Trivia: When Mark Hamill accepted the role of Luke Skywalker in George Lucas' Star Wars trilogy, he had no idea that he was going to become a cultural icon of callow youth, raw courage, and true heroism. Hamill was born the son of a naval captain, one of nine brothers and sisters. Hamill spent much of his youth traveling to different bases in the U.S. and Japan. He was studying drama at Los Angeles City Drama when he landed his first professional acting role as a guest star on the television series The Bill Cosby Show. Between 1972 and 1973, Hamill played Kent Murray on the television soap General Hospital and also did guest appearances on other television shows and in TV movies. In 1974, Hamill co-starred in The Texas Wheelers, a down-home sitcom that only lasted a season. He made his screen debut in Star Wars (1977) and became such a big hit that he had trouble getting other types of roles. Shortly before the release of Star Wars, Hamill was involved in a terrible car crash that resulted in surgeons having to reconstruct his face. Despite the enormity of Hamill's popularity in this film, he was unable to attain a lucrative film career like his co-star, Harrison Ford, perhaps because he too closely identified with Luke in viewers' minds to be seen as anyone else. Instead, Hamill appeared in films such as Corvette Summer (1978), The Big Red One (1980), and The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (1980). Hamill tried his luck on and off-Broadway and won excellent reviews for his work, playing the leads in The Elephant Man and Amadeus. By the 1990s, he had largely been cast in direct-to-video ventures. On television, he provided his voice to at least two animated characters in The Adventures of Batman and Robin. In addition, Hamill starred in several hit CD-ROM games in the Wing Commander series and continues to appear occasionally on television. Finally, Hamill and his cousin, Eric Johnson, co-wrote The Black Pearl comic book series, which Hamill hopes to make into an animated movie.He became famous for voicing The Joker in the animated Batman series, and spoofed his own celebrity with a memorable cameo in Kevin Smith's Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back. He continued to find steady work in animated projects like Futurama, Robot Chicken, Danger Ranger, and even Scooby-Doo.

Trivia: Though she was a best-selling author and screenwriter, many fans will always associate Carrie Fisher with the role of Princess Leia from George Lucas' Star Wars trilogy. She was the daughter of movie stars Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher and grew up wanting to follow in their footsteps. When Fisher was quite young, her father left the family to marry Elizabeth Taylor. Reynolds raised Fisher and her younger brother, Todd Fisher, alone, but then remarried. As a performer, she started appearing with her mother on Vegas nightclub stages at age 12. When she was 15, Fisher left high school to focus on her show business career. The following year, she was a dancer in the Broadway revival of Irene, which starred her mother. Soon after that, Fisher enrolled at London's Central School of Speech and Drama where she studied for 18 months.Fisher made her film debut playing a sexy young thing who succumbs to womanizing Warren Beatty's seduction in Shampoo (1975). Next came the Star Wars films. Her feisty portrayal of the courageous young princess made Fisher a star. But with sudden stardom came a price. In November 1978, she hosted the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. There she met and became friends with John Belushi, and with him got heavily involved with illegal drugs. Fisher became romantically involved with singer/songwriter Paul Simon and married him in the early '80s. Due in part to her drug problems, the marriage lasted less than a year. A near overdose led Fisher to drug and alcohol rehabilitation. She detailed her experiences with drugs and recovery in her witty first novel, Postcards From the Edge (1987). Two years later, Fisher adapted the tale for Mike Nichols' charming and moving screen version which starred Meryl Streep as a drug-addicted daughter trying to make a comeback and compete with a glamorous movie star mother (Shirley MacLaine) who always outshines her.Throughout the '80s, Fisher continued appearing sporadically in feature films, but made little impact as an actress. By the latter part of the decade, her acting career began perking up again with such films as When Harry Met Sally (1989), in which she played Meg Ryan's best friend. Fisher appeared in a few more films and also in the television series Leaving L.A. through 1992 and then abandoned acting for the next five years to focus on child rearing and her writing career. Subsequent novels include Surrender the Pink, a semi-autobiographical novel exploring her relationship with Paul Simon, and Delusions of Grandma. In 1997, Fisher returned to feature films playing a small role in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. She also experienced renewed fame when George Lucas released restored and enhanced versions of his Star Wars series in 1996. Although she became better known for her writing than her acting, she continued to appear in movies such as Lisa Picard Is Famous, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Fanboys, and the 2008 remake of The Women. In 2010 her one-woman show Wishful Drinking, in which she recounted her career and her life, was filmed. In 2015, she returned to her most iconic character, now General Leia, in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Fisher suffered a fatal heart attack in 2016, and died at age 60.

