Trivia: An icon of machismo and Hollywood action heroism, Sylvester Stallone is responsible for creating two characters who have become a part of the American cultural lexicon: Rocky Balboa, the no-name boxer who overcame all odds to become a champion, and John Rambo, the courageous soldier who specialized in violent rescues and revenge. Both characters are reflections of Stallone's personal experiences and the battles he waged during his transition from a poor kid in Hell's Kitchen to one of the world's most popular stars. According to Stallone, his was not a happy childhood. On July 6, 1946, in the aforementioned part of Manhattan, Sylvester Enzio Stallone was born to a chorine and an Italian immigrant. A forceps accident during his birth severed a facial nerve, leaving Stallone with parts of his lip, tongue, and chin paralyzed. In doing so, the accident imprinted Stallone with some of the most recognizable components of his persona: the distinctively slurred (and some say often nearly incomprehensible) speech patterns, drooping lower lip, and crooked left eye that have been eagerly seized upon by caricaturists. To compound these defects, Stallone was a homely, sickly child who once suffered from rickets. His parents were constantly at war and struggling to support Stallone and his younger brother, Frank Stallone (who became a B-movie actor). The elder brother spent most of his first five years in the care of foster homes. Stallone has said that his interest in acting came from his attempts to get attention and affection from those strangers who tried to raise him. When he was five, his parents moved their family to Silver Spring, MD, but once again spent their time bickering and largely ignored their children. Following his parents' divorce in 1957, the 11-year-old Stallone remained with his stern father. The actor's teen years proved even more traumatic. As Stallone seemed willing to do just about anything for attention, however negative, he had already been enrolled in 12 schools and expelled several times for his behavior problems. His grades were dreadful and his classmates picked on him for being different. Stallone coped by becoming a risk taker and developing elaborate fantasies in which he presented himself as a brave hero and champion of the underdog. At age 15, Stallone moved to Philadelphia to be with his mother and her new husband. By this time, he had begun lifting weights and took up fencing, football, and the discus. He also started appearing in school plays. Following graduation, Stallone received an athletic scholarship for the American College of Switzerland. While there he was a girls' athletic coach and in his spare time starred in a school production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. The experience inspired him to become an actor and after returning stateside, he started studying drama at the University of Miami until he decided to move to New York in 1969. While working a variety of odd jobs, Stallone auditioned frequently but only occasionally found stage work, most of which was off-Broadway in shows like the all-nude Score and Rain. He even resorted to appearing in the softcore porn film, Party at Kitty's and Studs, which was later repackaged as The Italian Stallion after Stallone became famous. Stallone's face and even his deep voice were factors in his constant rejection for stage and film roles. He did nab a bit role in Woody Allen's Bananas (1971), but after he was turned down for The Godfather (1971), Stallone became discouraged. Rather than give up, however, Stallone again developed a coping mechanism -- he turned to writing scripts, lots of scripts, some of which were produced. He still auditioned and landed a starring role in Rebel (1973). During his writing phase, he married actress Sasha Czack in late 1974 and they moved to California in the hopes of building acting careers. His first minor success came when he wrote the screenplay for and co-starred in the nostalgic Lords of Flatbush (1974) with Henry Winkler. The film's modest success resulted in Stallone's getting larger roles, but he still didn't attract much notice until he penned the screenplay for Rocky. The story was strong and well written and studios were eager to buy the rights, but Stallone stipulated that he would be the star and must receive a share of the profits. Producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff accepted Stallone's terms and Rocky (1976) went on to become one of the biggest movie hits of all time. It also won several Oscars including ones for Best Picture, Best Director for John Avildsen, and a Best Actor nomination for Stallone. Suddenly Stallone found himself on Hollywood's A-list, a status he has largely maintained over the years. In addition to writing four sequels to Rocky, he penned three Rambo films (First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part II, and Rambo 3) and F.I.S.T. (1979). Stallone made his directorial debut with Paradise Alley, which he filmed in Hell's Kitchen. He also wrote and directed but did not appear in the sequel to Saturday Night Fever, Staying Alive (1983). In addition, Stallone has continued to appear in the films of other directors, notably Demolition Man (1993), Judge Dredd (1995), and Copland (1997), a film in which he allowed himself to gain 30 pounds in order to more accurately portray an aging sheriff. Occasionally, Stallone has ventured out of the action genre and into lighter fare with such embarrassing efforts as Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992) and Oscar (1991), which did not fare well at the box office. Following these missteps, Stallone found greater success with the animated adventure Antz (1998), a film in which his very distinctive voice, if not his very distinctive physique, was very much a part. Stallone was back in shape for the 2000 remake of Get Carter and hit the race tracks in the following year in the CART racing thriller Driven. Though the early 2000s found his career sputtering along with such forgettable duds as D-Tox and Avenging Angelo, Stallone took his career into his own hands by returning to the director's chair to resurrect two of his most iconic characters. Lacing his boxing gloves up once again for Rocky Balboa, the veteran action star proved he still had some fight left in him, and venturing into the jungles of Burma as John Rambo just two years later, he proved that hard "R" action could still sell in the era where most filmmakers were playing it "PG-13"safe. That trend continued with Stallone's all-star action opus The Expendables in 2010, with the success of that film leading to a sequel (with Simon West taking over directorial duties) featuring even more action icons in 2012. Incredibly, not even a broken neck suffered during production of The Expendables proved capable of slowing Stallone down, and 2013 found him teaming with Walter Hill for Bullet to the Head -- which followed a cop and a killer as they teamed up to take down a mutual enemy. In 2015, Stallone returned to Rocky Balboa once more, but this time as a supporting character in the spin-off film Creed. He earned rave reviews and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, making him only the sixth performer to be nominated for playing the same character in two separate films.

