Trivia: One of the most versatile and respected actors of his generation, Kevin Kline has made a name for himself on the stage and screen. Equally comfortable in comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of those rare actors whose onscreen characterizations are not overshadowed by his offscreen personality; remarkably free of ego, he has impressed both critics and audiences as a performer in the purest sense of the word.A product of the American Midwest, Kline was born in Saint Louis, MO, on October 24, 1947. He became active in theater while growing up in the Saint Louis suburbs, performing in a number of school productions. He continued to act while a student at Indiana University at Bloomington, and following graduation, moved to New York, where he was accepted at the Juilliard School. In 1972, Kline added professional experience to his formal training when he joined New York's Acting Company, led at the time by John Houseman. He toured the country with the company, performing Shakespeare and winning particular acclaim for his portrayals of Romeo and Hamlet. This praise translated to the New York stage a few years later, when Kline won Tony and Drama Desk Awards for his role in the 1978 Broadway production of On the Twentieth Century. Three years later, he earned these same honors for his work in the Broadway production of The Pirates of Penzance (he later reprised his role for the musical's 1983 film adaptation). After a stint on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow, Kline made his film debut in Alan Pakula's 1982 Sophie's Choice. It was an inarguably auspicious beginning: aside from the wide acclaim lavished on the film, Kline earned a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Nathan Landau. The following year, he again struck gold, starring in The Big Chill, Lawrence Kasdan's seminal exploration of baby-boomer anxiety. Two years later, Kline and Kasdan enjoyed another successful collaboration with Silverado, an homage to the Westerns of the 1950s and '60s. After turning in a strong performance as a South African newspaper editor in Cry Freedom, Richard Attenborough's powerful 1987 apartheid drama, Kline won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his relentlessly hilarious portrayal of dimwitted petty thief Otto West in A Fish Called Wanda (1988). The award gave him international recognition and established him as an actor as adept at comedy as he was at drama, something Kline again proved in Soapdish; the 1991 comedy was a major disappointment, but Kline nonetheless managed to turn in another excellent performance, earning a Golden Globe nomination.The '90s saw Kline -- now a married man, having wed actress Phoebe Cates in 1989 -- continue to tackle a range of diverse roles. In 1992, he could be seen playing Douglas Fairbanks in Chaplin, while the next year he gave a winning portrayal of two men -- one, the U.S. President, the other, his reluctant stand-in -- in Dave, earning another Golden Globe nomination. Kline then appeared in one of his most high-profile roles to date, starring as a sexually conflicted schoolteacher in Frank Oz's 1997 comedy In & Out. His portrayal earned him another Golden Globe nomination, as well as a number of other accolades (including an MTV Award nomination for Best Kiss with Tom Selleck). Further praise followed for Kline the next year, when he turned in a stellar dramatic performance as an adulterous family man in 1973 Connecticut in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. He then turned back to Shakespeare, portraying Bottom in the star-studded 1999 adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. His work in that film was so well received that it helped to overshadow his involvement in Wild Wild West, one of the most critically lambasted and financially disappointing films of the year.2001 found Kline returning to straight drama in the introspective Life as a House. The actor continued in this niche the following year, starring as an unorthodox prep school teacher in The Emperor's Club. After playing songwriter Cole Porter in the 2004 biopic De-Lovely, Kline began work on his return to comedy, a remake of the classic The Pink Panther, with him cast opposite Steve Martin.Kline played Guy Noir in Robert Altman's film adaptation of the radio program Prairie Home Companion, and fulfilled the hopes of Shakespeare enthusiasts around the world when he appeared in the Kenneth Branagh directed adaptation of As You Like It, marking the first time the two respected Shakespearean performers collaborated on a work by the Bard. Over the next several years, Kline woudl continue to remain a charismatic force on screen, appearing in films like De-Lovely, Definitely, Maybe, The Conspirator, No Strings Attached, Darling Companion, and TV shows like Bob's Burgers.

Trivia: Ex-marine and ex-newspaper reporter Scott Glenn was ideally suited to the action-oriented films that would become his lot in the 1980s and 1990s. After learning the rudiments of his craft at the Actors Studio and appearing off-Broadway, Glenn made his film bow in 1970's The Baby Maker. He was rescued from low-budget cycle flicks by director Robert Altman, who cast Glenn as Pfc. Glenn Kelly in Nashville (1975). As rangy and rugged off-camera as on, Glenn was one of the few film actors of recent years to flourish in western roles: among his more impressive credits within this genre are Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1981), Silverado (1985), My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys (1993), and, stretching a point a bit, Urban Cowboy (1980). Glenn has been equally laudable in such suit-and-tie roles as Jodie Foster's FBI chief in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), in "military" assignments like astronaut Alan Shepard in The Right Stuff (1981) and the U.S. sub commander in Hunt for Red October (1990). As a tribute to Robert Altman, the director who elevated him to "A" pictures back in 1975, Scott Glenn accepted a drastic cut in salary to portray "Himself" in Altman's The Player (1992). Over the next several years, Glenn remained active on screen, appearing in films like Training Day, The Virgin Suicides, The Bourne Ultimatum, W., and The Paperboy.

