Trivia: One of the top leading men of the '80s, William Hurt, born March 20th, 1950, is notable for his intensity and effective portrayals of complex characters. Although born in Washington, D.C., Hurt had already seen much of the world by the time he was grown, as his father worked for the State Department. His early years spent in the South Pacific near Guam, Hurt moved to Manhattan with his mother after his parents divorced when he was six years old. He spent the summers with his father, vacationing in a variety of international locales, including Sudan. At the age of ten, Hurt's life again changed dramatically when he became a stepson to Henry Luce III, the heir to the Time-Life empire. His mother's second marriage indirectly led to Hurt's initial involvement with the theater: sent away to a boarding school in Massachusetts, he found comfort in acting.After going on to Tufts University to study theology for three years at his stepfather's urging, Hurt married aspiring actress Mary Beth Supinger and followed her to London to study drama. Upon their return to the U.S., Hurt studied drama at Juilliard. By this time, under the realization that his marriage was failing, Hurt divorced his wife, got a motorcycle, and headed cross country for the Shakespeare festival in Ashland, OR, where he made his professional debut in a production of Hamlet. He later joined New York's Circle Repertory Company, and went on to receive critical acclaim for his work on the New York stage.Hurt made his feature film debut in Ken Russell's Altered States in 1980, but it was not until he appeared opposite Kathleen Turner in Body Heat (1981) that he became a star and sex symbol. Four years later, he won Best Actor Oscar and British Academy awards as well as a similar honor at Cannes for his sensitive portrayal of a gay prisoner in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985). He was again nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his two subsequent films, Children of a Lesser God (1986) and Broadcast News (1987). Further success followed in 1988 when he starred in The Accidental Tourist.As bright as his star shone on stage and screen, by the end of the '80s, a darker side of Hurt was exposed when he was sued by his former live-in love and mother of his daughter Alex, ballet dancer Sandra Jennings, who claimed to be his common-law wife. Despite his personal problems, Hurt continued to stay relatively busy, beginning the new decade with a fine turn in Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World (1991). He subsequently appeared in such acclaimed films as Smoke (1995), Jane Eyre (1996), One True Thing (1998), and Dark City (1998). In 1998, Hurt appeared as the patriarch of one of televisions most beloved sci-fi families in the big-budgeted remake of Lost in Space, and as a gubernatorial candidate with a shadowy past in George Hickenlooper's political drama The Big Brass Ring (1999).Still alternating between stage and screen into the new millennium, Hurt stuck mainly to the small screen in the next few years. After lending his voice to the animated portrayal of the life of Jesus Christ in The Miracle Maker, appearing in the mini-series Dune, and taking the title role of The Contaminated Man in 2000, Hurt returned to features with his role in director Steven Spielberg's long anticipated (post-mortem) collaboration with the late Stanley Kubrick, A.I. As the well-intending scientist who sets the story of an artificial boy capable of learning and love into motion, Hurt's character seemed to provide the antithesis of the regressive experiments his previous character had flirted with in Altered States.Hurt played a supporting role in Changing Lanes (2002), an thought-provoking thriller following two very different New York City residents whose lives fatefully intersect following a car accident, and again in the political thriller Syriana, which would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2005. The actor was praised the same year for his work as a supporting character in David Cronenberg's A History of Violence. In 2007, Hurt starred as the murderous alter ego of a businessman in Mr. Brooks, and co-starred with Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker, and Dennis Quaid for the political thriller Vantage Point (2008). Hurt stars as an ex-con looking to start over for The Yellow Handkerchief (2008), and Gen. Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, Bruce Banner's nemesis, in The Incredible Hulk (2008).In 2009, Hurt reunited with Vantage Point director Pete Travis for the historical thriller Endgame, for which he played the leading role of philosophy Professor Willie Esterhuyse, an essential member of a team dedicated to securing the release of Nelson Mandela. Director Julie Gavras' 2011 romantic comedy found Hurt starring alongside the legendary Isabella Rossallini. Hurt is slated to work in the The Host, a dystopian thriller adapted from a novel from author Stephanie Meyers, in 2013.