Trivia: With sleek, well-muscled good looks that easily lend themselves to romantic leading roles or parts that call for running, jumping, and handling firearms, Wesley Snipes became one of the most popular Hollywood stars of the 1990s. First coming to prominence with roles in Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues and Jungle Fever, Snipes went on to prove himself as an actor who could appeal to audiences as a man that women want and men want to be.Born in Orlando, FL, on July 31, 1962, Snipes grew up in the Bronx. He developed an early interest in acting and attended Manhattan's High School for the Performing Arts. His mother moved him back to Florida before he could graduate, but after finishing up high school in Florida, Snipes attended the State University of New York-Purchase and began pursuing an acting career. It was while performing in a competition that he was discovered by an agent, and a short time later he made his film debut in the Goldie Hawn vehicle Wildcats (1986). Although he appeared in a few more films during the 1980s, it was Snipes' turn as a street tough who menaces Michael Jackson in the Martin Scorsese-directed video for "Bad" that caught the eye of director Lee. He was so impressed with the actor's performance that he cast him in his 1990 Mo' Better Blues as a flamboyant saxophonist opposite Denzel Washington. That role, coupled with the exposure that Snipes had received for his performance as a talented but undisciplined baseball player in the previous year's Major League, succeeded in giving the actor a tentative plot on the Hollywood map. With his starring role in Lee's 1991 Jungle Fever, Snipes won critical praise and increased his audience exposure, and his career duly took off.That same year, Snipes further demonstrated his flexibility with disparate roles in New Jack City, in which he played a volatile drug lord, and The Waterdance, in which he starred as a former wild man repenting for his ways in a hospital's paraplegic ward. Both performances earned strong reviews, and the following year Snipes found himself as the lead in his first big-budget action flick, Passenger 57. The film, which featured the actor as an ex-cop with an attitude who takes on an airplane hijacker, proved to be a hit. Snipes' other film that year, the comedy White Men Can't Jump, was also successful, allowing the actor to enter the arena of full-fledged movie star. After a few more action stints in such films as Rising Sun (1993), which featured him opposite Sean Connery, Snipes went in a different direction with an uncredited role in Waiting to Exhale (1995). The same year he completely bucked his macho, action-figure persona with his portrayal of a flamboyant drag queen in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. Snipes continued to focus on less testosterone-saturated projects after a turn as a baseball player in The Fan (1996), starring as an adulterous director in Mike Figgis' One Night Stand (1997) -- for which he won a Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival -- and as Alfre Woodard's handsome cousin in Down in the Delta in 1998. That same year, Snipes returned to the action genre, playing a pumped-up vampire slayer in Blade and a wrongfully accused man on the run from the law in the sequel to The Fugitive, U.S. Marshals. The former would prove to be a massive cult hit and one of his biggest box-office successes to date. And while the new millenium would see most of Snipes' films relegated to straight-to-video releases, a pair of Blade sequels in 2002 and 2004 helped the actor remain a presence at the multiplexes.Sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion in 2008, Snipes began serving his term in 2010.

