Trivia: Equally adept at sober drama and over-the-top comedy, Michael Keaton has a knack for giving ordinary guys an unexpected twist. This trait ultimately made him an ideal casting choice for Tim Burton's 1989 Batman, and it has allowed him to play characters ranging from Mr. Mom's discontented stay-at-home dad to Pacific Heights's raging psychopath.The youngest of seven children, Keaton was born Michael Douglas on September 5th, 1951 in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania on September 9, 1951. After two years of studying speech at Kent State University, he dropped out and moved to Pittsburgh. While working a number of odd jobs--including a stint as an ice cream truck driver--Keaton attempted to build a career as a stand-up comedian, which proved less than successful. He ended up working as a cameraman for the Pittsburgh PBS station, a job that led him to realize he wanted to be in front of the camera, rather than behind it. Following this realization, Keaton duly moved out to Los Angeles, where he joined the L.A. Branch of Second City and began auditioning. When he started getting work he changed his last name to avoid being confused with the better-known actor of the same name, taking the name "Keaton" after seeing a newspaper article about Diane Keaton. He began acting on and writing for a number of television series, and he got his first big break co-starring with old friend Jim Belushi on the sitcom Working Stiffs (1979). Three years later, he made an auspicious film debut as the relentlessly cheerful owner of a morgue/brothel in Night Shift. The raves he won for his performance carried over to his work the following year in Mr. Mom, and it appeared as though Keaton was on a winning streak. Unfortunately, a series of such mediocre films as Johnny Dangerously (1984) and Gung Ho (1985) followed, and by the time Tim Burton cast him as the titular Beetlejuice in 1988, Keaton's career seemed to have betrayed its early promise. Beetlejuice proved Keaton's comeback: one of the year's most popular films, it allowed him to do some of his best work in years as the ghoulish, revolting title character. His all-out comic performance contrasted with his work in that same year's Clean and Sober, in which he played a recovering drug addict. The combined impact of these performances put Keaton back in the Hollywood spotlight, a position solidified in 1989 when he starred in Burton's Batman. Initially thought to be a risky casting choice for the title role, Keaton was ultimately embraced by audiences and critics alike, many of whom felt that his slightly skewed everyman appearance and capacity for dark humor made him perfect for the part. He reprised the role with similar success for the film's 1992 sequel, Batman Returns. Despite the acclaim and commercial profit surrounding Keaton's work in the Batman films, many of his subsequent films during the 1990s proved to be disappointments. My Life (1993), Speechless (1994), and The Paper (1994) were relative failures, despite star casting and name directors, while Multiplicity, a 1996 comedy featuring no less than four clones of the actor, further demonstrated that his name alone couldn't sell a movie. Some of Keaton's most successful work of the 1990s could be found in his roles in two Elmore Leonard adaptations, Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown (1997) and Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight (1998). An ATF agent in the former and Jennifer Lopez's morally questionable boyfriend in the latter, he turned in solid performances as part of a strong ensemble cast in both critically acclaimed films. In 1999, Keaton went back to his behind-the-camera roots, serving as the executive producer for Body Shots. Keaton continued to act throughout the early 2000s, and starred in Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005) alongside Lindsay Lohan. the actor took on another vehicle-oriented role when he agreed to voice the character of Chris Hicks in Pixar's Cars (2006). In 2010, Keaton voiced the Ken doll in Toy Story 3. Keaton enjoyed an unexpected career renaissance in 2014 playing the lead in Birdman, an older actor trying to stage a comeback by putting on a Broadway production. His work in the film was widely praised, and he earned his first Academy Award nomination when he was given a nod in the Best Actor category.

