Trivia: Gaining notice in the early '90s for his Emmy-winning portrayal of Detective Francis Xavier "Frank" Pembleton on the popular television police drama Homicide: Life on the Street, tireless Chicago native Andre Braugher remained with the show through 1998 while simultaneously building a feature career with roles in such theatrical releases as Primal Fear (1996) and City of Angels (1998). A graduate of Stanford University who also received a M.F.A. from the prestigious Juilliard School, Braugher claims to have originally taken up acting to meet girls. He later changed his major after realizing his true calling during a production of Hamlet, and his first professional role came in a performance at the Berkley Shakespeare Festival. Making the leap from stage to screen with the 1989 civil war drama Glory proved an eye opening experience, and following numerous appearances as Detective Winston Blake in a series of made-for-TV Kojak features, Braugher held onto his badge by joining the cast of Homicide in 1993. Later alternating successfully between film and television, Braugher was voted one of the "50 Most Beautiful" people in a 1997 issue of People magazine; the following year, the handsome actor turned down a prominent role in the sci-fi drama Sphere in order to spend more time with his family. Jumping back into features in 2000, roles in Frequency, Duets and A Better Way to Die proved that Braugher was still in top form, and, in 2002, he turned back to the small screen with the made-for-TV feature Hack (and later reprised his role when the feature was turned into a weekly series). Following a role in the made-for-TV feature A Soldier's Girl (2002), Braugher joined the cast of the television remake of the Stephen King vampire chiller Salem's Lot (2004), then returned to television - and changed camps to tap into the underground element - on the weekly crime drama Thief. As Nick Atwater, one of the most genial and principled of all television criminals (!), Braugher evoked an unusual ethical balance in his character and tapped into the fence's deep-seated devotion to his family, even as he drummed up a fiery intensity from episode to episode. Successive years found the actor moving into supporting roles in Hollywood A-listers with a heightened emphasis on effects-heavy action, adventure and fantasy-themed material; projects included Poseidon (2006), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) and Stephen King's The Mist (2007).Braugher would star in the TV mini-series The Andromeda Strain in 2008, before taking on a role in the cult favorite comedy series Men of a Certain Age from 2009-2011. He would also enjoy a recurring role on House M.D., and play a memorable supporting role in the Angelina Jolie action flick Salt.

