Trivia: University of Kansas City graduate Dee Wallace is best known for her role as Elliot's divorced mom in the box-office gold mine E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). A former ballerina, Wallace had made her cinematic debut three years prior to E.T. with a minor role in 10 (1979). She co-starred in The Howling (1981) and Cujo (1983), with actor Christopher Stone, whom she married (hence her current professional name). Dee Wallace and Christopher Stone also shared top billing on the syndicated TV series The New Lassie (1989-1990).

Trivia: There are several theories as to why Peter Cohon chose the stage name of Peter Coyote; for his part, the actor is reluctant to discuss an event that apparently was the end result of an evening's experimentation with controlled substances. In the late 1960s, Coyote quit his job as a dockworker to "turn on, tune in and drop out." With hair so long that he could sit on it (by his own admission), Coyote was a "fringie" with such varied organizations as the Grateful Dead and the Hell's Angels, and also worked for a while with a guerilla mime group. After years of deprivation, Coyote dropped back into society in 1975, accepting a job as a drama teacher at a public school. Rapidly approaching middle age, Coyote entered films with 1980's Die Laughing. Throughout the 1980s, he alternated between good guys, villains, and a vaguely defined stereotype known as "loser boyfriends." As the vengeful public prosecutor in The Jagged Edge (1985), Coyote turns out not to be the film's principal heavy; even so, we leave the picture disliking his character more than anyone else's. Leading roles came his way in such films as Exposure (1991), but even here he could not completely escape an aura of slime (his ostensibly heroic character burrows through the seamy underside of Rio in search of a prostitute's murderer). One of Coyote's few unconditionally "nice" roles was as the enigmatic scientist Keys in the champion moneymaker E.T. (1982). In the late 1990s, Coyote published Sleeping Where I Fall, a candid memoir of his years as a cultural drop out. In 1992 Roman Polanski tapped him to play the lead in his psycho-sexual black comedy Bitter Moon, and he continued to work steadily in a variety of projects after that such as Kika, Buffalo Girls, Patch Adams, and Sphere. With his deep, distinctive voice he became an in demand narrator for documentaries. He had a small but memorable turn in Erin Brokovich, and was cast in Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale. He was in the teen drama A Walk to Remember, and the Polish brothers cast him in their 2003 film Northfork. Although his big-screen appearances began to dwindle, he remained one of the most ubiquitous narrators of non-fiction films of various types.

