Trivia: Howard Hesseman's early credits have sometimes been hard to trace, mainly because he often billed himself as "Don Sturdy." The mustachioed, prematurely balding Hesseman was a founding member of the San Francisco-based improv troupe The Committee. During his decade-long tenure with this aggregation, he was featured in such films as Petulia (1968) and A Session with the Committee (1970), and showed up on such TV series as The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Dick Cavett Show. Through the auspices of his Committee cohort Peter Bonerz, Hesseman played a recurring role on TV's The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78), playing the unsuccessful producer of such TV disasters as "The Nazi Hour." His screen roles in the 1970s included a showy part as a harried TV-commercial director in the opening sequence of The Sunshine Boys. In 1978, Hesseman achieved celebrity in the role of counterculture deejay Dr. Johnny Fever (aka Johnny Caravella) on the popular sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati. Following WKRP's cancellation in 1982, he spent two seasons playing Ann Romano's third (and presumably final) husband Sam Royer on the weekly One Day at a Time. From 1986 to 1990, he starred as urbane high school teacher Charlie Moore in TV's Head of the Class. During all this activity, Howard Hesseman continued showing up in feature films, playing such roles as smarmy promoter Terry Ladd in This is Spinal Tap (1984) and child star Patty Duke's manipulative manager/guardian John Ross in the TV biopic Call Me Anna (1989). Over the following several years, Hessman would remain active on screen, appearnig on shows like That 70's Show and Crossing Jordan, and in movies like The Rocker.

Trivia: Multi-talented Billy Connolly is a world-famous comic, an actor on stage, screen, and television, a playwright, and a folk musician. Connolly was born on the kitchen floor of a Glasgow tenement in 1942. During the war, his father William joined the Royal Air Force and due to the stress of separation, his marriage to Connolly's mother disintegrated, leaving William in charge of raising Connolly and his little sister, Flo. He in turn sent the children to live with his two sisters, which made for a difficult home life as they resented their new responsibilities. At age 15, Connolly left school and worked as a delivery boy at a bookstore and then a bakery until he was old enough to work in the shipyards. In 1960, Connolly began a five-year welding apprenticeship. He left in the early '60s to join the Parachute regiment of the Territorial Army and during his stint completed 17 parachute jumps. After leaving the military, he finished his welding apprenticeship and took a job constructing an oil rig in Biafra, Nigeria. The work was unpleasant and eventually he returned to Glasgow.An episode of The Beverly Hillbillies inspired Connolly to buy a banjo and, following experience in other folky bands, founded the Humblebums with guitarist Tam Harvey. They were later joined by pop singer Gerry Rafferty. Their music, coupled with Connolly's joke-telling between songs, led to considerable popularity, and the Humblebums enjoyed the wild life of touring, partying, and doing everything excessively. Due to his growing tendency to dominate their concerts with comedy, he and Rafferty had a falling out and the group disbanded in 1971 while they were in London. Connolly stayed and worked on his comedy career. By 1975, he had become a roaring success and was touring like a madman. In 1977, he wrote his first play, the unsuccessful An' Me Wi' A Bad Leg, Tae. Actually, none of his subsequent plays were as successful as his irreverent and sometimes coarse standup routines. In 1979, Connolly made his film debut in Absolution, a drama starring Richard Burton. By the 1980s, Connolly had become a superstar in the U.K. and was having trouble with privacy issues, drinking, and exhaustion. He was involved in a bitter divorce/custody battle with his first wife, and his girlfriend Pamela Stephensen was pregnant. His divorce was granted in 1985 and he received custody of his two children. In the late '80s, Stephenson was working on Saturday Night Live in New York; Connolly periodically guested on the show and on David Letterman. He also did an HBO special with Whoopie Goldberg. In 1989, Connolly starred opposite Liam Neeson in The Big Man, married Stephenson, and replaced Howard Hesseman in the American sitcom Head of the Class. He proved successful and Warners signed a two-year contract with him. But the series was canceled and so Connolly was hired to portray the same character in a new sitcom, Billy, which was based on the film Green Card. He and his family decided to remain in the U.S.; shortly after settling in, the series was canceled. He made a cameo appearance in Indecent Proposal in 1992 and the following year returned to Glasgow to appear in Down Among the Big Boys. Since then he has become more involved with BBC television, notably in a fascinating tour of Scotland that resulted in his winning a Scottish BAFTA award. He also won a Best Arts Programme award for the BBC production The Bigger Picture and a Best Drama award for Down Among the Big Boys. Connolly continued his U.S. film career and even occasionally made guest appearances on U.S. television as he did in the short-lived 1996-1997 sitcom Pearl. Connolly received the best reviews for any of his dramatic work playing opposite Judi Dench in the engaging drama Mrs. Brown. He continued to balance a respected career as a stand-up comic with work in small films such as Beverly Hills Ninja, The Boondock Saints, Who Is Cletus Trout, and An Everlasting Piece. He scored a dramatic role in a big American film with his appearance in The Last Samurai opposite Tom Cruise, and was one of the many funny people who contributed to The Aristocrats. In 2006 Connolly kept the laughs coming opposite Jim Carrey in the highly stylized Brad Siberling comedy Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, and an appearance as a vile lord with lofty designs for the future in Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties. A vocal performance as a rogue squirrel in the computer animated adventure Open Season marked the first time Connolly had returned to the world of animation since the 1995 Disney musical Pocohontas. Connolly would continue to remain an active force in entertainment for years to come, appearing in movies like the comedy-horror Fido, and the fantasy adventure film Gulliver's Travels.

