Trivia: The son of a Brooklyn policeman who died when he was eight, African-American comedy superstar Eddie Murphy was raised in the comfortable middle-class community of Hempstead, NY, by his mother and stepfather. A natural-born class clown, he was voted the most popular student at Roosevelt Junior and Senior High. By the age of 15, he was doing standup gigs at 25 to 50 dollars a pop, and within a few years he was headlining on the comedy-club circuit.Murphy was 19 he was when hired as one of the backup performers on the NBC comedy weekly Saturday Night Live. His unique blend of youthful arrogance, sharkish good cheer, underlying rage, and street-smart versatility transformed the comedian into SNL's prime attraction, and soon the country was reverberating with imitations of such choice Murphy characterizations as sourball celebrity Gumby, inner-city kiddie host Mr. Robinson, prison poet Tyrone Green, and the Little Rascals' Buckwheat. Just when it seemed that he couldn't get any more popular, Murphy was hastily added to the cast of Walter Hill's 1982 comedy/melodrama feature film 48 Hours, and voila, an eight-million-dollars-per-picture movie star was born. The actor followed this cinematic triumph with John Landis' Trading Places, a Prince and the Pauper update released during the summer of 1983, the same year that the standup album Eddie Murphy, Comedian won a Grammy. In 1984, he finally had the chance to carry a picture himself: Beverly Hills Cop, one of the most successful pictures of the decade. Proving that at this juncture Murphy could do no wrong, his next starring vehicle, The Golden Child (1986), made a fortune at the box office, despite the fact that the picture itself was less than perfect. After Beverly Hills Cop 2 and his live standup video Eddie Murphy Raw (both 1987), Murphy's popularity and career seemed to be in decline, though his staunchest fans refused to desert him. His esteem rose in the eyes of many with his next project, Coming to America (1987), a reunion with John Landis that allowed him to play an abundance of characters -- some of which he essayed so well that he was utterly unrecognizable. Murphy bowed as a director, producer, and screenwriter with Harlem Nights (1989), a farce about 1930s black gangsters which had an incredible cast (including Murphy, Richard Pryor, Della Reese, Redd Foxx, Danny Aiello, Jasmine Guy, and Arsenio Hall), but was somewhat destroyed by Murphy's lazy, expletive-ridden script and clichéd plot that felt recycled from Damon Runyon stories. Churned out for Paramount, the picture did hefty box office (in the 60-million-dollar range) despite devastating reviews and reports of audience walkouts. Murphy's box-office triumphs continued into the '90s with a seemingly endless string of blockbusters, such as the Reginald Hudlin-directed political satire The Distinguished Gentleman (1992), that same year's "player" comedy Boomerang, and the Landis-directed Beverly Hills Cop III (1994). After an onscreen absence of two years following Cop, Murphy reemerged with a 1996 remake of Jerry Lewis' The Nutty Professor. As directed by Tom Shadyac and produced by the do-no-wrong Brian Grazer, the picture casts Murphy as Dr. Sherman Klump, an obese, klutzy scientist who transforms himself into Buddy Love, a self-obsessed narcissist and a hit with women. As an added surprise, Murphy doubles up his roles as Sherman and Buddy by playing each member of the Klump family (beneath piles and piles of latex). The Nutty Professor grossed dollar one and topped all of Murphy's prior efforts, earning well up into the hundreds of millions and pointing the actor in a more family-friendly direction. His next couple of features, Dr. Dolittle and the animated Mulan (both 1998), were children-oriented affairs, although in 1999 he returned to more mature material with the comedies Life (which he also produced) and Bowfinger; and The PJs, a fairly bawdy claymation sitcom about life in South Central L.A.Moving into the new millennium, Murphy resurrected Sherman Klump and his brood of misfits with the sequel Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000) before moving on to yet another sequel in 2001, the decidedly more family-oriented Dr. Dolittle 2. That same year, sharp-eared audiences were served up abundant laughs by Murphy's turn as a donkey in the animated fairy tale spoof Shrek. Nearly stealing the show from comic powerhouse co-star Mike Myers, children delighted at Murphy's portrayal of the put-upon sidekick of the kindhearted ogre and Murphy was subsequently signed for a sequel that would go into pre-production in early 2003. After bottoming out with the subsequent sci-fi comedy flop The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Murphy stepped into Bill Cosby's old shoes for the mediocre big-screen adaptation of I Spy. With the exception of a return to donkeydom in the 2004 mega-hit Shrek 2, Murphy stuck with hapless father roles during the first several years of the new millennium, Daddy Day Care being the most prominent example, with Disney's The Haunted Mansion following closely behind.In December 2006, however, he emerged with a substantial part in Dreamgirls, writer/director Bill Condon's star-studded adaptation of the hit 1981 Broadway musical about a Supremes-esque ensemble's ascent to the top. Murphy plays James Thunder Early, an R&B vocal sensation for whom the titular divas are hired to sing backup. Variety's David Rooney proclaimed, "Murphy...is a revelation. Mixing up James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Jackie Wilson, and some of his own wiseass personae, his Jimmy leaps off the screen both in his scorching numbers (his proto-rap is a killer) and dialogue scenes. It's his best screen work." A variety of critics groups and peers agreed with that assessment, landing Murphy a number of accolades including a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Around the same time, Murphy wrapped production on director Brian Roberts' Norbit. In that picture, the actor/comedian retreads his Nutty Professor work with a dual turn as Norbit, an insecure, backward geek, and Norbit's monstrous wife, an oppressive, domineering loudmouth. The story has the unhappy couple faced with the possible end of their marriage when Norbit meets his dream-girl (Thandie Newton). Never one to stray too far from familiar territoryMurphy next reteamed with the vocal cast of Shrek yet again for the next installment in the series, Shrek the Third.Over the coming years, Murphy would appear in a handful of comedies like Meet Dave, Imagine That, and Tower Heist. In 2011, he was announced as the host of 2012 Academy Awards, with Brett Ratner (his Tower Heist director) producing the show, but Murphy dropped out after Ratner resigned. In 2013, a fourth Beverly Hills Cop was announced, but the film was pulled from Paramount's schedule after pre-production issues.

