Trivia: Holly Robinson Peete began her career in show business in 1969 when she was five years old with an appearance on the children's series Sesame Street, on which her father played non-Muppet cast member Gordon. In adulthood, she would go on to appear on shows like 21 Jump Street and Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, and later on Love, Inc. She became one of the co-hosts of The View knockoff The Talk, and in 2012 she spoofed her breakthrough part by appearing in the big-screen comedy 21 Jump Street. She is married to former NFL quraterback Rodney Peete.

Trivia: While many make a beeline for the stage from the time they're walking on two feet, James Lesure took a slightly more varied path. He studied at the Air Force Academy before going on to the University of Southern California, where he earned a B.F.A. in theater. He then traveled abroad, where he not only participated in stage productions of everything from Broadway musicals to Shakespeare, but also pursued his dream of being an amateur boxer. Settling back in the States, Lesure began making the rounds on TV, making small appearances on shows like NYPD Blue and Seinfeld. Then, in 2004, Lesure was cast as a member of an elite surveillance team on the hit series Las Vegas. Audiences loved his charming screen presence, and he stayed with the series for multiple seasons.

Trivia: The younger sister of actress Michelle Pfeiffer, DeDe Pfeiffer began making the casting rounds in 1984, just before Michelle matriculated to superstardom. As was the case of most celebrity siblings, the bulk of DeDe's film work has been in crime melodramas, horror films and direct-to-video offerings. She has, however, been seen to good advantage in several A pictures, notably Into the Night (1985), Tune in Tomorrow (1990) and Falling Down (1993); in the opening scenes of 1991's Frankie and Johnny, DeDe has a piquant cameo as the cousin of the character played by her sister Michelle. In 1994, DeDe Pfeiffer was cast as Rachel Blanders, daughter of fortysomething actress Cybill Sheridan (Cybill Shepherd), in the popular CBS TV sitcom Cybill.

Trivia: Born Donald Warren Moffett. Supporting actor, occasional lead, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Actress Tamala Jones launched her career as a model, appearing in magazine ads and television commercials, before landing her first acting job on an episode of the preteen sitcom California Dreams, but her interest in the craft goes back to early childhood, when Jones and her cousin would stage backyard shows. Los Angeles-born and raised, Jones first studied drama in the sixth grade. As a young woman, she guest starred on series ranging from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to E.R. to The Wayans Brothers. She had her first regular television role playing a student in the ABC network's short-lived drama Dangerous Minds. Jones entered feature films with a small role in How to Make an American Quilt (1995) and had her first starring film role in Booty Call (1997). In 1998, Jones starred in the short-lived NBC summer replacement sitcom For Your Love. After appearing in Blue Streak and The Wood the following year, Jones began to gain even more momentum in 2000 with roles in Ice Cube's Next Friday and the Tim Meadows SNL vehicle The Ladies Man. Jones would later share the limelight with a talented cast in Kingdom Come in 2001. She continued to work steadily in a variety of projects including Head of State, Daddy Day Camp, Who's Your Caddy?, and What Love Is before being cast on the television show Castle as Lanie Paris. In 2010 she starred in and co-produced the romantic comedy 35 & Ticking.

Trivia: Widely acknowledged as one of the first musical acts, alongside Kurtis Blow, Run-D.M.C., and others, to push rap and hip-hop into the American mainstream, MC Hammer (born Stanley Kirk Burrell in Oakland, CA, on March 30, 1962) enjoyed a seemingly limitless and unstoppable tide of success in the early '90s, with the issue of his multi-platinum albums Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em (1990) and Too Legit to Quit (1991). The notoriety was short-lived, however. Though Hammer retained his iconic status, he lost audience ground in the mid-'90s and was written off (by many) as passé -- a symbol of his era. Falling record sales and Chapter 11 ensued, yet talk of a musical resurgence persisted. Over time, Hammer (who grew up in a devout home) became more evangelical and tried to place greater emphasis on Christian themes in his music, but did so to little commercial success. Finally, another Hammer album, the independently produced and released Active Duty, premiered in November 2001 and capitalized on themes of post-9/11 patriotism. For the first several years of Hammer's celebrity, his contributions to filmed entertainment (aside from music videos, of course) consisted of soundtrack work, on such Hollywood pictures as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Addams Family. In early September 1991, Hammer expanded into television with the debut of his half-hour animated series Hammerman. The series -- which capitalized on cheap, crudely drawn animation with deliberately exaggerated character movements -- concerned Stanley (voiced by Hammer), the unassuming, soft-spoken employee of a children's recreational center, who put on his "magic dancing shoes" to become the superhero crime fighter Hammerman. The series folded on September 5, 1992. Then, perhaps as a result of his waning musical popularity, Hammer began making intermittent before-the-camera appearances in Hollywood features -- first in cameos, such as the 1993 Schwarzenegger opus Last Action Hero, then in more substantial parts, such as the 1995 actioner One Man's Justice, starring Brian Bosworth. In 2001, Hammer executive produced a biopic about himself, Too Legit: The MC Hammer Story, starring Romany Malco as the rapper and Tangi Miller as his wife, Stephanie. It aired on the music cable-television station VH1. A couple years later, MC Hammer appeared opposite Emmanuel Lewis, Corey Feldman, Gabrielle Carteris, and others in the first season of the WB's reality series The Surreal Life, a program that placed a number of has-been celebrities in a Hollywood Hills mansion for two weeks and filmed their interactions. In 2007, Hammer joined the cast of another feature -- the Bruce Lee comedy spoof Finishing the Game -- alongside McCaleb Burnett and fellow Surreal Life veteran Ron Jeremy.