Trivia: Having acquired legions of loyal female followers with his portrayal of the ever-horny and dimwitted Kelso in the popular television comedy series That 70s Show, it may come as a surprise that male model-turned-actor Ashton Kutcher ironically majored in biochemical engineering at the University of Iowa before his "discovery" in an Iowa bar and subsequent stint on the catwalk for such fashion industry luminaries as Versace and Calvin Klein.Born in Cedar Rapids, IA, along with a fraternal twin named Michael, Kutcher was bitten by the acting bug in high school. Balancing his love for the stage with his talent for wrestling before gravitating toward the former in such high school productions as Annie, Kutcher worked numerous odd jobs during his tenure at the University of Iowa before winning the Fresh Faces of Iowa contest in 1997 and heading for New York. Competing in that same year's International Model and Talent Agency competition before being signed to the next agency, Kutcher relocated to Los Angeles the following year and soon landed his breakthrough role on That 70s Show. Though he had small roles in Down to You and Reindeer Games (both 2000), Kutcher's first major big-screen role was in Dude, Where's My Car? (also 2000), in which he teamed his airheaded goofiness with that of American Pie's Sean William Scott. Breaking out of the mold with a more serious turn alongside James Van Der Beek in 2001's Texas Rangers, a return to comedy wasn't far behind with a role in My Boss's Daughter scheduled for release later that same year. Though My Boss's Daughter would ultimately be pushed back to a late February 2003 release date, Kutcher and actress Brittany Murphy (8 Mile) scored a modest hit when Just Married was released into theaters in early January of the same year. Despite receiving only a lukewarm reception from critics, positive audience turnout ensured that Just Married would nevertheless hold on to a position in the box office top-ten for nearly a month after its release. Though My Boss's Daughter failed to stir up much at the box-office, the one-two punch of his immensely popular MTV prank show Punk'd and a high-profile romance with Demi Moore (whom he later married and then divorced) shot Kutcher's celebrity stock through the roof in 2003. He subsequently closed out the year with a self-depricating role in the holiday hit Cheaper by the Dozen.2004 saw Kutcher trying his hand at drama once again with the supernatural thriller The Butterfly Effect. Though the reviews were mixed, the film had its share of fans among critics and went on to makeup its budget more than three-times over. Kutcher continued finding success on the small-screen by producing the series Beauty and the Geek. In 2005 he teamed with Bernie Mac for the racial comedy Guess Who, and 2006 found Kutcher trying his hand at more action oriented fare teaming up with Kevin Costner for The Guardian. The actor would continue to find his place in the romcom niche with 2008's What Happens in Vegas, 2010's Valentine's Day and 2011's No Strings Attached, but made particular waves with a return to television, when he famously signed on to replace Charlie Sheen on the sitcom Two and a Half Men in 2011. His movie career slowed due to his television commitments, but he did find time to play Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in the 2013 bio-drama Jobs. Two and a Half Men wrapped up in 2015, leaving Kutcher free to return to movies and producing.

Trivia: Dark-haired comedic actor Jon Cryer remains best-known for his lovable performance as Duckie Dale in the 1986 teen movie Pretty in Pink. Even though he was 21 years old playing a high school senior, he exhibited a vulnerable yet goofy freshness unlike most other teen stars. The son of Broadway performers, he was schooled in the Bronx before making his film debut in the romantic comedy No Small Affair as a young photographer obsessed with Demi Moore. He made some unfortunate movies after Pretty in Pink, including the Ferris Bueller knock-off Morgan Stewart's Coming Home, which suggested unfair comparisons with actor Matthew Broderick. Other forgettable movies followed until he was cast as the star of the sitcom The Famous Teddy Z, which was then followed by several other short-lived sitcoms. After appearing in the anarchic comedy Hot Shots!, he proved fairly successful with offbeat comedies and independent films. He helped write the talky romantic comedy The Pompatus of Love then starred in the similarly themed Plan B. He teamed up with director Richard Schenkman to write the offbeat comedy Went to Coney Island on a Mission From God...Be Back by Five. In 2003, Cryer re-teamed with Hotshots! co-star Charlie Sheen for the sitcom Two and a Half Men, which proved to be a massive success. The show was so popular that it stayed on the air, even after Sheen left in 2011, with Ashton Kutcher filling in the empty spot in the cast.

