Trivia: One of the most vibrant comic personalities of the 1970s and '80s, as well as a noted actor and screenwriter, Dan Aykroyd got his professional start in his native Canada. Before working as a standup comedian in various Canadian nightclubs, Aykroyd studied at a Catholic seminary from which he was later expelled. He then worked as a train brakeman, a surveyor, and studied Sociology at Carleton University in Ottawa, where he began writing and performing comedy sketches. His success as a comic in school led him to work with the Toronto branch of the famed Second City improvisational troupe. During this time -- while he was also managing the hot nightspot Club 505 on the side -- Aykroyd met comedian and writer John Belushi, who had come to Toronto to scout new talent for "The National Lampoon Radio Hour." In 1975, both Aykroyd and Belushi were chosen to appear in the first season of Canadian producer Lorne Michaels' innovative comedy television series Saturday Night Live. It was as part of the show that Aykroyd gained notoriety for his dead-on impersonations of presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter. He also won fame for his other characters, such as Beldar, the patriarch of the Conehead clan of suburban aliens, and Elwood, the second half of the Blues Brothers (Jake Blues was played by Belushi). Aykroyd made his feature-film debut in 1977 in the Canadian comedy Love at First Sight, but neither it nor his subsequent film, Mr. Mike's Mondo Video, were successful. His first major Hollywood screen venture was as a co-lead in Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979). But Aykroyd still did not earn much recognition until 1980, when he and Belushi reprised their popular SNL characters in The Blues Brothers, a terrifically successful venture that managed to become both one of the most often-quoted films of the decade and a true cult classic. Aykroyd and Belushi went on to team up one more time for Neighbors (1981) before Belushi's death in 1982. Aykroyd's subsequent films in the '80s ranged from the forgettable to the wildly successful, with all-out comedies such as Ghostbusters (1984) and Dragnet (1987) falling into the latter category. Many of these films allowed him to collaborate with some of Hollywood's foremost comedians, including fellow SNL alumni Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Eddie Murphy, as well as Tom Hanks and the late John Candy. In such pairings, Aykroyd usually played the straight man -- typically an uptight intellectual or a latent psycho. He tried his hand at drama in 1989 as Jessica Tandy's son in Driving Miss Daisy and received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. During the '90s, Aykroyd's career faltered just a bit as he appeared in one disappointment after another. Despite scattered successes like My Girl (1991), Chaplin (1992), Casper (1995), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), and Antz (1998), the all-out flops -- The Coneheads (1993), Exit to Eden (1994), Sgt. Bilko (1996) -- were plentiful. Likewise, the long-awaited Blues Brothers sequel, Blues Brothers 2000 (1998), proved a great disappointment. Aykroyd, however, continued to maintain a screen profile, starring as Kirk Douglas' son in the family drama Diamonds in 1999. During the next few years, he found greater success in supporting roles, with turns as a shifty businessman in the period drama The House of Mirth (2000), Woody Allen's boss in The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), pop star Britney Spears' father in her screen debut, Crossroads (2002), and (in a particularly amusing turn) as Dr. Keats in the Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore comedy 50 First Dates. Aykroyd also appeared in the 2005 Christmas with the Kranks, alongside Tim Allen and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry with Adam Sandler in 2006. He also provided the voice of Yogi Bear in the big screen adaptation of the titular cartoon -- but none of these projects did particularly well with fans. Aykroyd soon planned to revive the smashing success of the Ghostbusters franchise, collaborating with Harold Ramis to create a script and reunite the original four stars. However, ongoing hold-ups, including the public refusal of pivotal member Bill Murray to participate, continued to push the project back. In the meantime, Akroyd played a recurring role on TV shows like According to Jim, The Defenders, and Happily Divorced.Since 1983, Aykroyd has been married to the radiant Donna Dixon, a model who holds the twin titles of Miss Virginia 1976, and Miss District of Columbia 1977; the two co-starred in the 1983 Michael Pressman comedy Doctor Detroit. In Aykroyd's off time, he claims a varied number of interests, including UFOs and supernatural phenomena (his brother Peter works as a psychic researcher), blues music (he co-owns the House of Blues chain of nightclubs/restaurants), and police detective work.