Trivia: Much like Humphrey Bogart before him, Lee Marvin rose through the ranks of movie stardom as a character actor, delivering expertly nasty and villainous turns in a series of B-movies before finally graduating to more heroic performances. Regardless of which side of the law he traveled, however, he projected a tough-as-nails intensity and a two-fisted integrity which elevated even the slightest material. Born February 19, 1924, in New York City, Marvin quit high school to enter the Marine Corps and while serving in the South Pacific was wounded in battle. He spent a year in recovery before returning to the U.S. to begin working as a plumber's apprentice. After filling in for an ailing summer-stock actor, his growing interest in performing inspired him to study at the New York-based American Theater Wing. Upon making his debut in summer stock, Marvin began working steadily in television and off-Broadway. He made his Broadway bow in a 1951 production of Billy Budd and also made his first film appearance in Henry Hathaway's You're in the Navy Now. The following year, Hathaway again hired him for The Diplomatic Courier, and was so impressed that he convinced a top agent to recruit him. Soon Marvin began appearing regularly onscreen, with credits including a lead role in Stanley Kramer's 1952 war drama Eight Iron Men. A riveting turn as a vicious criminal in Fritz Lang's 1953 film noir classic The Big Heat brought Marvin considerable notice and subsequent performances opposite Marlon Brando in the 1954 perennial The Wild One and in John Sturges' Bad Day at Black Rock cemented his reputation as a leading screen villain. He remained a heavy in B-movies like 1955's I Died a Thousand Times and Violent Saturday, but despite starring roles in the 1956 Western Seven Men From Now and the smash Raintree County, he grew unhappy with studio typecasting and moved to television in 1957 to star as a heroic police lieutenant in the series M Squad. As a result, Marvin was rarely seen in films during the late '50s, with only a performance in 1958's The Missouri Traveler squeezed into his busy TV schedule. He returned to cinema in 1961 opposite John Wayne in The Comancheros, and starred again with the Duke in the John Ford classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance a year later. Marvin, Wayne, and Ford reunited in 1963 for Donovan's Reef. A role in Don Siegel's 1964 crime drama The Killers followed and proved to be Marvin's final performance on the wrong side of the law.Under Stanley Kramer, Marvin delivered a warm, comic turn in 1965's Ship of Fools then appeared in a dual role as fraternal gunfighters in the charming Western spoof Cat Ballou, a performance which won him an Academy Award. His next performance, as the leader of The Dirty Dozen, made him a superstar as the film went on to become one of the year's biggest hits. Marvin's box-office stature had grown so significantly that his next picture, 1968's Sergeant Ryker, was originally a TV-movie re-released for theaters. His next regular feature, the John Boorman thriller Point Blank, was another major hit. In 1969, Marvin starred with Clint Eastwood in the musical comedy Paint Your Wagon, one of the most expensive films made to date. It too was a success, as was 1970's Monte Walsh. Considering retirement, he did not reappear onscreen for two years, but finally returned in 1972 with Paul Newman in the caper film Pocket Money. After turning down the lead in Deliverance, Marvin then starred in Prime Cut, followed in 1973 by Emperor of the North Pole and The Iceman Cometh.Poor reviews killed the majority of Marvin's films during the mid-'70s. When The Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday -- the last of three pictures he released during 1976 -- failed to connect with critics or audiences, he went into semi-retirement, and did not resurface prior to 1979's Avalanche Express. However, his return to films was overshadowed by a high-profile court case filed against him by Michelle Triola, his girlfriend for the last six years; when they separated, she sued him for "palimony" -- 1,800,000 dollars, one half of his earnings during the span of their relationship. The landmark trial, much watched and discussed by Marvin's fellow celebrities, ended with Triola awarded only 104,000 dollars. In its wake he starred in Samuel Fuller's 1980 war drama The Big Red One, which was drastically edited prior to its U.S. release. After 1981's Death Hunt, Marvin did not make another film before 1983's Gorky Park. The French thriller Canicule followed, and in 1985 he returned to television to reprise his role as Major Reisman in The Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission. The 1986 action tale The Delta Force was Marvin's final film; he died of a heart attack on August 29, 1987, in Tucson, AZ, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery next to the remains of fellow veteran (and boxing legend) Joe Louis.