Trivia: If Harrison Ford had listened to the advice of studio heads early in his career, he would have remained a carpenter and never gone on to star in some of Hollywood's biggest films and become one of the industry's most bankable stars. Born July 13, 1942, in Chicago and raised in a middle-class suburb, he had an average childhood. An introverted loner, he was popular with girls but picked on by school bullies. Ford quietly endured their everyday tortures until he one day lost his cool and beat the tar out of the gang leader responsible for his being repeatedly thrown off an embankment. He had no special affinity for films and usually only went to see them on dates because they were inexpensive and dark. Following high school graduation, Ford studied English and Philosophy at Ripon College in Wisconsin. An admittedly lousy student, he began acting while in college and then worked briefly in summer stock. He was expelled from the school three days before graduation because he did not complete his required thesis. In the mid-'60s, Ford and his first wife, Mary Marquardt (his college sweetheart) moved to Hollywood, where he signed as a contract player with Columbia and, later, Universal. After debuting onscreen in a bit as a bellboy in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966), he played secondary roles, typically a cowboy, in several films of the late '60s and in such TV series as Gunsmoke, The Virginian, and Ironside. Discouraged with both the roles he was getting and his difficulty in providing for his young family, he abandoned acting and taught himself carpentry via books borrowed from the local library. Using his recently purchased run-down Hollywood home for practice, Ford proved himself a talented woodworker, and, after successfully completing his first contract to build an out-building for Sergio Mendez, found himself in demand with other Hollywood residents (it was also during this time that Ford acquired his famous scar, the result of a minor car accident). Meanwhile, Ford's luck as an actor began to change when a casting director friend for whom he was doing some construction helped him get a part in George Lucas' American Graffiti (1973). The film became an unexpected blockbuster and greatly increased Ford's familiarity. Many audience members, particularly women, responded to his turn as the gruffly macho Bob Falfa, the kind of subtly charismatic portrayal that would later become Ford's trademark. However, Ford's career remained stagnant until Lucas cast him as space pilot Han Solo in the megahit Star Wars (1977), after which he became a minor star. He spent the remainder of the 1970s trapped in mostly forgettable films (such as the comedy Western The Frisco Kid with Gene Wilder), although he did manage to land the small role of Colonel G. Lucas in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979). The early '80s elevated Ford to major stardom with the combined impact of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and his portrayal of action-adventure hero Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), which proved to be an enormous hit. He went on to play "Indy" twice more, in 1984's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989. Ford moved beyond popular acclaim with his role as a big-city police detective who finds himself masquerading as an Amish farmer to protect a young murder witness in Witness (1984), for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his work, as well as the praise of critics who had previously ignored his acting ability. Having appeared in several of the biggest money-makers of all time, Ford was able to pick and choose his roles in the '80s and '90s. Following the success of Witness, Ford re-teamed with the film's director, Peter Weir, to make a film adaptation of Paul Theroux's novel The Mosquito Coast. The film met with mixed critical results, and audiences largely stayed away, unused to the idea of their hero playing a markedly flawed and somewhat insane character. Undeterred, Ford went on to choose projects that brought him further departure from the action films responsible for his reputation. In 1988 he worked with two of the industry's most celebrated directors, Roman Polanski and Mike Nichols. With Polanski he made Frantic, a dark psychological thriller that fared poorly among critics and audiences alike. He had greater success with Nichols, his director in Working Girl, a saucy comedy in which he co-starred with Melanie Griffith and Sigourney Weaver. The film was a hit, and displayed Ford's largely unexploited comic talent. Ford began the 1990s with Alan J. Pakula's courtroom thriller Presumed Innocent, which he followed with another Mike Nichols outing, Regarding Henry (1991). The film was an unmitigated flop with both critics and audiences, but Ford allayed his disappointment the following year when he signed an unprecedented 50-million-dollar contract to play CIA agent Jack Ryan in a series of five movies based upon the novels of Tom Clancy. The first two films of the series, Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), met with an overwhelming success mirrored by that of Ford's turn as Dr. Richard Kimball in The Fugitive (1993). Ford's next effort, Sydney Pollack's 1995 remake of Sabrina, did not meet similar success, and this bad luck continued with The Devil's Own (which reunited him with Pakula), despite Ford's seemingly fault-proof pairing with Brad Pitt. However, his other 1997 effort, Wolfgang Petersen's Air Force One, more than made up for the critical and commercial shortcomings of his previous two films, proving that Ford, even at 55, was still a bona fide, butt-kicking action hero. Stranded on an island with Anne Hesche for his next feature, the moderately successful romantic adventure Six Days, Seven Nights (1998), Ford subsequently appeared in the less successful romantic drama Random Hearts. Bouncing back a bit with Robert Zemeckis' horror-flavored thriller What Lies Beneath, the tension would remain at a fever pitch as Ford and crew raced to prevent a nuclear catastrophe in the fact based deep sea thriller K-19: The Widowmaker. As the 2000's unfolded, Ford would prove that he had a strong commitment to being active in film, continuing to work in projects like Hollywood Homicide, Firewall, Extraordinary Measures, Morning Glory, and Cowboys & Aliens. Ford would also reprise one of his most famous roles for the disappointing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Trivia: The screen's first authentic black romantic leading man, Williams is often referred to as "the black Gable." He first appeared onstage as a child actor in The Firebrand of Florence (1947) with German actress Lotte Lenya; his mother was an elevator operator at New York's Lyceum Theater, and when she heard of an opening for a child in the play she brought him to the producer, who hired him. He went on to study acting at New York's High School of Music and Art and The National Academy of Fine Arts; for a few months he was taught by Sidney Poitier at Harlem's Actors Workshop. He began working onstage in the mid '50s, then landed his breakthrough role in the play A Taste of Honey in 1960. He debuted onscreen as a rebellious ghetto kid in The Last Angry Man (1959). However, he did not appear in another film for over a decade. In the '60s he began landing roles on TV, including a continuing role on the soap opera Another World and guest spots on TV series. He made a big impression as the costar of the TV movie Brian's Song (1970). His breakthrough screen role was as the lover of Billie Holiday (Diana Ross) in the hit Lady Sings the Blues (1972), which brought him to stardom and established him as a romantic lead. He went on to appear in a number of movies, few of which fully used his talents; he portrayed Lando Calrissian in the second and third Star Wars films, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). In the mid '80s he began appearing again frequently on TV, and starred in the short-lived series Double Dare in 1985; he was also a regular for a while on Dynasty.