Trivia: Giving new meaning to the term America's Sweetheart, Sandra Bullock won over scores of filmgoers and critics with her wholesome, exuberant portrayals of ordinary women in extraordinary circumstances. Since her breakthrough role as Speed's unwitting heroine, Bullock has enjoyed the type of popularity that was in the past reserved for actresses along the lines of Mary Pickford or Shirley Temple.Born in Washington, D.C., on July 26, 1964, Bullock was the elder daughter of a vocal coach dad and an opera singer mom. Touring through Europe with her mother, Bullock was given her first taste of show business while still a child. Back in the States, she attended high school in Virginia and was a popular cheerleader, whose classmates dubbed her the person Most Likely to Brighten Your Day. After a stint at East Carolina University, Bullock took her sunny nature to New York, where she began concentrating on an acting career. After tending bar and studying her craft with dramatician Sanford Meisner, she got her start with a number of stage productions. It was for one of these productions, the off-Broadway No Time Flat, that Bullock received a rave review for her portrayal of a Southern belle, the strength of which was enough to land her an agent. Television work followed, with a small role in the 1989 Bionic Showdown: The Six-Million-Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman and, after her migration to Los Angeles, Melanie Griffith's role in the short-lived television version of Working Girl. Miraculously surviving the widespread career fallout that surrounded her first starring film role in Love Potion No. 9 (1992), the actress went on the following year to star in the similarly ill-fated The Thing Called Love. However, things began to look up the same year when the struggling actress became the last-minute replacement for Lori Petty in the Sylvester Stallone action flick Demolition Man. Though her role was essentially limited to intermittent saliva exchanges with Stallone, her performance won the attention of the film's producer, Joel Silver, who in turn recommended her to Jan de Bont. De Bont, then in the process of casting his upcoming bus-with-a-bomb action film, chose the struggling actress for the part of Annie, the film's reluctant heroine. In casting Bullock against Keanu Reeves, de Bont reportedly came up against considerable resistance from studio executives, who wanted someone blonde and buxom for the part. The director persevered and, in 1994, Bullock took her place in movie history as part of Speed, one of the most successful action films ever made. The film propelled the actress to stardom, surprising no one more than Bullock herself, who later remarked, "never in a million years did I think a bus movie would open every door I ever possibly wanted open."Doors now wide open, Bullock next starred in the 1995 romantic comedy While You Were Sleeping. The film was a critical and commercial hit, and the actress followed it up with a screen adaptation of John Grisham's A Time to Kill, co-starring Ashley Judd and Matthew McConaughey. The success of that film was the last that Bullock would enjoy for a while, as she then entered something of a sophomore slump with disappointments such as In Love and War (1996), Two If By Sea (1996), and, perhaps most excruciating, Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997). Fortunately for Bullock, her audiences seemed to be inclined to forgive and forget, and she had a modest rebound with the following year's Hope Floats, which also happened to be the first project of the production company she founded, Fortis Films. The same year, Bullock also starred in another romantic comedy, Practical Magic, opposite Nicole Kidman. The film provided another modest success for Bullock, who, back in the saddle again, proceeded to do yet another romantic comedy, this time starring with Ben Affleck in Forces of Nature (1999). Although the film proved to be a critical and commercial disappointment, Bullock was back on the radar with a number of projects in 2000, including the critically disembowelled comedy Gun Shy and 28 Days, a comedy that starred the actress as a newspaper columnist forced to enter rehab after her drinking problem assumes uncontrollable proportions. Following her role in Miss Congeniality (2000) as an FBI agent forced to go undercover in the Miss U.S.A. beauty pagent in order to prevent a bombing, Bullock faced off against a more low-key menace in the thriller Murder By Numbers (2002) before returning to lighthearted drama with Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (also 2002). Her status as the reigning queen of the chick flick permanantly established, Bullock next teamed with Hugh Grant for the amiable romantic comedy Two Weeks Notice before taking a two year furlough from the big screen - during which time she would assume the duty of executive producer for the George Lopez show in addition to turning in the occasional guest appearance. In 2005, Bullock found herself at the center of Oscar talk when she essayed the role of the racist wife of a prominant district attorney in Paul Haggis' critically acclaimed drama Crash. An unflinching look at racism in the multicultural melting pot of Los Angeles, Crash defied expectations to take home best editing, best screenplay, and best motion picture at the 77th Annual Academy Awards. That same year, a return to her role as bumbling undercover FBI agent Gracie Heart in Miss Congeniality 2 found Bullock returning to familiar lighthearted territory, although the sequel performed far more poorly than the first film. With her role as a lovelorn doctor who discovers a curious rift in time in 2006's romantic fantasy The Lake House (a remake of the 2000 South Korean film Siworae), the actress marked a graceful return to swooning, romantic pictures, not to mention a reteaming with her Speed man Keanu Reeves. Determined to remain firmly planted in serious acting, Bullock singed on to play author Harper Lee in the movie Infamous which, because of its unfortunate timing, was swallowed by comparisons to the film Capote, and went largely unnoticed. Undaunted, Bullock singed on for the supernatural thriller Premonition, about a woman who experiences shifts in the events of the universe and must use the visions to prevent her husband's death.2009 turned out to be one of the popular actresses most memorable years. In addition to producing and playing the lead in the smash hit romantic comedy The Proposal, Bullock earned the best reviews of her career as a protective mother helping raise a struggling high-school football player in The Blind Side. For her work in that movie, Bullock won the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actress, not to mention the Oscar for Best Leading Actress. Fresh off her win, Bullock next took on another dramatic film, the post-9/11 drama Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. She starred in 2013's Gravity, opposite George Clooney, earning herself a second Oscar nomination. In 2015, she starred in, and produced, Our Brand Is Crisis.

