Trivia: Sandy Dennis was a distinctive actress with a flighty demeanor who enjoyed popularity during the '60s and early '70s. The Nebraska-born Dennis began her career in local stock companies, then studied at New York's Actors' Studio, where she embraced method acting. She debuted onscreen in Splendor in the Grass (1961) with Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty. On Broadway, she won two Tony Awards in successive years, for A Thousand Clowns (1963) and Any Wednesday (1964). For her second screen performance, as George Segal's academic wife in the Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Dennis won the "Best Supporting Actress" Oscar. She went on to get leads and co-starring roles in a number of films, but remained primarily a stage actress; after 1971 her film work was sporadic. She died of cancer in 1992.

Trivia: Born into a lower-income California family, actress/pop singer Cher (born Cherilyn Sarkisian) attempted to escape her poverty by entering show business as a go-go dancer at the age of 16. She met and married singer/promoter Sonny Bono, who lifted her from obscurity as half of the immensely popular singing duo Sonny and Cher. The diminutive, ebullient Bono and the tall, deadpan Cher became a top recording team (their big hit was "I Got You, Babe") and a regular guest act on the many variety shows of the period. Sonny and Cher continued their upward climb until musical tastes changed in the early '70s, whereupon they began concentrating on comedy sketches and kidding-on-the-square insults directed at one another in their own variety weekly, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, which enjoyed a successful three-year network run beginning in 1971. It was on this program that Cher, began sharpening her acting versatility in such sketch roles as brash housewife Laverne, sardonic waitress Rosa, and a whole slew of historical vamps. But Cher began to chafe at Bono's hold on her career and her private life, and the couple divorced in 1974. Both Sonny and Cher were starring on separate TV series that fall, but they also each faced poor ratings; so the pair decided to team up professionally once more in 1976 for a new Sonny & Cher Show, although Cher was now married to Gregg Allman and pregnant with their son Elijah. But the old chemistry was no longer there, and the new program was canceled in the following year. Bono eased out of show business for a successful political career, while Cher began seeking out film work. At first treated condescendingly by critics, she matured into a first-rate actress in such movies as Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982) (repeating her Broadway role), Silkwood (1983), Mask (1985), Suspect (1987), and Moonstruck (1987). She was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Silkwood, received one for her role in Moonstruck, and shared a Best Actress award at Cannes for her supporting role in Mask. Something of an enigma in the show business world, Cher has managed to retain her stature as a highly respected film actress while promoting exercise videos and a line of cosmetics, in addition to recording new chart-topping songs and appearing in music videos.She was mother to Winona Ryder in the quirky comedy Mermaids in 1990, and two years later she was one of the many celebrities who made cameos as themselves in Robert Altman's scathing Hollywood satire The Player. She appeared in and directed one of the segments of the abortion drama If These Walls Could Talk, and was part of the impressive ensemble put together for 1999's Tea With Missolini. She had a very funny turn in Stuck on You, and mounted a farewell concert tour in 2003. She was away from the big-screen for a period of years, but came back with the campy musical Burlesque opposite Christina Aguilera in 2010. The next year she lent her distinctive voice to one of the animals in the Kevin James vehicle Zoozeeper.

Trivia: Karen Black began acting shortly after college, appearing in off-Broadway satirical revues. She trained with Lee Strasberg at the Actors' Studio. Her Broadway debut was in a play that closed within a month, The Playroom (1965), but she was acclaimed for her performance and nominated for a Critics Circle award. A year later, 26-year-old filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola cast her in his first professional film, You're a Big Boy Now (1967), a comedy in which she co-starred as one of three women involved with a young man learning about sex. After another film she landed her first important role, as an LSD-taking prostitute in the surprise hit Easy Rider (1969), which featured Jack Nicholson; she went on to appear again with Nicholson in her next two films: Five Easy Pieces (1970), for which she won the New York Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress and an Oscar nomination; and Drive He Said (1971), Nicholson's directorial debut. She went on from there to be one of the screen's busiest actresses, though the quality of her films has been wildly uneven.