Trivia: The slightly stocky American actor Angus T. Jones began his career as a child star, before the age of ten, in the early 2000s. Best known as the "half" in the blockbuster sitcom Two and a Half Men (2003) -- a role this pint-sized tyro tackled admirably alongside Gen-X screen heavies Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer -- Jones also appeared in a number of Hollywood features. He played James in the poorly received animal picture See Spot Run (2001), Hunter in the outstanding Disney baseball melodrama The Rookie (2002), and George Junior in George of the Jungle 2 (2003).

Trivia: Expressive comic actress Conchata Ferrell attended drama classes at West Virginia University and Marshall University. Ferrell's first off-Broadway appearance was as good-natured hooker April Green in Lanford Wilson's Hot L Baltimore (1972), a role she would reprise in the short-lived 1975 TV sitcom version. In 1973, she won an Obie Award for her performance in The Sea Horse. Her first major film role was feisty frontier widow Elinore in the 1981 western Heartland, a performance that earned her a "Wrangler Award" from the Cowboy Hall of Fame. She has also been seen in Network (1976), Mystic Pizza (1988) and Edward Scissorhands (1991), to name but a few. As active on TV as elsewhere, Conchata Ferrell has played such regular TV-series roles as female cop Wilhelmina "The Fox" Johnson in BJ and the Bear (1979), café owner Vangie Cruise in McClain's Law (1981), nurse Joan Thor in the original ER (1984), zoo secretary Kate Galindo in A Peaceable Kingdom (1989), entertainment lawyer Susan Bloom in LA Law (1991-92 season, earning an Emmy nomination in 1992), and cynical psychologist/advice columnist Dr. Madeline Stoessinger in Hearts Afire (1993-95).

Trivia: Blonde, slim, and polished television actress Courtney Thorne-Smith first appeared as Stacy Hamilton on Fast Times, the television series spin-off of the successful teen movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. She made her film debut in the sports comedy Lucas, which also starred the rising young stars Winona Ryder, Corey Haim, and Charlie Sheen. When she did work on films, they were mostly lightweight comedies like Welcome to 18, Summer School, and Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise. Back on television, she appeared in the short-lived sitcom Day by Day and some TV movies before joining the cast of L.A. Law as Kimberly Dugan. Staying with TV dramas, she played Alison on the FOX soap opera Melrose Place from 1992-1997, and then she joined the cast of Ally McBeal and its truncated spawn Ally as Georgia Thomas. She also appeared in the Carrot Top movie Chairman of the Board. After a few guest-starring roles on Spin City, she moved over to ABC for the family sitcom According to Jim as Jim Belushi's wife, Cheryl.

Trivia: Studied ballet and French in college. Started her career as a model and then moved into commercials and acting. Found early success with her turn as Kandi on Two and a Half Men, a role she won shortly after her first Hollywood audition. Studied drama with Ivana Chubbuck.

Trivia: Philadelphia-born actress Holland Taylor majored in drama at Bennington College, and arrived in New York in 1966, hoping to take the theater world by storm. That didn't quite happen, despite Taylor making her Broadway debut in The Devils, starring Anne Bancroft, and working with Alan Bates in Butley (she was also in that notorious failure, Moose Murders). A protégée of legendary acting teacher Stella Adler, Taylor endured 14 years of disappointments interspersed with the occasional success, and played in one heavily hyped television series (CBS's Beacon Hill) that failed in less than a season, all of it broken up by work in the daytime drama The Edge of Night. Finally, in 1980, lightning struck when Taylor was cast in the series Bosom Buddies in the role of Ruth Dunbar, the acid-tongued advertising agency executive employing the two protagonists of the program, played by Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari. Taylor accepted the part despite some initial reluctance, mostly thanks to Adler's urging, but she proved almost as much of a breakout personality onscreen as Hanks and Scolari. Taylor took lines written with venom and added her own wry twists to their meanings and inflections, and made all of her scenes memorable. The series only lasted two full seasons, but when it folded, Taylor was being offered television and movie roles on a steady basis. Most of her subsequent series didn't last more than a season each, but Taylor's parts, usually as charmingly acerbic middle-aged women, stayed big and got larger, up through programs such as The Naked Truth, starring Téa Leoni. Taylor's big-screen appearances have included supporting roles in such diverse films as The Truman Show, Spy Kids 2, Legally Blonde, George of the Jungle, Romancing the Stone, The Jewel of the Nile, How to Make an American Quilt, Fame, She's Having a Baby, and To Die For. She's also had some choice parts in made-for-television movies, including playing Nancy Reagan in The Day Reagan Was Shot, but Taylor's most successful medium remains the television series. In recent years, she has proved a mainstay of producer David E. Kelley's stable of actors, taking on the recurring role of Judge Roberta Kittleson, a Boston jurist whose sex-drive is a match for her legal intellect, in the series The Practice (with a cross-over appearance in the same role on Ally McBeal), winning an Emmy for her work on the show's 1999 season. That series, which has included an episode featuring Taylor in a semi-nude scene, has not only given the middle-aged actress a chance to explore sides of her screen persona that other producers never even considered, but has transformed her into a sex symbol among the ranks of mature actresses, right up there with Kathleen Turner as Mrs. Robinson in the stage version of The Graduate.As the new century began she continued to work steadily in both movies and TV in projects such as Happy Accidents, playing the first-lady in The Day Reagan Was Shot, Legally Blonde, and Spy Kids 2. She returned to series television with a recurring role on Two and a Half Men, which was the most-watched sitcom on TV during part of its successful run. She also appeared in the big screen comedy Baby Mama.

