Trivia: Icon of British cool in the 1960s, leading action star in the late '70s, and knighted into official respectability in 1993, Michael Caine has enjoyed a long, varied, and enviably prolific career. Although he played a part in some notable cinematic failures, particularly during the 1980s, Caine remains one of the most established performers in the business, serving as a role model for actors and filmmakers young and old. The son of a fish-porter father and a charwoman mother, Caine's beginnings were less than glamorous. Born Maurice Micklewhite in 1943, in the squalid South London neighborhood of Bermondsey, Caine got his first taste of the world beyond when he was evacuated to the countryside during World War II. A misfit in school, the military (he served during the Korean War), and the job pool, Caine found acceptance after answering a want ad for an assistant stage manager at the Horsham Repertory Company. Already star struck thanks to incessant filmgoing, Caine naturally took to acting, even though the life of a British regional actor was one step away from abject poverty. Changing his last name from Micklewhite to Caine in tribute to one of his favorite movies, The Caine Mutiny (1954), the actor toiled in obscurity in unbilled film bits and TV walk-ons from 1956 through 1962, occasionally obtaining leads on a TV series based on the Edgar Wallace mysteries. Caine's big break occurred in 1963, when he was cast in a leading role in the epic, star-studded historical adventure film Zulu. Suddenly finding himself bearing a modicum of importance in the British film industry, the actor next played Harry Palmer, the bespectacled, iconoclastic secret agent protagonist of The Ipcress File (1965); he would go on to reprise the role in two more films, Funeral in Berlin (1966) and The Billion Dollar Brain (1967). After 12 years of obscure and unappreciated work, Caine was glibly hailed as an "overnight star," and with the success of The Ipcress Files, advanced to a new role as a major industry player. He went on to gain international fame in his next film, Alfie (1966), in which he played the title character, a gleefully cheeky, womanizing cockney lad. For his portrayal of Alfie, Caine was rewarded with a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination. One of the most popular action stars of the late '60s and early '70s, Caine had leading roles in films such as the classic 1969 action comedy The Italian Job (considered by many to be the celluloid manifestation of all that was hip in Britain at the time); Joseph L. Manckiewic's Sleuth (1972), in which he starred opposite Laurence Olivier and won his second Oscar nomination; and The Man Who Would Be King (1976), which cast him alongside Sean Connery. During the 1980s, Caine gained additional acclaim with an Oscar nomination for Educating Rita (1983) and a 1986 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Hannah and Her Sisters. He had a dastardly turn as an underworld kingpin in Neil Jordan's small but fervently praised Mona Lisa, and two years later once again proved his comic talents with the hit comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, in which he and Steve Martin starred as scheming con artists. Although Caine was no less prolific during the 1990s, his career began to falter with a series of lackluster films. Among the disappointments were Steven Seagal's environmental action flick On Deadly Ground (1994) and Blood and Wine, a 1996 thriller in which he starred with Jack Nicholson and Judy Davis. In the late '90s, Caine began to rebound, appearing in the acclaimed independent film Little Voice (1998), for which he won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of a seedy talent agent. In addition, Caine -- or Sir Michael, as he was called after receiving his knighthood in 2000 -- got a new audience through his television work, starring in the 1997 miniseries Mandela and de Klerk. The actor, who was ranked 55 in Empire Magazine's 1997 Top 100 Actors of All Time list, also kept busy as the co-owner of a successful London restaurant, and enjoyed a new wave of appreciation from younger filmmakers who praised him as the film industry's enduring model of British cool. This appreciation was further evidenced in 2000, when Caine was honored with a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his portrayal of an abortionist in The Cider House Rules. After launching the new millennium with both a revitalized career momentum and newfound popularity among fans who were too young to appreciate his early efforts, Caine once again scored a hit with the art-house circuit as the torturous Dr Royer-Collard in director Phillip Kaufman's Quills. Later paid homage by Hollywood icon Sylvester Stallone when the muscle-bound actor stepped into Caine's well-worn shoes for a remake of Get Carter (in which Caine also appeared in a minor