Trivia: Making her stage bow at age five in a community production of Alice in Wonderland, Linda Lavin spent the next ten years studying piano under the watchful eye of her stage mother. After majoring in theater arts at William and Mary College, Lavin appeared in stock in New Jersey, then weathered the chorus-audition rounds in New York, making her off-Broadway debut in a 1960 revival of Oh, Kay (1960). Two years later, she reached Broadway in A Family Affair. She went on to play Lois Lane (a la Ethel Merman) in the short-lived 1965 Broadway musical It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman, and when that show folded she starred in the off-Broadway production Wet Paint, which earned her a Theatre World Award. The musicomedy review The Mad Show followed, then Lavin was selected by director Alan Arkin to play Patsy Newquist (one of her favorite roles, and one that earned her the New York Critics' Outer Circle Award) in Jules Feiffer's Little Murders (1968). She subsequently played all the female roles in 1969's Cop-Out (another of her favorites) and Elaine Navazio in Neil Simon's Last of the Red Hot Lovers. From 1968 onward, Lavin made periodic trips to Hollywood. Her work as detective Janice Wentworth during the 1975-76 season of TV's Barney Miller led to a supporting role in the pilot episode of the proposed series Jerry. CBS nixed Jerry but signed Lavin to a development deal, which of course developed into her ten-season (1976-85) hitch as waitress Alice Hyatt in the popular sitcom Alice. Recalling that her counterpart in the 1975 film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore was an aspiring singer, Lavin inked her Alice contract on the assumption that the producers would permit her to sing--which they did, on practically every other network program except Alice. Returning to Broadway after her series folded, Lavin won a Tony award for her performance in Neil Simon's Broadway Bound, and also starred in Gypsy and The Sisters Rosensweig. She also made a brief return to TV as Edie Kurland in the one-season comedy Room for Two (1992). Linda Lavin was at one time married to actor Ron Leibman.

Trivia: Born to a Syrian-Lebanese family in Brooklyn, Victor Tayback grew up learning how to aggressively defend himself and those he cared about, qualities that he'd later carry over into his acting work. Moving to California with his family, the 16-year-old Tayback made the varsity football team at Burbank High. Despite numerous injuries, he continued his gridiron activities at Glendale Community College, until he quit school over a matter of principle (he refused to apologize to his coach for breaking curfew). After four years in the navy, Tayback enrolled at the Frederick A. Speare School of Radio and TV Broadcasting, hoping to become a sportscaster. Instead, he was sidetracked into acting, working as a cab driver, bank teller and even a "Kelly Girl" between performing gigs. Shortly after forming a little-theatre group called the Company of Angels, Tayback made his movie debut in Door-to-Door Maniac (1961), a fact he tended to exclude from his resumé in later years. His professional life began to improve in 1967, when he won an audition to play Sid Caesar's look-alike in a TV pilot. Throughout the early 1970s the bulging, bald-domed actor made a comfortable living in TV commercials and TV guest-star assignments, and as a regular on the detective series Griff (1973) and Khan (1975). In 1975, he was cast in the secondary role of Mel Sharples, the potty-mouthed short-fused owner of a greasy spoon diner, in the theatrical feature Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. When the film evolved into the weekly TV sitcom Alice in 1976, Tayback was engaged to recreate his "Mel" characterization. He remained with the program for the next nine years. In contrast to his gruff, abusive screen character, Tayback was dearly loved by the rest of the Alice cast, who regarded him a Big Brother and Father Confessor rolled into one. Five years after Alice's cancellation, Vic Tayback died of cancer at the age of 61; one of his last screen assignments was the voice of Carface in the animated feature All Dogs Go to Heaven.

Trivia: Fans of the long-running television sitcom Facts of Life (1979-1988) will remember Nancy McKeon as Jo, the tough-talking, golden-hearted girl from Brooklyn who struggled to fit in at a posh girls school, but she has been involved with television, and to some extent, feature films, since she was two years old and cast in a commercial for which her brother, Philip McKeon (he is 18 months older), was auditioning. After shooting the spot, McKeon became a model and even appeared in Sears catalogs. Her brother was also a successful child model. In 1978, nine-year-old McKeon and her father moved to Los Angeles -- her brother was already out there appearing on the popular sitcom Alice (1976-1985) -- but she would not have a successful audition until at age 12, she landed a part on Starsky and Hutch (1975-1979) and then a part in the television movie Return to Fantasy Island (1978). She joined the cast of Facts of Life in its second season and remained until the show's end. While on the show, McKeon frequently appeared in television movies such as Strange Voices (1987). In 1995, McKeon returned to series television with the short-lived sitcom Can't Hurry Love, which she also produced.

Trivia: Supporting actor Philip McKeon got his start as a child model appearing in magazines, newspapers, and television commercials. He is best remembered for playing Tommy, the son of the title character in the long-running sitcom Alice (1976-1985). His younger sister, Nancy McKeon, is a successful television actress.

