Trivia: Solidly built American actor Craig T. Nelson started out as a comedy writer and performer, doing radio and nightspot gigs in the Los Angeles area. Success was not immediately forthcoming, and Nelson took a four-year sabbatical from show business, moving with his family to a remote cabin in Northern California. In 1979, he made his first film, ...And Justice For All, written by his onetime partner Barry Levinson. While subsequent roles in Poltergeist and Silkwood followed, Nelson would find true stardom on television. For eight seasons beginning in 1989, he starred as college athletics instuctor Hayden Fox on the top-ranked ABC sitcom Coach. Appearing alongside supporting players Jerry Van Dyke and Shelly Fabares, Nelson received an Emmy for his work on the show in 1992.After Coach, Nelson showed up in a few small roles in feature films and television mini-series before returning to series work in 2000, leading the cast of CBS's D.C.-based cop-drama The District. While enjoying the success of that show, Nelson found time for his first high-profile feature film role in over a decade, providing the voice of the head of a family of superheroes in the 2004 Disney/Pixar animated film The Incredibles. In 2005 he played the patriarch of the dysfunctional clan in The Family Stone, and followed that up two years later as skating coach in the comedy Blades of Glory. He was Ryan Reynolds disapproving dad in the hit comedy The Proposal in 2009. He was cast as the head of the Braverman clan in NBC's relaunch of Parenthood in 2010, and appeared in the inspirational Soul Surfer in 2011.

Trivia: American actress Lynne Thigpen was part of the original cast of the stage musical Godspell in 1971. She reprised her role for the 1973 film and went on to work for three decades on both the stage and screen. Theatrical audiences may remember her for her Tony-nominated lead role in Tintypes, but she is probably best known as the Chief, the host of the PBS educational game shows Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? and Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? On the big screen, Thigpen appeared in the mainstream features Tootsie, Lean on Me, and Bob Roberts. However, she fared much better in powerful roles on television. She was Aunt Grace Keefer on All My Children, DA Ruby Thomas on L.A. Law, and Judge Ida Boucher on Law & Order. Other TV appearances include thirtysomething, Homicide: Life on the Street, and several Hallmark Hall of Fame features. Possessing rich, powerful speech, Thigpen lent her voice to several different projects. Already known on PBS as the Chief, she narrated stories on Reading Rainbow and provided voices for Bear in the Big Blue House. She also read best-selling novels audiobooks, including titles by Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston. After a lengthy career on-stage, two Obie awards, and an L.A. Drama Critics award, Thigpen finally received her first Tony award in 1997 for her portrayal of Dr. Judith Kaufman in Wendy Wasserstein's An American Daughter. She reprised her role for the 2000 made-for-TV adaptation, released on home video with the title Trial by Media. That same year, she was cast as statistics clerk Ella Mae Farmer in the CBS dramatic series The District. On the big screen, she played authority figures like President Marjorie Bota in Bicentennial Man and Judge Brenda Daniels in Anger Management. A shock to her fellow cast members on The District, Thigpen died of a heart attack in her Los Angeles home in 2003. She was 54.

Trivia: A talented actor who began to win due notice in the late '90s, Sean Patrick Thomas broke through to mainstream audiences with winning turns in such films as Cruel Intentions (1999) and Save the Last Dance (2001). The son of immigrants from Guyana, Thomas was born in Wilmington, DE, in 1970. While attending the University of Virginia, where he studied English and planned to become a lawyer, Thomas decided to pursue a career in acting after auditioning for a student production of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. Thomas broke into film with small roles in productions that included Courage Under Fire (1996), Conspiracy Theory (1997), and Can't Hardly Wait (1998). In 1996, he further added to his acting credentials by earning an M.A. in drama from New York University. Relative fame and even a blush of notoriety greeted the actor in 1999, with a pivotal role in Cruel Intentions, Roger Kumble's free and loose adaptation of Choderlos De Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Co-starring alongside alpha-teens Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon, and Ryan Phillippe in the torrid tale of lust, betrayal, and negligent parenting on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Thomas earned (literal) exposure as the cello teacher/illicit lover of one of the film's principle characters. Even greater exposure followed for Thomas the subsequent year, when he was cast in a substantial role as Detective Temple Page on the critically acclaimed TV series The District. Riding high, he then won his first starring role on the big screen in Save the Last Dance (2001), an interracial love story set in Chicago's South Side that featured him as a black high school student in love with a white classmate (Julia Stiles). Although the film earned mixed reviews, it found an appreciative audience, and with it, a growing fan base for the young actor.