role) the actor would gain positive notice the following year for his turn as a friend attempting to keep a promise in Last Orders. As if the Get Carter remake wasn't enought to emphasize Caine's coolness to a new generation of moviegoers, his turn as bespectacled super-spy Austin Powers' father in Austin Powers in Goldfinger proved that even years beyond The Italian Job Caine was still at the top of his game. Moving seamlessly from kitsch to stirring drama, Caine's role in 2002's The Quiet American earned the actor not only some of the best reviews of his later career, but another Oscar nomination as well. Caine had long demonstrated an unusual versatility that made him a cult favorite with popular and arthouse audiences, but as the decade wore on, he demonstrated more box-office savvy by pursuing increasingly lucrative audience pleasers, almost exclusively for a period of time. The thesp first resusciated the triumph of his Muppet role with a brief return to family-friendly material in Disney's Secondhand Lions, alongside screen legend Robert Duvall (Tender Mercies, The Apostle). The two play quirky great-uncles to a maladjusted adolescent boy (Haley Joel Osment), who take the child for the summer as a guest on their Texas ranch. The film elicited mediocre reviews (Carrie Rickey termed it "edgeless as a marshmallow and twice as syrupy") but scored with ticket buyers during its initial fall 2003 run. Caine then co-starred with Christopher Walken and Josh Lucas in the family issues drama Around the Bend (2004). In 2005, perhaps cued by the bankability of Goldfinger and Lions, Caine landed a couple of additional turns in Hollywood A-listers. In that year's Nicole Kidman/Will Ferrell starrer Bewitched, he plays Nigel Bigelow, Kidman's ever philandering warlock father. Even as critics wrote the vehicle off as a turkey, audiences didn't listen, and it did outstanding business, doubtless helped by the weight of old pros Caine and Shirley Maclaine. That same year's franchise prequel Batman Begins not only grossed dollar one, but handed Caine some of his most favorable notices to date, as he inherited the role of Bruce Wayne's butler, a role he would return to in both of the film's sequels, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. Caine contributed an elegiac portrayal to Gore Verbinski's quirky late 2005 character drama The Weatherman, as Robert Spritz, the novelist father of Nic Cage's David Spritz, who casts a giant shadow over the young man. In 2006, Caine joined the cast of the esteemed Alfonso Cuaron's dystopian sci-fi drama Children of Men, and lent a supporting role to Memento helmer Christopher Nolan's psychological thriller The Prestige. In 2009 Caine starred as the title character in Harry Brown, a thriller about a senior citizen vigilante, and the next year worked with Nolan yet again on the mind-bending Inception.

Trivia: Working as a Disneyland concessionaire in his teens, comedian Steve Martin's first experiences in entertainment were of the party performer variety -- he picked up skills in juggling, tap-dancing, sleight of hand, and balloon sculpting, among other things. He later attended U.C.L.A., where he majored in philosophy and theater before moving on to staff-writer stints for such TV performers as Glen Campbell, the Smothers Brothers, Dick Van Dyke, John Denver, and Sonny & Cher. Occasionally allowed to perform as well as write, Martin didn't go into standup comedy full-time until the late '60s, when he moved to Canada and appeared as a semi-regular on the syndicated TV variety series Half the George Kirby Comedy Hour. As the opening act for rock stars in the early '70s, Martin emulated the fashion of the era with a full beard, shaggy hair, colorful costumes, and drug jokes. Comedians of such ilk were common in this market, however, so Martin carefully developed a brand-new persona: the well-groomed, immaculately dressed young man who goes against his appearance by behaving like a lunatic. By 1975, he was the "Comic of the Hour," convulsing audiences with his feigned enthusiasm over the weakest of jokes and the most obvious of comedy props. His entire act a devastating parody of second-rate comedians who rely on preconditioning to get laughs, Martin became internationally famous for such catch phrases as "Excu-u-use me!," "Happy feet!," and "I am...one wild and crazy guy!" It was fun for a while to hear audiences shout them out even before he'd uttered them, but it wasn't long before Martin was tired of live standup and anxious to get into films. Though Martin had roles in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1977) and The Muppet Movie, Martin's true screen bow was The Jerk (1979), in which, with the seriousness of Olivier, he portrayed a bumbling, self-described poor black child-turned accidental millionaire. Had he been a lesser performer, Martin could have played