Trivia: Though he has played a variety of leading roles, tall, dark, and wholesomely handsome Christopher Reeve will always be the definitive Superman to an entire generation of "Man of Steel" fans. That his definitive character was such a model of physical prowess only serves to intensify the tragedy of Reeve's post-Superman years, marked by a 1995 horseback riding accident that left him almost completely paralyzed.A native of New York City, Reeve was born to journalist Barbara Johnson and professor/writer Franklin Reeve on September 25, 1952. When he was four, his parents divorced, and Reeve and his brother went with their mother to Princeton, NJ, after she married her second husband, a stockbroker. Reeve became interested in acting at the age of eight, an interest that complemented his musical studies at the time. The following year, he made his professional acting debut in a production of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta at Princeton's McCarter Theater. He would continue to work with the theater through his early teens and further enhanced his resumé at the age of 15, when he received a summer apprenticeship to study drama in Williamstown. The following year, he secured his first agent.Reeve went on to major in English and music at Cornell University. Following his graduation, he pursued a master's degree in drama at Juilliard and then studied under actor John Houseman's tutelage before heading to Europe to work at London's Old Vic and the Comedie Française of Paris. Upon his 1974 return stateside, Reeve took over the role of Ben Harper on the long-running soap opera Love of Life; he stayed with the show through 1978. During this period, he made his Broadway debut, starring opposite Katharine Hepburn in a production of A Matter of Gravity. Though he had made his feature-film debut with a small role in the undersea adventure Gray Lady Down (1977), Reeve did not become a star until he beat out a number of big name actors, including Robert Redford, Sylvester Stallone, and Clint Eastwood, to don the metallic blue body stocking and red cape in Richard Donner's 1978 blockbuster Superman: The Movie. Though the film abounded with exuberant, sly humor, Reeve played his Superman straight, giving him great charm, a touch of irony, and a clumsy wistfulness, thereby creating a believable alien hero who masquerades as a bungling newsman and pines for the love of unknowing colleague Lois Lane. The film was one of the year's most popular and earned Reeve a British Academy Award for Most Promising Newcomer. He went on to reprise the role in the film's three sequels, none of which matched the quality and verve of the original.In a concerted effort to avoid typecasting, Reeve attempted to prove his versatility by essaying a wide variety of roles. In 1980, while Superman II was in production, he returned to Broadway to appear as a gay amputee in Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July. That same year, he also starred in the romantic fantasy Somewhere in Time, playing a Chicago playwright who travels back in time to capture the attentions of a beautiful woman (Jane Seymour). Though generally cast as a good guy, Reeve occasionally attempted darker characters. In Deathtrap (1981), he played a crazed playwright, while he portrayed a corrupt priest in the dismal Monsignor (1982) and a reporter entangled in the prostitution industry in Street Smart (1987). Reeve returned to television in Sleeping Beauty, an entry in Shelley Duvall's distinguished Faerie Tale Theater. He subsequently had success appearing in television movies such as Anna Karenina (1985) and Death Dreams (1992). In the late '80s, Reeve became involved in various social causes and co-founded the Creative Coalition. He was also active with Amnesty International, even going to Chile in 1987 to show support for imprisoned authors. His interest in improving the world is apparent in the earnest but much-panned Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), for which he wrote the story.By the mid-'90s, Reeve was still busy juggling his film, television, and stage work. It all abruptly came to a halt in June 1995, when he fell from a horse during a steeplechase race. Having broken several key bones in his neck, Reeve was left completely paralyzed and could not even breathe without special assistance. The doctors' prognosis for his recovery remained grim, but Reeve still retained hope that advances in medical science would someday allow him to walk again. In 1996, he helped establish the UCI Reeve-Irvine Research Center, which specializes in spinal cord injuries; Reeve's work with the center was indicative of the strength and fortitude he had consistently displayed since his accident. In addition to his offscreen commitments, Reeve continued to work in film and television, making his directorial debut with the critically acclaimed made-for-cable drama In the Gloaming (1997) and starring in the 1998 TV-movie remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window.Reeve credited much of his post-accident survival to his wife, former cabaret singer Dana Morosini. The two married in 1992, after Reeve separated from Gae Exton. He and Exton -- a modeling executive whom he met while filming the first Superman in England -- never married, but had two children together. He also had a son with Morosini.On October 10, 2004, after years as an outspoken advocate for stem-cell and spinal-cord-injury research, Reeve passed away from heart failure at the age of 52. A year and a half later, his wife Dana died of lung cancer.Prior to their deaths, the Reeves began to develop a pet project, the CG-animated feature Everyone's Hero, with voices by an all-star line-up of performers. The picture told the story of a young boy in the 1930s whose talking bat is stolen by a crooked security guard. It was released in 2007.