Trivia: While British actor Anthony Daniels' face and name may not be immediately familiar to the moviegoing public, his primary film role most assuredly is: fussy aureate android C-3PO in the phenomenally popular Star Wars saga. Though acting was his passion, Daniels did not attempt to make it his career until his mid-twenties. After three years in drama school, Daniels won a job on BBC Radio and soon moved to theater, joining Britain's Young Vic Company. Daniels had been a professional thespian for only two years when he, despite initial reluctance, agreed to play C-3PO in George Lucas' record-breaking sci-fi fantasy Star Wars (1977). Paired with the bolder droid R2D2, C-3PO fretfully joined Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia in the old-fashioned battle against the evil Dark Side; his gold anthropomorphized machine body became a prominent symbol of Lucas' elaborately conceived cinematic universe. The blockbuster sequels, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), also featured Daniels as the popular droid. Though Daniels moved on to other acting projects, including the animated Lord of the Rings (1978), I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1989), and the fourth installment of British television's acclaimed Prime Suspect series, he also authored the comic book The Protocol Offensive about C-3PO. When Lucas began production in the late '90s on the trio of prequels to the original Star Wars, Daniels was one of the few original cast members the story allowed to return -- and Star Wars: Episode 1 -- The Phantom Menace (1999) finally revealed the origin of a pre-gilded age C-3PO.

