Trivia: A uniquely gifted and versatile actor possessing the distinct ability to immerse himself in a role so convincingly that he becomes almost unrecognizable -- from a quality obsessed restaurateur (Big Night, 1996) to a master criminal bent on world domination (Spy Kids, 2001) -- one can always count on Tony Shalhoub to deliver a memorable performance no matter how small his role may be.Well-known to television audiences for his extended stint as a self-deprecating cabbie on the long-running series Wings, Shalhoub made the often-painful transition from television to film with a grace seldom seen. Born on October 9th, 1953 in Green Bay, WI, Shalhoub developed his passion for theater at the youthful age of six when he volunteered via his sister to play an extra in a high-school production of The King and I. Shalhoub was hooked. After earning his master's degree from the Yale Drama School and spending four seasons at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA, Shalhoub packed his bags for New York where he began a luminous career on Broadway. Broadway brought Shalhoub success not only in his career, but in his personal life as well: he was nominated for a Tony for his role in Conversations With My Father and he met his future wife, actress Brooke Adams, while acting in The Heidi Chronicles. It was not long after his Broadway success that Shalhoub made his feature debut, as a doctor in the 1990 AIDS drama Longtime Companion.Shalhoub's film career has been a testament to his range and a compliment to his abilities. Though prone to comedy, his dramatic roles have gained him just as much, if not more, recognition than his comedic roles. Winning the Best Supporting Actor award from the National Society of Film Critics for his well-researched role in Big Night (1996), Shalhoub expanded his dramatic film repertoire with roles in A Civil Action and The Siege (both 1998), while always maintaining his knack for humor (1997's Men in Black). Shalhoub's role as the ultra-mellow "anti-Scottie" in the Star Trek send-up Galaxy Quest (1999) proved that his comic persona was indeed still as sharp as ever. Sticking in the sci-fi/fantasy mold for his roles in Imposter and Spy Kids (both 2001), Shalhoub once again proved that he could do 180-degree character turnarounds with ease.Though Shalhoub would stay in sci-fi mode for his role in Men in Black 2, he would return to solid ground with his role as an obsessive-compulsive detective in the well-received television pilot Monk (2002). Directed by Galaxy Quest helmer Dean Parisot, the pilot for Monk successfully paved the way for the curiously innovative USA series to follow and found the actor warmly re-embracing the medium that had propelled him to stardom. As Monk's popularity continued to grow, Shaloub found success on the big screen in the role of a gifted psychologist for The Great New Wonderful (2005), and voiced the lovable Luigi in Cars (2006) and Cars 2 (2011). In 2007, he worked alongside John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson for the supernatural horror film 1408.

Trivia: If television and movie buffs with a keen eye suspect that they may have seen actress Amy Yasbeck somewhere before, it could be from her early roles on the long-running soap opera mainstay Days of Our Lives or a mid-'90s stint on Wings, but it's possible that Yasbeck's recognition factor reaches back even further into the pop culture public conscience. As a child, the pretty actress was featured on the box of the wildly popular Easy Bake Oven.Born and raised the daughter of a grocery store proprietor father and a homemaker in Cincinnati, OH, Yasbeck got her break in show business after moving to New York City, where she was discovered by an agent while working in a restaurant. Moving to Los Angeles shortly after she began auditioning for roles, the aspiring actress made her television debut on Love, American Style before taking a villainous turn as Olivia in Days of Our Lives. As her small-screen career began gaining momentum with roles in Dallas, Magnum P.I., and The Cosby Show, Yasbeck also appeared early on in such features as House II: The Second Story (1987), Pretty Woman, and Problem Child (both 1990), on the set of which she met future husband John Ritter. Her versatile ability to transform herself into a given character regardless of apparent physical disparities was later evidenced in Yasbeck's role as Maid Marian in Mel Brooks' zany parody Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Though her role description called for a buxom blond actress of British persuasion, the artifices of a wig, a phony accent, and some creative costume-stuffing won the actress the role while simultaneously winning the favor of director Brooks (who later cast Yasbeck opposite Wings co-star Steven Webber in Dracula: Dead and Loving It [1995]). Drifting between television (Alright, Already, I've Got a Secret) and film (Odd Couple II, Denial [both 1998]). Throughout the next decade she made regular guest appearances in various TV series including Just Shoot Me!, That's So Raven, and Hot in Cleveland.