Trivia: Tanzania native Marin Hinkle is best known for her role as bookstore proprieter Judy Brooks on ABC's Once and Again, though her breakthrough performance was on long-running soap opera Another World. After the cancellation of Once and Again in 2002, Hinkle went on to find success in the sitcom world, co-starring with Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer on CBS' popular Two and a Half Men, and appeared on a variety of prime-time dramas including ER, House, and Law & Order. Though Hinkle is primarily a television actress, she has had small roles in several films; her credits include Frequency, I Am Sam, Friends With Money, Weather Girl, The Next Big Thing, and Rails & Ties.

Trivia: Actress Judy Greer went to Winston Churchill High School in Livonia, MI, before studying theater at DePaul University. She made her film debut in Stricken, a low-budget horror movie shot on video in 1998, and, that same year, found her place in romantic comedies with Kissing a Fool, starring David Schwimmer. Continuing with comedies throughout her career, Greer then appeared with Rose McGowan in Jawbreaker and got a starring role in the independent romance The Big Split. In 1999, she showed up briefly as a reporter opposite George Clooney in Three Kings. On television, Greer would prove an uncanny knack for playing particularly memorable roles on shows with particularly rabid cult followings, like Arrested Development, Love Monkey, Mad Love, Miss Guided, Glenn Martin DDS, Archer, and Californication. She would also play a recurring role on the popular sitcom Two and a Half Men, and would appear in a number of feature films as well, like The Wedding Planner, Adaptation, The Village, 27 Dresses, and Love and Other Drugs.

Trivia: Best known for portraying time traveler Dr. Sam Beckett in the popular sci-fi series Quantum Leap, Scott Bakula is also a noted Broadway actor and occasional movie star, though it is in the last venue that he has had the least amount of success. The son of a musician, Bakula is said to have started his own rock band when he was in the fourth grade. He also sang with the St. Louis Symphony before attending the University of Kansas. Bakula launched his acting career as a teen in regional theater and as a stage actor specializes in musical comedy. He made his Broadway debut in 1983 in Marilyn: An American Fable. He started showing up regularly on television as a guest star on such series as My Sister Sam and Designing Women during the 1980s. In 1986, Bakula starred in an unsuccessful television series, Gung Ho! Two years later he headlined another unsuccessful one, Eisenhower and Lutz. In 1988, Bakula was nominated for a Tony for his work in Romance, Romance. The following year, he was cast in Quantum Leap and has since gained a cult following; in 1992, he won a Golden Globe and was nominated four more times. Bakula was also nominated for a quartet of Emmys. Bakula made his feature-film debut starring opposite Kirstie Alley in Sibling Rivalry (1990). Other notable film appearances include L.A. Story (1991) and My Family/Mi Familia (1995). In 1993, Bakula had a recurring role on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown as a love interest of Candice Bergen. He has also appeared in a number of television movies and in 1996, he had a stint in another short-lived series, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.Though he worked steadily in movies, television turned out to be his next great success when, in 2001, he took the part of Capt. Jonathan Archer on Star Trek: Enterprise, a program that lasted four seasons.In 2009 Bakula would star alongside Ray Romano and Andre Braugher in the well-respected comedy/drama series Men of a Certain Age, and landed in one of the best films of his career, Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!.