Trivia: Stands over seven-feet tall. Maintained his job as a hospital worker while playing Chewbacca in the Star Wars films. Established the Peter Mayhew Foundation, a nonprofit organization which helps children and adults in need. Along with his wife Angie, wrote the book My Favorite Giant (2011), which teaches acceptance to young audiences.

Trivia: A member of a generation of British actors that included Sir Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson, Sir Alec Guinness possessed an astonishing versatility that was amply displayed over the course of his 66-year career. Dubbed "the outstanding poet of anonymity" by fellow actor Peter Ustinov, Guinness was a consummate performer, effortlessly portraying characters that ranged from eight members of the same family to an aging Jedi master. Synonymous throughout most of his career with old-school British aplomb and dry wit, the actor was considered to be second only to Olivier in his popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. Theater critic J.C. Trewin once described Guinness as possessing "a player's countenance, designed for whatever might turn up." The latter half of this description was an apt summation of the actor's beginnings, which were positively Dickensian. Born into poverty in London on April 2, 1914, Guinness was an illegitimate child who did not know the name on his birth certificate was Guinness until he was 14 (until that time he had used his stepfather's surname, Stiven). Guinness never met his biological father, who provided his son's private school funds but refused to pay for his university education. It was while working as an advertising copywriter that Guinness began going to the theatre, spending his pound-a-week salary on tickets. Determined to become an actor himself, he somehow found the money to pay for beginning acting lessons and subsequently won a place at the Fay Compton School of Acting. While studying there, he was told by his acting teacher Martita Hunt that he had "absolutely no talent." However, Sir John Gielgud apparently disagreed: as the judge of the end-of-term performance, he awarded Guinness an acting prize and further rewarded him with two roles in his 1934 production of Hamlet. Three years later, Guinness became a permanent member of Gielgud's London company and in 1938, playing none other than Hamlet himself. In 1939, Guinness' stage version of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, which featured the actor as Herbert Pocket, caught the attention of fledgling director David Lean. Seven years later, Lean would cast Guinness in the novel's screen adaptation; the 1946 film was the actor's second screen engagement, the first being the 1934 Evensong, in which he was an extra. It was in Lean's Oliver Twist (1948) that he had his first memorable onscreen role as Fagin, although his portrayal -- complete with stereotypically Semitic gestures and heavy makeup -- aroused charges of anti-Semitism in the United States that delayed the film's stateside release for three years. Guinness won bona fide international recognition for his work in Robert Hamer's Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), an Ealing black comedy that featured him as eight members of the d'Ascoyne family. He would subsequently be associated with a number of the classic Ealing comedies, including The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Detective (1954), and The Ladykillers (1955). In 1955, Guinness' contributions to the arts were recognized by Queen Elizabeth, who dubbed him Commander of the British Empire. Two years later, he received recognition on the other side of the Atlantic when he won a Best Actor Oscar for his role as Colonel Nicholson, a phenomenally principled and at times foolhardy British POW in The Bridge on the River Kwai. Ironically, Guinness turned down the role twice before being persuaded to take it by producer Sam Spiegel; his performance remained one of the most acclaimed of his career. In 1960, Guinness once again earned acclaim for his portrayal of another officer, in Tunes of Glory. Cast as hard-drinking, ill-mannered Scottish Lieutenant-Colonel Jock Sinclair, a role he would later name as his favorite, the actor gave a powerful performance opposite John Mills as the upper-crust British officer assigned to take over his duties. He subsequently became associated with David Lean's great epics of the 1960s, starring as Prince Feisal in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and as Zhivago's brother in Dr. Zhivago (1965); much later in his career, Guinness would also appear in Lean's A Passage to India (1984) as Professor Godbole, an Indian intellectual. Although Guinness continued to work at a fairly prolific pace throughout the 1960s and 1970s, his popularity was on the wane until director George Lucas practically begged him to appear as Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars (1977). The role earned the actor his third Academy Award nomination (his second came courtesy of his screenplay for Ronald Neame's 1958 satire The Horse's Mouth) and introduced him to a new generation of fans. Guinness reprised the role for The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983); although the role Obi Wan was perhaps the most famous of his career and earned him millions, he reportedly hated the character and encouraged Lucas to kill him off in the trilogy's first installment so as to limit his involvement in the subsequent films.After receiving an honorary Academy Award in 1979, Guinness did a bit of television (most notably a 1979 adaptation of John LeCarre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) and acted onscreen in supporting roles. In 1988 he earned a slew of award nominations -- including his fourth Oscar nomination -- for his work in a six-hour adaptation of Dickens' Little Dorrit. In addition to acting, Guinness focused his attention on writing, producing two celebrated memoirs. He died on August 5, 2000, at the age of 86, leaving behind his wife of 62 years, a son, and one of the acting world's most distinguished legacies.