variations on The Jerk for the remainder of his life, but he preferred to seek out new challenges. It took nerve to go against the sensibilities of his fans with an on-edge portrayal of a habitual loser in Pennies From Heaven (1981), but Martin was successful, even if the film wasn't. And few other actors could convincingly pull off a project like Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1983), wherein, and with utter conviction, he acted opposite film clips of dead movie stars. After a first-rate turn in All of Me (1984), in which he played a man whose body is inhabited by the soul of a woman, Martin's film work began to fluctuate in quality, only to emerge on top again with Roxanne (1987), a potentially silly but ultimately compelling update of Cyrano de Bergerac. Though he participated in a fair amount of misses in the '80s and '90s (Mixed Nuts (1994), Housesitter (1992), Leap of Faith (1992), and Sgt. Bilko (1996), to name a few), Martin was unarguably full of surprises, as witnessed in his unsympathetic portrayal in Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1989), his hilariously evil dentist in Little Shop of Horrors (1986), his angst-ridden father in Parenthood (1989), his smooth-talking Italian in My Blue Heaven, and his callow film producer in Grand Canyon (1991) -- though the public still seemed to prefer his standard comic performances in The Three Amigos (1986), Father of the Bride (1991), and L.A. Story (1991). Martin then went out on yet another artistic limb with A Simple Twist of Fate (1994) -- a film update of that high-school English-class perennial Silas Marner. After starring in a very dark role in David Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner (1997) and an unsuccessful return to comedy in The Out-of-Towners (1999), Martin again won acclaim for Bowfinger, a 1999 comedy-satire that cast him as its titular hero, an unsuccessful movie director trying to make a film without the aid of a real script or real star. Martin -- who also wrote the film's screenplay -- played the straight man against Eddie Murphy, once again impressing critics with his versatility. According to rumor, Martin based Heather Graham's character on former flame Ann Heche.In addition to his Hollywood activities, Martin is well-known for his intellectual pursuits. His play Picasso at the Lapin Agile was produced successfully off-Broadway, and he has contributed numerous humor pieces to The New Yorker magazine, and penned the bestselling novella Shopgirl. Martin was also a featured artist in the PBS documentary series Art 21: Art in the 21st Century and discussed the visual arts as an integral form of self-expression. The 2000's found Martin in a slew of smaller roles, including a cameo as a heckler in Remember the Titans (2000), and a supporting role in director Stanely Tucci's historical comedy drama Joe Gould's Secret (2000). In 2001's Novacaine, Martin found himself playing dentist for the second time in his life, though this dentist would be decidedly less sadistic than the one he had played in camp favorite Little Shop of Horrors (1986). Despite an all-star cast (besides Martin, Novacaine featured Oscar-winner Helena Bonham Carter and Laura Dern) the black comedy was dismally received. Luckily, 2003's odd-couple comedy Bringing Down the House with Queen Latifah, rapper and surprising Oscar nominee for her role in Chicago, fared relatively well in theaters. Martin teamed up with the likes of Brendan Fraser, Jenna Elfman, and Bugs Bunny in Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), in which he plays the evil Mr. Chairman, head of the monolithic Acme Corporation. A film version of Shopgirl starring Martin and Claire Danes is currently slated for a 2005 release. Martin would remain a vital comedic actor in the years to come, appearing in films like Baby Mama and It's Complicated.

Trivia: With her gentle, innocent demeanor, American actress Glenne Headly seems to be a throwback to the ingenues of the 1930s. A graduate of New York's High School of the Performing Arts, she attended the Herman Berghof Studios and the American College of Switzerland, then joined Chicago's New Works Ensemble. Later she moved on to Chicago's acclaimed Steppenwolf Theater Company, where she won four Jefferson Awards for her performances; there, she also met and married actor John Malkovich, whom she later divorced. She directed a play and appeared off-Broadway in Arms and the Man and on Broadway in Extremities. During the early '80s she played small supporting parts in films, but didn't make an impact until her co-starring role in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988). She appeared with Malkovich in Eleni (1985) and Making Mr. Right (1987). She also appeared in the TV western mini-series Lonesome Dove (1989), and played Tess Trueheart, Warren Beatty's fiancee, in Dick Tracy (1990).