Trivia: One of Hollywood's most prominent strong, silent types, Kevin Costner was for several years the celluloid personification of the baseball industry, given his indelible mark with baseball-themed hits like Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, and For Love of the Game. His epic Western Dances with Wolves marked the first break from this trend and established Costner as a formidable directing talent to boot. Although several flops in the late '90s diminished his bankability, for many, Costner remained one of the industry's most enduring and endearing icons.A native of California, Costner was born January 18, 1955, in Lynnwood. While a marketing student at California State University in Fullerton, he became involved with community theater. Upon graduation in 1978, Costner took a marketing job that lasted all of 30 days before deciding to take a crack at acting. After an inauspicious 1974 film debut in the ultra-cheapie Sizzle Beach USA, Costner decided to take a more serious approach to acting. Venturing down the usual theater-workshop, multiple-audition route, the actor impressed casting directors who weren't really certain of how to use him. That may be one reason why Costner's big-studio debut in Night Shift (1982) consisted of little more than background decoration, and the same year's Frances featured the hapless young actor as an off-stage voice.Director Lawrence Kasdan liked Costner enough to cast him in the important role of the suicide victim who motivated the plot of The Big Chill (1983). Unfortunately, his flashback scenes were edited out of the movie, leaving all that was visible of the actor -- who had turned down Matthew Broderick's role in WarGames to take the part -- to be his dress suit, along with a fleeting glimpse of his hairline and hands as the undertaker prepared him for burial during the opening credits. Two years later, a guilt-ridden Kasdan chose Costner for a major part as a hell-raising gunfighter in the "retro" Western Silverado (1985), this time putting him in front of the camera for virtually the entire film. He also gained notice for the Diner-ish buddy road movie Fandango. The actor's big break came two years later as he burst onto the screen in two major films, No Way Out and The Untouchables; his growing popularity was further amplified with a brace of baseball films, released within months of one another. In Bull Durham (1988), the actor was taciturn minor-league ballplayer Crash Davis, and in the following year's Field of Dreams he was Ray Kinsella, a farmer who constructs a baseball diamond in his Iowa cornfield at the repeated urging of a voice that intones "if you build it, he will come."Riding high on the combined box-office success of these films, Costner was able to make his directing debut. With a small budget of 18 million dollars, he went off to the Black Hills of South Dakota to film the first Western epic that Hollywood had seen in years, a revisionist look at American Indian-white relationships titled Dances With Wolves (1990). The supposedly doomed project, in addition to being one of '90s biggest moneymakers, also took home a slew of Academy Awards, including statues for Best Picture and Best Director (usurping Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas).Costner's luck continued with the 1991 costume epic Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; this, too, made money, though it seriously strained Costner's longtime friendship with the film's director, Kevin Reynolds. The same year, Costner had another hit -- and critical success -- on his hands with Oliver Stone's JFK. The next year's The Bodyguard, a film which teamed Costner with Whitney Houston, did so well at the box office that it seemed the actor could do no wrong. However, his next film, A Perfect World (1993), directed by Clint Eastwood and casting the actor against type as a half-psycho, half-benign prison escapee, was a major disappointment, even though Costner himself garnered some acclaim. Bad luck followed Perfect World in the form of another cast-against-type failure, the 1994 Western Wyatt Earp, which proved that Lawrence Kasdan could have his off days.Adding insult to injury, Costner's 1995 epic sci-fi adventure Waterworld received a whopping amount of negative publicity prior to opening due to its ballooning budget and bloated schedule; ultimately, its decent box office total in no way offset its cost. The following year, Costner was able to rebound somewhat with the romantic comedy Tin Cup, which was well-received by the critics and the public alike. Unfortunately, he opted to follow up this success with another large-scaled directorial effort, an epic filmization of author David Brin's The Postman. The 1997 film featured Costner as a Shakespeare-spouting drifter in a post-nuclear holocaust America whose efforts to reunite the country give him messianic qualities. Like Waterworld, The Postman received a critical drubbing and did poorly with audiences. Costner's reputation, now at an all-time low, received some resuscitation with the 1998 romantic drama Message in a Bottle, and later the same year he returned to the genre that loved him best with Sam Raimi's baseball drama For Love of the Game. A thoughtful reflection on the Cuban missile crisis provided the groundwork for the mid-level success Thirteen Days (2000), though Costner's next turn -- as a member of a group of Elvis impersonating casino bandits in 3000 Miles to Graceland -- drew harsh criticism, relegating it to a quick death at the box office. Though Costner's next effort was a more sentimental supernatural drama lamenting lost love, Dragonfly (2002) was dismissed by many as a cheap clone of The Sixth Sense and met an almost equally hasty fate.Costner fared better in 2003, and returned to directing, with Open Range, a Western co-starring himself and the iconic Robert Duvall -- while it was no Dances With Wolves in terms of mainstream popularity, it certainly received more positive feedback than The Postman or Waterworld. In 2004, Costner starred alongside Joan Allen in director Mike Binder's drama The Upside of Anger. That picture cast Allen as an unexpectedly single, upper-middle class woman who unexpectedly strikes up a romance with the boozy ex-baseball star who lives next door (Costner). Even if divided on the picture as a whole, critics unanimously praised the lead performances by Costner and Allen.After the thoroughly dispiriting (and critically drubbed) quasi-sequel to The Graduate, Rumor Has It..., Costner teamed up with Fugitive director Andrew Davis for the moderately successful 2006 Coast Guard thriller The Guardian, co-starring Ashton Kutcher and Hollywood ingenue Melissa Sagemiller.Costner then undertook another change-of-pace with one of his first psychological thrillers: 2007's Mr. Brooks, directed by Bruce A. Evans. Playing a psychotic criminal spurred on to macabre acts by his homicidal alter ego (William Hurt), Costner emerged from the critical- and box-office failure fairly unscathed. He came back swinging the following year with a starring role in the comedy Swing Vote, playing a small town slacker whose single vote is about to determine the outcome of a presidential election. Costner's usual everyman charm carried the movie, but soon he was back to his more somber side, starring in the recession-era drama The Company Men in 2010 alongside Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones. As the 2010's rolled on, Costner's name appeared often in conjunction with the Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained prior to filming, but scheduling conflicts would eventually prevent the actor from participating in the project. He instead signed on for the latest Superman reboot, playing Clark Kent's adoptive dad on Planet Earth in Man of Steel.

