Trivia: Pronounced "shy," like the colloquial term for his hometown of Chicago, Chi McBride didn't get into acting until he was 30 years old. He is probably most recognized for his role as principal Steven Harper on Fox's Boston Public. Before his first movie, he worked for a phone company, trained as a gospel singer, and joined the hip-hop band Covert. With McBride as a producer and vocalist, the band released their first and only album For Your Bootay Only in 1991. Not soon after, he started appearing as a guest star on Fox sitcoms, including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. His feature-length debut happened a year later in Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation. Billed as simply Chi, he then gained small roles for the Eddie Murphy movie The Distinguished Gentleman and the Tina Turner story What's Love Got to Do With It? In 1993, McBride found a spot for himself on NBC for The John Larroquette Show, playing the janitor Heavy Gene. Teaming up next with the Hudlin brothers, he then appeared in the HBO Twilight Zone-style trilogy Cosmic Slop, hosted by George Clinton. His next few diverse projects were supporting roles in Peter Jackson's horror comedy The Frighteners, Bill Duke's period crime flick Hoodlum, and the action thriller Mercury Rising. McBride's first leading role came in the form of the short-lived and controversial UPN sitcom The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, playing the stuffy English title character who was mistakenly enslaved to Abraham Lincoln. After appearances in Gone in 60 Seconds and Disney's The Kid, he found his well-known spot on Boston Public. While gaining high marks for his role on the David E. Kelley drama, McBride parlayed his increased notoriety into a number of higher-profile big-screen roles.2002 found McBride as a police captain in the intense cop-thriller Narc, and the over-the-top Chief in the comedy Undercover Brother. And while the following year saw Boston Public cancelled, the free-time afforded to McBride by the show's end only allowed him to sign on to roles in two of 2004's most anticipated films, the Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks dramedy The Terminal and I, Robot, an action sci-fi flick starring Will Smith. Over the course of the next decade the reliable McBride became increasingly active on the small screen, essaying recurring roles on such hit shows as House and Pushing Daisies. Later, in 2012, he voiced the role of Nick Fury in the animated superhero series Ultimate Spider-Man.

Trivia: A descendent of a long line of talented actors including father James and sister Tyne, boyishly handsome screen regular Tim Daly has endured to overcome a post Wings career slump with a successful series of film and television roles. The New York City native first took to the stage in summer stock while studying at Bennington College; he followed graduation with a few seasons at Providence's Trinity Square Repertory and then made his off-Broadway debut in 1984 with Fables for Friends. Daly's film career got off to a healthy start with his role as a young expectant father in Diner (1982), though in the years that followed, the fresh-faced star was relegated mostly to small-screen roles. A Broadway bow opposite Annette Bening in Coastal Disturbances proved that Daly did indeed have the talent to make it as an actor if casting directors could see past his youthful exterior, and with his upcoming role in Wings, the rising star would prove his worth not only at comedy but drama as well. Cast opposite Steven Weber as one of two brothers who own a small Nantucket airline, Daly stayed with Wings through the series' seven-year run (1990-1997). During that time, he also utilized the predictable production schedule as a means to experiment with dramatic roles in a series of memorable made-for-television features. If audiences had pigeonholed Daly as a small-screen lightweight, a role as cult leader David Koresh in In the Line of Duty: Ambush in Waco showed that the versatile actor was capable of much more. Some of Daly's other roles from the mid-'90s may have proved less than memorable, but his vocal contributions to the animated television series Superman (for which he voiced the Man of Steel himself) kept him busy before he landed the role of astronaut James Lovell in the acclaimed HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (1998). As audiences began to realize Daly's talent thanks to memorable parts in Storm of the Century (1999) and an updated version of the television classic The Fugitive, it seemed as if the veteran actor might have finally overcome his youthful outward appearance to command some respect. Though Daly would indeed impress with his role as Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive, the series lasted only one season and it would be two years before he would return to the screen in the made-for-television drama The Outsider. In the years that followed, Daly's film career experienced something of a revival when he was cast in such high-profile releases as Basic (2003) and Against the Ropes (2004). The longtime actor also made his directorial debut in 2004 with the mournful drama Bereft. Daly became well-known for his portrayal of a naturopathic doctor Pete Wilder on NBC's drama series Private Practice. After leaving the show at the end of the 5th season, Daly voiced the character of Superman in Justice League: Doom (2012). This wasn't the first time the actor voiced the legendary superhero; he also worked on the 2010 animated feature Superman/Batman: Apocalypse. Daly maintained his TV roots, with guest arcs on The Mindy Project and Hot in Cleveland, before taking a regular role on Madam Secretary in 2014.

