. The Fortune, co-starring Warren Beatty and Stockard Channing, followed, before the year ended with Milos Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; the winner of five Oscars, including "Best Picture" and, finally, "Best Actor." The film earned over $60 million and firmly established Nicholson as the screen's most popular star -- so popular, in fact, that he was able to turn down roles in projects including The Sting, The Godfather and Apocalypse Now without suffering any ill effects.. Nicholson did agree to co-star in 1977's The Missouri Breaks for the opportunity to work with his hero, Marlon Brando; despite their combined drawing power, however, the film was not a hit. Nor was his next directorial effort, 1978's Goin' South. A maniacal turn in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror tale The Shining proved much more successful, and a year later he starred in Rafelson's remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice. An Oscar-nominated supporting role in Beatty's epic Reds followed. Even when a film fell far short of expectations, Nicholson somehow remained impervious to damage. Audiences loved him regardless, as did critics and even his peers -- in 1983 he won a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar for his work in James L. Brooks's much-acclaimed comedy-drama Terms of Endearment, and two years later netted another "Best Actor" nomination for John Huston's superb black comedy Prizzi's Honor.The following year, Heartburn was less well-received, but in 1987 Nicholson starred as the Devil in the hit The Witches of Eastwick -- a role few denied he was born to play. The by-now-requisite Academy Award nomination followed for his performance in Hector Babenco's Depression-era tale Ironweed, his ninth to date -- a total matched only by Spencer Tracy. Nicholson did not resurface until 1989, starring as the Joker in a wildly over-the-top performance in Tim Burton's blockbuster Batman. The 1990s began with the long-awaited and often-delayed Chinatown sequel The Two Jakes, which Nicholson also directed. Three more films followed in 1992 -- Rafelson's poorly-received Man Trouble, the biopic Hoffa, and A Few Good Men, for which he earned another "Best Supporting Actor" nod. For Mike Nichols, he next starred in 1994's Wolf, followed a year later by Sean Penn's The Crossing Guard. In 1996, Nicholson appeared in Blood and Wine, Burton's Mars Attacks! and The Evening Star, reprising his Terms of Endearment role.In 1997, Nicholson enjoyed a sort of career renaissance with James L. Brooks' As Good As it Gets, an enormously successful film that netted a third Oscar (for "Best Actor) for Nicholson. Subsequently taking a four-year exile from film, Nicholson stepped back in front of the camera under the direction of actor-turned-director Sean Penn for the police drama The Pledge. Though many agreed that Nicholson's overall performance in The Pledge was subtly effective, it was the following year that the legendary actor would find himself back in the critics' good graces, when Nicholson would receive an Oscar nomination for his performance in About Schmidt. The next year he appeared in a pair of box office hits. Anger Management found him playing an unorthodox therapist opposite Adam Sandler, while he played an aging lothario opposite Diane Keaton in {Nancy Myers's Something's Gotta Give. After taking a three year break from any on-screen work, Nicholson returned in 2006 as a fearsome criminal in Martin Scorsese's undercover police drama The Departed, the first collaboration between these two towering figures in American film. A starring role in Rob Reiner's comedy-drama The Bucket List followed, with Nicholson and Morgan Freeman co-starring as terminal cancer patients who decide to live it up during their final days. The film itself received mixed reviews, though many critics singled out Nicholson's fine work in it. 2010 reunited Nicholson with Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News and As Good As It Gets collaborator Jim Brooks for the romantic comedy How Do You Know, co-starring Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd. Nicholson's personal life has been one befitting a man who has made his mark playing so many devilishly charming characters. He has fathered a number of children from his relationships with various women, including a daughter, Lorraine (born in 1990), and a son, Raymond (born 1992) with Rebecca Broussard. It was Broussard's pregnancy with their first child that ended Nicholson's 17-year relationship with a woman who is known for her similarly enduring charisma, the actress Angelica Huston.

Trivia: Wide-eyed, toothy, pencil-thin leading lady Shelley Duvall is the daughter of prominent Houston attorney Robert Duvall (not to be confused with Robert Duvall, the actor). While attending a party in 1970, Duvall was spotted by director Robert Altman, who cast her as a Superdome tour guide in his Texas-filmed Brewster McCloud (1970). She went on to play eccentric secondary roles in Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) and Nashville (1975), and co-starred opposite another Altman "regular," Keith Carradine, in Thieves Like Us (1974). She earned the Best Actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival for her portrayal of a garrulous, self-involved senior-citizen-center worker in 3 Women (1977), then wrapped up the Altman phase of her career as Olive Oyl (a role she was surely born to play) in Popeye (1980). Of her non-Altman film assignments, her best included Kubrick's The Shining (1980) -- in which she was cast against type as the only thoroughly normal person in the picture -- and Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977); she was also perfection-plus as the protagonist in the made-for-PBS adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Bernice Bobs Her Hair (1976). From 1982 onward, Duvall cut down on her acting appearances, concentrating instead on her behind-the-scenes responsibilities as producer of such superlative Showtime Cable Network projects as Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre (1982-1987), Shelley Duvall's Tall Tales and Legends (1985-1988), and Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories (1992). These and other star-studded, family oriented endeavors have been assembled by one or all of Duvall's three production companies: Amarillo Productions, Platypus Productions, and Think! Entertainment. Shelley Duvall has also functioned as executive producer of the 1989 TV remake of Dinner at Eight, and has served on the board of governors of the National Association of Cable Programming.

