Trivia: American actress Candice Bergen was a celebrity even before she was born. As the first child of popular radio ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his young wife Frances, Candice was a hot news item months before her birth, and headline material upon that blessed event (her coming into the world even prompted magazine cartoons which suggested that Edgar would try to confound the nurses by "giving" his new daughter a voice). Candice made her first public appearance as an infant, featured with her parents in a magazine advertisement. Before she was ten, Candice was appearing sporadically on dad's radio program, demonstrating a precocious ability to throw her own voice (a skill she hasn't been called upon to repeat in recent years); at 11 she and Groucho Marx's daughter Melinda were guest contestants on Groucho's TV quiz show You Bet Your Life. Candice loved her parents and luxuriated in her posh lifestyle, though she was set apart from other children in that her "brothers" were the wooden dummies Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd - and Charlie had a bigger bedroom than she did! Like most 1960s teens, however, she rebelled against the conservatism of her parents and adopted a well-publicized, freewheeling lifestyle - and a movie career. In her first film, The Group (1965), Candice played a wealthy young lesbian - a character light years away from the sensibilities of her old-guard father. She next appeared with Steve McQueen in the big budget The Sand Pebbles (1966), simultaneously running smack dab into the unkind cuts of critics, who made the expected (given her parentage) comments concerning her "wooden" performance. Truth to tell, Candice did look far better than she acted, and this status quo remained throughout most of her film appearances of the late 1960s; even Candice admitted she wasn't much of an actress, though she allowed (in another moment that must have given papa Edgar pause) that she was terrific when required in a film to simulate an orgasm. Several films later, Candice decided to take her career more seriously than did her critics, and began emerging into a talented and reliable actress in such films as Carnal Knowledge (1971) and The Wind and the Lion (1975). Most observers agree that Candice's true turnaround was her touching but hilarious performance as a divorced woman pursuing a singing career - with little in the way of talent - in the Burt Reynolds comedy Starting Over (1979). Candice's roller-coaster offscreen life settled into relative normality when she married French film director Louis Malle; meanwhile, her acting career gained momentum as she sought out and received ever-improving movie and TV roles. In 1988, Candice began a run in the title role of the television sitcom Murphy Brown, in which she was brilliant as a mercurial, high-strung TV newsmagazine reporter, a role that won Ms. Bergen several Emmy Awards. While Murphy Brown capped Candice Bergen's full acceptance by audiences and critics as an actress of stature, it also restored her to "headline" status in 1992 - when, in direct response to the fictional Murphy Brown's decision to become a single mother, Vice President Dan Quayle delivered his notorious "family values" speech.Murphy Brown finished its successful run in 1997, and Bergen would make a handful of big-screen appearances in the ensuing years including Miss Congeniality, Sweet Home Alabama, and The In-Laws. In 2004 she became part of the cast of Boston Legal, another hit show that ran for five often award-winning seasons. When that show came to a close, she appeared in films such as The Women, Sex and the City, and Bride Wars - where she portrayed the country's leading wedding planner.

Trivia: She is best known for creating a multitude of memorable comic characters, including Ernestine the telephone operator and the rotten five-year-old rugrat Edith Ann, on television and in her stage shows, but let it not be forgotten that Lily Tomlin is also a talented dramatic actress, something she has thus far only demonstrated in two films. She was born Mary Tomlin in Detroit, MI. She was studying premed at Wayne State University when she heard the stage calling and so dropped out to perform skits and characterizations in cabarets and coffeehouses. Tomlin made her television debut on The Garry Moore Show but didn't get her first real break until she became a regular on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In in 1970 and stayed through 1973. The series' machine gun pace proved the perfect outlet for Tomlin's offbeat humor and gave her the opportunity to hone her skills and develop her characters. She made an auspicious film debut with a touching dramatic role as a troubled gospel singer trying to deal with her hearing-impaired children and a womanizing Keith Carradine in Robert Altman's Nashville (1975), winning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress and a New York Film Critics award for the same category. Her next film, The Late Show (1977), was also more dramatic than comic and Tomlin again won kudos, though not in the form of awards, for her work. While she started off strongly in films, her subsequent output has been of uneven quality ranging from the entertaining All of Me (1984) to the abysmal Big Business (1988). But while her film career has never quite taken flight, Tomlin remained successful on-stage, in clubs, and on television. On Broadway, Tomlin has had two successful one-woman shows, Appearing Nitely (1976) and The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1986), which Tomlin made into a film in 1991. In 1996, Tomlin became a regular on the cast of the long-running sitcom Murphy Brown playing a canny news producer and foil for Candice Bergan's Murphy. That same year she would work for the first time with director David O. Russell on the film Flirting With Disaster. After returning to film with the demise of Murphy Brown, Tomlin took on supporting roles in a variety of films, such as Tea with Mussolini and Disney's The Kid. But television soon came calling again in the form of a recurring role on NBC's The West Wing as The President's eccentric personal secretary.In 2004, Tomlin teamed with Russell again for the ensemble comedy I Heart Huckabees. A subsequent visit to the animated town of Springfield found Tomlin dropping in on The Simpsons the following year, withg recurring roles on both Will and Grace and The West Wing preceding a turn as one-half of a sisterly singing act along with Meryl Streep in the 2006 Robert Altman radio-show adaptation A Prairie Home Companion. At the Oscar telecast in 2006 Streep and Tomlin presented Altman with a lifetime achievement award, delivering their speech in a style that emulated the distinctive rhythms of his films. That same year she leant her vocal talents to an animated film for the first time in her career providing the voice for Mommo in The Ant Bully, which coincidently also featured her Prairie Home Companion cohort Meryl Streep. She had a major role in Paul Schrader's The Walker, and provided a voice in the English-language version of Ponyo. She joined the cast of the award-winning cable series Damages in 2010 for that show's third season and was a series regular on Malibu Country in 2012-13, playing Reba McEntire's mother.