Trivia: Scott Wolf is perhaps most recognizable as a member of the unusually talented young ensemble cast of Fox's television series Party of Five. Like castmates Neve Campbell, Jeremy London, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Michael Goorjian, Wolf has a promising film career. Born in Boston, MA, but raised in West Orange, NJ, Wolf attended George Washington University and earned a degree in finance. Wolf's entry into dramatics was facilitated by family friend and former actor Clint Brady, who thought the youth had a natural gift for acting. Wolf took his advice and studied acting at New York's HB Studio and then studied under Robert Carnegie at Playhouse West in California. He started out on television, appearing in several commercials and then graduated to bit parts and guest-starring roles on series ranging from Saved By the Bell to The Commish. Wolf was cast as Bailey Salinger, the second-oldest of five orphaned children on Party of Five in 1994. Wolf made his feature film debut with a supporting role in Double Dragon Wolf's career stalled a bit once Party of Five ended in 2000, but he rebounded in 2004 when he joined the third season of The WB's Everwood as a young doctor. He stayed with the show for two seasons before it was cancelled in 2006. Wolf continued to work steadily in television, taking a regular role in the short-lived series The Nine and alien drama V, and making guest appearances on NCIS and Perception.

Trivia: With her long face and delicate features, actress Kim Raver has a screen image that is hard to forget. Long before she blossomed into a willowy beauty, Raver began her acting career as a performer on the children's show Sesame Street, starting in 1975 when she was just six. Raver's supportive parents soon got her involved in an off-Broadway youth theater project, and by the time the young thespian was 18, she was pursuing a fine arts degree from Boston University. By her early twenties, Raver paid her dues as well as her bills with appearances in commercials as well as shows like Law & Order and Spin City. She maintained a presence on the stage, acting in theatrical productions of plays like Holiday, but by the new millennium, Raver would be making some major commitments. Not only did she get married to director Manu Boyer in 2000, but she also signed on for a starring role on the series Third Watch that same year. She gave birth to her son Luke in 2002 and then left Third Watch in 2004 to join the cast of the hit real-time thriller series 24. Her recurring role as Jack Bauer's sometime love interest kept her quite busy, so busy in fact that her career was barely effected by the failure of a series she starred in called The Nine, which premiered in 2006 but was canceled after just eight episodes. Fans could catcher Raver later that same year on the big screen, as she played the ex-wife of Ben Stiller's character in the hit fantasy comedy Night at the Museum.Back on the small screen, a leading role on the Sex and the City-inspired Lipstick Jungle found Raver living large in New York City, and though that series only lasted two seasons it was durnig that time the actress gave birth to her second son Leo. If it had seemed that Raver couldn't find her footing on television in the last few years however, things started to look up when she joined the cast of Grey's Anatomy in 2009, and quickly became a series regular by the end of the sixth season.

Trivia: Blonde, bewitching American actress Jessica Collins built a career for herself in diverse films of astonishingly variable quality -- from the highs of Catch Me If You Can to the lows of Dirty Love. She also maintained a steady output from the mid-'90s into the new millennium. Born in 1971, in Schenectady, NY, Collins attended London's Royal National Theatre Studio and the Howard Fine Acting Studio in L.A. prior to landing her first significant break, as Dinah Lee Mayberry on the daytime soap opera Loving. Collins segued from this popular role into a series of movie parts. She began with the direct-to-video exploitationers Leprechaun 4: In Space (1996) and Best of the Best: Without Warning (1998), then broke straight through to A-listers with a small turn as Peggy in Steven Spielberg's seriocomic biopic Catch Me If You Can. Shortly thereafter, Collins returned to her first love (and greatest success) -- television -- appearing in a handful of episodes of the music-themed '60s drama American Dreams as Colleen. She followed that up with a supporting turn as Meredith, the drug-addled sister of telepathic Tru Davies (Eliza Dushku), on the popular series Tru Calling (2003). This scored with the public (and made viewers sit up and notice Collins); unfortunately, she scraped the low of lows the following year by appearing in the badly received, misogynistic Jenny McCarthy comedy Dirty Love (2004), which reportedly elicited howls at Sundance and did absolutely nothing for Collins' career -- fortunately, hers constituted a small part. Not long after teaming up with the gifted Susan Seidelman on her 2004 prostitution-themed dramedy The Ranch, Collins returned to television once again, with a supporting role on the short-lived prime-time drama series Big Shots (2007).

Trivia: Starred as eccentric alien Dr. Phlox in Star Trek: Enterprise. Runs an online book club through his official Web site; has thousands of books in his home collection. Founded Book-It Repertory Theatre, a Seattle-based company devoted to adapting fiction to the stage, in 1989. Appeared on the HBO drama True Blood in 2008, 2009 and 2010 as coroner Mike Spencer. In 2011, appeared in a Hollywood production of the play The Violet Hour. A participant in Life After Trek podcasts.

Trivia: Is a first-generation American of Filipino and Spanish descent. Was raised in Flushing, Queens. As a child, played tennis and piano. Was picked to play NYPD Blue receptionist Gina Colon at an L.A. showcase for Carnegie Mellon University drama students in 1996.

Trivia: Actress Camille Guaty got her first break on the 2000 reality show Popstars, in which she competed for the chance to join the girlgroup Eden's Crush. She didn't quite make the cut, but she continued to find work on TV, appearing in episodes of shows like Crossing Jordan, Las Vegas, and Prison Break.

