Trivia: Professional magician Harry Anderson made his living as a street performer until he was "discovered" on the talk-show circuit in the late '70s. Looking all the world like a young Willy Loman, Anderson delighted in flim-flamming his "suckers" and then revealing his chicanery. He made his film debut as, appropriately, a sideshow prestidigitator in The Escape Artist (1982) then appeared on a sporadic basis as wise guy thimblerig Harry the Hat on the TV sitcom Cheers. This led to his being cast as freewheeling Judge Harold T. Stone on the weekly Night Court which ran from 1984 to 1992. Despite his insouciant "hustler" persona, Anderson is an immensely appealing performer with a strong following among children, and starred in such Disney TV-movie productions as The Absent-Minded Professor (1988) and Harvey (1995). In 1993, Harry Anderson launched another long-running sitcom, playing real life newspaper humorist Dave Barry (whom he resembles not one whit!) in Dave's World.

Trivia: Though seemingly born with a battered bulldog countenance and a rattly voice best suited to such lines as "We don't like you kind around these parts, stranger," tough-guy character actor Kenneth Tobey was originally groomed for gormless leading man roles when he came to Hollywood in 1949. Possessing too much roughhewn authority to be wasted in romantic leads, Tobey was best served in military roles. One of these was the no-nonsense but likeable Capt. Patrick Hendrey in the 1951 sci-fi classic The Thing From Another World, a role that typed him in films of a "fantastic" nature for several years thereafter. From 1956 through 1958, Tobey co-starred with Craig Hill on the popular syndicated TV adventure series Whirlybirds; up to that time, televiewers were most familiar with Tobey as Jim Bowie in the ratings-busting Davy Crockett miniseries. Though often consigned by Hollywood's typecasting system to workaday villain roles, Kenneth Tobey has not be forgotten by filmmakers who grew up watching his horror-flick endeavors of the 1950s; he has been afforded key cameo roles in such latter-day shockers as Strange Invaders (1983) and Gremlins 2: The New Batch, and in 1985 he reprised his Thing From Another World character in The Attack of the B-Movie Monsters.

Trivia: Best known for playing the android Data on the syndicated television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and in its feature film spin-offs, Brent Spiner is also a talented singer. Before agreeing to play Data, Spiner had spent a decade on the New York stage. A native of Houston, TX, he was raised by his mother and her second husband (Spiner's real father died when he was a baby). The Quaid brothers Randy and Dennis were among his high school classmates and the three learned about acting under Cecil Pickett. Eventually Pickett would leave the school to take a teaching job at the University of Houston. Spiner enrolled there soon after graduation, but only remained at the university through 1974 when he decided to become a professional actor in New York City. Like many other aspiring thespians, Spiner had dues to pay in the form of taking a job as a cab driver before launching his career off-Broadway. He made his Broadway debut with Sunday in the Park With George opposite Mandy Patinkin. He made his television debut in a miniseries, The Dain Curse, and first appeared in films with a bit part in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980). Spiner had a rare starring role in Rent Control (1981). He moved to Los Angeles in 1985 and launched a career as a television guest star on series and as a supporting actor in telemovies and miniseries. He most frequently appeared on the sitcom Night Court as the man who establishes a snack bar in the courthouse. He then successfully auditioned for the role of Data. Interestingly, Spiner claims no particular love for science fiction and was not a big fan of the original Star Trek. He says he mainly took the job because he didn't think the new series would last and because he needed to pay a few bills. The show lasted seven years also spawning a successful film series, and from the start, his was the most popular character on the show. In an effort to capitalize and satirize his nonhuman role on the show -- and perhaps to poke fun at actors William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy who capitalized on their Star Trek fame by each recording equally awful albums (can anyone forget Nimoy's bouncy rendition of "Bilbo Hobbitt"?) -- Spiner recorded his own album, Old Yellow Eyes Is Back (1991), with an 80-piece orchestra and fellow castmates Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and Michael Dorn. Though the bulk of his fame comes from being Data, Spiner is not content to spend the rest of his career typecast and so occasionally plays other characters. His portrayal of prissy singing cruise director Gil Godwin was the funniest thing about Martha Coolidge's waterlogged Out to Sea (1997).

Trivia: American actor John Larroquette began gaining public attention as a disc jockey. For several years, he paid the bills with TV and movie voiceovers, notably as the (uncredited) narrator of Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Larroquette started getting on-camera assignments in the mid 1970s, making his network TV bow in the role of Dr. Paul Herman in the prime time weekly Doctors' Hospital (1975-76); this was followed by a two-year stint as Robert Anderson on the Robert Conrad TV vehicle Black Sheep Squadron (1976-78). From 1984 through 1992, Larroquette portrayed assistant DA and self-styled ladies man Dan Fielding on the popular sitcom Night Court, a role which won him four Emmy awards. In 1994, the actor starred in his own series, The John Larroquette Show, playing an erudite recovering alcoholic who manages a St. Louis bus depot.His film career never quite matched the success he found on the small- screen, but he had small parts in The Twilight Zone Movie and Choose Me before he reached the height of his Night Court Fame. He was a friend to Bruce Willis in the Blake Edwards comedy Blind Date and appeared opposite his fellow NBC sitcom star Kirstie Alley in the flop Madhouse. He was one o the adult leads in the 1994 version of Richie Rich. As the '90s came to a close he returned to the small-screen in Payne, an attempt to update the classic British series Fawlty Towers. As the new century began, Larroquete could be seen in The 10th Kingdom, and a few years later he lent his voice as the narrator of the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - just as he did for the original thirty years before. He appeared in diverse projects such as Beethoven's 5th, and the 2006 Southland Tales. He scored a recurring role for a couple of seasons on Boston Legal.

Trivia: Six feet tall by the time he was twelve, Richard Moll would eventually peak at 6'8". To ward off jokes about his height, Moll adopted the "class clown" pose in school, eventually developing a taste for play-acting. Moving from his hometown of Pasadena to Hollywood in 1968, Moll spent the next decade or so with various theatrical troupes, and for a while toured schools in the role of Abraham Lincoln. Whenever he made the movie and TV casting rounds, Moll was greeted with an astonished "What a monster!"; thus, a monster he became, playing a steady succession of "bikers and snake men and one-eyed mutants." He was one of the title characters in the 1972 TV movie Gargoyles, was seen as an abominable snowman in Caveman (1981), and played various and assorted hulking goons in such adventure flicks as Metalstorm (1982) and The Sword and the Sorceror (1984). He was finally allowed to exhibit his "human" side--not to mention his considerable flair for light comedy--as court guard Bull Shannon on the long-running (1984-92) TV sitcom Night Court. Back to monstrosities and villains again in the 1990s--this time by choice rather than necessity-- Richard Moll has continued appearing in sizeable (in more ways than one) TV guest-star roles, and has lent his vocal talents to the role of Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face, in Batman: The Animated Series.

Trivia: Burly black comedienne Marsha Warfield is best remembered for playing the caustic bailiff Roz on the popular television sitcom Night Court. Warfield made her film debut in the television movie The Marva Collins Story (1981). Prior to that she was a member of the sketch comedy cast on the short-lived, controversial Richard Pryor Show (1977). In addition to acting, Warfield is also a funny standup comedienne who often uses graphic language and descriptions of sex to describe the foibles of male/female interactions. Following the end of Night Court, Warfield hosted a short-lived talk show in 1990.