Trivia: Within four years of his film debut in Zebrahead (1993), Michael Rapaport (born March 20th, 1970) became one of Hollywood's hardest-working and most versatile supporting/character actors. He began as a standup comedian, but turned to acting after landing a guest-starring role in a 1990 episode of the ABC television drama China Beach. Rapaport's portrayal in Zebrahead of a Jewish teen struggling to survive in an African-American-dominated Detroit neighborhood while romantically involved with a black girl earned him considerable acclaim and a nomination for an Independent Feature Project Spirit Award. After that, he did a bit more television work and his career remained low-key until the following year, when he suddenly burst back onto the screen in four major films: True Romance, Point of No Return, Money for Nothing, and Poetic Justice. Some of Rapaport's notable subsequent roles include that of a college student who mistakenly attempts to find his niche by becoming a skinhead in John Singleton's Higher Learning (1995) and that of a slightly dim prizefighter set up for a blind date with a goodhearted hooker in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite (1995). In 1998, Rapaport co-starred in the Showtime cable network's black comedy series about the zany world of substance abuse recovery programs Rude Awakening. That year, Rapaport also appeared in the films Palmetto and Some Girls. Rappaport worked in film sporadically throughout the 2000, but found some success in Metro, Deep Blue Sea, and Higher Learning. However, the actor is much more recognized for his work in the television shows Boston Public, Prison Break, and the War at Home.

Trivia: Black supporting actor Art Evans appeared onscreen in the '70s and '80s.