Trivia: Welsh-born actor Owain Yeoman studied theater at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and English Literature at Brasenose College at Oxford University before beginning his professional career, playing the role of Lysander in 2004's Troy. He soon later scored the role of Steven Daedelus on the series Kitchen Confidential, and later Lucas Dalton on The Nine. More TV success would follow in 2008, as Yeoman picked up the roles of Sgt. Eric Kocher on Generation Kill and Wayne Rigsby on The Mentalist.

Trivia: A frequent small-screen presence during the mid- to late 2000s -- in a variety of blockbuster prime-time programs -- Iowa-born actress Dana Davis built her reputation as a sturdy and reliable guest actor in such series outings as Boston Public, Gilmore Girls, and Veronica Mars. She scored a regular role on fall 2006's much-hyped dramatic series The Nine, playing Felicia Jones, but the show failed to sustain viewers and didn't last a full season. Nonetheless, Davis bounced back the next season with a coveted part on the hit sci-fi drama series Heroes, playing a character named Monica. In late 2007, Davis signed on to appear in the remake of the slasher movie classic Prom Night (to be released the following year), directed by Nelson McCormick. In 2009 she was cast in the debut season of the small-screen adaptation of 10 Things I Hate About You.

Trivia: Susan Sullivan is an Emmy-nominated actress who has proved equally adept at drama or comedy. She is best known for her eight years portraying Maggie Gioberti on the television series Falcon Crest, a prime-time network soap opera in a vein similar to that of Dallas and Dynasty, but she has also shown her comedic skills on sitcoms such as It's a Living and The George Carlin Show. Born Susan Michaela Sullivan in New York City in 1942 (some sources say 1944), she put herself through college by working as a Playboy bunny in the early '60s. Indeed, Sullivan was among the first Playboy bunnies employed by the newly opened Playboy Club in New York; as she has recalled in interviews, this was a most intellectually impressive and ambitious array of women, somewhat different from what the Playboy bunnies subsequently became, many of them aspiring to careers in law and other professions, and financing their educations by working at the club. Her television career began when she joined the cast of the daytime drama Another World in the role of Lenore Curtin, who she portrayed for four seasons. Sullivan based her career in New York, and was appearing in an off-Broadway play when she was spotted by an agent who offered to represent her if she moved to Hollywood. She accepted and thus began her career in prime-time television. Sullivan (who was sometimes billed as Susan J. Sullivan early in her career to distinguish her from another late-'60s actress named Susan Sullivan) appeared on television series such as Medical Center, McMillan & Wife, Kojak, and Petrocelli during the early '70s before landing the role that would establish her acting credentials, as Peter Strauss' lover in Rich Man, Poor Man--Book II (1976), which earned her an Emmy nomination. That same year, she moved into feature films, playing opposite Charlton Heston in Jack Smight's feature film Midway; she only had ten minutes of screen time in the movie, but hers were some of the best and most dramatically involving scenes in a movie that was otherwise largely devoid of character development or depth. Her sequences were used exclusively for the two-part television version of the movie, which means that theatrical audiences never saw her; Sullivan's scenes were missing from every home video version of the film until the October 2001 DVD reissue of Midway, which contained her footage. She spent most of the rest of the '70s in good guest-starring roles on series such as Taxi (where, in the episode "What Price Bobby," she proved herself capable of getting laughs and being sexually provocative at the same time, portraying an amorously predatory theatrical agent), and she turned in an exceptional dramatic performance in the pilot film for The Incredible Hulk, portraying a research scientist and friend of stricken hero David Banner (Bill Bixby). Her star continued to rise when she was cast in the lead role, as a gynecologist, in the made-for-television feature Having Babies and a sequel, which led to Sullivan playing the lead role in the subsequent ABC network series of the same name. From there, she was cast in the sitcom It's a Living, playing the most mature and sensible member of a group of waitresses at an upscale restaurant. It was after leaving It's a Living in 1981 that Sullivan earned the lead role of Maggie Gioberti on the drama Falcon Crest, which she played for eight seasons. Since leaving that series in 1989, a year before the end of its run, Sullivan has continued to act in both comedy and drama, and appeared on television on behalf of various charitable causes, as well as serving as the commercial spokesperson for Tylenol. She was a co-star on the George Carlin Show and has appeared on sitcoms such as Dharma & Greg. In the 2st century she found a regular gig voicing Hippolyta on the animated Justice League series, and enjoyed recurring roles on both The Drew Carey Show and Castle.

Trivia: Thespian Michael O'Neill grew up in Montgomery, AL, and attended nearby Auburn University as an economics major, then took his first steps toward professional acting work with a move to New York and on-stage roles at Playwrights Horizons. During the '80s, '90s, and 2000s, O'Neill divided his time, more or less equally, between stage, screen, and television; in all of these venues, the actor specialized in portrayals of gently authoritative yet warm and genial everyman types, such as kind fathers, school psychologists, and small-town physicians. Features in which O'Neill appeared included Ghost Story (1981), The Sunchaser (1996), Traffic (2000), and Transformers (2007); memorable television roles include contributions to The West Wing (as the head of presidential detail), 24, and Boston Public.