Trivia: A distinguished actor of the stage and screen, Danny Glover is known for his work in both Hollywood blockbusters and serious dramatic films. Towering and quietly forceful, Glover lends gravity and complexity to the diverse characters he has portrayed throughout his lengthy career.A native of San Francisco, where he was born July 22, 1947, Glover attended San Francisco State and received his dramatic training at the American Conservatory Theatre's Black Actors' Workshop. He made his film debut in Escape from Alcatraz (1979). In the early '80s, Glover made his name portraying characters ranging from the sympathetic in Places in the Heart (1984) to the menacing in Witness (1985) and The Color Purple (1984). He reached box-office-gold status with the three Lethal Weapon flicks produced between 1987 and 1992, playing the conservative, family-man partner of "loose cannon" L.A. cop Mel Gibson. Glover carried over his fiddle-and-bow relationship with Gibson into his off-screen life, and also contributed an amusing cameo (complete with his Lethal Weapon catch-phrase "I'm gettin' too old for this!") in Maverick (1994). In 1998, Glover again reprised his role for the blockbuster-proportioned Lethal Weapon 4, and that same year gave a stirring performance in the little-seen Beloved.In the following years Glover would walk the line between Hollywood heavyweight and serious-minded independent actor with a skill most actors could only dream of, with an affectinate role in Wes Anderson's 2001 comedy drama The Royal Tenenbaums and a surprising turn toward horror in Saw serving well to balance out lesser-seen but equally powerful turns in Boseman and Lena, 3 A.M., and Lars von Trier's Manderlay. The same year that Glover retreated into the woods as a haunted Vietnam veteran in the low-key drama Missing in America, he would turn in a series of guest appearances on the long-running television medical drama E.R. Despite a filmography that seemed populated with an abundance of decidedly serious dramas in the years following the millennial turnover, Glover did cut loose in 2006 when he took a role as Tim Allen's boss in The Shaggy Dog and stepped into the studio to offer vocal performances in the animated kid flicks The Adventures of Brer Rabbit and Barnyard. On television, Glover played the title role in Mandela (1987), cowpoke Joshua Deets in the 1989 miniseries Lonesome Dove, legendary railroad man John Henry in a 1988 installment of Shelley Duvall's Tall Tales, and the mercurial leading character in the 1989 "American Playhouse" revival of A Raisin in the Sun. For his role in Freedom Song as a caring father struggling to raise his young son in 1960s-era Mississippi, Glover was nominated for an Emmy award and took home an Image award for Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Mini-Series, or Dramatic Special. Glover played a proprietor of a struggling blues club in John Sayles' musical drama Honeydripper in 2007, and went on to participate in The Garden (2008), a documentary about a produce garden developed in the aftermath of the L.A. riots. He continued to tackle complex social issues as an executive producer for Trouble the Water, a 2008 documentary following the struggles of New Orleans residents in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and as an associate producer for The Time That Remains (2009), a poignant series of short stories about Palestinians in Israel. Glover also worked as an associate producer for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, an avante-gard fantasy drama that received the Palme d'Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