Trivia: British actor David Prowse began weightlifting at the age of 16 and became his country's champion in that field five years later, holding on to the title for two years. Theatrical producers and filmakers found the imposed Prowse to be an excellent type for supernatural roles; he was cast as Death in the play -- Don't Let Summer Come -- principally because the role required Prowse to pick up and carry off one of the cast members. Following a bit in his first film, Casino Royale (1967), Prowse settled into horror films. He wasn't quite able to carry on the Karloff tradition as the Monster in The Horror of Frankenstein (1970) due to rather unimaginative makeup and uninspired direction. The actor's subsquent monster in Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell (1972) was more effective (with a truly disgusting makeup job), as was his role as wheelchair-bound Patrick Magee's foreboding bodyguard in A Clockwork Orange (1971). Prowse's widest international exposure occured in three films in which neither his voice was heard nor his face seen. He was paid $12,000 for his role as Darth Vader in Star Wars (1977) Prowse had his voice dubbed by James Earl Jones, who received $10,000. Both Prowse and Jones repeated their work in the Star Wars sequels Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983); but when David Prowse's black helmet mask was finally pulled off in Return of the Jedi (1983), the closeup was of an entirely different actor with a whole new voice!

Trivia: Known to millions of Star Wars fans as the scabby and nefarious Emperor Palpatine, Scottish actor Ian McDiarmid also happens to have built a career as one of the London theatre's most acclaimed and influential figures. The co-artistic director (along with Jonathan Kent) of Islington's Almeida Theatre since 1990, McDiarmid has been, in large part, responsible for the Almeida's transformation from obscure fringe theatre to one of London's most respected playhouses. Alongside Kent, he was named by one theatre critic as one of the "capital's prime impresarios."Born in Carnoustie, Scotland, on April 17, 1947, McDiarmid grew up in Dundee, Tayside. Although he nurtured an interest in the theatre from a young age, he put aside his stage inclinations to study social sciences at St. Andrews University. Ultimately deciding that he was not suited for a career as a clinical psychologist, McDiarmid decided to take the plunge into acting, working for a year to support his training courses at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. After completing his study, he performed with various fringe theatres throughout Scotland and England, and eventually joined the vaunted Royal Shakespeare Company.McDiarmid began moving into television and film in the late 1970s with his casting in a supporting role in the TV series The Professionals. He made his film debut in 1980, but did not have his first major -- or memorable -- role until he was cast as the Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi (1983). Like so many other actors in the Star Wars trilogy who traded in recognizable facial/bodily/vocal features for the demands of their often heavily made-up or computerized characters, McDiarmid did earn a certain amount of fame for his work in the film, but it was largely confined to the realm of enthusiastic Star Wars fans.While the actor continued to appear onscreen in such features as Gorky Park (1983) and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), his first love was the theatre, and it was in his capacity as a stage actor and director that he made and continues to make his greatest impact. In 1998, McDiarmid and Kent won the Evening Standard's Theatrical Achievement of the Year award. The following year, McDiarmid appeared in Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow and reprised the role of Emporer Palpatine -- albeit a younger, less made-up version of the character -- for the hugely-hyped Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, which succeeded in introducing him to a new generation of Star Wars fans. After appearing in the World War I drama All the Kings Men the same year, McDiarmid returned to the role of Palpatine in 2002's Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones and again in the franchise-closer Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Trivia: On-stage from 1913 as a child actor, Sebastian Shaw graduated to leading roles in the late '20s. He made his first film appearance in 1930 and lasted six decades later. Maturing into character roles, he was willing to take on any assignment, including the experimental (and long-in-the-hopper) war drama It Happened Here (completed in 1966). Perhaps the best-known of Sebastian Shaw's later roles was Anakin Skywalker in 1983's Return of the Jedi.