Trivia: A staple of the British stage for nearly a quarter of a century before he gained his first significant measure of international notice, Nigel Hawthorne has had one of the acting profession's more slow-burning careers. However, it has been an undeniably distinguished career marked with any number of critical peaks, perhaps most notably his brilliant, Oscar-nominated title performance in Nicholas Hytner's 1994 adaptation of Alan Bennett's The Madness of King George. Born in Coventry on April 5, 1929, Hawthorne grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, where he moved with his family at the age of four. After attending the University of Cape Town, where he started acting, he returned to England in 1951. Determined to pursue an acting career, Hawthorne slogged away for years in relative obscurity, oftentimes hovering precipitously close to complete bankruptcy. His early career proved to be so disappointing that the actor returned to Cape Town for a time, but he ultimately returned to England to try his luck all over again. His second attempt was thankfully more successful than his first, and although it would be years before he would be duly appreciated, he did enjoy some measure of success in London's West End. Hawthorne's first helping of international acclaim came with his portrayal of Sir Humphrey Appleby on the popular British television series Yes, Minister during the '80s. His work on the political satire earned him a number of BAFTA awards and such fame in his native country that he was on occasion mistaken for being an actual politician, even, reportedly, by Queen Elizabeth herself. The actor went on to establish himself as one of Britain's great performers, winning a 1991 Tony Award for his performance in the Broadway production of Shadowlands and a 1992 Olivier Award (as well as an Evening Standard Award and a host of other honors) for his title role in the Royal National Theatre's production of The Madness of George the Third. His work in the latter play was adapted to the screen in 1994 with Nicholas Hytner's widely acclaimed The Madness of King George. Again, Hawthorne enjoyed great critical praise for his portrayal of the mentally unbalanced king, earning an Oscar nomination and a BAFTA award for his rich, manic, and ultimately dignified performance.Hawthorne, who had been appearing onscreen since 1972's Young Winston, subsequently did starring and supporting work in a number of high profile films, including Richard Loncraine's Richard III (1996), Steven Spielberg's Amistad (1997), The Object of My Affection (1998), and David Mamet's acclaimed adaptation of Terence Rattigan's The Winslow Boy (1999), which cast Hawthorne as the father of the title character. The actor, who offscreen has enjoyed a long relationship with writer Trevor Bentham, earned additional recognition for his contributions to film, television, and the theatre when he was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1987. In 1999, he was further recognized in the Queen's 1999 New Year's Honours List when he received a much-deserved knighthood.