Trivia: Actress Rosanna Arquette, the granddaughter of actor Cliff Arquette (aka "Charley Weaver"), was born into a theatrical family; her father was a founding member of the Committee, an improvisational theater troupe. As a youth she moved often with her family. At age 17 she appeared on the Los Angeles stage in Metamorphosis. Her family settled in Virginia, where she worked in local theater where she was spotted by a casting director. She soon had much work in TV movies in the late '70s. She debuted onscreen in More American Graffitti (1979). Her breakthrough came with her portrayal of condemned murderer Gary Gilmore's girlfriend in the TV movie The Executioner's Song (1982), which earned her much praise. That success led to a lead role in John Sayles's Baby, It's You (1983). She gained her greatest fame in the hit film Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), co-starring Madonna. From there she has maintained a steady screen career, usually playing kooky, off-beat, spacey, slightly eccentric women. She is the sister of actress Patricia Arquette.

Trivia: An instigator of some of the more groundbreaking developments in twentieth-century comedy, John Cleese is one of Britain's best-known actors, writers, and comedians. Famous primarily for his comic efforts, such as the television series Fawlty Towers and the exploits of the Monty Python troupe, he has also become a well-respected actor in his own right.Born John Marwood Cleese (after his family changed their surname from "Cheese") on October 27, 1939, Cleese grew up in the middle-class seaside resort town of Weston-Super-Mare. He enrolled at Cambridge University with the intention of studying law, but soon discovered that his comic leanings held greater sway than his interest in the law. He joined the celebrated Cambridge Footlights Society--he was initially rejected because he could neither sing nor dance, but was accepted after collaborating with a friend on some comedy sketches--where he gained a reputation as a team player and met future writing partner and Python Graham Chapman.Cleese entered professional comedy with a writing stint on David Frost's The Frost Report in 1966. While working for that BBC show, he and Chapman (who was also writing for the show) met fellow Frost Report writers Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Continuing his writing collaboration with Chapman (with whom he wrote the 1969 Ringo Starr/Peter Sellers vehicle The Magic Christian), Cleese soon was working on what would become Monty Python's Flying Circus with Chapman, Idle, Jones, Palin, and Terry Gilliam. The show, which first aired in 1969, was an iconoclastic look at British society: its genius lay in its seemingly random, bizarre take on the mundane facets of everyday life, from Spam to pet shops to the simple act of walking. Cleese stayed with Monty Python for three series; after he left, he reunited with his fellow Pythons for three movies. The first, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974), was a revisionist take on the Arthurian legend that featured Cleese as (among other things) the Black Knight, who refuses to end his duel with King Arthur even after losing his arms and legs. Life of Brian followed in 1979; a look at one of history's lesser-known messiahs, it featured lepers, space aliens, and condemned martyrs singing a rousing version of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" while hanging from their crucifixes. The Pythons' third outing, the 1983 Monty Python's the Meaning of Life, was a series of increasingly outrageous vignettes, including one about the explosion of a stupendously obese man and another featuring a dinner party with Death.In addition to his work with the Pythons, Cleese, along with first wife Connie Booth, created the popular television series Fawlty Towers in 1975. It ran for a number of years, during which time Cleese also continued to make movies. Throughout the 1980s, he showed up in films ranging from The Great Muppet Caper (1981) to Privates on Parade (1982) to Silverado (1985), which cast him as an Old West villain. In 1988, Cleese struck gold with A Fish Called Wanda, which he wrote, produced, and starred in. An intoxicating farce, the film won both commercial and critical success, earning Cleese a British Academy Award and an Oscar nomination for his screenplay, and an Oscar for co-star Kevin Kline. Cleese continued to work steadily through the 1990s, appearing in Splitting Heirs (1993) with Idle, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), The Wind in the Willows (1997) and George of the Jungle (1997). Fierce Creatures, his 1997 sequel to A Fish Called Wanda, proved a disappointment, but Cleese maintained his visibility, reuniting with the surviving Pythons on occasion and starring in The Out-of-Towners and The World is Not Enough, the nineteenth Bond outing, in 1999.As the new century got underway, Cleese wrote and hosted a documentary series about the human face, and he took a small but recurring role in the Harry Potter film series. In 2002 he appeared in the infamous Eddie Murphy turkey The Adventures of Pluto Nash, and showed up in another Bond film. In 2007 he was cast to voice the role of Fiona's father in Shrek 2, leading to a series of appearances for him in other animated films such as Igor, Planet 51, and Winnie the Pooh. He also appeared opposite Steve Martin in 2009's The Pink Panther 2.