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: From his late teens to his late 20s, Ralph Bellamy worked with 15 different traveling stock companies, not just as an actor but also as a director, producer, set designer, and prop handler. In 1927 he started his own company, the Ralph Bellamy Players. He debuted on Broadway in 1929, then broke into films in 1931. He went on to play leads in dozens of B-movies; he also played the title role in the "Ellery Queen" series. For his work in The Awful Truth (1937) he received an Oscar nomination, playing the "other man" who loses the girl to the hero; he was soon typecast in this sort of role in sophisticated comedies. After 1945 his film work was highly sporadic as he changed his focus to the stage, going on to play leads in many Broadway productions; for his portrayal of FDR in Sunrise at Campobello (1958) he won a Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics Award. From 1940-60 he served on the State of California Arts Commission. From 1952-64 he was the president of Actors' Equity. In 1986 he was awarded an honorary Oscar "for his unique artistry and his distinguished service to the profession of acting." He authored an autobiography, When the Smoke Hits the Fan (1979).

Trivia: Though his popularity rose and fell during his long career, American actor Don Ameche, born Dominic Amici in Kenosha, WI, was one of Hollywood's most enduring stars. He began his acting career in college, where he had been studying law. He had a natural gift for acting and got his first professional opportunity when he filled in for a missing lead in the stock theater production of Excess Baggage. After that, he forewent his law career and became a full-time theatrical actor. He also worked briefly in vaudeville beside Texas Guinan. Following that he spent five years as a radio announcer. He made his screen debut in a feature short, Beauty at the World's Fair (1933). Following this, Ameche moved to Hollywood where he screen-tested with MGM; they rejected him. In 1935, he managed to obtain a small role in Clive of India and this resulted in his signing a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox. Ameche, with his trim figure, pencil-thin mustache, and rich baritone voice was neither a conventionally handsome leading man nor the dashing hero type. Instead he embodied a wholesomeness and bland honesty that made him the ideal co-lead and foil for the more complex heroes. He played supporting roles for many years before he came into his own playing the leads in light romances and musicals such as Alexander's Rag Time Band (1938), where he demonstrated a real flair for romantic comedy. In 1939, Ameche played the title role in the classic biopic The Story of Alexander Graham Bell. The film was a tremendous success and for years afterward, fans quipped that it was he, not Bell who invented the telephone; for a time the telephone was even called an "ameche." He continued working steadily through the mid-'40s and then his film career ground to an abrupt halt. He returned to radio to play opposite Frances Langford in the long-running and popular series The Bickersons. During the 1950s he worked occasionally on television.He began appearing infrequently in low-budget films during the '60s and '70s, but did not make a comeback proper until 1983, when he was cast as a replacement for the ailing Ray Milland in the comedy Trading Places. The success of this film brought Ameche back in demand. In 1985, the aging actor received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work as a retirement home Casanova in Cocoon. He followed up that role to even more acclaim in 1988's David Mamet-Shel Silverstein concoction Things Change, in which Ameche played the role of a impish shoemaker chosen to take the fall for a mob hit. Before his death in 1993, Ameche rounded out his career with brief but memorable performances in Oscar (1991) and Corrina, Corrina (1994).