Trivia: A remarkably prolific and versatile talent, Gene Hackman was a successful character actor whose uncommon abilities and smart career choices ultimately made him a most unlikely leading man. In the tradition of Spencer Tracy, he excelled as an Everyman, consistently delivering intelligent, natural performances which established him among the most respected and well-liked stars of his era. Born January 30th, 1930 in San Bernardino, CA, Hackman joined the Marines at the age of 16 and later served in Korea. After studying journalism at the University of Illinois, he pursued a career in television production but later decided to try his hand at acting, attending a Pasadena drama school with fellow student Dustin Hoffman; ironically, they were both voted "least likely to succeed." After briefly appearing in the 1961 film Mad Dog Coll, Hackman made his debut off-Broadway in 1963's Children at Their Games, earning a Clarence Derwent Award for his supporting performance. Poor Richard followed, before he starred in 1964's production of Any Wednesday. Returning to films in 1964, Hackman earned strong notices for his work in Warren Beatty's Lilith and 1966's Hawaii, but the 1967 World War II tale First to Flight proved disastrous for all involved. At Beatty's request, Hackman co-starred in Bonnie and Clyde, winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination and establishing himself as a leading character player. After making a pair of films with Jim Brown, (1968's The Split and 1969's Riot), Hackman supported Robert Redford in The Downhill Racer, Burt Lancaster in The Gypsy Moths, and Gregory Peck in Marooned. For 1970's I Never Sang for My Father, he garnered another Academy Award nomination. The following year Hackman became a star; as New York narcotics agent Popeye Doyle, a character rejected by at least seven other actors, he headlined William Friedkin's thriller The French Connection, winning a Best Actor Oscar and spurring the film to Best Picture honors. Upon successfully making the leap from supporting player to lead, he next appeared in the disaster epic The Poseidon Adventure, one of the biggest money-makers of 1972. After co-starring with Al Pacino in 1973's Scarecrow, Hackman delivered his strongest performance to date as a haunted surveillance expert in Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 classic The Conversation and went on to tap his under-utilized comedic skills in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. Arthur Penn's grim 1975 thriller Night Moves and the Western Bite the Bullet followed before the actor agreed to The French Connection 2. While remaining the subject of great critical acclaim, Hackman's box-office prowess was beginning to slip: 1975's Lucky Lady, 1977's The Domino, and March or Die were all costly flops, and although 1978's Superman -- in which he appeared as the villainous Lex Luthor -- was a smash, his career continued to suffer greatly. Apart from the inevitable Superman 2, Hackman was absent from the screen for several years, and with the exception of a fleeting appearance in Beatty's 1981 epic Reds, most of his early-'80s work -- specifically, the features All Night Long and Eureka -- passed through theaters virtually unnoticed.Finally, a thankless role as an ill-fated war correspondent in Roger Spottiswoode's acclaimed 1983 drama Under Fire brought Hackman's career back to life. The follow-up, the action film Uncommon Valor, was also a hit, and while 1984's Misunderstood stalled, the next year's Twice in a Lifetime was a critical success. By the middle of the decade, Hackman was again as prolific as ever, headlining a pair of 1986 pictures -- the little-seen Power and the sleeper hit Hoosiers -- before returning to the Man of Steel franchise for 1987's Superman 4: The Quest for Peace. No Way Out, in which he co-starred with Kevin Costner, was also a hit. In 1988, Hackman starred in no less than five major releases: Woody Allen's Another Woman, the war drama Bat 21, the comedy Full Moon in Blue Water, the sports tale Split Decisions, and Alan Parker's Mississippi Burning. The last of these, a Civil Rights drama set in 1964, cast him as an FBI agent investigating the disappearance of a group of political activists. Though the film itself was the subject of considerable controversy, Hackman won another Oscar nomination. During the 1990s, Hackman settled comfortably into a rhythm alternating between lead roles (1990's Narrow Margin, 1991's Class Action) and high-profile supporting performances (1990's Postcards From the Edge, 1993's The Firm). In 1992, he joined director and star Clint Eastwood in the cast of the revisionist Western Unforgiven, appearing as a small-town sheriff corrupted by his own desires for justice. The role won Hackman a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. The performance helped land him in another pair of idiosyncratic Western tales, Wyatt Earp and The Quick and the Dead. In 1995, he also co-starred in two of the year's biggest hits, the submarine adventure Crimson Tide and the Hollywood satire Get Shorty. Three more big-budget productions, The Birdcage, The Chamber, and Extreme Measures, followed in 1996, and a year later Hackman portrayed the President of the United States in Eastwood's Absolute Power. In 1998, Hackman lent his talents to three very different films, the conspiracy thriller Enemy of the State, the animated Antz, and Twilight, a noirish mystery co-starring Paul Newman and Susan Sarandon. Moving into the new millennium with his stature as a solid performer and well-respected veteran well in place, Hackman turned up in The Replacements in 2000, and Heist the following year. 2001 also found Hackman in top form with his role as the dysfunctional patriarch in director Wes Anderson's follow-up to Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums. Hackman's lively performance brought the actor his third Golden Globe, this time for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.