Trivia: After majoring in history at Columbia University, brawny Brian Dennehy (born July 9, 1938) took a string of odd jobs to pay his way through Yale Drama School, and to afford private acting lessons. His first professional break came with the Broadway production Streamers. In films and TV from 1977, Dennehy is a most versatile actor, at home playing Western baddies (Silverado), ulcerated big-city cops (F/X), serial killers (John Wayne Gacy in the made-for-TV To Catch a Killer), by-the-book military types (General Groves in Day One, another TV movie), and vacillating politicos (Presumed Innocent). One of his most rewarding film assignments was as dying architectural genius Stourley Kracklite in Peter Greenaway's The Belly of an Architect (1987).In addition to his many TV-movie roles (one of which, good-old-boy Chuck Munson in 1993's Foreign Affairs, won him a Cable Ace Award), Dennehy has starred in the weekly series Big Shamus, Little Shamus (1977), Star of the Family (1981), and Birdland (1994), as well as the sporadically produced Jack Reed feature-length mysteries. It was in one of the last-mentioned projects, Jack Reed: A Search for Justice (1994), that Dennehy made his directorial debut. Aside from his work in film and television, Dennehy has also had considerable success on the stage, particularly with his Tony-winning portrayal of Willy Loman in the 1998 Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman.The actor continued to show his range in the 1995 comedy Tommy Boy (starring David Spade and the late comedian Chris Farley), in which he became well known for his role as Big Tom Callahan, and for a voice role in Ratatouille (2007) as Django, the father of rat and aspiring chef Remy.Dennehy joined Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino in Righteous Kill, a 2008 police drama, and worked alongisde Russell Crowe in the 2010 suspense film The Next Three Days. In 2011, Dennehy played the pivotal role of Clarence Darrow in Alleged, a romantic drama set during the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial.

Trivia: Joanna Pacula was a successful model and actress in her native Poland, until forced by the changing political climate to relocate to Paris in 1981. Pacula's first English-language film role was opposite William Hurt in 1983's Gorky Park. Here as elsewhere, she was cast as an exotic, secretive beauty, qualities that she was able to adapt to such roles as a voodoo priestess in The Kiss (1988), a murdered man's mistress in Black Ice (1992), a serial-killer target in Body Puzzle (1993), and a futuristic femme fatale in Deep Red (1994). Additional credits include Tombstone (1993) (possibly the most lucrative production with which she's been associated), the brief 1990 Australia-filmed TV adventure series E.A.R.T.H. Force, and the made-for-TV movies Escape to Sobribor (1987) and Breaking Point (1989). Thanks to generous displays of her undraped form, Joanna Pacula received a great deal of press attention for her role as the weekend companion of several loutish lotharios in 1992's Husbands and Lovers.

Trivia: A respected character actor and occasional leading man of the stage, screen, and television, Scottish-born Ian Bannen acted in over 80 productions during his long career. Shortly after enrolling at Ratcliffe College, Bannen, who was born in Airdrie, Scotland, on June 29, 1918, made his first stage appearance at Dublin's Gate Theatre. A year after making his 1955 London theatrical debut, he entered films with A Private's Progress and Battle Hell. A prolific stage actor (with a special fondness for the works of Eugene O'Neill), Bannen nonetheless found time for quite a few impressive film characterizations. One of these, the cynical Crow in Flight of the Phoenix (1965), earned him an Academy Award nomination. His later screen assignments ranged from a cameo as a policeman in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982) to the irascible Grandfather George in John Boorman's Hope and Glory (1987) to a turn as Robert the Bruce's leprous father in Braveheart (1995). It was with the 1998 comedy Waking Ned Devine that Bannen earned some of his best notices, playing a loveably crafty Irishman. Sadly, Bannen's life was cut short the following year, as he died in an auto accident on November 3, 1999, near Loch Ness, Scotland. He was survived by his wife of 23 years, as well as a rich theatrical legacy that stretched over almost half a century.