Trivia: The daughter of film stars Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, Jamie Lee Curtis launched her film career as a "scream queen." After a nondescript supporting role on the TV series Operation Petticoat, Curtis rose to cult stardom playing the straight-laced teenage babysitter imperiled by an unknown slasher in Halloween (1978). Upon appearing in the film's sequel and in such spookers as The Fog (1979) and Prom Night (1980), she seemed in danger of being limited to blood-splattered horror films. But Curtis wasn't about to be typed this early in the game: with a meaty secondary role as a prostitute -- featuring several well-publicized nude scenes -- in the big-budget comedy Trading Places (1983), she made the transition from imperiled teen type to knowing adult with nary a hitch. Curtis didn't exactly have a string of box-office smashes after Trading Places, but she was always worth watching even when the films weren't. And when the good parts did come along, notably her roles in A Fish Called Wanda (1988) and My Girl (1991), she proved she was an actress of range and stature and not just another "movie star's kid." Taking a potentially humiliating role as the unknowing wife of a secret agent in the megabucks Arnold Schwarzenegger adventure True Lies (1994), Curtis delivered a sparkling performance, emerging as the only truly likable character in a loud and misogynistic melodrama. In 1997, she was reunited with the cast of A Fish Called Wanda (Kevin Kline, John Cleese, and Michael Palin) for Fierce Creatures, another comedy farce in the same vein as Wanda. Unfortunately, the film was largely disappointing; but, the following year, Curtis rebounded with a return to familiar territory in Halloween: H2O. The slasher flick, although less than a critical favorite, proved to be popular with audiences. In 1999, Curtis again ventured into the big-budget realm with the action thriller Virus, and had a supporting role in Daddy and Them, Billy Bob Thornton's sophomore writing/directorial effort. She could then be seen in Drowning Mona, a black comedy in which she played a waitress caught up in an affair with the husband of her town's most infamous dead woman.The 2000s have brought Curtis several interesting opportunities, including a live performance at Paul McCartney's benefit for the controversial animal rights organization PETA in 2000, and a no-holds-barred photo shoot with More magazine in 2002 -- the then 44-year-old actress wanted to emphasize that even high-profile celebrities look "normal" without the help of a team of makeup artists and digital alterations. In 2001, Curtis starred alongside Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush and James Bond front man Pierce Brosnan in the espionage thriller The Tailor of Panama, and returned for a cameo appearance in Halloween: Resurrection, which supposedly marked her final role in the Halloween franchise. Curtis would return to more family-oriented pictures in 2003's spirited Freaky Friday with Lindsay Lohan, which featured the forty-something actress playing a punky teen whose spirit had magically been transferred to her mother's body; the success of that film led to the curdled comedy of the critically drubbed Christmas With the Kranks. She acted in Beverly Hills Chihuahua and You Again, but became better known in later years as a spokeswoman for Activia yogurt.Married to actor Christopher Guest since 1984, Curtis became a Baroness, Lady Haden-Guest, when her husband inherited the Barony in 1996.

Trivia: A much-loved character actor, British native Denholm Elliott performed in over 100 films during the course of his long career. Elliott, who was educated at Malvern College, went on stage just after World War II, and made his first film, Dear Mr. Prohack, in 1949. Often coming across as a sort of British Ralph Bellamy, Elliot specialized in playing pleasant but ineffectual types during the 1950s, switching to dignified and slightly stuffy characters as he grew grayer. In 1964, he made a major impression on international audiences by playing the tattered gentleman who teaches Alan Bates the tricks of social and financial climbing in Nothing but the Best -- only to be strangled by Bates with his old school tie. With tight lips and taciturn glances, Elliott was the official who closed down Elliott Gould's burlesque house in The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968). A gentler but no less authoritative role came in 1981 as Harrison Ford's immediate superior Brody in Raiders of the Lost Ark (reprising the part in 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), while in 1984 Elliott was unforgettably waspish as the dying social lion who dictates his own death notice in The Razor's Edge (the role played by Clifton Webb in the 1946 version). In 1986, he played one of his most endearing roles, that of the free-thinking Mr. Emerson in A Room with a View. In between these engagements, Elliott portrayed Dan Aykroyd's -- and then Eddie Murphy's -- refined butler in Trading Places (1983). His portrayal won him his first British Academy Award; he also earned BAFTAs for his work in A Private Function (1984) and Defence of the Realm (1985). Sadly, Elliott's still-thriving career was cut off in 1992 -- shortly after he completed the comedy Noises Off -- when he died from complications brought about by AIDS.