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: Tall, gangly, and oddly handsome, stage, screen, and television actor Jeff Goldblum is an unlikely sex symbol. But for many women, especially those fond of eccentric intellectual types, he fits the role perfectly. Known for the range of quirky, often otherworldly characters he has portrayed, Goldblum is adept at playing lead and supporting roles in dramas and comedies alike. A native of Pittsburgh, PA, where he was born October 22, 1952, Goldblum moved to New York at the age of 17 to pursue an acting career. He got his start at Sanford Meisner's distinguished Neighborhood Playhouse, and in the '70s began performing in a wide variety of on and off-Broadway productions. When he was 22, Goldblum made his film debut with a small role as a rapist in Michael Winner's brutal revenge drama Death Wish (1974). He was performing on-stage in the El Grande de Coca Cola review when Robert Altman gave him a small part in California Split (1974) and a slightly larger role in Nashville (1975). Afterwards, Goldblum was steadily employed as a bit player in both major and minor features, turning in one of his most notable performances as a nervous houseguest struggling to remember his mantra in the Los Angeles-set segment of Annie Hall (1977). In 1980, Goldblum branched out into television, starring opposite Ben Vereen in the short-lived television detective comedy Tenspeed and Brown Shoe. As Brown Shoe, Goldblum played an uptight stockbroker trying to make it as a hardboiled private detective. Although the role may have given him greater recognition, the actor gained his first really favorable reviews playing a tabloid magazine reporter in The Big Chill (1983). This led to leading roles in such films as Into the Night (1985), where Goldblum played an aerospace engineer opposite Michelle Pfeiffer, and Silverado (also 1985), which cast him as a villainous gambler. In 1986, he had his first hit movie with David Cronenberg's terrifying sci-fi-horror film The Fly (1986), playing a driven scientist whose research turns him into a gruesome mutant. His co-star was his then-wife, Geena Davis, whom he met while they were on the set of the comedy-thriller Transylvania 6-5000 (1985). The couple divorced in the early '90s and Goldblum then embarked on a highly publicized relationship with actress Laura Dern that broke up in the mid-'90s.In 1989, Goldblum made a favorable transatlantic impression in the British romantic comedy The Tall Guy, playing a perpetually unemployed actor who is cast as the lead of a musical about the Elephant Man. He continued to work steadily throughout the subsequent decade, appearing in films of markedly varying quality. He found great success in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park, playing a mathematician in one of the decade's biggest blockbusters. In 1996, Goldblum again explored blockbuster territory with a leading role as a computer genius in Independence Day. He reprised his role from Jurassic Park in that film's sequel 1997 sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. He starred opposite Eddie Murphy in the notorious bomb Holy Man.At the beginning of the next decade Goldblum worked primarily in independent films such as Burr Steers' debut Igby Goes Down, and playing the romantic and professional rival to Bill Murray in Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. In 2006 he scored a role in his most mainstream film in quite sometime as part of the impressive ensemble in Barry Levinson's satire Man of the Year. In 2009, Goldblum joined the cast of Law & Order: Criminal Intent in the show's eighth season to play the role of Detective Zach Nichols. 2010 found the actor co-starring with Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton for the showbiz comedy Morning Glory. In 2014, he re-teamed with Anderson in The Grand Budapest Hotel. The following year, he appeared opposite Johnny Depp in Mortdecai and began filming his role in the long-awaited Indepdendence Day sequel, due in 2016.