Trivia: The daughter of a mining engineer, Canadian actress Margot Kidder spent her first two-and-a-half years living in a caboose. While attending the University of British Columbia, Kidder was talked into appearing in a college stage production of Take Me Along; she was hooked, though she later learned there was more to acting than crying on cue and partying. In her first professional years with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation headquarters in Vancouver, Kidder played everything from simpering ingenues to an unhinged murderess. She made her first film in 1969, an American production titled Gaily Gaily, then worked with Gene Wilder in the British-made Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx (1970). Kidder disliked the seamier side of the movie business and retreated to Canada in hopes of learning how to become a film editor, but was brought back to the U.S. in 1971 for a continuing role in the James Garner TV series Nichols. She liked Garner but not the hassles of making a weekly series, and for the next decade concentrated on film work, plunging headfirst into a kinky Brian DePalma chiller titled Sisters (1972). Kidder's best-known work in the '70s and '80s was as Lois Lane in the Superman films starring Christopher Reeve. Other movie roles and a stint on 1987 TV series Shell Game followed. She continued to work steadily in a variety of projects including 1988's Body of Evidence, White Room, and Hanry & Verlin, however she earned the most press she had in quite some time after a bizarre incident in 1996 where she went missing for a few days and was found dazed and confused outside a stranger's home in Glendale, California. She recovered and went back to work in numerous films and TV series including Touched By an Angel and Tribulation. She was a major figure in Peter Biskind's book about '70s cinema, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, and figured prominently in the documentary made from that book. In 2007 she appeared on the reality program Who Do You Think You Are, and went on to act in Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween II.Kidder married and divorced writer Tom McGuane and actor John Heard (their union lasted six days!) and remains a vocal activist for political and ecological causes.

Trivia: American actor Jackie Cooper was in movies at the age of three; his father had abandoned the family when Jackie was two, forcing his mother to rely upon the boy's acting income to keep food on the table. Shortly after earning his first featured part in Fox Movietone Follies of 1929. Cooper was hired for producer Hal Roach's "Our Gang" two-reeler series, appearing in 15 shorts over the next two years. The "leading man" in many of these comedies, he was most effective in those scenes wherein he displayed a crush on his new teacher, the beauteous Miss Crabtree. On the strength of "Our Gang," Paramount Pictures signed Cooper for the title role in the feature film Skippy (1931), which earned the boy an Oscar nomination. A contract with MGM followed, and for the next five years Cooper was frequently co-starred with blustery character player Wallace Beery. Cooper outgrew his preteen cuteness by the late 1930s, and was forced to accept whatever work that came along, enjoying the occasional plum role in such films as The Return of Frank James (1940) and What a Life! (1941). His priorities rearranged by his wartime Naval service, Cooper returned to the states determined to stop being a mere "personality" and to truly learn to be an actor. This he did on Broadway and television, notably as the star of two popular TV sitcoms of the 1950s, The People's Choice and Hennessey. Cooper developed a taste for directing during this period (he would earn an Emmy for his directorial work on M*A*S*H in 1973), and also devoted much of his time in the 1960s to the production end of the business; in 1965 he was appointed vice-president in charge of production at Screen Gems, the TV subsidiary of Columbia Pictures. From the early 1970s onward, Cooper juggled acting, producing and directing with equal aplomb. Modern audiences know Cooper best as the apoplectic Perry White in the Christopher Reeve Superman films. In 1981, Cooper surprised (and sometimes shocked) his fans with a warts-and-all autobiography, Please Don't Shoot My Dog. Cooper died in May 2011 at the age of 88 following a sudden illness.