Trivia: Combining low-key, average-Joe charisma with a bottomless capacity for shrewd comic timing, Donal Logue earned a reputation in the late '90s as one of the decade's most compelling -- and prolific -- character actors. First winning notice and a dedicated cult following for his portrayal of Jimmy McBride, a cab driver featured in a series of MTV promos, Logue went on to work in a string of films good, bad, and ugly before finally landing his first major starring role in Jenniphr Goodman's 2000 Sundance favorite The Tao of Steve. The son of Irish immigrants, Logue was born in Ottawa, Canada, on February 27, 1966. Raised largely in the Southwestern United States, he went on to attend Harvard, where he studied history and began to nurture an interest in theater. Although Logue had long aspired to be a writer, a stint at the British-American Drama Academy in London strengthened his dedication to acting, and after graduating from college, he began performing on the stage. Logue got his first break in the early '90s, when he began doing the notorious Jimmy the cab driver segments for MTV and won a small role in Robert Redford's Sneakers (1992). Supporting work in films ranging from Little Women (1994) to 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up (1995) to the American remake of Diabolique (1996) followed, as did work on several TV series. In 1999, film audiences were finally given a greater opportunity to see what Logue was capable of when he turned in a scene-stealing performance as a slobby L.A. limo driver with half-baked acting ambitions in The Big Tease, Kevin Allen's light-hearted hairdressing mockumentary. Full-blown appreciation finally came the actor's way the following year, when he starred as the title character of Goodman's The Tao of Steve. A wry comedy about a late-twentysomething slacker whose savvy dating philosophy allows him to win over the ladies despite a gut whose bounty is matched only by the amount of pot he consumes, the film was a great success at the 2000 Sundance Festival, where Logue was awarded a Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Performance.The growing appreciation that surrounded Logue's work was reflected in the number of projects the actor was involved with that same year. Appearing in no less than six movies, including the summer blockbuster The Patriot, Logue was soon being touted as one of the industry's more promising -- to say nothing of hard-working -- talents.

Trivia: Studied set design in college and was asked to take on a part in a play, which led to his shift to acting. First appeared on television in the 1987 made-for-TV movie Blood Vows: The Story of a Mafia Wife. Won critical acclaim for his portrayal of Moe Howard in the 2000 made-for-TV biopic The Three Stooges. Has been cast in roles on many HBO series including The Wire, Entourage and John From Cincinnati. Co-authored the play The Good Steno with his mother, Leah Kornfeld Friedman. A guest appearance on an episode of the USA Network series Monk led to his role, beginning in 2008, on that network's In Plain Sight.

Trivia: The daughter of a Nigerian businessman and a Scotch tour guide, exotically beautiful British actress Carmen Ejogo grew up in London and won her first part at age 11, but only broke through to international acclaim in 1997, as Eddie Murphy's onscreen paramour in the comic actioner Metro. Later, Ejogo disclosed the full extent of her dramatic range with a skilled portrayal of Sally Hemings -- Thomas Jefferson's mistress -- (a part she inherited from Thandie Newton and others) in the acclaimed television miniseries Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (2000). The crime comedy What's the Worst That Could Happen? (2001), with Danny DeVito and Martin Lawrence, represented a low point, but Ejogo saved face via exemplary supporting work in such pictures as Lackawanna Blues (2005) and The Brave One (2007). In the coming years, Ejogo would find additional success on the small screen, on series like Kidnapped and Chaos.

Trivia: Michael Wincott's filmography contains a veritable rogues' gallery of brooding villains and charismatic scalawags. Interestingly, he consistently wins high marks for his performances but remains largely unknown outside of a growing circle of devoted fans. He was born in London, Ontario, and trained at the prestigious Juilliard School. He launched his professional career on the New York Stage, appearing in such productions as The Plough and the Stars, When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder, and 'Tis a Pity She's a Whore. He also appeared in a few Broadway dramas, including Sam Shepard's premiere production of States of Shock. He made his feature film debut in a Canadian production, Wild Horse Hank (1979). Some of his more memorable roles include his reprisal of his Broadway performance as a zoned-out rocker in Oliver Stone's film adaptation of Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio (1988). In villainous roles, Wincott projects a charismatic intensity that eclipses the actor behind the them, which is perhaps one reason why major stardom has eluded him. He was riveting as Top Dollar, the supervillain in The Crow (1994). Wincott's brother, Jeff Wincott, is also an actor.