Trivia: At the peak of her career, actress Debbie Reynolds was America's sweetheart, the archetypal girl-next-door. Best remembered for her work in Hollywood musicals, she appeared in the genre's defining moment, Singin' in the Rain, as well as many other notable successes. Born Mary Frances Reynolds on April 1, 1932, in El Paso, TX, she entered the film industry by winning the Miss Burbank beauty contest in 1948, resulting in a contract with Warner Bros. However, the studio cast her in small roles in only two films -- 1948's The June Bride and 1950's The Daughter of Rosie O'Grady -- and she soon exited for the greener pastures of MGM, where she first appeared in Three Little Words. A more significant turn in 1950's Two Weeks With Love garnered Reynolds strong notices, and soon she was touted as the new Judy Garland, with a role in 1951's Mr. Imperium also on the horizon.Though star Gene Kelly initially opposed her casting in his 1952 musical Singin' in the Rain, Reynolds acquitted herself more than admirably alongside the likes of Donald O'Connor and Jean Hagen, and the film remains one of the greatest Hollywood musicals ever produced. A series of less distinguished musicals followed, among them 1953's I Love Melvin, The Affairs of Dobie Gillis, and Give a Girl a Break. On loan to RKO, she scored a major success in 1954's Susan Slept Here, and upon returning to MGM she was awarded with a new and improved seven-year contract. However, the studio continued to insert Reynolds into lackluster projects like the health-fad satire Athena and the musical Hit the Deck. Finally, in 1955, she appeared opposite Frank Sinatra in the hit The Tender Trap, followed by a well-regarded turn as a blushing bride in The Catered Affair a year later.Additionally, Reynolds teamed with real-life husband Eddie Fisher in the musical Bundle of Joy. The couple's children also went on to showbiz success: Daughter Carrie Fisher became a popular actress, novelist, and screenwriter, while son Todd became a director. In 1957, Reynolds starred in Tammy and the Bachelor, the first in a series of popular teen films which also included 1961's Tammy Tell Me True, 1963's Tammy and the Doctor, and 1967's Tammy and the Millionaire. Her other well-received films of the period included 1959's It Started With a Kiss, 1961's The Pleasure of His Company, and 1964's The Unsinkable Molly Brown, for which she earned an Academy Award nomination. In 1959, Reynolds' marriage to Fisher ended in divorce when he left her for Elizabeth Taylor. The effect was an outpouring of public sympathy which only further increased her growing popularity, and it was rumored that by the early '60s, she was earning millions per picture. By the middle of the decade, however, Reynolds' star was waning. While described by the actress herself as her favorite film, 1966's The Singing Nun was not the hit MGM anticipated. Its failure finally convinced the studio to offer her roles closer to her own age, but neither 1967's Divorce American Style nor the next year's How Sweet It Is performed well, and Reynolds disappeared from the screen to mount her own television series, the short-lived Debbie Reynolds Show. In 1971, she appeared against type in the campy horror picture What's the Matter with Helen?, but when it too failed, she essentially retired from movie making, accepting voice-over work as the title character in the animated children's film Charlotte's Web but otherwise remaining away from Hollywood for over a decade.Reynolds then hit the nightclub circuit, additionally appearing on Broadway in 1974's Irene. In 1977, she also starred in Annie Get Your Gun. By the 1980s, Reynolds had become a fixture in Las Vegas, where she ultimately opened her own hotel and casino, regularly performing live in the venue's nightclub and even opening her own museum of Hollywood memorabilia. In 1987, she reappeared in front of the camera for the first time in years in the TV movie Sadie and Son, followed in 1989 by Perry Mason: The Case of the Musical Murder. In 1992, Reynolds appeared briefly as herself in the hit film The Bodyguard, and a small role in Oliver Stone's 1993 Vietnam tale Heaven and Earth marked her second tentative step toward returning to Hollywood on a regular basis. Finally, in 1996 she accepted the title role in the acclaimed Albert Brooks comedy Mother, delivering what many critics declared the best performance of her career. The comedies Wedding Bell Blues and In and Out followed in 1996 and 1997. She continued to work in animated projects, and often allowed herself to be interviewed for documentaries about movie and dance history. She made a cameo as herself in Connie and Carla, and in 2012 she had her most high-profile gig in quite some time when she was cast as Grandma Mazur in One for the Money. In 2015, Reynolds was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Reynolds died in 2016, at age 84, just one day after her daughter Carrie Fisher died.