Trivia: A fair-haired character actress who maintained a nearly constant presence in American television series and features (making her countenance eminently familiar), Jeanetta Arnette began her career in late-'70s exploitation pictures, such as the 1977 releases Teenage Graffiti and The Class Reunion Massacre. Beginning with a bit part as a party guest in Blake Edwards' midlife-crisis comedy 10 (1979), however, Arnette segued gently into more mainstream efforts. She specialized in playing upbeat, highly energetic women with a professional edge. Early assignments included Rob Cohen's underrated Age of Aquarius period film A Small Circle of Friends (1980), the made-for-television sci-fi opus Brave New World (1980), and Andrew V. McLaglen's telemovie Western The Shadow Riders (1982). Arnette achieved her broadest fame and recognition for several years in 1986, when she signed on to play Bernadette Meara, the assistant principal of the Monroe High School for teen prodigies, on the popular sitcom Head of the Class (1986-1991) -- a role she carried for the entire run of the series. Subsequent assignments included the Rodney Dangerfield comedy Ladybugs (1992), the gender-bending melodrama Boys Don't Cry (1999), and Lasse Hallström's offbeat romantic drama The Shipping News (2001). In 2007, Arnette tackled a more prominent role in director David Gordon Green's earnest ensemble drama Snow Angels.

Trivia: Gen-X'ers will almost invariably recall actor Brian Robbins; he began his career by starring in a multi-season run as Eric Mardian, a self-styled slickster forced into the same high-school class with a group of nerdy brainiacs, in the Howard Hesseman ABC sitcom Head of the Class (1986-1991). Robbins also appeared in other projects at around the same time, including episodes of Growing Pains, the sci-fi exploitation outing C.H.U.D. 2: Bud the C.H.U.D. (1989) and the family-friendly telemovie Camp Cucamonga (1990). Around 1993, Robbins abandoned acting by stepping behind the camera, as a director, producer, and eventually, executive-level Hollywood studio producer -- and thus achieved far greater success in that venue than he did as a young star. Among other endeavors, Robbins was responsible for such blockbuster series as Smallville, What I Like About You, and One Tree Hill, and features such as the Eddie Murphy comedy Norbit (2007).

Trivia: African American model/actress Robin Givens first gained national prominence as a regular on the TV series Head of the Class. From 1986 through 1991, Robin played Darlene Merriman, a prep-school type attending a high school honors program. Though she was but one of an ensemble, Givens's participation in the series was hyped by the network on the occasion of her marriage to boxing champ Mike Tyson. The marriage ended in divorce, after only a few years, amidst accusations of brutality and infidelity. Givens has proven she is not merely an adjunct to Mike Tyson's fame with excellent performances in such TV and movie projects as The Women of Brewster Place (1989) and A Rage in Harlem (1991), and the TV series Courthouse. Givens would remain active on screen over the coming decades, starring on other series, like Sparks, and in movies like Head of State and The Family That Preys.

Trivia: Supporting actor Jonathan Ke Quan (he originally billed himself by his birth name Quan Ke Huy) made his film debut playing the adorable and feisty street kid Short Round opposite Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). He then co-starred in Goonies (1985). He also was a regular in the TV series Together We Stand (1986) and between 1990 and 1991, he was a regular on the television sitcom Head of the Class. Quan's Hollywood film career ended in 1992 with the film Encino Man. Quan was born in Vietnam, but raised in the United States.