Trivia: Stage fright is one thing, sheer terror is another. Yet Michael Elphick did the scene anyway, albeit flinchingly, while starring in a popular British TV series, Boon, about a motorcycle-riding private eye. In the scene, he had to recover a circus lion stolen by animal-rights activists, and the script required him to act with the animal inside an enclosure. While the trainer and a veterinarian stood by with guns, Elphick earned his pay. During his acting career, Elphick also demonstrated his courage by accepting roles in productions with incredibly weird names. Examples are Withnail and I, Memed, My Hawk, I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle, Supergrass, Forbrydelsens Element, Auf Wiedersehen Pet, Quadrophenia, The Nearly Man, The Buttercup Chain, Blue Remembered Hills, and, well, that's enough for now. Who is this oddball Elphick, anyway? Actually, he's just an ordinary British chap who also happens to be an excellent -- and obviously quite daring -- actor. Americans who don't get to see him regularly on British TV may remember him for his contribution to the wonderful 2000 miniseries David Copperfield. In that production, he played Peggoty's suitor Barkis, getting to recite one of the most famous Dickens lines: "Barkis is willin'."Elphick was born on September 19, 1946, in Chichester, West Sussex, England, in an area known for its natural beauty and inviting harbor. City residents know him well because of his frequent trips back home to visit his mother. After working as a theater electrician in Chichester, Elphick studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, the alma mater of such notables as Laurence Olivier, Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave, and Carrie Fisher. He made his film debut in 1969 in Fraülein Doktor, an offbeat but excellent World War I film with an Italian director, a Yugoslavian setting, and a cast that included Kenneth More, Suzy Kendall, Nigel Green, and Capucine. In that same year, he performed in the modestly successful Where's Jack? and in the solid Tony Richardson production of Hamlet. Having established himself, Elphick went on to play in numerous film and TV productions before landing roles in the 1980s in motion pictures of truly outstanding quality, including the The Elephant Man as the Night Porter; Masada as Vettius, and Gorky Park as Pasha. His Gorky Park work earned him a British Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Between 1986 and 1992, he played Boon on British TV while continuing his stage and film work. In 2000 and 2001, he returned to television to perform in Metropolis and Dead in the Water.

Trivia: Falstaffian British character actor Richard Griffiths has been popping up in films since 1980. Griffiths played Sir Tom in The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Captain Billings in Greystoke (1982) and Phipps in King Ralph (1981). An accomplished dialectician, Griffiths has essayed a wide variety of ethnic types: in Naked Gun 2 1/2 (1992), he outdid himself in his dual role as the German-accented Dr. Mannheimer and the Georgia-cracker Earl Hacker. British TV fans know Richard Griffiths best as Henry Crabbe in the weekly sitcom Pie and the Sky (1993-95), not to mention his appearances on such earlier series as Bird of Prey (1984), Nobody's Perfect (1980-82), Ffizz (1987-89) and A Kind of Living (1988-90).In 2001, Griffiths took on the recurring role of the imposing Uncle Vernon in the Harry Potter film series, playing the role in five of the series' eight films. Griffiths spent the majority of his career alternating between the screen and stage, and in 2004, he took on one of his higher profile stage roles - the eccentric teacher Hector in Alan Bennett's award-winning play The History Boys. Griffiths originated the role in the 2004 West End production and the 2006 Broadway production and later reprised the role in the 2006 film, winning an Olivier Award, a Tony Award, and scoring a BAFTA Film nomination for his work.After completing his work in the Harry Potter series, Griffiths appeared in The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) as King George II and played a limited engagement in the West End revival of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys, opposite Danny DeVito. Sadly, his career was cut short, dying at age 65 in 2013 from complications following heart surgery.

Trivia: Canadian actor Alexander Knox launched his stage career in Britain in 1929; two years later he made his film film, The Ringer. After a successful British stage career, Knox came to America in 1941, where he found steady film work playing learned types. In The Sea Wolf (1941), Knox was the pedantic Weyland, the opponent/doppelganger of brutish sea captain Wolf Larsen (Edward G. Robinson); while in This Above All (1942), Knox lent credibility to his role as clergyman who does but really doesn't condone a clandestine love affair. Knox's most daunting American film assignment was the title role in Wilson (1944), producer Darryl F. Zanuck's budget-busting valentine to the 28th president of the United States. Too healthy and fit to be totally convincing as Woodrow Wilson, Knox nonetheless sustained audience interest in an otherwise ponderous film marathon, and received an Oscar nomination -- which he might have won had not Wilson been one of the most conspicuous failures in Hollywood history. Nonetheless, the film allowed Knox to command star billing for his next few American pictures, including the enjoyable 1949 outing The Judge Steps Out, a light comedy loosely based on the Judge Crater disappearance. In the early 1950s, Knox found himself playing a few villains, at least until Hollywood's doors closed on him during the Blacklist era (that a man who once played a U.S. president should even be suspected of subversive leanings is quite ironic). The actor returned to Britain for choice character roles in such films as The Sleeping Tiger (1954), The Night My Number Came Up (1955) and Oscar Wilde (1957). In 1967, Knox was signed up for a term as a fictional U.S. president in the James Bond extravaganza You Only Live Twice (1967). Active in films until the mid 1980s, Knox also kept busy as a screenwriter and mystery novelist.

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: Irish supporting actor, onscreen from the '80s after many years of prestigious stage work.