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: Kim Basinger was hardly the first successful model to head to Hollywood in hopes of a career on the big screen, but few have managed to achieve the same degree of public acclaim and professional recognition that she has earned. Born in Athens, GA, on December 8, 1953, Kim Basinger was raised in a family of entertainers; her father had been a jazz musician and her mother a dancer who was part of the "water ballet" chorus in a handful of Esther Williams musicals. Basinger's parents enrolled her in dance classes at an early age to help her overcome a strong case of shyness; in time, she discovered she enjoyed both dancing and singing, and began contemplating a career in show business. She began competing in beauty contests as a teenager, and won the Junior Miss Georgia pageant, which took her to the national competition in New York City. By this time a striking and statuesque blonde beauty, Basinger was spotted by a representative of the prestigious Ford Modeling Agency and offered a contract; while she had hoped to make her mark as a cabaret singer, she wisely decided moving to the Big Apple was a step in the right direction. Before long, Basinger was earning 1,000 dollars per day through modeling jobs, and had signed on as the Breck Shampoo girl; in her spare time, she studied acting and picked up occasional singing gigs.In 1976, Basinger decided to take a more serious stab at acting, and moved to Los Angeles. Within a year, she made her television debut as a female police detective in the pilot for a short-lived crime drama entitled Dog and Cat; in 1978, she landed the starring role in the made-for-TV movie Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold, appropriately playing a beautiful Southern girl who comes to Los Angeles in search of stardom. After being cast as Lorene Rogers in a TV remake of From Here to Eternity (a role she reprised in a subsequent series based upon the film), Basinger finally made her way to the big screen in the low-budget drama Hard Country. But while it (and Basinger) received good reviews, her screen career didn't take off in a big way until 1983, when she was cast opposite Sean Connery in the James Bond adventure Never Say Never Again. She also posed for a well-publicized layout in Playboy which, coinciding with the film's release, certainly didn't hurt her growing popularity.While Basinger's career took off after Never Say Never Again, and she appeared in several major hits (including The Natural, 9 1/2 Weeks, and Batman, the latter of which led to a brief romance with pop star Prince), quality roles tended to elude her. But she generally fared well with the material given to her, and shined in several smaller films, including Fool for Love and Nadine. In 1991, Basinger was cast opposite Alec Baldwin in the comedy The Marrying Man, and the two hit it off -- so much so that some accused their romance of interfering with the production. The couple rode out the negative publicity, however, and married in 1993. (It was Basinger's second marriage after divorcing Ron Britton in 1989.)The next several years were difficult for Basinger. Her decision to not appear in the film Boxing Helena after verbally committing to the project led to her being sued by the film's producers, who won an eight-million-dollar judgment against her. Although the ruling was eventually overturned on appeal, legal bills forced Basinger to declare bankruptcy. And after several undistinguished projects, the actress went three years without working, during which she and Baldwin had a child. However, Basinger's 1997 comeback in L.A. Confidential suggested her time away had been well spent; playing a high-priced call girl with a close resemblance to Veronica Lake, Basinger's assured performance won her an Oscar as best supporting actress. This triumph was followed by another three-year sabbatical, which was followed by her divorce from Baldwin and a pair of box-office flops, I Dreamed of Africa and Bless the Child. In 2002, Basinger re-teamed with L.A. Confidential director Curtis Hanson, and won rave reviews for her gritty performance as a troubled single mother in the acclaimed urban drama 8 Mile. A committed vegetarian, Basinger also became an outspoken animal-rights activist In her offscreen life during the '90s.In 2001 she had a very public and ugly divorce from Alec Baldwin, but her career continued with appearances in the well-reviewed drama The Door in the Floor the thriller Cellular in 2004, and the horror film While She Was Out as well as the Bret Easton Ellis adaptation The Informers in 2008.

Trivia: Although he has a laid back Huck Finn demeanor, actor/writer/director Robert Wuhl is one of the hardest-working denizens of Tinseltown. He began as a comedy writer, functioning as story editor on the cult TV series Police Squad and winning Emmys for his work (in collaboration with Billy Crystal) on the annual Academy Awards telecast. A film actor since 1980's Hollywood Knights, Wuhl is best remembered for his portrayal of the feckless reporter Alexander Knox in Batman: The Movie (1988), and for his starring stint in Mistress (1992). One of the more noteworthy aspects of Robert Wuhl's career is his ongoing association with baseball -- he played the bullpen-chattering minor league coach in Bull Durham (1988), and the beleaguered biographer of contentious ballplayer Ty Cobb in Cobb (1993); and, taking a brief breather from film work, Wuhl wrote the chapter on Roger Maris in author/editor Danny Peary's 1989 compendium Cult Baseball Players.