Trivia: While still a child, Linda Hunt decided to become an actress, and began taking drama lessons at age 13. As she was quite small (4'9") and not a great beauty, she also studied directing, in case she never landed any acting roles. Hunt majored in directing at the prestigious Goodman Theater School in Chicago, and went on to spend several years in New York, working as a stage manager, director, and occasionally as an actress; during some of that time she worked in alternative theater with companies such as La Mama and the Open Theater. Following years of getting bit parts and directing for a children's theater, Hunt finally started landing good roles and ultimately won two Obie awards and a Tony nomination. She debuted onscreen in Robert Altman's Popeye (1980), but it was her second film, The Year of Living Dangerously (1983), that made her internationally known; for her portrayal of a male Indonesian dwarf, she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. She followed that up with a part in David Lynch's infamous adaptation of the sci-fi classic Dune, and immediately segued into the part of a beloved saloon owner in Lawrence Kasdan's throwback western Silverado. She maintained a steady career appearing in various projects including She-Devil, Kindergarten Cop, Maverick and Stranger Than Fiction. Her distinctive voice led to steady gigs in animated films and as a narrator of documentary films.

Trivia: Black character actor Joe Seneca almost always brought a sense of dignity and social consciousness to his roles. Born and raised in Cleveland, OH, he began performing with the Three Riffs song and dance trio. Early in his career, he penned songs such as "Break It to Me Gently" (co-written with Diane Lampert) and "Talk to Me." In 1981, Seneca made his Broadway debut in The Little Foxes with Elizabeth Taylor. He made his feature film debut seven years prior in The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3 (1974). Seneca has also appeared frequently on television on programs like The Cosby Show and in dramatic specials such as A Gathering of Old Men (1987). Seneca died on August 15, 1996, during an asthma attack while in his Roosevelt Island, NY, home.

Trivia: African American leading lady Lynn Whitfield made her film bow in 1983's Dr. Detroit. Three years later, the Louisiana born and bred Whitfield played the title character in the fact-based TV movie Johnnie Mae Gibson: FBI, the story of the first black female FBI agent. After gaining recognition for her work in a number of TV dramas, including The Women of Brewster Place (1990), Whitfield won an Emmy award and international acclaim for her starring performance in the HBO biopic The Josephine Baker Story in 1991. Whitfield subsequently split her efforts between TV and film, doing particularly strong work in Kasi Lemmons' much-feted Eve's Bayou (1997) as a family matriarch struggling with her husband's infidelity. In 1999, she earned an NAACP Image Award nomination for her work in Oprah Winfrey Presents: The Wedding, a 1950s drama in which she was cast as the wealthy mother of a young woman (Halle Berry) intent on marrying a poor white musician.

Trivia: Jeff Fahey was one of 13 children born to a suburban Buffalo couple. Fahey led a peripatetic early adulthood, holding down a multitude of jobs in a variety of countries. A stint with the Joffrey Ballet led to Broadway chorus work, which in turn led to speaking roles on both the New York and London stage. From 1982 to 1985, Fahey played Gary Corelli on the ABC soaper One Life to Live. His first film was Silverado (1985), in which he appeared as the villainous Tyree. He was subsequently seen as sleazy musician Dwayne Duke in Psycho III (1987), wide-eyed screenwriter Peter Verrill (a character based on real-life scrivener Peter Viertel) in Clint Eastwood's White Hunter, Black Heart (1990) and human guinea pig Jobe Smith in Lawnmower Man (1992). In 1995, Jeff Fahey returned to television as Winston MacBride on the weekly The Marshal.

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

Trivia: American actress Amanda Wyss has been active since the early '80s. Wyss started out with teenaged supporting roles in such efforts as Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1981) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). On a more adult level, she made an excellent impression as an imperiled homesteader in the 1985 "retro" Western Silverado. TV fans know Amanda Wyss best as reporter Randi McFarland on the first season (1992-1993) episodes of the syndicated favorite Highlander.

Trivia: Supporting actor Earl Hindman was best known among fans of the long-running ABC sitcom Home Improvement for playing the over-educated, enigmatic but wise neighbor Wilson. Ask those fans if they would recognize Hindman's face and they would be at a loss, for he never showed his full countenance upon the show. Hindman was a pipeliner's son and had a peripatetic upbringing that took him to various Southwestern locales. He attended high school in Tucson, AZ, where he was a natural athlete. At the same time, he became interested in drama and then still photography. Following time at Phoenix Junior College, he enrolled in the University of Arizona where he renewed his interest in drama. Hindman's first professional acting job was to perform in a Shakespearean play at San Diego's Globe Theatre. The experience was such that Hindman dropped out of school to become a full-time actor. He learned his craft as he went, performing in countless repertory theaters. Eventually, he made it to New York, where he appeared on and off-Broadway. He made his feature film debut in the obscure Two Into Three Won't Go (1969). Hindman's subsequent film appearances were sporadic. Hindman was a cast member on the daytime soap opera Ryan's Hope for several years before gaining prominence on Home Improvement. Four years after the hit sitcom left the airwaves, Hindman succumbed to lung cancer at the age of 61.