Trivia: Boston-born Denis Leary is the sneering, tousle-haired comedian who popularized the cautionary phrase "two words." (His routine went something like this: "Regarding Bill Clinton's foreign policy, two words: Jimmy...Carter.") Best known for his many MTV appearances, Leary excels in playing characters who wavered between quiet sarcasm and howling insanity. His one-man show No Cure for Cancer premiered in New York in 1991, scoring a hit with its "intellectual guerilla" comedy. Among Leary's numerous films were National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon (1993), Judgment Night (1993), and Operation Dumbo Drop (1995). His best screen showing was as the beleaguered burglar and reluctant kidnapper in The Ref (1994). He later starred in Wag the Dog (1997), Jesus' Son (1999), and Joe Mantegna's directorial debut, Lakeboat (2000). Leary also served as a producer of the 2001 film Blow. In 2001, he starred as a New York detective in a night time drama called The Job. The series was cancelled before the end of the second season, but Leary was soon back in the movies, lending his voice to the character of Diego in the animated feature Ice Age. Then in 2004, Leary took on the character that would come to define the second leg of his career, accepting the lead role of firefighter Tommy Gavin on the FX series Rescue Me. Critically acclaimed and renowned for pushing the borders of cable television, the show proved to be a huge hit, and Leary won an Emmy for his performance. After the show wrapped in 2011, Leary would spend the followng years appearing in projects like The Amazing Spider Man.

Trivia: Benjamin Bratt was already an experienced film and TV actor by the time his four-year stint as Det. Reynaldo "Rey" Curtis on NBC's long-running hit Law and Order made him famous. Born and raised in San Francisco, Bratt studied acting at UC-Santa Barbara and in his hometown. After roles in two short-lived 1980s TV series, Bratt made his film debut as John Travolta's foe in the shelved, then straight-to-cable Chains of Gold (1991). Concentrating on building a movie career, Bratt played supporting roles in the action films Demolition Man (1993), Clear and Present Danger (1994), and The River Wild (1994), as well as one of the lead roles in Bound by Honor (1993), about Chicano gang life. After joining Law and Order in 1995 as the coolly-passionate Curtis, the half-Peruvian Indian, half-Caucasian Bratt's chiseled looks received positive notices along with his acting, but rather than rest on his laurels, Bratt used his hiatus time to produce (with his director brother Peter Bratt) and star in the indie film Follow Me Home (1997). After leaving the show in 1999 (girlfriend Julia Roberts guest-starred in one of Bratt's last episodes), Bratt moved back to San Francisco to be closer to his family and focus on making movies. He costarred as Madonna's paramour in The Next Best Thing (2000).Untouched by The Next Best Thing's failure, Bratt joined the prestigious ensemble cast of Steven Soderbergh's acclaimed, Oscar-winning narcotics drama Traffic (2000), becoming nearly unrecognizable in a brief appearance as a sleazy drug dealer. Scoring his second Christmas 2000 hit, Bratt played off his smooth, sexy law enforcement officer image as Sandra Bullock's FBI ally-turned-love interest in the comedy Miss Congeniality (2000).Though the first half of 2001 was marked by his well-publicized break-up with Roberts, Bratt was poised to leave his days as tabloid fodder behind with his lead performance in the independent biopic Piñero (2001). Winning the title role over such high profile Latino actors as Jimmy Smits, Bratt's uncanny evocation of troubled Nuyorican writer and drug casualty Miguel Piñero attracted early dark horse Oscar buzz.Bratt would go on to find continued success on the small screen throughout the 2000's, in mini-series like The Andromeda Strain , and continually on Law and Order, which he would stick with until 2007. Bratt would also star on the TV series The Cleaner, as well as on the Grey's Anatomy spin-off Private Practice.

Trivia: California-born actor Robert Gunton has been essaying film character roles since 1980. Among his film credits are Rollover (1981), Matewan (1987), Glory (1988) and Cookie (1989). Many observers feel that Gunton was at his performing peak in the role of a wildly neurotic streetcorner evangelist in the little-seen satire Static (1985). A seasoned improv performer, Robert Gunton was one of the regulars (along with such future notables as Mark-Linn Baker and Joe Mantegna on the Manhattan-based TV series Comedy Zone (1984).

