Trivia: With long, shapely legs, a svelte, curvaceous body to die for, and thick black hair cascading around her lovely face, Fran Drescher has all the looks of a sophisticated movie star. And then she opens her mouth. Out comes a crow-like cacophony of nasal sounds made more grating by a thick Queens accent and a tendency to pull no punches. The paradox between the book and its cover is what has made Drescher a rich and popular comedienne; her long-running sitcom The Nanny, with its combination of romantic and slapstick comedy, led many to hail her as Lucille Ball's successor. Though she capitalizes on playing a rather ditzy working-class gal from Flushing, Drescher is known for her creativity and shrewdness. In addition to acting, she is a talented writer and producer.Much of Drescher's comedy, especially that from her sitcom, is drawn from her life experiences. Like her character, Fran Fine, she was born and raised in Queens. She has had a lifelong interest in acting and studied drama in high school. She attended a year at Queens College and then attended cosmetology school to become a hairdresser. For a time, she had her own business. She made her film debut playing Connie in Saturday Night Fever (1977). Her next film, American Hot Wax (1978), provided Drescher with her first major role and though she would continue on to play supporting parts in numerous other films, it was not until she played a small but memorable part in Rob Reiner's hilarious mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap (1984) that she began making a name for herself. In addition to her film roles, she was also busy on television, guest starring in series and appearing in television films like Terror in the Towers. She played starring roles in three short-lived series, including Princesses. She and her husband Peter Marc Jacobson created The Nanny and it aired on CBS from 1993 to 1999. She not only starred in the show, but also wrote and produced it; Drescher received Emmy nominations for her work on the show. In 1996, she co-starred with Robin Williams in the Disney comedy Jack, while in 1997, she and Jacobson co-created the idea for the romantic comedy The Beautician and the Beast, in which she also starred. Drescher published her autobiography, Enter Whining, in 1996.Drescher once again drew from her life experiences in the 2002 memoir Cancer Schmancer, which chronicled the actress's battle with uterine cancer, and formed the Cancer Schmancer Movement in 2007. The nonprofit is dedicated to educating women about cancer prevention and the importance of early detection (Drescher's cancer was initially misdiagnosed). In 2011, Drescher appeared on Oprah Winfrey to discuss her relationship with her then ex-husband Peter Mark Jacobson after he came out as gay after the end of their 21-year marriage. The television series Happily Divorced (2011-2013) is based on her experience with Jacobson.

Trivia: While at Cambridge, appeared in a comedy troupe called Footlights Revue. Trained at London's Central School for Speech and Drama. When he played Shane Donovan on the soap Days of Our Lives from 1984 to 1992, pictures that were on the mantel in his TV home were actually old Shaughnessy family photos. (The actor reprised his role for a multiple-episode stint in May 2010.) Has been a contestant on Celebrity Jeopardy, as well as the game shows Super Password, The New Hollywood Squares, Win Lose or Draw, To Tell the Truth and Hollywood Squares. Became the fifth Baron Shaughnessy of Montreal and Ashford in 2007. Has been active in AIDS and antiwar organizations.

Trivia: It was only a matter of time before burgeoning teen star Nicholle Tom joined the family business. Her older sister, Heather Tom, won a Daytime Emmy for her portrayal of Victoria Newman on the soap The Young and the Restless and her twin brother, David Tom, has had roles in Pleasantville and Swing Kids.Tom grew up in Seattle and Los Angeles, but was born in Hinsdale, IL, on March 23, 1978. She and her brother did print ads and commercials in Chicago before the family headed out west. Soon after they moved to L.A., Tom began winning high-profile parts in films (Beethoven) and television shows (Beverly Hills 90210, The Nanny). She basically grew up on The Nanny and has embarked on a somewhat successful film and TV-movie career since the show ended in 1999. She starred with Olympic champ Tara Lipinski in the made-for-TV movie Ice Angel and has turned in supporting roles in Panic and The Princess Diaries.

Trivia: Fans of 1990s prime-time sitcoms will invariably remember actress Madeline Zima as the sugar-sweet, angelic Grace, six-year-old daughter of British theatrical producer Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy), on the Fran Drescher series comedy The Nanny. In fact, when Zima landed that part, she had already tackled child roles in features as diverse as The Hand that Rocks the Cradle (1992) and Mr. Nanny (1993). The Drescher series, of course, represented Zima's breakthrough, and by the late '90s, the young actress (who remained with the sitcom cast for all six seasons, until it wrapped in 1999) had blossomed into a starkly beautiful teenager. She branched out into more adult-oriented material with an uncanny portrayal of the young Lucille Ball in the telemovie Lucy (2003), then returned to series programs with a regular role on the quirky David Duchovny-headlined Showtime comedy drama Californication (2007). She went on to appear in The Collector, The Family Tree, Crazy Eyes, and Lake Effects.

Trivia: African American actor Thomas Kent Carter played leading roles on screen from 1980.

Trivia: Though ultimately credited with carrying the West Coast rap musical subgenre into the mainstream, rapper and hip-hop artist extraordinaire Coolio (born Artis Leon Ivey Jr.) endured a decidedly shaky and obstacle-laden road to success. Born in South Central Los Angeles in 1963, Coolio grew up in the ghetto during the '60s and '70s. During his adolescence, he lived out the myth of the young urban "gangsta," flirting dangerously with hardcore crimes that included gang violence, larceny, concealed weapons, and crack cocaine addiction. After cleaning up his life with extensive drug rehabilitation and "straight" jobs as a fireman in the Pacific Northwest and a security guard at LAX airport, Coolio launched himself as a rap performer. Initially, Coolio struggled (with several singles that accomplished little of note) before his breakthrough arrived -- via "guesting" on WC and the Maad Circle's 1991 album Ain't a Damn Thing Changed. One turn led to another, and as a product of his association with WC and Maad, Coolio caught the attention of Tommy Boy Records. This association produced a series of multi-platinum albums -- notably, the seminal late-1995 release Gangsta's Paradise; the title track (spun off of a 1976 Stevie Wonder tune) became something of a musical phenomenon and a cultural landmark. Thanks to Tommy Boy's efforts, the single gained initial notoriety by appearing on the soundtrack to the Michelle Pfeiffer juvenile delinquency drama Dangerous Minds. Musically, however, that represented Coolio's highest commercial peak for many years, and his subsequent albums sold fewer copies. Perhaps foreseeing this decline, he began branching away from recording and into acting around 1996, which was a wise turn, to say the least; it compensated for ongoing legal trouble and decreased record sales in the years to follow. In terms of contributions to filmed entertainment, Coolio began on the small screen, as an extension of his rap work, by recording the theme song to the popular Nickelodeon children's series Kenan & Kel; he then extended this into a kind of goofy, family-friendly comic persona, with trademark wild dreadlocks, ever-present on both Nick and on the revival of the '70s game show Hollywood Squares. The rapper's on-camera cinematic roles began inauspiciously, with turns in such lackluster motion pictures as Phat Beach and Dear God, but he scored his first part in a Hollywood A-list movie the following year, as the banker in Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin. The film qualified as a critical disaster (though not a commercial one). The onscreen exposure of Batman doubtless helped Coolio's image and lifted his stature, though not to the degree that one might expect. After 1997, he consistently turned up in low-brow fare that attracted little attention -- such as the 2000 inner-city opus Dope Case Pending (opposite Kid Frost) and Darrell James Roodt's little-seen sci-fi horror outing Dracula.3000 (2004). In 2005, Coolio teamed with Class of 1984 director Mark L. Lester for the direct-to-video sci-fi action opus Pterodactyl.