Trivia: Wiry character actor Paul Gleason attended Florida State University before making his first off-Broadway appearance in a 1973 revival of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Gleason's inaugural movie role was Long Tom in Doc Savage (1975), after which he worked extensively in Roger Corman productions. He is best known for his scowling, obstreperous portrayals of minor authority figures: the principal in The Breakfast Club (1985), the police chief in Die Hard (1988), and so on. He was at his most abrasive--and his funniest--as FBI agent Clarence Beeks in Trading Places (1982). A familiar TV presence since his days as David Thornton on the ABC serial All My Children, Paul Gleason has had recurring roles on such nighttimers as Spooner, Supercarrier and One West Waikiki. Throughout the '90s Gleason continued to work steadily as a character actor appearing in films as diverse as National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1, Running Cool, Maniac Cop 3, and Nothing to Lose. Like his Breakfast Club co-star Molly Ringwald, Gleason willingly spoofed his most iconic performance in the 2001 comedy Not Another Teen Movie. In May of 2006, at the age of 67, Gleason perished from mesothelioma, a type of lung cancer often suffered by people exposed to asbestos.

Trivia: Alfred Drake achieved most of his fame working in Broadway musicals such as Oklahoma! and Kiss Me Kate, but he has also worked on television and occasionally in feature films. In 1954 he won a Tony for playing a street poet in Kismet. With his rich baritone voice and strong stage presence, Drake was well-suited to Shakespeare and in films earned much acclaim for portraying Claudius in Richard Burton's version of Hamlet.

Trivia: Rock 'n' roll and R&B singer and musician Bo Diddley first appeared onscreen in 1966.

Trivia: Born in Hereford, England, Frank Oz (born Frank Oznowicz) graduated from California's Oakland City College during 1962 and joined the humans behind Jim Henson's fledgling Muppet group as a puppeteer the following year. He was part of the first-season cast of Saturday Night Live as the Mighty Favag and appeared in The Blues Brothers with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. After The Muppet Show went on the air in 1976, Oz became vice president of the Henson organization, and was responsible for the portrayals of Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, and Animal, among other characters, earning three Emmy Awards for his work on the show. He later served as a producer for The Great Muppet Caper (1980), directed by Henson, with whom he co-directed The Dark Crystal a year later. He later directed The Muppets Take Manhattan in 1984. Two years later, with Henson in the director's chair, Oz was one of the voices in Labyrinth. Moving outside of Henson's orbit, Oz directed the screen version of the musical Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), What About Bob? (1991), and the Kevin Kline vehicle In & Out (1997). He also served as the voice of Yoda in five Star Wars movies: The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones, and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. He helmed the 1999 showbiz satire Bowfinger, and two years later directed Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando in the crime drama The Score. He continued to voice various Muppet characters in a number of projects, but also maintained his directorial career with the comedies The Stepford Wives, and the original Death at a Funeral.