Trivia: Rip Torn may qualify as a "character actor" in the broadest sense of the term -- he typically fleshes out variations on the same role again and again, typecast as genially earthy, volatile, and loudmouthed good old boys. But, love him or hate him, Torn's roles over the course of more than half a century are distinct and pronounced enough to have elevated him above many of his contemporaries, into a veritable staple of American cinematic pop culture.Born Elmore Rual Torn, Jr. in Temple, TX, on February 6, 1931, and nicknamed "Rip" by his father, Torn attended Texas A&M as an undergraduate and studied animal husbandry. He intended to establish himself as a rancher after graduation, but first opted to pursue an acting career as a means to buy a ranch, mistakenly believing that he would hit Hollywood and achieve instant stardom. Instead, Torn scrounged around Los Angeles for several years as a dishwasher and short-order cook, but continued to pursue acting in his off time. Torn's persistence paid off, and he eventually landed several bit parts in movies and television series. He moved to Manhattan in the late '50s, where he formally studied acting under Lee Strasberg and danced under the aegis of Martha Graham; a wealth of movie roles followed over the next several decades, beginning with that of Brick in Actors Studio associate Elia Kazan's controversial classic Baby Doll (1956, with a script by Tennessee Williams) and, a few years later, the role of Finley in another Williams drama, the Richard Brooks-directed Sweet Bird of Youth (for which Torn received a great deal of notoriety). Additional supporting roles throughout the late '60s and early '70s included Slade in Norman Jewison's The Cincinnati Kid (1965), I.H. Chanticleer in Francis Ford Coppola's You're a Big Boy Now (1966), and Sgt. Honeywell in Cornel Wilde's Beach Red (1967).In the late '60s, two key (albeit temporary) shifts occurred in Torn's career. First, he went counterculture (and arthouse) with an unofficial trilogy of experimental roles. In the most pronounced -- Joe Glazer in Milton Moses Ginsberg's Coming Apart (1969, opposite Andy Warhol regular Sally Kirkland) -- Torn plays a nutty psychiatrist who specializes in female neuroses and decides to film all of his sessions, then his own mental breakdown. (Ginsberg films all of the action as reflected in a mirror.) The X-rated picture -- which features graphic sequences of Kirkland performing fellatio on Torn -- was (and is still) widely derided as spectacularly bad. Variety hit the proverbial nail on the head in 1969 when it concluded, "The problem with Coming Apart is that while it suggests some interesting ideas, it can't deliver any of them in cogent form....The results are not satisfactory." Neither are the second or third installments in Torn's "experimental" phase: roles in the first and third features directed by literary giant Norman Mailer, Beyond the Law (1967) and Maidstone (1970). Of Law -- an improvisational, comic piece set in a precinct house (with Torn as a character called Popcorn), The Motion Picture Guide sneered, "Barney Miller may have been inspired by this movie," and Roger Ebert declared it unintentionally funny, but those were the kindest reactions. Maidstone -- a fragmented, barely coherent drama -- stars only Mailer, as a politician-cum-film director, and Torn. This partially improvised picture became notorious for an on-camera sequence in which Torn (playing Mailer's half-brother) attacks Mailer with a hammer (allegedly for real), sans forewarning, bloodying up the author's face while the actress playing his wife screams in the background. Some wrote the scene off as a fake, but many others dissented. Variety observed in 1970: "[Torn] states he had to do it to make his character real and for the film. But he claims he pulled the hammer and had never drawn blood before while acting. The Mailer character is furious and vindictive. Mailer would not disclose whether it was real or not, but it did look ferociously authentic...."The second "shift" of Torn's career in the early '70s yielded infinitely greater success: a pair of rare leads in A-list features. He played Henry Miller opposite Ellen Burstyn in Joe Strick's marvelous, picaresque adaptation of that author's novel, Tropic of Cancer, and the abusive, booze and pill-addled country singer Maury Dann in Daryl Duke's harrowing drama Payday (1973). The pictures opened to generally spectacular reviews and raves over Torn's portrayals; Variety, for one, termed his performance in the Duke picture "excellent."While these lead roles showcased limitless dramatic ability, they unfortunately marked exceptions to the rule, and for the remainder of the '70s, '80s, and '90s, Torn contented himself with an endless (albeit impressive) array of colorful supporting turns -- dozens of them. High points include Nathan Bryce in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976); Dr. George in Coma (1978); the boozing, hell-raising, and philandering Senator Kittner in Jerry Schatzberg's The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979); longhaired record producer Walter Fox in Paul Simon's One Trick Pony (1980); the pirate-like Scully in Carl Reiner's Summer Rental (1985); Buford Pope in Robert Benton's sex farce Nadine (1987); the none-too-gifted afterlife attorney Bob Diamond in Albert Brooks' fantasy Defending Your Life (1991); Zed in Men in Black (1997); acid-mouthed coach Patches O'Houlihan in the Ben Stiller comedy Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004); and King Louis XV in Sofia Coppola's much-ballyhooed tertiary directorial outing, Marie Antoinette (2006). His low point undoubtedly arrived in 2001, when he played Tom Green's father, Jim Brody, in the controversial comedian's yuck-fest Freddy Got Fingered (2001). (A very low point; the film's comic highlight has Torn being showered with fake elephant ejaculate.)In addition to his film work, Torn made a series of critically acclaimed contributions to the small screen throughout the '80s and '90s, most vividly as Artie on HBO's Larry Sanders Show, for which he gleaned two Cable Ace awards, three Emmy nominations, and an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. Torn did direct one feature, the 1988 Whoopi Goldberg vehicle The Telephone, which opened and immediately closed to devastating critical reviews and dismal box office.Torn was married to actress Ann Wedgeworth from 1956 until their divorce in 1961 and Geraldine Page from 1961 until her death in 1987, and is currently married to actress Amy Wright. He is the cousin of actress Sissy Spacek.

Trivia: African-American stage, film, and TV luminary Ruby Dee was born in Cleveland, the daughter of a Pullman-porter father and schoolteacher mother. While growing up in Harlem, Dee developed an interest in the theater. In 1941, she began studying under Morris Carnovsky at the American Negro Theatre. While attending Hunter College, she made her first professional stage appearance in South Pacific (not the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, but a short-lived 1943 drama). On Broadway from 1946, Dee's first major success was as the title character in Anna Lucasta. In 1948, she married actor Ossie Davis, with whom she appeared in everything from Shakespeare to TV margarine commercials. Though she and Davis were both uncredited in their joint film debut, 1950's No Way Out, Dee achieved second billing in her next feature, The Jackie Robinson Story (1950). Among her favorite stage roles were Ruth Younger in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, and Luttiebelle in her husband Ossie Davis' play Purlie Victorious, roles that she would commit to film in 1961 and 1963 respectively. On TV, Dee was a regular on The Guiding Light, Roots: The Next Generations, and The Middle Ages; Dee worked steadily throughout the 1970s, '80s, dividing her time more or less equally between television [with turns in such small-screen movies as The Atlanta Child Murders (1981), The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson (1990) and the 1990 Decoration Day, for which she won an Emmy] and the big screen, where her credits included the features Cat People (1982), Cop and a Half (1993) and A Simple Wish (1997). Dee received a career resurgence thanks to her prominent enlistment in the features of Spike Lee (alongside Davis), notably Do the Right Thing (1989) and Jungle Fever (1991). As time rolled on, she also began to participate in documentaries, such as the 1998 Christianity: The First Thousand Years and the 1999 Smithsonian World: Nigerian Art - Kindred Spirits); made guest appearances in such prime-time series as Touched by an Angel; and essayed a prominent role opposite Halle Berry in the telemovie Oprah Winfrey Presents: Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005). She continued to work steadily after Davis's death in early 2005, and in fact received her first Best Supporting Actress Oscar Nomination for her role in Ridley Scott's period crime saga American Gangster (2007). In 2011 she participated in Sing Your Song, a well-received biography of Harry Belafonte from HBO. In addition to her acting credits, Ruby Dee was an accomplished writer; she contributed a weekly column to New York's Amsterdam News, co-authored the script for the 1967 film Up Tight!, penned the 1975 TV play Twin-Bit Gardens, and published a book of poetry, Glowchild (1972).Dee died of natural causes in June 2014 at age 91.