Trivia: The granddaughter of John Barrymore and grandniece of Ethel Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore, Drew Barrymore was born in Culver City, California on February 22, 1975. From there, she didn't waste much time getting in front of the cameras, making her first commercial at nine months and her first television movie, Suddenly Love, at the age of two. Two years later, she made her film debut, appearing as William Hurt's daughter in Altered States (1980). At the advanced age of seven, Barrymore became a true celebrity, thanks to her role as the cherubic Gertie in Steven Spielberg's E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. The huge success of that 1982 film endeared Barrymore to millions of audience members, but following leads in two more films, Irreconcilable Differences and Firestarter (both 1984), the young actress began to succumb to a destructive lifestyle defined by drugs, alcohol, and too much partying. A child expected to behave like an adult, Barrymore began drinking at the age of nine and started taking drugs a short while later.Unsurprisingly, observers began writing Barrymore off as just another failed child star when she was barely into her teens. She made a string of (largely forgettable) movies, many of which only reinforced her image as a has-been. However, in the middle of her teen years, Barrymore entered rehab, cleaned herself up, and wrote an autobiography, Little Girl Lost, which detailed her travails with drugs and alcohol. In the early 1990s, she entered another phase in her career, gaining notoriety for playing a series of vampy, trampy trailer-park Lolitas. In this capacity, she turned in memorable performances in Poison Ivy (1992), the 1993 made-for-TV The Amy Fisher Story, and Batman Forever (1995), all of which featured her pouting seductively and showing more thigh than all the Rockettes combined. Barrymore's on-screen antics were ably complemented by the off-screen reputation she was forming at the time: first she could be seen posing nude with then-boyfriend Jamie Walters on the cover of Interview magazine, then modeling for a series of racy Guess ads, flashing David Letterman during an appearance on The Late Show as a "birthday present" to the host, and finally posing nude for Playboy in 1995.In 1996, Barrymore's image underwent an abrupt and effective transformation from slut to sweetheart. With a brief but memorable role in Wes Craven's Scream and a lead in Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You that featured her as a Kelly Girl for the '90s, Barrymore's career received an adrenaline shot to the heart. She began working steadily again, and she reshaped her offscreen persona into that of a delightful and sweet-natured girl trying to mend her ways. This new image was supported by her screen work, much of which featured her as a chaste heroine. Her starring role as the "real" Cinderella in Ever After (1998) was a good example, and it had the added advantage of turning out to be a fairly solid hit. Barrymore's other major 1998 film, The Wedding Singer, was another hit, further enhancing her reputation as America's new sweetheart. The following year, the actress all but put the final nail in the coffin of her wild-child reputation of years past, starring as the nerdy, lovelorn twenty-something reporter who bears the titular condition of Never Been Kissed. That movie not only marked a notable transition in Barrymore's reputation, but an advancement in her cinematic career as well. Expanding her role from actress to producer, Barrymore would continue starring in and producing such efforts as Charlie's Angels (2000), Donnie Darko (2001).Though some may have suspected that her millennial transition from sweetheart to skull-cracker in Charlie's Angels may have signaled a shift towards more action oriented roles -- and despite her return to the role in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003) -- Barrymore once again charmed audiences with another emotional comedy, Riding in Cars With Boys in 2001, while Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) found Drew in the role of long-suffering girlfriend alongside Sam Rockwell's unlikely CIA operative. Though the film did not fare particularly well critically or otherwise, Barrymore took a nonetheless interesting turn as an apple-pie wife turned sinister in 2003's Duplex, and held her own against scene-chomper Ben Stiller. Barrymore teamed up with fellow Stiller-flick alumni Owen Wilson for 2004's Date School, and once again played Adam Sandler's sugar sweet girlfriend in director Peter Segal's romantic comedy Fifty-First Dates.2005 brought yet another openly fluffy romantic comedy with Fever Pitch, in which she played the straight-girl against Red Sox super-fan Jimmy Fallon, but she soon changed gears, signing on to appear in Lucky You, a gambling drama by Curtis Hanson. She was soon back to romcom terretory, with Music and Lyrics and He's Just Not That Into You, but also took on an extremly meaty character role in the 2009 HBO film Grey Gardens, in which she mimiced the particular speech and mannerisms of infamous shut-in "Little Edie" and met with major critical acclaim. Around this same time, Barrymore took on her first directorial effort, helming the modest, young-adult movie Whip It, which critics deemed a solid debut. Barrymore then took on a starring role alongside sometime boyfriend Justin Long in the 2010 comedy Going the Distance, before signing on to play an environmental activist in the feel-good period movie Big Miracle. She then took a career break in order to focus on her growing family before re-teaming with Adam Sandler in 2014 for the romcom Blended.

Trivia: Lead actor, former juvenile, onscreen from the early '80s.

Trivia: American actor C. Thomas Howell (the "C" is for Christopher) began his acting career at the age of four, when he was a regular on the TV series Little People; he went on to appear on two other series: Two Marriages and Into the Homeland. This led to a big break when he was cast at the age of 16 in a secondary role in Steven Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), one of the most successful films of all time. Following that, Francis Ford Coppola gave him the lead (in part due to Howell's "pretty-boy" good looks) in The Outsiders (1983), which has led to a consistent film career. However, most of his movies (with the exception of The Hitcher, 1986, in which he is stalked by a killer) have fared badly at the box office. Besides being an actor, Howell is also a former junior rodeo circuit champion. He is married to actress Rae Dawn Chong, with whom he co-starred in Soul Man (1986). The two divorced in 1990, but Howell remarried Sylvie Anderson in 1992.Howell would continue to appear in several projects a year, playing such notable roles as Lt. Thomas D. Chamberlain in 1993's Gettysburg, and the title role in 1995's Baby Face Nelson. In 1995, he tried his hand at directing, helming the drama Hourglass. In 1996 he directed The Big Fall and Pure Danger, and later, Howell added writing and producing to his resume as well, earning both screenwriter and producer credits for 2004's Hope Ranch and 2005's Blind Injustice. Howell also never gave up acting, appearing in such varied films as 2004's Hidalgo and 2007's Hoboken Hallow. He continued to work steadily, directing projects like The Day the Earth Stopped, The Land That Time Forgot, and The genesis Code in addition to acting in various films. He enjoyed his highest profile success in many years when he played the father of a young boy rescued by a superhero in The Amazing Spider Man.

Trivia: Many remember Sean Frye as the rambunctious Steve in the 1982 film E.T. The 16 year old had already learned the ropes with roles in Fun with Dick and Jane and on Little House on the Prairie, and he would go on to appear in For Keeps and Real Genius. Frye didn't stick with movies, however, and retired from Hollywood in the '90s to pursue a career in social work.