Trivia: A one-time dancer and choreographer, American actress Sudie Bond made her Broadway debut in Summer and Smoke (1952). While she played plenty of films, notably the character of Thelma Rice in Silkwood (1983), she was most visibly employed on television. Bond played Violet Stapleton on the longrunning CBS daytime drama Guiding Light, a role eventually taken over by Kate Wilkinson. She valiantly portrayed Paul Lynde's mother on the 1972 prime time sitcom Temperatures Rising. And from 1980 through 1981, Bond was seen as Polly Holliday's mother on Flo, the briefly popular spinoff of Alice. The actress toted up additional TV credits on such series as Maude, Mary Hartman Mary Hartman and Benson. Sudie Bond died in her New York City apartment, shortly after completing a performance of the off-Broadway play The Foreigner.

Trivia: Actress Kathy Bates has been involved in the arts in one way or another since graduating from Southern Methodist University. Among the Memphis native's earliest jobs were a stint as a singing waitress in a Catskill resort and a sojourn as a gift shop cashier in New York's Museum of Modern Art. Bates was type-cast in character roles early on, which assured her a lot more work than the thousands of faceless ingenues in the business. Her film debut occurred with 1971's Taking Off, and she made her off-Broadway debut five years later in Vanities.For a long while, Bates made her name on the stage, only to see her roles go to other actresses in the plays' subsequent film adaptations. In 1983, she was nominated for a Tony award for her stage appearance as a garrulous would-be suicide in 'Night, Mother, a role played on screen by Sissy Spacek. She also appeared as Lenny McGrath in Beth Henley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Crimes of the Heart, a role played on screen by Diane Keaton. And in 1987, playwright Terrence McNally wrote a part specifically tailored to Bates' talents: the much-abused waitress Frankie in Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, a role which won her an Obie award, and, following a familiar pattern, was played on screen by Michelle Pfeiffer.Bates finally got to star in a movie herself in 1990. And what a starring role it was: in Misery, she portrayed the psychotic "Number One Fan" of romance writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan), a searing performance which earned the actress an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. Appropriately enough, Hollywood screenwriters subsequently began making more room for Bates in their scripts. She worked steadily throughout the rest of the decade in films of greatly varying quality. Particular highlights included Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), A Prelude to a Kiss (1992), Dolores Claiborne (1995), Titanic (1997), and Primary Colors (1998), the latter of which featured Bates giving an Oscar and Golden Globe nominated performance as a political muckraker. Following her firey, foul-mouthed performance in that thinly veilied political biopic, Bates added a new credential to her resume, that of director. Initially taking the helm for the made-for-cable feature Dash and Lilly, Bates would subsequently direct episodes of the quirky HBO drama series Six Feet Under, simultaniously taking minor film roles before returning to more substantial roles with the CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame entry My Sister's Keeper. Roles in Love Liza and Dragonfly (both 2002) were soon to follow, and with her turn as an extroverted mother who catches the attention of Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt Bates would recieve her third Oscar nomination.She directed a number of episodes of the HBO series Six Feet Under before joining the cast in season 3 as Bettina. The next year she portrayed Queen Victoria in the big-budget remake of Around the World in 80 Days. She directed he feature Ambulance Girl in 2005. She continued to act steadily in a variety of projects including Failure to Launch, P.S. I Love You, Fred Claus, Bee Movie, and Revolutionary Road. She provided expert support for Sandra Bulock as the younger actress was winning an Oscar in The Blind Side, and Bates joined the cast of The Office in 2009. She was part of the large ensemble in 2010'ss Valentine's Day, and in 2011 starred as Gertrude Stein in Woody Allen's Oscar winning Midnight in Paris. That same year she launched her own network Drama series Harry's Law.

Trivia: One of Hollywood's most steadily employed character actresses, Caroline Aaron has appeared in an impressive array of films for some of the industry's most esteemed directors. A native of Richmond, VA, where she was born August 7, 1952, Aaron made her film debut as a waitress in John Sayles' Baby, It's You (1982). Her subsequent film credits include Sayles' Brother From Another Planet (1984), Mike Nichols' Heartburn (1986), Working Girl (1988), and Primary Colors (1998); Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Alice (1990), Husbands and Wives (1992), and Deconstructing Harry (1997); Nora Ephron's Sleepless in Seattle (1993), and Wayne Wang's Anywhere but Here (1999). In 2000, she popped up in Nichols' alien comedy What Planet Are You From? and Don Roos' romantic drama Bounce, co-starring Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow.Aaron has also acted extensively on television and the stage. Within the former medium, she has guest starred on such popular series as Mad About You and Law & Order, while she has appeared on-stage in such acclaimed works as the Broadway production of The Iceman Cometh and the national tour of Wendy Wasserstein's The Sisters Rosensweig.