Trivia: After eking out a modest living as a piano teacher in Alabama and Florida, Polly Holliday switched to acting, spending ten seasons with the Asolo State Theater in Sarasota. In 1973, Holliday headed for New York, where she was cast in Murray Schisgal's Broadway play All Over Town; her director was Dustin Hoffman. All Over Town led to the tiny but pivotal role as a testy secretary in the Dustin Hoffman-Robert Redford feature All the President's Men (1976)--which, in turn, led to Holliday's being cast as wise-cracking waitress Florence Jean "Flo" Castleberry in the TV sitcom Alice (1976-80). Rising to nationwide fame by virtue of her oft-repeated catchphrase "Kiss mah grits!", Holliday earned four Emmy nominations and one Golden Globe Award. In 1980, she was spun off into her own weekly series Flo, which lacked Alice's staying power and was cancelled after a single season. She went on to briefly replace Eileen Brennan on TV's Private Benjamin (1983), and to play Captain Betty in the pilot episode of Stir Crazy (1985). Her film roles of the 1980s included Gremlins (1984), in which she was eminently hissable as Margaret Hamilton clone Mrs. Deagle. Polly Holliday's more recent work has largely been confined to the Broadway stage; in 1989, she received a Tony nomination for her portrayal of Sister Woman in a revival of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Trivia: A professional actor from the age of three, Corey Feldman was kept busy early on with innumerable TV commercials and voice-overs. Feldman's first regular television work was a recurring role in Mork and Mindy (1978-1982), followed by the part of Regi Tower in the weekly sitcom version of The Bad News Bears (1979). He made his earliest film appearance as the inquisitive kid in the museum in Time After Time (1979). In the early '80s, Feldman showed up in several episodes of the syndicated Madame's Place (1982) and played precocious-brat roles in such fantasy flicks as Gremlins (1984) and The Goonies (1985). During this period, he also provided the voice of the Young Copper in the Disney animated feature The Fox and the Hound (1980). His breakthrough role, at age 14, was as the battered, bespectacled small-town hell-raiser Teddy Duchamp in Rob Reiner's Stand by Me (1986). Feldman's acting career then went into decline, leaving him with few professional choices outside of minor roles in features such as Maverick (1994) and leads in direct-to-video movies. His most successful post-Stand by Me venture was as the voice of Donatello in the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. In many of his latter-day efforts, Feldman co-starred with his offscreen best friend Corey Haim, another youthful performer.

Trivia: Actress Joyce Bulifant clocked in as a television mainstay for several decades, nearly always in small supporting roles or guest spots, on series such as Perry Mason, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and Dr. Kildare. Beginning in 1971, one year into the eight-season run of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Bulifant landed an assignment as a regular on that program; she played Marie Slaughter, the wife of amiable newswriter Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod) -- an assignment that carried her through the final season of the series. During the 1970s, she also appeared as a regular contestant/participant on the game show Match Game, alongside such "Me Decade" stars as McLean Stevenson and Mary Tyler Moore Show co-star Betty White. Bulifant's small-screen work continued unabated for several decades; in time, she also moved into occasional bit parts and supporting roles in features. She was particularly memorable (and visible) as Mrs. Davis, the mother of a sick child whose IV is knocked out by a klutzy singing nun, in the farce Airplane! (1980), and then, around 20 years later, experienced a career resurgence thanks to her son, director John Mallory Asher (the child of Bulifant and beach movie director William Asher), who cast her in the road comedy Diamonds (1999) and the critically reviled sex farce Dirty Love (2004).

Trivia: Long-time character actor James Cromwell has spent much of his career on stage and television, only occasionally appearing in feature films until the early '90s, when his film work began to flourish. The tall, spare actor first became known to an international audience with his role as the taciturn but kindly Farmer Hoggett, the owner of a piglet that wants to be a sheepdog, in the smash hit Babe (1995). His work in the film earned Cromwell an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, as well as numerous opportunities for steady work in Hollywood.The son of noted director John Cromwell and actress Kay Johnson, he originally aspired to become a mechanical engineer, attending both Vermont's Middlebury College and the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University). But after a summer spent on a movie set with his father, the acting bug bit, and Cromwell decided to become an actor. He started out in regional theater, acting and directing in a variety productions for ten years, and he was a regular performer at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Cromwell made his television debut in the recurring role of "Stretch" Cunningham on All in the Family in 1974, and he subsequently spent the rest of the decade and much of the 1980s on television, as a regular on such shows as Hot L Baltimore and The Last Precinct. Cromwell also appeared in such miniseries as NBC's Once an Eagle and in such made-for-television movies as A Christmas Without Snow (1980). Cromwell made his feature film debut in the comedy Murder By Death (1976). His film work was largely undistinguished until Babe; following the film's success, he began appearing in more substantial roles in a number of popular films, including The People Vs. Larry Flynt (1996), in which he played Charles Keating; Star Trek: First Contact (1996), which cast him as the reluctant scientist responsible for Earth's first contact with alien life forms; and L.A. Confidential (1997), in which he gave a marvelously loathsome performance as a crooked police captain. Adept at playing nice guys and bottom-dwelling scum alike, Cromwell next earned strong notices for his portrayal of a penitentiary warden in The Green Mile (1999).The respected character actor continued strongly into the next decade with appearances in Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys as well as the live-on-TV production of Fail Safe in 2000. He enjoyed a recurring role on E.R. in 2001. He played the president in the 2002 Jack Ryan movie The Sum of All Fears. In 2003 he took on a recurring role in the respected HBO drama Six Feet Under, and also appeared in the award-winning HBO adaptation of Angels in America. In 2006 he acted opposite Helen Mirren playing Prince Philip in The Queen, and played another head of state for Oliver Stone when he portrayed George Herbert Walker Bush in the biopic W. In 2011 he was the loyal butler to the main character in the Best Picture Oscar winner for that year, The Artist.