Trivia: Gravel-voiced, American character actor James Gammon was first seen on screen as Sleepy in Cool Hand Luke (1967). Looking like a Frederic Remington painting come to life, Gammon has been a welcome presence in many a western feature, notably Silverado (1985), Wyatt Earp (1994) and Wild Bill (1995). His earthy screen persona is flexible enough to accommodate both avuncularity (team manager Lou Brown in the two Major League films) and menace (Horsethief Shorty in 1988's Milagro Beanfield War). Gammon has been a regular on two TV series, playing roadside diner habitue Rudy in Bagdad Café (1990) and divorced, laid-off paterfamilias Dave Nelson in Middle Ages (1992). When not appearing before the cameras, James Gammon has kept busy as a California community-theatre director.

Trivia: Started performing stand-up when he was 19.Made his TV debut on the series Mind of Mencia in 2005.Released his debut full-length comedy album, Coming Up Short, in April 2011.Began hosting the About Last Night podcast with comedian/actor Adam Ray in April 2014.Fun Size, his 2015 one hour special, was the highest-rated comedy special on Showtime in that year.

Trivia: After some 15 years on the country & western circuit, singer/actor Sheb Wooley finally cracked popular music's Top Ten in 1958. It was Wooley who introduced the world to the "One Eyed, One Horned, Flying Purple People Eater," which remained the number one song for six straight weeks and stayed in the Top Ten for three weeks more. Thereafter, Wooley's recording career fluctuated between blue-ribbon country & western ballads and silly novelty songs. As an actor, Wooley was seen in such films as Little Big Horn (1951), High Noon (1952), Giant (1956), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), and several other films with a sagebrush setting and equestrian supporting cast. From 1961 through 1965, Sheb Wooley played Pete Nolan, frontier scout for the never-ending cattle drive on the weekly TV Western Rawhide.

Trivia: American actor Bill Thurman is one of several Southern performers specializing in "regional" pictures -- films made exclusively for distribution in the deep South by states' rights exhibitors. In the '60s, Thurman appeared in a group of inexpensive horror films, many of them remakes of earlier American-International Pictures releases, and most of them directed in a hurry by Larry Buchanan: titles in this series include Curse of the Swamp Creature (1966), Zontar, the Thing From Venus (1968) and In the Year 2889 (1968). The actor has had numerous roles in other exploitation quickies like Gator Bait (1975) and Slumber Party 57 (1977). Bill Thurman had one shining moment of glory in an A-picture, as the high school coach husband of frustrated Cloris Leachman in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1972); but as late as 1986, Thurman was back at his old stand, appearing as Reverend Bill McWilley in Mountaintop Motel Massacre (1986).

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: A balding supporting actor with a grin that suggests he knows something you don't, Richard Jenkins has become one of the most in-demand character actors in Hollywood. Though he has worked steadily since the early '80s, Jenkins may have made his most memorable impression, at least to HBO subscribers, as the patriarch of the family of undertakers on the hit 2001 drama Six Feet Under. His character was killed off in the first episode, but Jenkins continued to appear as a spirit lingering in the family's memory -- a good metaphor for the actor's lingering impact on viewers, even when he appears in small roles.Jenkins, who shares the birth name of Richard Burton and sometimes appears as Richard E. Jenkins, was born and raised in Dekalb, IL, before studying theater at Illinois Wesleyan University. The actor developed a long and distinguished regional theater career, most notably a 15-year stint at Rhode Island's Trinity Repertory Theater, where he served as artistic director for four years. He snagged his first role as early as 1975, in the TV movie Brother to Dragons, but did not begin working regularly until a small role in the Lawrence Kasdan film Silverado (1985). Supporting work in such films as Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), and Sea of Love (1989) followed, and Jenkins spent the early '90s specializing in made-for-TV movies, including the adaptation of Randy Shilts' AIDS opus And the Band Played On (1993).It was not until the late '90s that Jenkins started gaining wider appreciation, especially as he indulged in his talent for comedy. His appearance as an uptight gay FBI agent who gets accidentally drugged was one of the highlights of David O. Russell's Flirting With Disaster (1996), allowing him to convincingly (and riotously) act out an acid trip. Working again with Ben Stiller, Jenkins appeared as a psychiatrist in There's Something About Mary (1998), which launched a relationship with directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly, who hail from the state (Rhode Island) where Jenkins did much of his stage work. Jenkins appeared in the Farrelly-produced Outside Providence (1999) and Say It Isn't So (2001), as well as in the Farrelly-directed Me, Myself & Irene (2000). The actor then shifted over to another set of brother directors to portray the father of Scarlet Johansson's character in Joel and Ethan Coen's noir The Man Who Wasn't There (2001). In 2001, Jenkins also appeared in the first season of HBO's Six Feet Under as Nathaniel Fisher Sr., the sardonic funeral home director whom the characters remember as an impenetrable mystery, frugal with his praise and emotions.Jenkins continued working steadily, carrying on his role on Six Feet Under, while turning in supporting work in varied projects like Changing Lanes, Shall We Dance, and Fun With Dick & Jane. With 2005's North Country he earned strong reviews as the father of a sexually harassed woman. After decades in the business, he won his first starring role in Tom McCarthy's The Visitor. For his work as the repressed professor who learns to engage in life again thanks to an unexpected friendship with a Syrian immigrant, Jenkins earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, as well as a SAG nomination. That film was the highlight of his 2008, a very busy year for the actor that also saw him reunite for a third time with the Coen Brothers in Burn After Reading, and play opposite Will Ferrell and John C. Riley in Step Brothers. The coming years would continue to earn the actor both a wider audience and more accolades, in projects like Burn After Reading, Let Me In, The Rum Diary, and The Cabin in the Woods.