Trivia: British character actor, onscreen from the '60s; he often played underdogs.

Trivia: Goodman graduate Barbara Harris was among the earliest members of Chicago's Second City improvisational troupe. Harris' "everybody's best friend" demeanor, her good looks and offbeat sense of humor assured her steady work both off and on Broadway. In 1967 she won a Tony Award for her work in the whimsical Broadway musical The Apple Tree. Harris made her film debut as the heart-on-sleeve social worker Sandra (which happened to be her real first name) in 1965's A Thousand Clowns. She then re-created her Broadway role in the hot-and-cold movie version of Arthur Kopit's Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad. In 1971, Harris was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (did she enjoy selecting films with long-winded titles?) Her subsequent film appearances were as infrequent as they were unpredictable. Only director Robert Altman would have had the inspired notion of casting the very urban Barbara as a country-western wannabe in Nashville (1975); and only Alfred Hitchcock would have come up with the brilliant idea of casting Barbara as a lovably crooked psychic in Family Plot (1976). Both were out-of-left-field casting choices, and both worked superbly -- a tribute not only to the directors' intuition but also to Barbara Harris' boundless versatility.

Trivia: Known to millions of Star Wars fans as the scabby and nefarious Emperor Palpatine, Scottish actor Ian McDiarmid also happens to have built a career as one of the London theatre's most acclaimed and influential figures. The co-artistic director (along with Jonathan Kent) of Islington's Almeida Theatre since 1990, McDiarmid has been, in large part, responsible for the Almeida's transformation from obscure fringe theatre to one of London's most respected playhouses. Alongside Kent, he was named by one theatre critic as one of the "capital's prime impresarios."Born in Carnoustie, Scotland, on April 17, 1947, McDiarmid grew up in Dundee, Tayside. Although he nurtured an interest in the theatre from a young age, he put aside his stage inclinations to study social sciences at St. Andrews University. Ultimately deciding that he was not suited for a career as a clinical psychologist, McDiarmid decided to take the plunge into acting, working for a year to support his training courses at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. After completing his study, he performed with various fringe theatres throughout Scotland and England, and eventually joined the vaunted Royal Shakespeare Company.McDiarmid began moving into television and film in the late 1970s with his casting in a supporting role in the TV series The Professionals. He made his film debut in 1980, but did not have his first major -- or memorable -- role until he was cast as the Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi (1983). Like so many other actors in the Star Wars trilogy who traded in recognizable facial/bodily/vocal features for the demands of their often heavily made-up or computerized characters, McDiarmid did earn a certain amount of fame for his work in the film, but it was largely confined to the realm of enthusiastic Star Wars fans.While the actor continued to appear onscreen in such features as Gorky Park (1983) and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), his first love was the theatre, and it was in his capacity as a stage actor and director that he made and continues to make his greatest impact. In 1998, McDiarmid and Kent won the Evening Standard's Theatrical Achievement of the Year award. The following year, McDiarmid appeared in Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow and reprised the role of Emporer Palpatine -- albeit a younger, less made-up version of the character -- for the hugely-hyped Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, which succeeded in introducing him to a new generation of Star Wars fans. After appearing in the World War I drama All the Kings Men the same year, McDiarmid returned to the role of Palpatine in 2002's Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones and again in the franchise-closer Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Trivia: Her name may not ring any bells, but talented actress Dana Ivey has a face familiar to audiences thanks to countless supporting roles in such high-profile films as The Color Purple (1985), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Sabrina (1995), and Legally Blonde 2 (2003). And though she was almost always at least halfway down the credits list, Ivey consistently added dimension and personality to even the most minor roles. A Georgia native who got her start on-stage, Ivey appeared in numerous American and Canadian theater productions before making her home in New York during the 1980s. It wasn't long before she rose through the ranks of the New York stage scene and made her Broadway debut in Noël Coward's Present Laughter. Roles in Quartermaine's Terms and Driving Miss Daisy (as the eponymous character) earned Ivey two Obies and found her reputation as an actress growing. Subsequent work in the Broadway production of Heartbreak Hotel earned her two supporting actress Tony nominations in the mid-'80s. In 1978, Ivey made her television debut in the daytime soap opera Search for Tomorrow, and soon her small-screen career blossomed in such efforts as the NBC miniseries Little Gloria... Happy at Last. Though Ivey simultaneously nurtured a feature career with supporting roles in Explorers and The Color Purple, it was her performance in the 1986 sitcom Easy Street that truly found her coming into her own on the television. After recalling her previous stage exploits with Heartbreak House and Sunday in the Park With George in 1986, Ivey joined the cast of All My Children in 1989 and spent the majority of the following decade in such features as The Addams Family (1991), Sabrina (1995), and Simon Birch (1998). Although her career leaned increasingly toward feature work, Ivey also remained true to her stage roots, appearing in such plays as The Glass Menagerie in 1998 and Major Barbara in 2001.