Trivia: Burly character actor Pat Hingle held down a variety of bread-and-butter jobs--mostly in the construction field--while studying at the University of Texas, the Hagen-Bergdorf studio, the Theatre Wing and the Actors Studio. Earning his Equity card in 1950, Hingle made his Broadway debut in 1953 as Harold Koble in End as a Man (he would repeat this role in the 1957 film adaptation, retitled The Strange One). One year later, he was cast as Gooper-aka "Brother Man"-in Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer-winning play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Also in 1954, he made his inaugural film appearance in On the Waterfront as a bartender. Though a familiar Broadway presence and a prolific TV actor, Hingle remained a relatively unknown film quantity, so much so that he was ballyhooed as one of the "eight new stars" in the 1957 release No Down Payment. As busy as he was before the cameras in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Hingle's first love was the theatre, where he starred in such productions as William Inge's Dark at the Top of the Stairs and Archibald MacLeish's JB, and later appeared in the one-man show Thomas Edison: Reflections of a Genius. His made-for-TV assignments include such historical personages as Colonel Tom Parker in Elvis (1979), Sam Rayburn in LBJ: The Early Years (1988), J. Edgar Hoover in Citizen Cohn (1992) and Earl Warren in Simple Justice (1993). Among his more recent big-screen assignments has been Commissioner Gordon in the Batman films. Amidst his hundreds of TV guest shots, Pat Hingle has played the regular roles of Chief Paulton in Stone (1980) and Henry Cobb in Blue Skies (1988), was briefly a replacement for Doc (Milburn Stone) on the vintage western Gunsmoke, and has shown up sporadically as the globe-trotting father of Tim Daly and Steven Weber on the evergreen sitcom Wings.

Trivia: The screen's first authentic black romantic leading man, Williams is often referred to as "the black Gable." He first appeared onstage as a child actor in The Firebrand of Florence (1947) with German actress Lotte Lenya; his mother was an elevator operator at New York's Lyceum Theater, and when she heard of an opening for a child in the play she brought him to the producer, who hired him. He went on to study acting at New York's High School of Music and Art and The National Academy of Fine Arts; for a few months he was taught by Sidney Poitier at Harlem's Actors Workshop. He began working onstage in the mid '50s, then landed his breakthrough role in the play A Taste of Honey in 1960. He debuted onscreen as a rebellious ghetto kid in The Last Angry Man (1959). However, he did not appear in another film for over a decade. In the '60s he began landing roles on TV, including a continuing role on the soap opera Another World and guest spots on TV series. He made a big impression as the costar of the TV movie Brian's Song (1970). His breakthrough screen role was as the lover of Billie Holiday (Diana Ross) in the hit Lady Sings the Blues (1972), which brought him to stardom and established him as a romantic lead. He went on to appear in a number of movies, few of which fully used his talents; he portrayed Lando Calrissian in the second and third Star Wars films, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). In the mid '80s he began appearing again frequently on TV, and starred in the short-lived series Double Dare in 1985; he was also a regular for a while on Dynasty.