Trivia: Burly stunt man Walter Scott appeared in a number of big-budget features of the '80s and '90s.

Trivia: Rather than make his name writing splashy blockbusters akin to his father Lawrence Kasdan's breakthrough script for The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Jake Kasdan earned his prodigy stripes with the sly, low-budget film Zero Effect (1998) and his astute direction on several acclaimed TV series. Born in Detroit, Kasdan was immersed in filmmaking since his early childhood. Growing up on his father's sets, Kasdan appeared onscreen in The Big Chill (1983), Silverado (1985), and The Accidental Tourist (1988), but he knew that he really wanted to direct. Becoming a playwright while still in high school, Kasdan also worked as a production assistant on his father's mid-life crisis drama Grand Canyon (1991) and penned a behind-the-scenes book about the Western epic Wyatt Earp (1994). Though the book was scrapped after Wyatt Earp tanked at the box office, Kasdan established a positive relationship with cast member Bill Pullman that would soon help Kasdan's nascent movie career. Dropping out of college to focus on his writing full-time, Kasdan subsequently started directing with a stage production of one of his works at the Hollywood Playhouse. Ready to write and direct his first film, and publicly noting that nepotism didn't guarantee him anything, Kasdan managed to sign Pullman to play the lead for his detective comedy Zero Effect. Featuring Pullman as brilliant, agoraphobic detective Daryl Zero and Ben Stiller as his edgy associate and public representative, Zero Effect's clever, offbeat humor and excellent performances boded well for the then-24-year-old Kasdan, although more than one critic noted that the pacing was too low-key for the film's good.Further honing his skills on TV, Kasdan's wry sensibility adroitly complemented the almost painfully funny, emotionally authentic youth series Freaks and Geeks (1991) and Undeclared (2001). Despite critical accolades, however, Freaks and Geeks lasted only one season and Undeclared foundered in the ratings. Kasdan also helped give an extra insider edge to the witty teen soap spoof Grosse Pointe (2000), but it too failed to last beyond one TV season. Kasdan's proven ability with smart, teen-based comedy, though, earned him the directing job for Orange County (2002). Starring Jack Black and Hollywood progeny Colin Hanks and Schuyler Fisk, and scripted by Chuck and Buck's (2001) unconventional Mike White, Orange County seemed like an ideal match for Kasdan. The released film, however, was a disappointingly watered-down version of White and Kasdan's comic strengths.

Trivia: Actor Brion James launched his career in television and feature films and on television in the mid '70s. With his piercing eyes and cruel smile, the versatile, 6' 3"James, usually portrays assorted eccentric bad-guys, urban scum, and red-necks. One of his most memorable roles was Leon, an android in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982). As his father owned a movie theater in Beaumont, California, James spent most of his life around movies . Following high school, James moved to New York City where he became a cook and butler for Stella Adler, a renowned drama coach. While in the Big Apple, James also appeared off-Broadway, and as a stand-up comedian. In 1973, he returned to Los Angeles to become a full time actor with the philosophy that he would never turn down a job. James's strategy has worked, and since then he has appeared in over 100 TV shows and 70 features.