Trivia: Comedy writer, author, and occasional actor Al Franken was one of the first alumni of the NBC network sketch comedy institution Saturday Night Live (1975) and spent most of his career closely associated with the series and its byproducts. He is also the author of the best-selling book Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot. On television, he starred in the NBC sitcom Lateline (1997-1999).Franken started out as a standup comedian in high school. While attending Harvard, he attempted to get onto the staff of the Harvard Lampoon but was rejected. Later, he teamed up with his former high school classmate Tom Davis and toured the country as a standup comedy duo. They were spotted by Canadian producer Lorne Michaels, who at the time was trying to put together a Monty Pythonesque sketch comedy show for American audiences. He hired them in 1975, as both writers and performers. As writers, Franken and Davis distinguished themselves with their outrageously funny sketches. Franken's recurring segment "Al Franken Decade" was one of his popular creations. They remained with the show until Lorne Michaels departed in 1980. The unemployed duo penned many comedy screenplays together, but most went unproduced. One More Saturday Night (1986) was an exception, but it bombed at the box office. Not long after that, Franken and Davis returned to Saturday Night Live. Around this time, Franken created one of his most memorable and enduring characters, Stuart Smalley, an unlicensed 12-step therapist. A quiet, gentle man whose motto was "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggone it, people like me," Smalley hosted a show in which guests would come on to share their problems and learn to feel better about themselves. Later, Franken later expanded the recurring sketch into the feature film Stuart Saves His Family (1995). Franken then hit the jackpot with his scathing written attack on Limbaugh and other rightwing radicals. The success of the book helped Franken land his own sitcom, Lateline. In 2004 he was the first star to sign on as host of a program on the nascent Air America Radio, and four years later he won the 2008 U.S. Senate seat for Minnesota in a disputed race.

Trivia: Avon Long was a renowned African-American performer who, as a film actor, enjoyed two distinct periods of work in Hollywood, each reflecting the racial sensibilities of the particular era involved. Long was born in Baltimore, MD, in 1910. He was drawn to performing at an early age. He first broke into fame at the Cotton Club in New York in the mid-'30s. Lena Horne credited Long with taking her out of the chorus line at the club, at age 16, and the two later introduced the Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler song "As Long As I Live." By the end of the decade, he'd made his Broadway debut in Black Rhythm (1939), and three years later he took on the role of Sportin' Life in the revival of Porgy and Bess, a portrayal he later revived and immortalized in the subsequent Columbia Records' studio cast recording of the work (which is considered one of the definitive versions of the piece). His Broadway credits of this period also included Beggar's Holiday. Long's movie credits began in 1946 with Centennial Summer and an appearance in Ziegfeld Follies, and two years later he was seen in the Doris Day vehicle Romance on the High Seas. In keeping with the custom and movie industry policies of the time in connection with African-American performers, his work in these movies was confined to short-duration specialty numbers. He was also seen in a 1957 Hallmark Hall of Fame television presentation of Marc Connelly's The Green Pastures in a cast that also included William Warfield, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, and Butterfly McQueen. Long didn't work on the big screen again, however, until 1968 with Francis Ford Coppola's Finian's Rainbow. By that time, the movie business had transformed itself, especially in its use of African-American performers, and over the next 15 years Long didn't lack for work, appearing in The Sting and Harry and Tonto, among other films. His biggest successes, however, were on-stage, where worked in such Broadway productions as Fly, Blackbird (1972). Most notably, he was cast in the role of Dave in Don't Play Us Cheap (1973) on Broadway, a portrayal that earned him a Tony Award nomination. Along with most of the rest of the stage cast, he subsequently re-created his role in Melvin Van Peebles' film of the piece. His biggest stage success followed three years later, when he played the role of John in Bubbling Brown Sugar, which ran for over 700 performances on Broadway. In later years, he played prominent supporting parts in television productions such as Roots: The Next Generations (as Chicken George) and continued to work in movies such as Trading Places. Long died of cancer in 1984 at age 73, but his legacy lingers on, especially from occasional reissues of his best work, such as the DVD of Don't Play Us Cheap and Sony Music's late-'90s CD re-release of the Columbia cast recording of Porgy And Bess.

Trivia: With two solid decades of stage experience to his credit, Charles D. Brown made his talking-picture bow in 1929's The Dance of Life. At first, Brown's bland features and flat voice made him difficult to cast, but by the time he'd reached his fifties, he was very much in demand for authoritative roles. Brown was frequently cast as a detective, though his unruffled demeanor made him a valuable "surprise" killer in more than one murder mystery. Charles D. Brown died in 1948, not long after completing his role in RKO's Follow Me Quietly (1950).