Trivia: A leading man who has displayed a knack for action, comedy, and dramatic roles, Charlie Sheen is nearly as well known for his offscreen exploits as for his acting, though after suffering through scandals that would have ended many performers' careers, he overcame bad press and bad habits to enjoy a major comeback on television in the late '90s. Charlie Sheen was born Carlos Irwin Estevez to actor Martin Sheen (born Ramon Estevez) and his wife, Janet Templeton, on September 3rd, 1965. By all accounts, young Charlie wasn't an especially distinguished student; though he was a star on Santa Monica High School's baseball team, he was expelled due to poor attendance and bad grades only a few weeks before his class graduated. During his school days, Sheen developed an interest in filmmaking, making amateur Super-8 films starring his school friends (who included Rob Lowe and Sean Penn), and after leaving school, Sheen decided to take a stab at an acting career, like his father (and his older brother, Emilio Estevez). While Sheen played a bit part in one of his father's films, The Execution of Private Slovik, when he was nine, he began his screen career in earnest in 1984, playing Matt Eckhart in the Cold War thriller Red Dawn. (Earlier that same year, Sheen played a small role in a sequel to the horror film Grizzly which didn't see release until 1987; Grizzly 2: The Predator also featured a then-unknown George Clooney.) After good-sized roles in several made-for-TV movies and smaller roles in better-known feature films (including Lucas and Ferris Bueller's Day Off), Sheen got his big break in 1986 when he was cast as Chris, a soldier with conscience in Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning Vietnam drama Platoon. In 1987, Sheen starred in Stone's next project, Wall Street, and after establishing himself as a solid dramatic actor, Sheen proved he also had a flair for comedy in the 1989 hit Major League. The role also gave Sheen a chance to show off his pitching arm; a year earlier, Sheen got to play real-life center fielder Hap Felsch in John Sayles' drama about the 1919 "Chicago Black Sox" scandal, Eight Men Out. Sheen's next major success was also a comedy, the 1991 military-film satire Hot Shots, and while box-office blockbusters tended to elude him, Sheen worked steadily over the next several years, and racked up a respectable number of box-office successes.By this time, Sheen had developed a reputation as a hard-living star who spoke his mind regardless of the consequences, but his fun-loving image began to take on a darker hue in the mid-'90s. In 1990, Sheen was engaged to marry actress Kelly Preston, but she left him shortly after an incident in which he accidentally shot her in the arm. In 1995, Sheen tied the knot with model Donna Peele, but the marriage ended in divorce only 14 months later. The same year he was wed, Sheen was called to testify in the trial of "Hollywood Madame" Heidi Fleiss, and admitted he was a frequent customer of Fleiss' call girl service, spending over 50,000 dollars on the services of prostitutes. In the wake of the Heidi Fleiss scandal, Sheen did himself no favors in terms of public relations by openly dating a pair of adult film actresses, Ginger Lynn Allen and Brittany Ashland; his relationship with Ashland came to an end when she filed assault charges against him. Sheen's bad-boy image turned especially grim in 1998, when he was hospitalized for drug and alcohol abuse; after a short-lived stay in rehab, Sheen gave sobriety another try, and by 1999 he was, by all accounts, clean and sober and ready to get his career back on track. In 1999, Sheen's brother, Emilio Estevez, cast him as real-life adult filmmaker Artie Mitchell in the made-for-cable feature Rated X -- a daring role, given Mitchell's drug abuse and sexual promiscuity -- and the following year, Sheen became Hollywood's comeback kid when he was cast in the leading role of the popular situation comedy Spin City after the departure of actor Michael J. Fox. In 2002, a clean, sober, and successful Sheen made headlines once again with his love life, though this time in a positive manner: He announced his engagement to actress Denise Richards; alas, a lengthy marriage was not to be, and the couple divorced after four years. Beginning in 2003, Sheen signed for an ongoing role opposite Jon Cryer and Melanie Lynskey on the popular situation comedy Two and a Half Men. The show became a massive success, running until 2011. In the meantime, Sheen married Brooke Mueller in 2008, with whom he had twin boys, Bob and Max. The marriage was short, ending in 2010 amid rumors of rampant drug use and partying, an arrest on suspicion of domestic violence, and brief stints in rehab - culminating in a 2010 incident in which Sheen was removed from the Plaza hotel after causing $7,000 worth of damage to a hotel room, allegedly following an altercation with a prostitute. Even grander spectacles were soon to come, as disagreements with producers of Two and a Half Men in 2011 led to Sheen making what sounded like near manic public statements, nominally defending his demands for a 50% raise for his work on the show. He gave a series of interviews in which he disclosed that he lived with two girlfriends, who he called his "goddesses," graphic designer Natalie Kenly and porn star Bree Olsen. He also infamously described himself as "winning" (presumably at life), as well as having "tiger's blood," and being a "bitchin' rock star from Mars." The media explosion following his statements led to rampant speculation that he was in the throes of drug addiction. Sheen capitalized on the attention, however, embarking on a stand-up/performance tour titled "My Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat is Not An Option." Sheen was officially fired from Two and a Half Men in March of 2011, but Sheen continued to reach out to the public through internet videos available on UStream titled Torpedoes of Truth. In 2012, Sheen scored the lead in the FX comedy Anger Management (a spin-off from the 2003 movie with the same name), which earned a 100 episode production order.In addition to his career as an actor, Sheen has also dabbled in production; he produced two of his films, Comicitis and The Chase, before forming a production company with rock singer Bret Michaels. Sheen also wrote the screenplay for the company's first release, No Code of Conduct. In addition, Sheen published a book of his poetry, A Peace of My Mind.