Trivia: Though he's occasionally cast as eccentric urbanites, rotund character actor Glenn Shadix actually spent his childhood in rural Alabama. After acting in regional theater and waiting tables in New York, he moved to Los Angeles in his early twenties. He made his film debut with a bit part in the 1981 film remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice, but most of his time in the '80s was spent on-stage. One of his first starring roles was in drag as the famed American writer Gertrude Stein in Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights at the West Coast Ensemble Studio Theater. He earned an LA Weekly award for his performance. Young filmmaker Tim Burton saw the play and decided to cast him in his next film, Beetlejuice. The Deetz's vain interior designer Otho continues to be one of his most recognizable roles.Joining Burton's circle of regulars, Shadix provided the voice of the mayor of Halloween Town in The Nightmare Before Christmas. He also developed a friendship with another young filmmaker named Michael Lehmann during a comedy improvisation project. He was cast in two of Lehmann's films: the black comedy Heathers, as funeral orator Father Ripper, and the suburban satire Meet the Applegates. After appearing in some of the biggest cult films of the early '90s, Shadix increased his exposure by guest starring on the popular television sitcoms Seinfeld and Cheers. He eventually played the regular role of gentle giant Typhon on the syndicated adventure series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Back on the big screen, he played various eccentrics in family-friendly films like Bingo, It Runs in the Family, and Dunston Checks In. He also occasionally appeared in horror films (Sleepwalkers), science fiction (Demolition Man), and thrillers (Dark Side of Genius). Harking back to his stage roots, Shadix then appeared in two talky obscurities: the feminist film Men and the psychological drama The Empty Mirror. Moving toward more independent projects, he played a strange Southern sheriff in the crime comedy Rose's and a loud alcoholic in the drama Shut Yer Dirty Little Mouth. In 2001, he re-teamed with Burton to play Sentator Nado in the remake of Planet of the Apes. Working the convention circuit in support of his cult film status, Shadix traveled around the world. He also underwent gastric bypass surgery in order to lose over 100 pounds. In 2003, he appeared as an aging wardrobeman in Ruby Romaine Trailer Tales and as an stubborn councilman in Carnivàle, both on HBO.

Trivia: Character actor Pat Skipper specialized in everyman roles, with a slightly stocky appearance that enabled him to convincingly play rough-hewn types on some occasions, law enforcement officers on others. He landed his first major film credit in 1987, with a bit part as a postal inspector in Oliver Stone's corporate-evisceration drama Wall Street, then alternated, for the next two decades, between A-list theatrical releases (Lethal Weapon 2, Predator 2, Independence Day) and direct-to-video potboilers (Demonstone, Ed Gein). Skipper was particularly memorable as Mason Strode, the ill-fated father of psychopath victim Laurie Strode, in Rob Zombie's 2007 gore-filled remake of the John Carpenter classic Halloween.

Trivia: Another Saturday Night Live alumnus to make a bid for big screen stardom, Rob Schneider got his first chance to carry a film with Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (2000), a mistaken identity comedy that was as commercially popular as it was critically eviscerated. The diminutive Schneider, who was born to a Filipino mother and Jewish father in San Francisco on October 31, 1963, got his start in comedy in high school. He began writing sketches when he was 15 and also began appearing at local comedy venues. Inspired by such comics as Richard Pryor, Gene Wilder, Peter Sellars, and Monty Python, Schneider decided to try to make a career out of stand-up.Following high school graduation, the fledgling comedian set off for Europe, where he traveled for a few months until he was robbed in Paris. Scraping together enough cash to make it back to the U.S., Schneider returned to San Francisco and renewed his determination to make it as a comedian. He quickly became active on the comedy circuit, opening for such luminaries as Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, and Dana Carvey. Schneider got his big break in 1990, when he was discovered by SNL producer Lorne Michaels while performing on an HBO comedy special. He was hired on as a writer for SNL in 1991, but he soon began performing his own material as well as writing it. He earned great popularity and lasting fame for his characterizations of "Richard "the Richmeister" Laymer" and "The Sensitive Naked Man," as well as various celebrity impersonations. Schneider stayed with the show until the end of the 1993-1994 season, when he decided to quit in order to pursue his film career.Following his departure from SNL, Schneider had a sizable supporting role in the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Judge Dredd (1995), but his subsequent film work was limited almost solely to forgettable comedies. In 1996, the comedian returned to television as one of the stars of the short-lived sitcom Men Behaving Badly, but he continued to focus much of his energy on a film career. After appearing in The Waterboy (1998) and Big Daddy (1999), two wildly successful comedies starring fellow-SNL alum Adam Sandler, Schneider starred as the titular hero of Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, a fish tank cleaner who assumes the identity of a high-living gigolo. Panned by critics as immature and vulgar, Deuce Bigalow nevertheless did decent business in theaters and found a niche after it's subsequent release on home video, prompting Schneider to prepare a sophmore effort, The Animal. Co-starring Survivor contestant turned thespian Colleen Haskell, Schneider's tale of a car accident victim imbued with superhuman powers after being pieced back together with animal organs kept the low-brow rolling while marking his territory among the ranks of the more successful transitions from SNL player to big screen star.Later, in the 2000s, Schneider frequently alternated between starring in his own films (The Hot Chick, Duece Bigalow: European Gigolo), and supporting his old pal Sandler (The Longest Yard, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry), with few on either side truly managing to ignite the box office or his career momentum. Though 2012 found Schneider attempting to break back into television with Rob, a CBS sitcom centering on an OCD landscape architect who marries into a jovial Mexican-American family, the network cancelled the series after just one season.