Trivia: Supporting actor Nicholas Guest first appeared onscreen in the '80s. He is the brother of actor Christopher Guest.

Trivia: A former prize fighter and the father of one of America's best-loved actors, James Earl Jones, Robert Earl Jones is also an actor who launched his movie career in 1939, playing a small role in Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). Though never achieving anything even near the fame of his son, Jones found himself a comfortable niche in Hollywood and worked steadily though the '60s, '70s, '80s, and the early '90s.

Trivia: Versatile American actor Giancarlo Esposito was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, but grew up in Manhattan from the age of six. His mother was an African-American nightclub singer (who once shared a bill with Josephine Baker) and his father was an Italian stagehand. In show business most of his life, Esposito made his Broadway debut in a 1966 production of Maggie Flynn. His other stage credits include Sacrilege, Miss Moffatt, and Balm in Gilead. He won a 1981 Theatre World Award for his performance in Zooman and the Sign.On the big screen, Esposito started appearing in Spike Lee films during the late '80s in a wide range of roles with great character names. He was the frat leader Julian "Big Brother Almighty" in School Daze, the outspoken reactionary Buggin' Out in Do the Right Thing, the dandy pianist Left Hand Lacey in Mo' Better Blues, and the criminal Thomas Hayer in Malcolm X. Esposito's other film roles include an investigative journalist in Bob Roberts, an activist in Amos & Andrew, and a game show host in Reckless. In 1995, he earned an Independent Spirit award nomination for his supporting role of doting drug dealer Esteban in Boaz Yakin's debut drama Fresh. Esposito also appeared in Wayne Wang and Paul Auster's Smoke, along with the sequel Blue in the Face. The next year, he turned briefly to producing with the independent prison film The Keeper, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.On television, Esposito appeared on NYPD Blue, Law & Order, and the short-lived Fox comedy Bakersfield, P.D. In 1999, he earned an Image award nomination for his role as FBI Agent Michael Giardello on Homicide: Life on the Street. He also has contributed to the Fox television dramas The $treet and girls club. While teaching at the Atlantic Theatre Company, Esposito found time to portray real-life figures in the biopics Ali (as Cassius Clay Sr.) and Piñero (as Miguel Algarin). Projects for 2004 included James Hunter's feature Back in the Day and the television movie NYPD 2069. He played a detective in the thriller Derailed, and appeared in the indie drama SherryBaby. In 2008 he directed, starred in, and helped write the drama Gospel Hill. In 2010 he joined the cast of the highly-respected AMC drama series Breaking Bad, and appeared in the 2012 big-screen thriller Alex Cross.

Trivia: Probably best known as Jim Walsh, the father of Brandon and Brenda on Beverly Hills 90210, actor James Eckhouse hadn't yet set his sites on acting when he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976. He didn't start appearing onscreen until the early '80s, when he began scoring minor roles in films like Will There Really Be a Morning? and Trading Places. Then, in 1990, Eckhouse was cast in Beverly Hills 90210 when it was a brand new series. It turned out to be a major hit, and Eckhouse stayed with the show for the next eight years. Afterward, he maintained a thriving acting career, making appearances on a wide variety of popular TV shows such as Without a Trace, Dharma & Greg, and CSI.