Trivia: When Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures was released to international acclaim in 1994, it launched the career of a then-unknown actress by the name of Kate Winslet. Unfortunately, it didn't do the same for Winslet's co-star, the similarly unknown and equally talented Melanie Lynskey. As Pauline Parker, a New Zealand schoolgirl who, along with best friend Juliete Hulme (Winslet), brutally murders her mother, Lynskey turned in a performance that combined sullen adolescent alienation with cold-blooded brutality. Although marked as a promising newcomer, she did not enjoy a subsequent breakthrough of the magnitude of Winslet's but instead worked quietly for a few years, gradually earning belated recognition from audiences and industry figures alike.Born in New Plymouth, New Zealand, on May 16, 1977, Lynskey was a high school student when she was discovered by Peter Jackson's wife, Frances Walsh, who cast her in Heavenly Creatures. Following the film's success, the fledgling actress moved to Los Angeles, but encountered endless rejection thanks to her non-blonde, non-waifish physique, and after only six weeks returned to her native country. Eighteen months of film, theatre, and English studies at Victoria University followed, as did a supporting role in Jackson's The Frighteners (1996). A self-professed attitude change -- the result of her friendship with director Gaylene Preston, who encouraged the actress to make herself a stronger person -- also altered Lynskey's approach to acting, and she subsequently won a role in her first Hollywood film, Andy Tennant's Ever After (1998). Cast as the not-so-evil stepsister of Drew Barrymore's Cinderella-like heroine, Lynskey enjoyed the greater recognition the film's success afforded her and went on to supporting roles the next year in Detroit Rock City, in which she co-starred with Natasha Lyonne and Edward Furlong, and Michael Cacoyannis' adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, which also starred Alan Bates, Charlotte Rampling, and Katrin Cartlidge. With another successful independent film, Jamie Babbit's But I'm a Cheerleader (1999), and a Jerry Bruckheimer chick flick, Coyote Ugly, also under her belt, Lynskey began the new decade on a decidedly promising note.

Trivia: A master of improvisational comedy, tall, rangy, and rubber-faced, Ryan Stiles is best known for playing comic Drew Carey's best friend in the ABC sitcom The Drew Carey Show. Born in Seattle, Stiles entered the entertainment industry as a standup comedian in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was not the career his parents had hoped he would choose, but Stiles managed to make a living for a few years. In the mid-'80s, Stiles switched gears and joined the Second City comedy group in Toronto, renowned for its highly topical and fast-paced sketches. There, Stiles grew adept at improvising; in 1990, he transferred to the Los Angeles Second City troupe and, before long, the six-foot, five-inch redhead was working on television and in feature films. He made his film debut in Rainbow War (1986). Stiles' early television credits include guest-starring roles on Parker Lewis Can't Lose and Mad About You. Outside of The Drew Carey Show, he had his greatest success as a regular on the British improvisational series Whose Line Is It, Anyway?, which found an American audience on the Comedy Central cable network. During the show's run (1988-1993), it won four CableACE awards. The show was revised and updated, as a replacement series on ABC, in the summer of 1998. The show was hosted by Drew Carey.