Trivia: Is a practicing Quaker. Her first professional role was as Isabella in Measure for Measure at the Stratford Festival in Ontario. Made her Broadway debut as an understudy in The SeagulI in 1992. Performed as Katherine in the New York Shakespeare Festival stage production of Henry V. Played Brooke Wyeth in the off-Broadway premiere of Other Desert Cities in 2011; when the show transfered to Broadway, she was replaced by Rachel Griffith, but later joined the show as a replacement.

Trivia: Worked for three years as a medical doctor in Adelaide, Sydney and London before relocating to the U.S. to pursue a career in acting. Got his first break in 1996, when he joined the cast of the U.S. TV show New York Undercover. After living in the U.S. for 17 years, he had to work with an accent coach to recapture his Australian accent. Is a bit of a "motor-head"; rebuilt a 1973 Dodge Challenger by himself.

Trivia: Don't let actress Jean Smart's filmography fool you, because though she seems to have a penchant for appearing in fairly light-hearted fare of the family-oriented variety, she possesses all the skill of the most talented dramatic stage and screen actresses around. Unafraid to take the sort of risks necessary to keep her career and her personal life in fair balance, fans balked when Smart left television's hugely popular Designing Women while the series was in its prime, though her subsequent performances have found her sound judgment well justified. A Seattle native who received her B.A. from the University of Washington, it wasn't long before Smart was taking the stage at the 1975 Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Relocating to New York City, Smart's performance in the off-Broadway play Last Summer at Bluefish Cove earned the emerging actress a Drama Desk nomination. Her performance in the Broadway production of Piaf found Smart heading to Hollywood to tape the play for PBS, and it wasn't long before she began appearing in such films as Protocol (1984) and Project X (1987). A pivotal moment came when Smart was cast in the television series Designing Women; following the show's premier in 1986 she would remain a member of the cast until the 1991 season. It was while on that series that friend and fellow castmate Delta Burke set Smart up on a date with actor Richard Gilliland, whom Smart would later wed. The birth of their son Conner prompted Smart to reassess her career; though she would soon depart from Designing Women, she would continue to act in such efforts as the television feature Locked Up: A Mother's Rage (1991) and Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story (1992), in which she essayed the role of America's most notorious female serial killer. As the 1990s progressed Smart became something of a television fixture, and performances in The Yearling (1994) and A Change of Heart (1998) found her career continuing to flourish. Roles in such features as Disney's The Kid and Snow Day (2000) found Smart ever more associated with family-friendly fare, an association which she would continue to embrace with a role in the 2002 Disney Channel animated series Kim Possible. Other series in which Smart appeared included Hercules, Frasier, and The Oblongs; and in 2003 Smart teamed with her husband for the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of Audrey's Rain.In 2004, Smart joined the cast of the bittersweet romantic comedy Garden State, and made a brief appearance in I Heart Huckabees during the same year. In 2006, Smart was earned nominations for two Emmy awards (Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series and Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series) for her turn as the mentally fragile First Lady of the United States, whom she portrayed in the fifth season of 24. The actress wouldn't win an Emmy, however, until 2008, when she took home the coveted award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role on the sitcom Samantha, Who?. Smart played another mother in the film adaptation of C.D. Payne's novel Youth in Revolt in 2009, and took on the role of Hawaii Governor Pat Jameson for Hawaii Five-0, the CBS remake of the popular 1970s police procedural of the same name.

Trivia: Immigrated to Canada with his family when he was 6 years old. Made his first television appearance in the 1994 made-for-TV drama The Disappearance of Vonnie. Made his feature-film acting debut in the 1998 teen horror movie Disturbing Behavior, starring Katie Holmes and James Marsden. Has appeared in several sci-fi/horror TV series, including Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Fox's The X-Files and Millennium, and the CW's Supernatural. Has a movie and television production company called Fourfront Productions, and is part-owner and frequent contributor to Louisiana's Scene magazine.

Trivia: A Broadway actress by training, Valarie Pettiford earned a Tony nomination for her role in the principal cast of the musical Fosse. She would also earn critical acclaim for roles in shows like Chicago, but most viewers would become acquainted with Pettiford for her film at TV work. Beginning with appearances on shows like Another World and Walker, Texas Ranger, Pettiford spent the '90s building up her résumé. In 2002, she was cast in the recurring role of Gayle Noland on the crime drama The District. Around the same time, she took on the role of Big Dee Thorn on the comedy series Half and Half, which she'd stay with for the next four years. In 2008, she began a professional relationship with Tyler Perry, playing Sandra on the sitcom House of Payne, and playing weary wife Harriet in Perry's 2010 dramedy Why Did I Get Married Too?