Trivia: A staunch proponent of the Avant-Garde theater movement, Andre Gregory was one of the most influential actor/directors on the off-Broadway scene of the early 1970s. He then quit theatre cold for five years due to personal difficulties. He "announced" his return with a most unorthodox film: 1981's My Dinner With Andre, co-written by Gregory and his friend Wallace Shawn, who comprise the "cast" of this captivating 2-hour chatfest. If you're looking for biographical information on Mr. Gregory, just sit back and listen to the soundtrack of My Dinner With Andre, wherein he details his career highs and lows, his world travels, his fascination with The Little Prince, the time that he ate dirt, and so on. Andre Gregory's later film credits include Always (1985), Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Demolition Man (1993), and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), in which he played John the Baptist.

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: Many remember Dan Cortese as the host of MTV Sports from 1992 to 1997. The former college football player subsequently embarked on a conventional acting career, appearing on a number of TV shows like Melrose Place, 8 Simple Rules, and Veronica's Closet. He also had a recurring role on the series What I Like About You from 2006-2006, and later took on a starring role on the sitcom Surviving Suburbia alongside Bob Saget in 2009.

Trivia: Supporting actress, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Professional wrestler and sometime governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura has enjoyed a sideline in acting, appearing in action fare like Predator and Ricochet.

Trivia: Actor, musician, and cult idol ascendant, Jack Black is known for both the characters he portrays on the screen and as one of the forces behind Tenacious D, a rock band/standup routine that Black has described as "a Smothers Brothers for the Dungeons and Dragons misfits set."A native of Santa Monica, CA, Black attended the University of California at Los Angeles. He got his professional start on the stage, appearing in Tim Robbins' production of Carnage at the 1989 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He would go on to collaborate with Robbins throughout his career, making his screen debut in the director's 1992 political satire Bob Roberts and appearing in Robbins' Dead Man Walking (1995) and Cradle Will Rock (1999). Black spent the '90s playing supporting and lead roles in a variety of films, including Demolition Man (1993), The Cable Guy (1996), which cast him as the best friend of Matthew Broderick's character, and Jesus' Son (1999), in which Black had a small but extremely memorable role as a pill-popping hospital orderly.In 2000, Black had one of his most recognizable and enthusiastically received screen roles to date in High Fidelity. Stephen Frears' popular adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel of the same name, it featured Black as Barry, a thoroughly obnoxious record-store employee. The part allowed the actor to do some of his own singing, a talent that he had previously inflicted on numerous audience members during his years with the aforementioned Tenacious D. The band, comprised of Black and fellow holy terror Kyle Gass, had existed since 1994, and it had been featured on the TV comedy series Mr. Show and as the subject of their own HBO series entitled (tongue firmly in cheek) Tenacious D: The Greatest Band on Earth. It was only a matter of time before Black stepped up from supporting character to leading man, and with the Farrelly brother's Shallow Hal Black may just have found the ideal vehicle for the successful transition. As a superficial man who falls in love with a 300-pound woman after being hypnotized to see only the "inner beauty" of the opposite sex, Black co-starred alongside Gwyneth Paltrow and Jason Alexander in what promised to be a charmingly offensive addition to the Farrelly canon.Though MTV Films' heavily marketed Orange County (2002) was not a huge commercial success, Black's supporting role as the lead character's slacker brother was well received by critics and long-time fans alike, and the once obscure figure began appearing on media outlets including Saturday Night Live, Primetime Glick, commercials for The Osbournes, and various MTV music and film awards. In 2003, Black starred in his first big hit -- director Richard Linklater's musical comedy School of Rock, which featured Black as a disgruntled heavy metal-guitarist doing a substitute teaching gig for extra cash. Critics were so taken by his performance that he was honored with a Golden Globe nomination.2004 saw Black turn in a cameo in the Will Ferrell vehicle Anchorman, after starring opposite Ben Stiller in director Barry Levinson's black comedy Envy. While the film was a box-office bomb after having its release pushed back several times, Black still had much to celebrate when it was announced he would be taking the lead in Peter Jackson's highly anticipated 2005 remake of King Kong. The epic film helped transition Black from a cult hero to a traditional movie star, though he was still careful to keep his original fans happy. In 2006, he starred in Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess' comedy Nacho Libre. The part of a disgruntled monk turned Lucha Libre idol was a perfect fit for the bombastic star, and he followed the performance up with another comic offering for his serious fans as he and Kyle Gass, his partner in Tenacious D, starred in Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny. This big screen telling of the band's mythical history promised to be full of the over-the-top laughs that rocked fans of the group's HBO series, and also included appearances by rock and metal idols like Ronnie James Dio and Meatloaf, who portrayed Black's dad. Black didn't abandoning straight acting. He would appear in a number of more conventional, and even dramatic roles over the coming years, like in The Holiday and Margot at the Wedding, while still pursuing the broad comedic roles he was known for in full force, with comedies like Be Kind Rewind, Tropic Thunder, Year One, and The Big Year. In 2012, Black reteamed with Richard Linklater for a unique blending of comedy, drama, and crime, playing a congenial southern murder suspect in Bernie.