Trivia: Pittsburgh native Bill Nunn's prolific career earned him such a long list of roles, it's hard to believe the actor didn't set foot onscreen until he was 35 years old. The Morehouse College graduate had a degree in English and his career sights had always been set on writing. It wasn't until a fellow Morehouse graduate, Spike Lee, offered him a role in his 1988 film School Daze that Nunn decided to try his hand at professional acting. His power onscreen was undeniable, and so was his natural acting ability. He appeared in Lee's next film, the groundbreaking Do the Right Thing, and his iconic role as Radio Raheem cemented him as a career actor. Memorable parts soon followed in 1990's Cadillac Man and 1991's controversial Mario Van Peebles film New Jack City. Critics and audiences were amazed that Nunn hadn't been learning the craft all his life, as he proved to be a bankable actor with the capacity to be both moving and funny. Nunn loved his work, too; he would continue to participate in multiple projects a year, amassing a resumé 50 roles long over the course of 20 years. Nunn's kind but steady gaze earned him a reputation for playing police officers, but from the political satire Canadian Bacon to the comic-book hero Spider-man movies, He appeared in the TV movie version of Raisin in the Sun in 2008 and made his last on-screen appearance as a series regular in the USA series Sirens. Nunn died in 2016, at age 63.

Trivia: American character actor Khalil Kain built a varied and substantial resumé from the early '90s onward, in a dazzling combination of films and television series. Though he debuted as Raheem in director Ernest Dickerson's urban crime drama Juice, Kain quickly broke the mold of roles traditionally offered to young African-American males by branching off into some unusual and variegated arenas. He followed up his Dickerson work with a turn as Private Roosevelt Hobbs in the Penny Marshall-directed, Danny DeVito-headlined service comedy Renaissance Man (1994), then landed guest appearances in such sitcoms as Suddenly Susan and Friends, and a plum role as porno star Venus, in Dan Ireland's romantic triangle-themed erotic dramedy The Velocity of Gary (1998). Kain returned to urban material (albeit unconventional urban material) opposite rapper Snoop Dogg in Dickerson's gruesome haunted-house movie Bones (2001). He also played Gene in the mockumentary Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys (2005), headlined by columnist Barry, actor John Cleese and footballer Dan Marino, and played Darnell Wilkes in the sitcom Girlfriends.

Trivia: One of show-businesses busiest grandfatherly figures, actor Bill Erwin has been appearing in film and television since the early '40s, and as of 2003, he's shown no signs of slowing. His consistently reliable performances in such high-profile efforts as Somewhere in Time (1980), Home Alone (1990), and Forces of Nature (1999) have found Erwin enduring to become one of the most in-demand supporting players around. A Honey Grove, TX, native who earned his bachelor's in journalism at the University of Texas in Austin in 1935, Erwin went on to California to complete his Masters of Theater Arts at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1941. Though a stint in World War II would momentarily put his acting career on hold, Erwin returned stateside to make his film debut in, appropriately enough, the 1941 Phil Silvers comedy You're in the Army Now. Throughout the years, Erwin has appeared in numerous stage productions on both coasts, and repeat performances on such television classics as Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone, Growing Pains, and Seinfeld have ensured Erwin's popularity with many generations of television viewers. His role in Seinfeld earned him an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1993. From high-profile releases like Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995) to edgy, low-budget sci-fi movies like Menno's Mind (1996), Erwin has done it all, and equally well. Outside of his film work, Erwin spends his time writing and illustrating cartoons in his North Hollywood home.