Trivia: Danny Lloyd starred in only one major theatrical film -- but that sole credit happened to be Stanley Kubrick's much-debated version of The Shining (1980). After one of Kubrick's assistants conducted a several-month search through the Midwest for an unknown to play Danny Torrance, Illinois-born Lloyd was chosen from 5,000 candidates via a videotaped audition. Despite having no prior acting experience, Lloyd proved eerily effective as the psychic child who senses something seriously wrong at the Overlook Hotel. Whether impassively riding through the hotel corridors on his Big Wheel, fleeing Jack Nicholson in a snowy maze or (most memorably) croaking "REDRUM" through his finger, Lloyd's solemn visage conveyed the young Torrance's unfathomable fear at being subject to forces he can't quite handle. Though reviews were sharply divided over Nicholson's hysteria-pitch performance (not to mention Kubrick's changes to Stephen King's novel), Lloyd remained critically unscathed. Except for an appearance as the young Liddy in the TV film Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy (1982), Lloyd has not acted since.

Trivia: African- American entertainer Scatman Crothers supported himself as a drummer throughout his high-school years. He formed a popular dance band, playing successful engagements even in the whitest of white communities, regaling audiences with his free-form "scat singing." In the formative years of television, Crothers became the first black performer to host a TV musical program in Los Angeles. He made his movie debut in the 1951 minstrel-show pastiche Yes Sir, Mr. Bones (1951). The best of his 1950s film appearances was as Dan Dailey's medicine-show partner in Meet Me at the Fair (1952). For the next three decades, Crother's movie roles varied in size; he was seen to best advantage as the concerned handyman in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). Adult TV fans will remember Scatman Crothers as Louie the garbageman on the 1970s sitcom Chico and the Man; Crothers also did voice-over work in the title role of the Saturday morning cartoon series Hong Kong Phooey.

Trivia: Of Scandinavian stock, Barry Nelson was no sooner graduated from the University of California-Berkeley than he was signed to an MGM contract. Most of his MGM feature-film assignments were supporting roles, though he was given leads in the 1942 "B" A Yank in Burma and the 1947 "Crime Does Not Pay" short The Luckiest Guy in the World. While serving in the Army, Nelson made his Broadway debut in the morale-boosting Moss Hart play Winged Victory, repeating his role (and his billing of Corporal Barry Nelson) in the 1944 film version. Full stardom came Nelson's way in such Broadway productions of the 1950s and 1960s as The Rat Race, The Moon is Blue and Cactus Flower. He repeated his Broadway role in the 1963 film version of Mary Mary, and both directed and acted in Frank Gilroy's two-character play The Only Game in Town (1968). Nelson starred in a trio of 1950s TV series: the 1952 espionager The Hunter, the 1953 sitcom My Favorite Husband, and the unjustly neglected Canadian-filmed 1958 adventure series Hudson's Bay (1959). Oh, and did you know that Nelson was the first actor ever to play Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond on television? Yep: Barry Nelson portrayed American spy Jimmy Bond on a 1954 TV adaptation of Fleming's Casino Royale. Nelson died of unspecified causes on April 7, 2007, while traveling through Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He was 84.

Trivia: Though his parts were often on the smallish side, British actor Philip Stone has been fortunate enough to appear in several international movie moneymakers. He was seen in the James Bond opus Thunderball (1965), in producer Dino De Laurentiis' Flash Gordon (1980), and in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1985) (as Captain Blumbartt). He had occasional important roles in a few non-hits as well, such as Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973), in which he played General Jodl. Stone was also an off-and-on particpant in the long-running Carry On series of British slapstick comedy films. As a member of director Stanley Kubrick's informal "stock company," Philip Stone appeared in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1976) and The Shining (1978).

Trivia: American actor Joe Turkel had at least one movie leading role, as the Genie in the 1961 kiddie-matinee feature The Boy and the Pirates. Otherwise he seldom rose any farther than featured billing (sometimes, as in Harold and Maude [1971], he got no billing at all). In films since the late '40s, Turkel essayed character parts in such productions as City Across the River (1949), Visit to a Small Planet (1959), The Sand Pebbles (1966), Hindenberg (1977) and Blade Runner (1980) (as Tyrrell); though firmly entrenched in Hollywood, he occasionally grabbed a quick paycheck in such exploitation flicks as Savage Abduction (1975), which afforded him star billing if not a whole lot of prestige. Joe Turkel is best remembered by "auteur" critics for his appearances in the films of director Stanley Kubrick: He played Tiny in The Killing (1955), Private Arnaud in Paths of Glory (1957), and the other-worldly bartender Lloyd in The Shining (1978).

Trivia: Trained at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse and the Actor's Studio, Anne Jackson was a stage actress since 1944 and a film performer since 1950. On stage, Jackson has frequently co-starred with her husband, Eli Wallach. The couple's near-telepathic rapport with one another has inspired playwrights like Murray Schisgal and Terence McNally to fashion plays specifically designed for the Wallachs' talents; their biggest Broadway hit was Schisgal's Luv, in which Jackson and Wallach appeared with Alan Arkin. Anne Jackson's film credits include Tall Story (1960), The Tiger Makes Out (1967; based on Schisgal's one-act play The Tiger), The Secret Life of an American Wife (1968), Nasty Habits (1976) and Funny About Love (1989); the film she is best remembered for is Lovers and Other Strangers (1968), in which Jackson's mother-of-the-bride character spent half her time sobbing hysterically in the bathroom. Jackson and Wallach remained married until Wallach's death in 2014; Jackson herself passed away in 2016, at age 90.

Trivia: Character actor Barry Dennen works primarily on stage and British TV.