Trivia: Though best known for her intense, sensitive dramatic portrayals, Melinda Dillon first attracted attention as an improvisational comedienne. Her Broadway break came about when she played the hypertense Honey in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962). Making her film debut playing a small role in The April Fools (1969). Since then Dillon has been Oscar-nominated for her portrayal of a mother whose young child is abducted by aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and her performance as a suicidal grade-school teacher in Absence of Malice (1981). After seeing Melinda Dillon so often afflicted with trembling lip and moistened eyes, it was somewhat a relief to watch her return to comedy full-force on the 1971 TV revue series Story Theatre and as Peter Billingsley's overbearing mother ("You'll put your eye out!") in A Christmas Story (1983). Dillon continues working in a wide variety of feature films like How to Make an American Quilt (1995); she also occasionally appears in television movies such as Shattered Innocence (1984).

Trivia: An actress whose love-her-or-hate-her screen presence can often be traced to the disastrous 1995 comic-book adaptation that should have been her breakout role, Lori Petty has endured the lingering failure of Tank Girl to prove herself capable of much more than battling maniacal super-villains with the aid of renegade kangaroos. The Chattanooga, TN, native first set herself apart from the pack as the first female editor of her high school newspaper in Sioux City, and the ambitious future actress was also active with the yearbook and the debate team. It wasn't long before Petty turned to acting as a creative outlet, and after making her television debut in a 1987 episode of The Equalizer she went on to appear in both Head of the Class and Miami Vice. Her roles in the made-for-television Bates Motel and the short-lived series The Thorns went largely unnoticed, and it wasn't until the early '90s that audiences truly got their first glimpse of the rising starlet. Following a brief but scene-stealing turn in the 1990 comedy Cadillac Man, Petty made her first big impression with a role as Keanu Reeves' surfing instructor in the following year's Point Break. When her appearance in the 1992 women's baseball comedy drama A League of Their Own found Petty practically stealing the limelight from such screen heavies as Madonna and Geena Davis, casting agents took notice, and she subsequently landed roles in such high-profile releases as Free Willy (1993), Poetic Justice (1993), and the Pauly Shore comedy In the Army Now (1994). Though Petty's solid dramatic performance in the 1994 police drama The Glass Shield earned her kudos from the critics, the film only received limited release and her contributions went largely unseen. Of course, it was only a matter of time before Petty was given the chance to headline a film, and after beating out the likes of Spice Girl Geri Halliwell and Emily Lloyd she took the lead in the much-maligned 1995 film Tank Girl. A loud, brash and ultimately misguided attempt to bring the punkish comic-book heroine to the screen, the film was ultimately done in by its own excess. Fans were pleased to see Petty bounce back the following year in the shortlived sitcom Lush Life, though the years that followed found her cast in a slew of B-level thrillers including Countdown (1996), The Arrangement (1999), Firetrap, and Route 666 (both 2001). After stepping into the director's chair and pulling double duty both in front of and behind the camera on 2001's Horrible Accident, Petty rocked her heart out in search of a record contract in the 2003 musical drama Prey for Rock & Roll.