Trivia: By the time actor Thomas Haden Church earned an Oscar nomination for his unforgettable supporting role as a womanizing, has-been actor heading out on one last fling before tying the knot in director Alexander Payne's critically acclaimed road drama Sideways (2004), many film and television viewers may have assumed (and not without merit) that the former Wings star had all but abandoned his career in front of the cameras. It had, after all, been nearly a decade since Church had endeared himself to television viewers as lovably dunderheaded mechanic Lowell Mather on the aforementioned hit television series, and though he did remain fairly active onscreen after Wings went off the air in 1995, his career took something of a back seat to his familial commitments and life on his Texas cattle ranch. Coupled with a conscious decision to move away from acting and try his talents behind the camera, Church's fading devotion to acting still made his nomination at the 2005 Oscars feel like something of a comeback even though he had remained fairly active in show business all along. A Texas native whose early career included a stint as a radio disc jockey and voice-over announcer, Church first got a taste for acting with an appearance in the independent feature Gypsy Angels, and a move to Los Angeles followed shortly thereafter. It didn't take long for the handsome, young aspiring actor to land his defining role in Wings, and aside from supporting roles in the features Tombstone and Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight, it was his role in Wings and the subsequent television series Ned and Stacey for which he was best remembered for some time. Following the cancellation of Ned and Stacey, Church turned his attention primarily to feature films with supporting roles in One Night Stand, 3000 Miles to Graceland, Monkeybone, and Lone Star State of Mind serving to at least pay the bills. Dejected by a somewhat stifled acting career and determined to spend more time with his wife and children, Church opted to step behind the scenes to write and direct the independent comedy Rolling Kansas. A lighthearted road movie concerning a trio of brothers' quest to find a seemingly-mythical marijuana field in the sprawling plains of Kansas, Rolling Kansas made a brief appearance at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival before making its debut on Comedy Central the following year. Just when it seemed that the rest of Church's onscreen career may have been relegated to appearances in George of the Jungle sequels, acclaimed independent filmmaker Payne had recalled his auditions for his previous two films, Election and About Schmidt. Though Church hadn't quite made the cut on either of those films, Payne had taken note of his talent and thought the former Wings star the perfect candidate to play a formerly popular television star and down-on-his-luck actor having trouble adjusting to the prospect of marriage in Payne's upcoming comedy drama Sideways. Cast opposite American Splendor's Paul Giamatti, Church's alternately desperate and sad performance proved the heart of the film many considered to be the year's -- not to mention director Payne's -- best. The movie earned Church an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He followed up that success with appearances in the comedy Idiocracy and the western Broken Trail opposite Robert Duvall. In 2007 he was cast as one of the two-villains in Spider-Man 3, and the year after that he starred in the biting drama Smart People. His deep, recognizable voice led him to voiceover work in a variety of projects such as Aliens in the Attic, Charlotte's Web, and Over the Hedge. In 2010 he had a part in the sleeper hit Easy A, and he played Matt Damon's brother in Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo. In 2012 he was cast in the Disney flop John Carter.