Trivia: Best remembered for playing plucky cub reporter Jimmy Olson in all four of the Superman films that starred Christopher Reeve, Marc McClure made his film debut in the Disney film Freaky Friday and in the television movie James at 15 (both 1977). He went on to play supporting roles and occasional leads in both venues. In 1979, McClure starred in the short-lived TV series California Fever.

Trivia: Dark-haired comedic actor Jon Cryer remains best-known for his lovable performance as Duckie Dale in the 1986 teen movie Pretty in Pink. Even though he was 21 years old playing a high school senior, he exhibited a vulnerable yet goofy freshness unlike most other teen stars. The son of Broadway performers, he was schooled in the Bronx before making his film debut in the romantic comedy No Small Affair as a young photographer obsessed with Demi Moore. He made some unfortunate movies after Pretty in Pink, including the Ferris Bueller knock-off Morgan Stewart's Coming Home, which suggested unfair comparisons with actor Matthew Broderick. Other forgettable movies followed until he was cast as the star of the sitcom The Famous Teddy Z, which was then followed by several other short-lived sitcoms. After appearing in the anarchic comedy Hot Shots!, he proved fairly successful with offbeat comedies and independent films. He helped write the talky romantic comedy The Pompatus of Love then starred in the similarly themed Plan B. He teamed up with director Richard Schenkman to write the offbeat comedy Went to Coney Island on a Mission From God...Be Back by Five. In 2003, Cryer re-teamed with Hotshots! co-star Charlie Sheen for the sitcom Two and a Half Men, which proved to be a massive success. The show was so popular that it stayed on the air, even after Sheen left in 2011, with Ashton Kutcher filling in the empty spot in the cast.

Trivia: Actor/director Sam Wanamaker was one of those whose career was nearly derailed by the machinations of Senator McCarthy and his House Un-American Activities Committee. A native of Chicago, born Samuel Watenmaker, he began his career in theater at age 17 following training at Chicago's Goodman Theater. Wanamaker honed his acting skills in stock, traveling shows, and on Broadway. He also attended Drake University. Between 1943 and 1946, Wanamaker was in the U.S. Army. Early in his career, he also worked in radio. He made his feature film debut in My Girl Tisa (1948). The following year, Wanamaker, whose leftist political views were no secret in Hollywood, went to England to appear in blacklisted director Edward Dymtryk's Give Us This Day (1949). After making another film in Britain, Wanamaker learned that he too was about to be investigated and had been blacklisted; therefore, Wanamaker elected to remain in England. Over the next ten years, Wanamaker worked on-stage as a director, producer, and actor. In the 1960s, Wanamaker resumed his acting career in internationally produced films such as The Concrete Jungle (1962) and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1965). He made his directorial bow in 1969 with The File of the Golden Goose (1969) and went on to make several more films, including The Executioner (1970). He also made television movies such as the well-regarded true story, The Killing of Randy Webster (1981). In 1985, Wanamaker appeared on the short-lived television series The Berrengers. When not busy acting or directing, Wanamaker had been an active supporter of the plan to restore Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Unfortunately, Wanamaker died of cancer just before the project was completed. His daughter Zoe Wanamaker is also an actor.

Trivia: A scant three months after her grandfather, author Ernest Hemingway, took his own life with a shotgun, Mariel Hemingway came into the world. By the time Mariel was ready to launch her career, it appeared as though she would remain in the shadow of two famous relatives: her grandfather Ernest, and her older sister, model Margaux Hemingway, who was just about to star in her first feature film, Lipstick (1976). As the publicity hounds sought out Margaux for interviews and photo ops, Mariel quietly took a supporting role in her sister's first starring vehicle. Within a few years, Margaux was out of the movie-star race, but Mariel had only just begun, co-starring as Woody Allen's teenaged lover in Manhattan (1979). Oscar-nominated for her natural, relaxed performance in the Allen picture, Mariel followed this triumph with the role of a lesbian athlete in Personal Best. Thereafter, Mariel couldn't seem to stay out of the headlines: she underwent a well-publicized session of cosmetic surgery and breast enhancement to portray the unfortunate Playboy centerfold Dorothy Stratten in Star 80, then caused blue-nosed media monitors to have palpitations by appearing in the nude (actually appearing to be appearing in the nude) in an episode of the TV lawyer series Civil Wars. She worked steadily throughout the '80s and '90s appearing in projects as diverse as Creator, Delirious, Falling From Grace, and appearing on the sitcom Roseanne. She reteamed with Woody Allen in 1997's Deconstructing Harry, and had major roles in Little Men and The Sex Monster. She appeared in a series of yoga instructional videos in the 21st century, and acted in The Golden Boys and Archie's Final Project on which she also served as co-Executive Producer.