Trivia: Not to be confused with the honey-voiced radio tenor of the same name, British dwarf actor Kenny Baker was a fixture of science-fiction and horror films of the 1970s and 1980s. A nightclub performer who, like America's Michael Dunn, traded in more on his talent than his size, the 3'8" Baker was cast in Star Wars (1977) as the beep-boop-beeping minirobot R2-D2, while his nightclub partner Jack Purvis was given the smaller role of the chief Jawa. Baker gave one of the few all-motorized human performances in film history. Once jammed into his robot costume, he was unable to move about and had to rely on a sophisticated remote controls - and when those didn't work, he had to be pulled around on nylon ropes. Additionally, the noisemaking computer controls on the R2D2 shell were so loud that Baker didn't know if a take was over unless someone banged on the costume with a hammer. Somehow Baker survived both his tight hardware exterior and the sweltering Tunisian heat on location, and appeared in both Star Wars sequels, as well as such other oddball movie projects as The Elephant Man (1980), Time Bandits (1981) and Mona Lisa (1988). And in the Oscar-winning Amadeus (1984), Kenny Baker could be seen without his R2D2 getup as a jester-like performer in one of Mozart's comic operas.Baker returned to R2 in the second set of Star Wars films, beginning in 1999, but retired from the role once that trilogy ended in 2005. He was a consultant on 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Baker died in 2016, at age 81.

Trivia: Hollow-cheeked character player Kenneth Colley acted in several of the "trendy," director-dominated films glutting the market of his native England in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Colley was seen in Michael Winner's The Jokers (1967), Richard Lester's How I Won the War (1968), Ken Russell's The Devils (1971) and The Music Lovers (1971). Many of the actor's later performances were in more conformist films like Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973) and Return of the Jedi (1983) (as Admiral Piett), though in 1989 he was back with Ken Russell in The Rainbow (1989). Colley portrayed Lord Horatio Nelson in the four-part TV biography I Remember Nelson, telecast in America as part of the 1981-82 season of Masterpiece Theatre.

Trivia: Denis Lawson has gone through a good part of his professional career since 1977 being thought of simply as X-Wing fighter pilot Wedge Antilles, a part he first played in Star Wars and reprised (with more screen time each time) in The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi. The character is notable for being one of the few X-Wing pilots to survive the various battles.Lawson has done far more than a bit part in a major movie, however, having had a steady career in theater, television, and film. He co-starred with Peter Riegert and Burt Lancaster in Bill Forsyth's Local Hero, and later headed up a pair of miniseries, The Justice Game and The Justice Game II: The Lady From Rome, as affluent Glasgow lawyer Dominic Rossi. As the '90s drew to a close, much was made of the fact that Lawson is the uncle of Ewan McGregor, the actor cast as the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the trilogy of Star Wars prequels.

Trivia: Starred in a production of Conor McPherson's The Weir that ran in Dublin, London and Los Angeles. Auditioned for the role of the seventh Doctor on the BBC series Doctor Who in 1987, but the part went to Sylvester McCoy. Often appeared on the BBC Radio series Mind's Eye. Has narrated several audio books, including Morris West's The Shoes of the Fisherman and Barbara Vine's Gallowglass. Starred as Ebenezer Scrooge in the McCarter Theatre's 28th annual production of A Christmas Carol in 2008.