Trivia: Character actor Bill Cobbs began his acting career relatively late in life after working odd jobs in Cleveland, OH. At the age of 36, he moved to New York and joined the Negro Ensemble Company, making his Broadway debut in First Breeze of Summer. His film career started in the late '70s with small film roles and guest appearances on television. In the early '80s, he worked on several performances for the NBC Live Theatre series and a PBS anthology with Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. Usually cast as the token old black man dispensing words of wisdom, Cobbs' weathered-yet-honest looks got him several guest spots on TV shows from Good Times to The West Wing. He did end up with a few reoccurring roles on sitcoms like The Slap Maxwell Story, The Gregory Hines Show, and The Michael Richards Show. He even had a part in The Others, the NBC sci-fi drama answer to The X-Files. Perhaps his most memorable television appearance is his role as Regina Taylor's father on I'll Fly Away as well as in the TV movie version I'll Fly Away: Then and Now. Throughout his film career, he has built a long list of credits playing kindly fathers, grandfathers, and even Moses (in The Hudsucker Proxy). He was Whitney Houston's manager in The Bodyguard, an old man in New Jack City, and Grandpa Booker in The People Under the Stairs. Though he appears in nearly all genres of Hollywood films, he occasionally gets meatier roles in made-for-TV dramas like Carolina Skeletons, Nightjohn, and Always Outnumbered. In 2002, he played wisened elders in Sunshine State, Enough, and Sweet Deadly Dreams.

Trivia: Catholic University was the alma mater of American actor Philip Bosco -- or would have been if he hadn't been expelled. Bosco would not collect a college degree until age 27, after a long stint as an Army cryptographer. Most comfortable in classical stage roles, Bosco has found it expedient to don modern garb for most of his movie work. After a one-shot screen appearance in 1968's A Lovely Way to Die, Bosco didn't step before the movie cameras again until 1983, making up for the lost years with supporting appearances in such films as Trading Places (1983), The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), Three Men and a Baby (1987), Working Girl (1988) and Shadows and Fog (1992). Philip Bosco won a Tony Award for his performance in the popular door-slamming farce Lend Me a Tenor.

Trivia: American actor John Randolph Jones played supporting roles (typically cast as a thug or a policeman) on stage, television and screen from the mid '60s through the mid '80s.

Trivia: American actor Maurice Copeland appeared on Broadway and in feature films during the '70s and '80s. Copeland had an unusually smooth, rich voice that made him a popular voiceover artist on radio and television.

Trivia: Character actor Afemo Omilami built a career out of portraying gritty, urban types in Hollywood features, often with an aggressive edge, such as taxi drivers, longshoremen, barkeeps, drill sergeants, and angry spouses. Omilami debuted onscreen in the late '70s and evolved into an increasingly common screen presence as the years passed. The dozens of projects in which he appeared include the Tom Hanks-Shelley Long disaster comedy The Money Pit (1986), the Sydney Pollack-directed legal thriller The Firm (1993), Best Picture winner Forrest Gump (1994) (as a screaming drill sergeant), and the Ray Charles biopic Ray (2004). In 2007, Omilami joined the cast of director Deborah Kampmeier's rape-themed period drama Hounddog.

Trivia: Character actor Barry Dennen works primarily on stage and British TV.

Trivia: It took versatile actor James Belushi several years to slowly come into his own, which wasn't an easy task following in the fiery footsteps of his flamboyant, self-destructive brother, the late comic John Belushi. Despite that obstacle, the easy-going actor with the crooked smile still managed to forge a respectable career playing co-leads in a variety of film genres, including comedy, action, and drama in roles ranging from a sleazeball thief to a cop to a party animal in a gorilla suit. Prior to his first television appearances, the Chicago-born actor earned a degree in Speech and Theater, and worked on-stage in The Pirates of Penzance and True West. Like John, James joined the notorious Second City improvisational comedy group. He also began making regular guest appearances on Saturday Night Live, where his brother became famous in the mid-'70s. Making his feature film debut playing James Caan's calm partner in 1981's Thief, James Belushi began acting under John Landis (who also directed his brother) in Trading Places (1983). He continued playing supporting roles and occasional leads -- most notably in Oliver Stone's Salvador with James Woods in 1986 -- but his big break came when he played a bad cop in 1988's Red Heat with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was equally popular in K-9 the following year. Although his subsequent films were not as successful, Belushi continued to grow as a dramatic actor. In 2001, Belushi began headlining the successful ABC sitcom According to Jim.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the late '80s.