Trivia: Veteran stage actress Frances Conroy studied drama at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Juilliard School in New York. During the '70s, she performed regularly with regional and touring theater companies, including an off-Broadway production of Othello with Richard Dreyfuss and Raul Julia. One of her first film appearances was as a generic Shakespearean actress in Woody Allen's 1979 classic Manhattan. In 1980, she made her Broadway debut in The Lady From Dubuque. Small roles followed in feature films like the sports drama Amazing Grace and Chuck and the family drama Rocket Gibraltar (as one of Burt Lancaster's daughters). She mainly focused on her stage career for the rest of the '80s, appearing with the Broadway cast of Our Town and receiving several Drama Desk nominations.In 1992, Conroy became friends with famed playwright Arthur Miller. This friendship led to much involvement in his productions, on both stage and screen. During this time, she also appeared on some television shows, miniseries, and made-for-TV movies, and met and married fellow actor Jan Munroe. She was nominated for a Tony Award in 1998 for her work on the Broadway hit Ride Down Mt. Morgan. Like many of her theatrically trained colleagues, she received unexpected attention for the award-winning HBO dramatic series Six Feet Under. For her role of family matriarch Ruth Fisher, she's been recognized by the Screen Actor's Guild, the Golden Globes, and the Emmys. Following small roles in the mainstream Maid in Manhattan and the independent Die Mommie Die, Conroy portrayed legendary actress Katharine Hepburn's mother, Kit, in Martin Scorsese's 2004 Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator.In 2005 she had a small part in the drama Broken Flowers, and appeared in the ill-fated remake of The Wicker Man in 2006. In 2008 she lent her vocal talents to the cast of The Tale of Despereaux and in 2010 she acted with Robert De Niro in the drama Stone. 2011 saw her return to the small screen with a part in American Horror Story.

Trivia: Educated at Roosevelt University, bearded, booming-voiced Louis Zorich has been a working actor for nearly 50 years. Zorich made his off-Broadway debut in a revival of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, and has appeared on Broadway in Becket, Moby Dick, Hadrian VII, and Moonchildren. He also appeared as Ben in Dustin Hoffman's 1984 staging of Death of a Salesman, repeating this role in the 1985 film version. On television, Zorich has been seen as Jules Berger in Brooklyn Bridge (1991) and as Paul Reiser's father in Mad About You (which ran from 1992 to 1999), and heard in innumerable commercial voice-overs. Louis Zorich is the husband of Oscar-winning actress Olympia Dukakis.

Trivia: Producer/writer Stanley Shapiro came to films after years in the radio and TV mills. He specialized in frothy romantic comedies, usually starring Doris Day. He won an Oscar for the screenplay of the Day/Hudson hit Pillow Talk (1959), and also wrote the popular Cary Grant vehicles Operation Petticoat (1959) and That Touch of Mink (1962) (again with Doris Day as co-star). The last film to carry Stanley Shapiro's name in the credits was 1988's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, a remake of Shapiro's 1964 farce Bedroom Story.