Trivia: Sweet, Southern Faith Ford is perhaps best known as perky anchorwoman Corky from the long-running sitcom Murphy Brown. After growing up in Virginia, where she honed her passion for acting in school plays, Ford headed off to New York at the age of 17 to pursue a career in show business. She began landing appearances on shows like Webster and the soap opera Another World before changing coasts and trying her luck in Hollywood. She landed a recurring role on the drama thirtysomething, and shortly following, she landed the now-iconic role of Corky on Murphy Brown. Ford stayed with the show through all of its nine seasons, using her downtime to try out other projects like the family movie North. When Murphy Brown ended its run, Ford executive produced and starred in the series Maggie Winters, which got excellent reviews but sadly lasted for only one season. Ford had no shortage of projects, however; she was cast in the hit show Norm in 1999, and in 2003, she took a starring role in the ABC series Hope & Faith, playing a typical, Midwestern mom whose world is turned upside down when her movie-star sister shows up at her door. The popular series lasted until 2006, when Ford started looking for a new project. She found what she was looking for with 2007's comedy series Carpoolers, a show about the hilarious and strange goings-on between a group of men who drive to work together.

Trivia: Joe Regalbuto has been seen in films since 1982, when he played an investigative reporter in Costa-Gavras' Missing. Before his big-screen debut, Regalbuto played shifty Wall Street lawyer Elliot Streeter in the 1979 TV series The Associates. His other TV roles included Toomey, the CPA assistant to bumbling detective Tim Conway in Ace Crawford, Private Eye (1982), and Harry Fisher in Knots Landing (1985-86 series). Regalbuto also labored in what one journalist described as "relative obscurity" on the TV-movie circuit, playing such roles as William C. Sullivan in 1987's J. Edgar Hoover. In his most famous characterization, Joe Regalbuto travelled full circle from his Missing days, playing investigative reporter Frank Fontana on the TV sitcom Murphy Brown (1988- ).

Trivia: Solemn, soulful-eyed character actor Harris Yulin made his 1963 off-Broadway debut in Next Time I'll Sing for You. Though Yulin remained a frequent visitor to the New York theatrical scene (he made his Broadway bow in a 1980 revival of Watch on the Rhine), he preferred to live and work in his home state of California. As one of the founders of the Los Angeles Classic Theater, he became a mentor and spiritual advisor for a number of film stars with theatrical aspirations. His own movie work includes the roles of Wild Bill Hickok in the 1971 revisionist Western Doc, Bernstein in the 1983 remake of Scarface, and King Edward in 1996's Looking for Richard, a contemporary spin on Shakespeare's Richard III. On television, Harris Yulin has been seen as Senator Joseph McCarthy in Robert F. Kennedy and His Times (1985) and as girl-chasing TV anchorman Neal Frazier in the weekly WIOU (1990).

Trivia: Began performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company in England in the early 1980s, including productions of Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Richard III and A Midsummer Night's Dream. As a member of the RSC, made Broadway debut in All's Well That Ends Well in 1983. Appeared on Broadway in a 1986 revival of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, an adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel by David Edgar. Serves as a voice actor for animated TV series including The Fantastic Four and The Incredible Hulk, and for video games such as Legacy of Kain and Dragon Age: Origins.

Trivia: With his trademark red moustache, personable smile, and childlike demeanor, longtime character actor Michael Jeter brought smiles to children nationwide with his role on Sesame Street as Mr. Noodle's Brother. Aside from his memorable role on that children's television mainstay, Jeter could also be seen in a number of memorable film roles in such efforts as Miller's Crossing (1990) and The Fisher King (1991). Chances are, if you don't recognize his name you would certainly recognize his face. Born in Lawrenceburg, TN, in August of 1952, Jeter first opted to follow a career in medicine, though a stint at Memphis State University found the creative young student leaning ever closer to a career as an actor. Taking on minor film roles beginning with 1979's Hairspray, the burgeoning young actor would subsequently appear in such films as Milos Foreman's Ragtime (1981) and Woody Allen's Zelig (1983), though early struggles with alcohol and substance abuse threatened to sideline his screen career in the mid-'80s. Abandoning the screen for a career as a legal secretary the same year that Zelig was released, fate guided Jeter back into his true calling when a producer, recalling his role in television's Designing Women, asked that he take a supporting role on the Burt Reynolds' sitcom Evening Shade. Accepting the role as assistant football coach Herman Stiles, Jeter's enthusiasm for acting was re-ignited as he was honored with an Emmy for the role in 1992. A busy stage actor as well, Jeter won a Tony in 1990 for his performance in Grand Hotel. From 1990 on, Jeter maintained his film career with a series of memorably quirky roles. Perhaps his most unique and affecting role came with the release of director Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King. As a homeless transvestite who croons for Amanda Plummer's character after making a flamboyant entrance into her quiet office, Jeter's carefree ditty was a highlight of the film. The 1990s proved a busy decade for Jeter, and roles in such popular films as Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), Air Bud (1997), and The Green Mile (1999) assured that his career would flourish well into the new millennium. Announcing that he had been infected with HIV in 1997, audiences could never have known how quickly the deadly virus would take its toll on the energetic and optimistic actor. Though Jeter would usher in the new millennium with roles in such prominent box-office releases as The Gift (2000) and Jurassic Park III (2001), it was his role on Sesame Street that endeared him to children and made good use of his genuinely playful nature. Sadly, Jeter succumbed to complications from the HIV virus in late March of 2003. Before his untimely death, Jeter would complete roles in Kevin Costner's Open Range (2003) and Robert Zemeckis' family fantasy The Polar Express (2004).