Trivia: Trained at the Washington Theatre Laboratory and Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, Karen Allen was primarily a stage actress when she began to accept small film roles in such productions as National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) and Manhattan (1979), although her most celebrated film assignment was as the plucky Marion Ravenwood in Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Spielberg reportedly acknowledged his appreciation of Allen's performance by gallantly kissing her hand after each take, also preferring roles for Allen that allowed her to appear without makeup, with her generously freckled face in full view. Among her more notable post-Raiders films were Starman (1984), The Glass Menagerie (1987), Malcolm X (1992), and In the Bedroom (2001). Temporarily blinded by conjunctivitis shortly before launching her film career, Allen was able to draw from life while portraying the adult Helen Keller in the mid-'80s Broadway play Helen and Teacher. Allen's TV roles included a portrayal of the ill-fated civilian astronaut Christa McAuliffe in Challenger (1990). The actress reunited with Harrison Ford in a reprisal of her role as Marion in 2008's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Allen continues to be active in film and television.

Trivia: James Earl Jones is a distinguished African American actor instantly recognizable for his deep, resonant Shakespearean voice and wide smile. The son of prizefighter and actor Robert Earl Jones, he was raised on a farm. In college, he briefly studied medicine but switched to drama. After serving with the Army he enrolled at the American Theater Wing in New York. He made his Broadway debut in 1957, then went on to appear in many plays before spending several seasons with Joseph Pap's New York Shakespeare Festival. Jones' biggest success onstage was as the star of The Great White Hope on Broadway (1966-68); for his work (portraying heavyweight champion Jack Jefferson) he received a Tony award. He had a small part in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964), but did not begin to appear onscreen much until the '70s. In addition to stage and occasional film work, he also appeared as an African chieftain in the TV series Tarzan and was one of the first black actors to be cast as a regular on the soap opera The Guiding Light in 1967. Reprising his stage role, he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe award for his work in the screen version of The Great White Hope (1970) and went on from there to have a busy screen career. He starred in the TV series Paris in 1979-80. Beginning in 1977, he provided the melodiously wicked voice of the villainous Darth Vader in the three Star Wars films. Since then he has continued to appear on screen (over 40 films to date), stage, and television. He also continues to provide voiceovers (he can frequently be heard on the CNN television network). His portrayal of the grouchy, reclusive writer opposite Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams (1989) is among his most notable turns. In 1987 he won another Tony Award, this time for his portrayal of a frustrated baseball player in August Wilson's Fences. Most recently, Jones provided the voice for Mufasa, the regal patriarch in Disney's animated film The Lion King (1994).

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: An actress whose fresh-faced girl-next-door beauty has adapted easily to both comic and dramatic roles, Marley Shelton was born in southern California on April 12, 1974. Her mother was a schoolteacher who dabbled in acting while her father worked as a director for film, television, and the stage. During her high-school days, Shelton was a member of the cheerleading squad and was named prom queen in her senior year. She began to develop an interest in acting, and in 1991 won her first film role, a slam supporting part in Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon. In the next two years, Shelton made a few appearances on episodic television and appeared in the made-for-TV movie In the Line of Duty: Ambush in Waco, but it was in 1993's The Sandlot that she made her first real impression on the big screen as Wendy, the lust-inducing teenage lifeguard. That same year, Shelton earned a recurring role on the dramatic television series Angel Falls, alongside fellow cast members Jean Simmons, Shirley Knight, Peggy Lipton, and James Brolin, but the show only lasted one season. More television work followed, including key roles in several made-for-TV movies and appearances on Hercules and the revived Fantasy Island, before Shelton's film career began to take hold. She played Tricia Nixon in Oliver Stone's biopic Nixon and a beautiful but fickle teenager in the little-seen comedy Trojan War, but her first major hit came in 1998 with Pleasantville, in which she played Margaret, the love interest of leading man Tobey Maguire (and one of the first teens to become "colorful"). In 1999, she played Kristin, one of the "popular girls" in Never Been Kissed, and two years later scored her first leading role, in which she got to put her cheerleading skills to use as Diane, the pep-squad girl-turned-teenage mother and criminal in Sugar & Spice. Offscreen, in 2001, Shelton married television and movie producer Beau Flynn, who helped cast her as Chloe, the beautiful girl next door in the comedy Bubble Boy.In the following few years, Shelton's onscreen career seemed to plateau somewhat when a variety of indie projects including Just a Kiss, Dallas 362, Grand Theft Parsons, and Moving Alan -- directed by her father, Christopher, and starring her sister Samantha -- failed to achieve mainstream success. Nevertheless the actress remained busy, and it was shortly after appearing in a failed updating of the once-popular gothic soap opera Dark Shadows that Shelton landed the role which, however small, seems to have been a turning point in her career. Though her role opposite Josh Hartnett in Robert Rodriguez's violent comic-book adaptation Sin City amounted to little more than a glorified cameo, it did provide wide-scale exposure in addition to connecting her with one of the most innovative and tireless filmmakers of his generation. Subsequent roles in Wim Wenders' Don't Come Knocking, Paul Weitz's American Dreamz, and the Paul Haggis-scripted The Last Kiss were quick to follow, and in 2007, Shelton reunited with Sin City director Rodriguez for a substantial role in "Planet Terror" -- Rodriguez' zombie-filled contribution to the ambitious double-feature throwback Grindhouse. Shelton would go on to appear in films like W. and Scream 4, as well as on the TV series Eleventh Hour.

Trivia: Supporting and character actor Herb Muller had a long career that encompassed work on stage, screen, and television. Muller dove into his film career with a role in Jaws (1978).

Trivia: A former San Francisco Giants baseball player turned character actor, Daniel Zacapa has worked steadily from the 1970s to the 1990s, amassing a series of television credits, as well as roles in Up Close and Personal and Seven.

Trivia: American actor Arliss Howard was born in Missouri, but he became well known to moviegoers of 1987 as a Texan named "Cowboy" in Stanley Kubrick's Vietnam picture Full Metal Jacket. Many viewers assumed that this tall, lithe actor made his film debut in the Kubrick picture, but Howard had in fact been showing up in "hick" roles for several years, notably as the naive vacuum cleaner salesman in Door To Door (84). After his tour of duty with Kubrick, Howard was back to baby-faced roles with his performance as a 24-year-old detective posing as a high schooler in Plain Clothes (88). Howard has developed into something of a George Brent for the 1990s, willing to play second fiddle (albeit a very good one) to some of the more dynamic actresses of the era. He was one of lovelorn Jessica Lange's many "Mr. Perfect" candidates in Men Don't Leave (90); he was second-billed to Goldie Hawn as a disturbed Vietnam vet in Crisscross (92); and in 1991's For the Boys, Howard appeared unbilled as USO performer Bette Midler's doomed GI husband. Arliss Howard's TV movie appearances have included I Know My First Name is Stephen (89) and Iran: Days of Crisis (91).