Trivia: One of the screen's most grizzled actors, Jack Palance defined true grit for many a filmgoer. The son of a Ukrainian immigrant coal miner, he was born Volodymyr Palahnyuk (Anglicized as Walter Jack Palaniuk) on February 18, 1920, in Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania. As a young man, Palance supported himself with stints as a miner, professional boxer, short-order cook, fashion model, lifeguard, and radio repairman. During WWII service, he enlisted in the AAC and piloted bombers, one of which crashed, knocking him unconscious in the process. The severe burns he received led to extensive facial surgery, resulting in his gaunt, pinched face and, ironically, paving the way for stardom as a character actor. Palance attended the University of North Carolina and Stanford University on the G.I. Bill and considered a career in journalism, but drifted into acting because of the comparatively higher wages. Extensive stage work followed, including a turn as the understudy to Anthony Quinn (as Stanley Kowalski in the touring production of A Streetcar Named Desire) and the portrayal of Kowalski on the Broadway stage, after Marlon Brando left that production. Palance debuted on film in Elia Kazan's 1950 Panic in the Streets, as a sociopathic plague host opposite Richard Widmark. He landed equally sinister and villainous roles for the next few years, including Jack the Ripper in Man in the Attic (1953), Simon the Magician (a sorcerer who goes head to head with Jesus) in The Silver Chalice (1954), and Atilla the Hun in Sign of the Pagan (1954). Palance received Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations for his performances in both Sudden Fear (1952) and Shane (1953). Beginning in the late '50s, Palance temporarily moved across the Atlantic and appeared in numerous European pictures, with Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 Le Mépris/Contempt a particular highlight. Additional big-screen roles throughout the '60s and '70s included that of Ronald Wyatt in Freddie Francis's horror episode film The Torture Garden (1967), the monastic sadist Brother Antonin in Jesús Franco's Justine (1969), Fidel Castro in Che! (1969), Chet Rollins in William A. Fraker's Western Monte Walsh (1970), Quincey Whitmore in the 1971 Charles Bronson-starrer Chato's Land, and Jim Buck in Portrait of a Hitman (1977). Unfortunately, by the '80s, Palance largely disappeared from the cinematic forefront, his career limited to B- and C-grade schlock. He nonetheless rebounded by the late '80s, thanks in no small part to the German director Percy Adlon, who cast him as a love-struck painter with a yen for Marianne Sägebrecht in his arthouse hit Bagdad Cafe (1987). Turns in Young Guns (1988) and 1989's Batman (as the aptly named Carl Grissom) followed. In 1991, Palance was introduced to a new generation of viewers with his Oscar- and Golden Globe-winning performance in Ron Underwood's City Slickers. The turn marked something of a wish-fulfillment for the steel-tough actor, who had spent years believing, in vain, that he would be best suited for comedy. These dreams were soon realized for a lengthy period, as the film's triumph yielded a series of additional comic turns for Palance on television programs and commercials.Accepting his Best Supporting Actor award at the 1992 Academy Awards ceremony, Palance won a permanent place in Oscar history when he decided to demonstrate that he was, in fact, still a man of considerable vitality by doing a series of one-handed push-ups on stage. He reprised his role in the film's 1994 sequel, City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold.Over the years, Palance also starred in the TV series The Greatest Show on Earth (ABC, 1963-4), as a hard-living circus boss, and Bronk (CBS, 1975-6) as a pipe-smoking police lieutenant, as well as in numerous TV dramas, notably Rod Serling's Requiem for a Heavyweight (1956). From 1982-1986, he hosted the ABC revival of Ripley's Believe It Or Not. He also established himself as an author in the late '90s, by publishing the 1996 prose-poem Forest of Love. Accompanying the work were Palance's pen-and-ink drawings, inspired by his Pennysylvania farm; he revealed, at the time, that he had been painting and sketching in his off-camera time for over 40 years. After scattered work throughout the '90s and 2000s, Jack Palance died on November 10, 2006 at his home in Montecito, California. He had been married and divorced twice, first to Virginia Baker from 1949-1966 (with whom he had three children), and then to Elaine Rogers in 1987. Two of his children outlived him; the third died several years prior, of melanoma, at age 43.

Trivia: Born in Malaya (now Malaysia) to British parents, Michael Gough attended Wye Agricultural College before realigning his career goals by taking classes at the Old Vic. Gough made his first theatrical appearance in 1936 and his first film in 1948. He listed King Lear as his favorite stage role, though one suspects that he was equally fond of the character he portrayed in the 1979 Broadway hit Bedroom Farce, for which he won the Tony Award. Movie historian Bill Warren has noted that Gough, by accident or design, adopted two distinct film-acting styles. In such "straight" roles as Montrose in Rob Roy (1954), Norfolk in Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972), Van der Luyden in The Age of Innocence (1993) and Bertrand Russell in Wittgenstein (1993), he was subtle and restrained; but when starring in such scarefests as Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) and Black Zoo (1962), his eye-bulging hamminess knew no bounds. Most contemporary filmgoers are familiar with Gough through his appearances as Alfred the Butler in the Batman theatrical features. Gough died at age 94 in the spring of 2011.

Trivia: Best known as a fashion model and the former wife of Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall has also appeared sporadically in feature films. The tall, cool blonde made her acting debut with a small role in Willie and Phil in 1980. Her largest role was that of Alicia, the moll to crime boss Carl Grissom in Tim Burton's Batman (1989).