Trivia: Active the London theatrical circles from 1925, British actor Esmond Knight first set foot on a movie sound stage with 1931's The Ringer. His career momentum was almost permanently interrupted in 1941, when, while serving with the Royal Navy, he was temporarily blinded in battle. He regained enough of his sight to resume his filmmaking activities in 1943, appearing in such productions as Powell and Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale (1944), Black Narcissus (1946) and The Red Shoes (1947), Olivier's Henry V (1945) and Richard III (1955), and Jean Renoir's The River (1951). In 1960, Knight co-starred in Sink the Bismarck (1960), a reenactment of the naval battle in which he'd been blinded 19 years earlier. Long married to actress Nora Swinburne, Esmond Knight died in Egypt while filming The Balkan Trilogy.

Trivia: One of England's most versatile character actors, Jim Broadbent has been giving reliably excellent performances on the stage and screen for years. Particularly known for his numerous collaborations with director Mike Leigh, Broadbent was shown to superlative effect in Leigh's Topsy-Turvy, winning the Venice Film Festival's Volpi Cup for his portrayal of British lyricist and playwright W.S. Gilbert.Born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1949, Broadbent trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. Following his 1972 graduation, he began his professional career on the stage, performing with the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and as part of the National Theatre of Brent, a two-man troupe he co-founded that performed reduced histories. In addition to his theatrical work, Broadbent did steady work on television, acting for such directors as Mike Newell and Stephen Frears. Broadbent made his film debut in 1978 with a small part in Jerzy Skolimowski's The Shout. He went on to work with such directors as Stephen Frears (The Hit, 1984) and Terry Gilliam (Time Bandits [1981], Brazil [1985]), but it was through his collaboration with Leigh that Broadbent first became known to an international film audience. In 1991, he starred in Leigh's Life Is Sweet, a domestic comedy that cast him as a good-natured cook who dreams of running his own business. Broadbent gained further visibility the following year with substantial roles in Neil Jordan's The Crying Game and Newell's Enchanted April, and he could subsequently be seen in such diverse fare as Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Widows' Peak (1994), Richard Loncraine's highly acclaimed adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard III (1996), and Little Voice (1998), the last of which cast him as a seedy nightclub owner. Appearing primarily as a character actor in these films, Broadbent took center stage for Leigh's Topsy-Turvy (1999), imbuing the mercurial W.S. Gilbert with emotional complexity and comic poignancy. Roles in Bridget Jones's Diary, Moulin Rogue, and Iris made 2001 quite a marquee year for Broadbent; the actor earned both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his affecting turn in Iris.He remained one of the most respected actors of his generation and continued to work steadily for directors all over the world. In 2002 he was cast in Martin Scorsese's epic historical drama Gangs of New York. In 2003 he took a cameo part in Bright Young Things. In 2004 he returned for the Bridget Jones sequel, and took a bit part in Mike Leigh's Vera Drake. He worked in a number o animated films including Doogal, Valiant, and Robots. In 2007 he had the title role in Longford, a historical drama about the infamous Moor Murders, and the next year he was part of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls.As the 2010's continued, Broadbent would remain a vital, respected, and beloved force on screen, appearing most memorably in projects like The Young Victoria and The Iron Lady.

Trivia: Robert Beatty spent his early adulthood in Canada as a gas-company cashier, salesman and amateur actor. Upon arriving in London, Beatty enrolled at the RADA, making his film debut as an extra and stand-in. During World War II, Beatty achieved fame through his eyewitness radio reports of the nightly London bombings. In most of his postwar film, stage, radio and TV work, Beatty was cast as a rough-hewn American or Canadian. One of his favorite stage roles was rude 'n' crude American junk dealer Harry Brock in Garson Kanin's Born Yesterday. He also played more than his share of detectives, most prominently as radio's Phillip O'Dell, and on the 1958 TV series Dial 999. Beatty was given a chance to demonstrate his versatility in the dual role of a milquetoast British hubby and a slick Italian gangster in Her Favorite Husband (1950). Later film roles included Lord Beaverbrook in The Magic Box (1951), Halvorsen in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and two separate characters in Superman III (1980) and Superman IV (1984). On television, Robert Beatty was seen in the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth (1977, as Proculus) and The Martian Chronicles (1980), and as President Ronald Reagan in the 1987 PBS special Breakthrough at Reykajavik.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the '70s.