Trivia: Actor Warwick Davis is best known for portraying the title character -- a role written especially for him by story writer George Lucas -- in Ron Howard's sword and sorcery fantasy Willow (1988). Davis made his film debut at age 11 playing the Ewok Wicket W. Warrick in Return of the Jedi (1983). Then only 2'11" tall, he auditioned the role after his grandmother overheard a casting call for little people on the radio. During production he began a friendship with director George Lucas and went on to reprise the role in a pair of made-for-television movies: The Ewok Adventure (1984) and The Battle of Endor (1986). When Davis married in 1991, he and wife, Samantha Burroughs, honeymooned on Lucas' Skywalker Ranch. Fans of horror fare will recognize Davis as the murderous, magical little person in the five Leprechaun (1993) films. In addition to his feature film work, which includes Prince Valiant (1997) and Star Wars: Episode 1, Davis has also appeared on television in movies and miniseries such as the BBC's popular Chronicle of Narnia and the American-made Gulliver's Travels (1996). In addition, he works occasionally on the British stage. Davis owns a production company, Inch High Productions, and for it has directed and produced musical and industrial videos. In 1994, he co-founded Willow Personal Management Ltd. with former castmate Peter Burroughs. They bill it as "The Largest Agency for Short Actors in the World."In the first decade of the 21st century Davis was cast as Professor Filius Flitwick in the Harry Potter films and he would go on to appear in every film in that highly successful franchise. He appeared in the 2004 biopic Ray, and in 2011 he joined forces with Ricky Gervais for the sitcom Life's Too Short.

Trivia: Alan Bennett is a distinguished British screenwriter, playwright and occasionally an actor. In the latter capacity, Bennett is best known as one of the "Beyond the Fringe" comedy troupe, where he was the most unobtrusive member of the lively group that included Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, and Jonathan Miller. He also wrote for the show. Bennet is the son of a Yorkshire butcher. As a young man he won a scholarship to Oxford. As a writer, Bennett is highly regarded for his ability to create detailed, memorable character sketches of complicated men. His work has appeared on stage, screen, and television. Among his better known films is his in-depth portrait of the notorious spy Guy Burgess, An Englishman Abroad (1983).

Trivia: Became an avid drummer during his childhood, and planned to study music at the University of Alabama before committing to acting. Played for the Hollywood Shorties, an all little-person basketball team, during the early 1980s. One of his first Hollywood roles was playing an Ewok in Star Wars' Return of the Jedi. Has appeared in music videos by Eminem and Snoop Dogg.

Trivia: It's not often that casting directors receive the kind of high-profile recognition that actors and other above-the-line personalities do -- but then again, there aren't too many people in that line of work who can boast of the accomplishments made by top British casting professional Mary Selway. Often cited as one of Britain's top talents for matching the right actor with the right role, Selway used her sharp eye to fill roles in such acclaimed features as Raiders of the Lost Ark, A Dry White Season, Gosford Park, and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. A native of Norwich, England, who enrolled at the Italia Conti stage school at the young age of 13, the aspiring talent defied her father's wishes of pursuing a more academic career to carve her own distinctive path in the entertainment industry. Though Selway was too much of a wallflower to command the boards, frequent modeling eventually led to work as a production assistant on television variety shows. Work in television and theater followed, with Selway eventually landing a job with top casting agent Miriam Brickman. In the decades that followed, Selway worked with such legendary filmmakers as Roman Polanski, Sydney Pollack, Steven Spielberg, and Robert Altman, among countless others -- contributing in no small part to the creation of some of the silver screen's most memorable characters. Plagued by recurring illness in her later years, Selway nevertheless continued working on such features as The Chronicles of Riddick and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire until she was physically able to work no more. In 2001, Selway was the recipient of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts' Michael Balcon Award for outstanding contribution to British film. On April 21, 2004, Mary Selway died of cancer in London. She was 68.