Trivia: The memorable but fleeting appearance of American actor Tracey Walter as "Bob the Goon" in Batman was typical of Walter's career. In the grand tradition of such Hollywood character actors as Percy Helton, Dick Wessel and Louis Jean Heydt, Walter is in the "who is that?" category--familiar yet anonymous--and has developed a cult following amongst cinema buffs. The stage-trained Walters can be seen in such films as Repo Man (1984) City Slickers (1991), Pacific Heights (1992), and Philadelphia (1993). As far back as the 1984 critic's-darling sitcom Best of the West, Walter played Frog, the knuckle-dragging henchman of villain Leonard Frey.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the '70s.

Trivia: Moved to the United Kingdom from Singapore at the age of 5. Started off his career as a gymnast and became the British Young Tumbling champion representing the national team for several years. Won the British Tai Kwondo championship and the national dancing competition in 1985. Breakthrough in film came through a Peter Sellers ad in a newspaper as he auditioned and got selected for the movie The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (1980) Contacted by Steven Spielberg and Robert Watts, he trained the lead actor for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). Became a member of The British Stunt Register in 1986. Has worked as the fight co-ordinator on some of Hollywood's biggest movies such as Bloodsport 2 (1996), Martial Law (1998), Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991), and Lethal Weapon 4 (1998).

Trivia: While his name and his participation in British films would suggest some relationship to popular British comedienne Betty Balfour, actor Michael Balfour was actually from the United States, no relation to his more popular namesake. Like Ben Welden and Bernard Nedell before him, Balfour was cast as a "typical" American gangster or tough guy in most of his films -- notably his first, the notorious No Orchids For Miss Blandish (1948). The actor's busiest period was 1950-1960, when he showed up in such films as Obsession (1956) and The Steel Key (1958). Balfour was also a regular on the London-filmed TV detective drama Mark Saber, playing Saber's assistant Barney O'Keefe. The name Michael Balfour might ring a bell with fans of 1950s horror films; he played the unfortunate Sgt. Kasper, whose brains are sucked out by the "Fiend Without a Face" in the 1958 chiller of the same name.

Trivia: Moved to Glasgow in the 1980s. Recorded the song "Diamonds Rap (We Are The Diamonds)" in 1986 to promote the Glasgow Diamonds American football team. Has performed in many plays at the Old Vic in London including Spooks and Inherit the Wind. Produced, directed and appeared in the feature-length documentary film U & Me & Tennessee: An American Romance in 2007. Has been a longtime supporter of Meher Baba, an Indian spiritual master who died in 1969 and claimed to be the Avatar, God in human form. Is an experienced theatre and film actor. Created the voice-over for one of the main characters in the video game, Crysis 2, in 2011. His son, Ross Matthew Birchard, is a music producer also known as Hudson Mohawke.

Trivia: Actor/composer John Lurie began his career studying the alto saxophone, then moved to New York with his brother, pianist Evan Lurie; they formed the Lounge Lizards, a freeform jazz combo that went on to gain some distinction. Beginning in 1977 he directed and appeared in his own Super-8 films, and also acted in many New York-made Super-8 films by other filmmakers. In 1980 he began scoring numerous films, most importantly Jim Jarmusch's first feature-length film, Permanent Vacation (1982), in which he also appeared. This began a significant association with Jarmusch; Lurie co-starred in Jarmusch's breakthrough film Stranger Than Paradise (1984), provided the music, and has acted in and/or scored other of Jarmusch's films as well. His work with Jarmusch brought him to the attention of other directors, and he has appeared in a handful of movies while maintaining his work as a screen composer.

Trivia: Almost didn't get accepted into RADA because of a skin condition on his face. One of the main reasons he was hired for the 1983 British series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet was because he could do a Liverpool accent, which he had learned while living in a city hostel for two years as a teen. Lent his voice to the Wallace and Gromit features Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) and Flushed Away (2006). Other voiceover work includes radio, TV commercials, documentaries, cartoons and looping. Played John Lennon's father, Freddie, in the 2010 biopic Lennon Naked.

Trivia: Grew up in Pasadena, California.Worked as an announcer.Worked as a narrator for corporate videos and documentaries.Worked in English, Italian and Spanish language films.Speaks English, Italian and Spanish.Best known for playing the news anchorman in Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and Norman Cousins in Pope John XXIII (2002).