Trivia: Actress Anne-Marie Johnson has divided her career between television and feature films with an emphasis on the former. She made her television debut in the short-lived series Double Trouble and in the telemovie His Mistress (1984). Fans of the series In the Heat of the Night (1988-1994) will remember Johnson for playing Althea Tibbs, the wife of Virgil Tibbs. She left the show in 1993 and was cast in Keenen Ivory Wayans' innovative sketch comedy series In Living Color. She had previously worked with Wayans in I'm Gonna Get You Sucka (1988), her second film.

Trivia: Moving easily from comedies to drama, character actor William "Bill" Forsythe has been busy in feature films since the early '80s, when he debuted with a small role in Smokey Bites the Dust (1981). In addition, he frequently appears on television and on stage, where he launched his career. The stocky, moon-faced, and gap-toothed Brooklyn native began acting in local productions in his early teens and by age 16, had become a professional, appearing on and off Broadway. As a young man, Forsythe moved to Southern California. Shortly after his film debut, he also made his first television appearance in the TV-movie The Miracle of Kathy Miller. This started him on a series of guest-starring roles on shows ranging from CHiPS to Fame. At this early stage, Forsythe was usually cast in villainous roles, as in his breakthrough feature Once Upon a Time in America (1984), in which he played the sweet-faced but ruthless gangster Cockeye. One of Forsythe's most memorable performances was also his first lead, that of a rebellious wheelchair-bound patient who turns a hospital ward topsy-turvy, in the ensemble piece The Waterdance (1991). The same year, Forsythe starred as Al Capone in the short-lived television resurrection of The Untouchables. His other television credits include a leading role opposite Emilio Estevez, in Gene Quintano's tribute to spaghetti Westerns A Dollar for the Dead (1998). The actor stayed busy throughout the 2000s, appearing in Scary Movie 3 (2003), Hammerhead (2005), and Freedomland (2006). In 2007 he took on a supporting role in Rob Zombie's reboot of Halloween, and continued to find work (mainly in the horror genre) throughout the late 2000s.

Trivia: African American actor Thomas Kent Carter played leading roles on screen from 1980.

Trivia: Hollywood character actor Christopher McDonald at first specialized in playing uptight and slightly vexing young urban professionals. When the material demanded it, McDonald occasionally heightened these qualities to the obnoxious level for persuasive villainous portrayals, appearing as philandering husbands, condescending jocks, and manipulative powermongers to tremendous effect.The Manhattan native grew up in Romulus, NY. A Renaissance man and overachiever in high school, McDonald studied dentistry at Hobart College in the upstate New York town of Geneva but soon discovered an enduring passion for drama, studying after his 1977 graduation at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. When plum adolescent roles in the musical clunkers Grease 2 (1982) and Breakin' (1984) did little to further McDonald's career, he moved to Manhattan and sought tutelage from the legendary acting coach Stella Adler -- with such aggressive determination that he actually convinced the 83-year-old Adler to offer her services in exchange for domestic chores.The actor landed one of his most visible parts circa 1986, in the Bette Midler-Shelley Long female buddy comedy Outrageous Fortune (1987). He also essayed a memorable nice-guy turn opposite Cybill Shepherd and Ryan O'Neal in the first act of the wonderful reincarnation comedy Chances Are (1989). But McDonald's watershed moment came with his portrayal of Geena Davis' browbeating husband, Darryl Dickinson, in Ridley Scott's blockbuster feminist road movie Thelma & Louise (1991). Thanks to the success of that picture, McDonald's screen time escalated, and he began tackling an average of four to six roles per year. He ushered in an outstanding portrayal of Jack Barry, the natty host of Twenty-One, in the Robert Redford-directed Quiz Show (1994); played an abusive golf pro in the Adam Sandler comedy Happy Gilmore (1996); and was suitably annoying as an ignorant dad in John Duigan's suburban drama Lawn Dogs (1997). That same year, McDonald also portrayed Ward Cleaver in the big-screen version of Leave It to Beaver.McDonald resumé during the first several years of the millennium includes such Hollywood blockbusters as 61* (2001) and Spy Kids 2 (2002) and such arthouse hits as Requiem for a Dream (2000) and Broken Flowers (2005). In 2007, McDonald played Boss Hogg in the big-budget sequel The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning and Marty Schumacher in the Jamie Kennedy vehicle Kickin' It Old Skool. Four years later he essayed a recurring role on the hit HBO drama Boardwalk Empire.

Trivia: A graduate of Elmhurst College and the University of Chicago, David Rasche's off-Broadway debut was in the 1976 production John. Rasche went on to co-star in Michael Cristofer's Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Shadow Box. In movies since 1979's Manhattan, Rasche was especially active in made-for-TV features like Special Bulletin, in which he was cast as anti-nuke activist Dr. David McKeeson. Obsessive roles of this nature led to David Rasche's most famous characterization: the merciless, gun-worshipping eponymous detective in the satirical TV sitcom Sledge Hammer (1986-88).

Trivia: An alumnus of Eastern New Mexico University, American actor Ronny Cox received one the best early film showcases an actor could ask for. In 1972, he was cast as one of the four unfortunate rafters in Deliverance; it was Cox who engaged in the celebrated "dueling banjos" sequence with enigmatic albino boy Hoyt J. Pollard. Two years later, Cox found himself in Apple's Way, a homey TV dramatic weekly described as a "modern Waltons". Most of his subsequent roles were in this benign, All-American vein--and then Cox shocked his followers by portraying Jerry Rubin in the 1975 PBS TV drama The Trial of the Chicago Seven. During this telecast, Cox became one of the first (if not the first) actors to mouth a now-familiar expletive of disgust on American television. As his physique thickened and his hairline thinned in the 1980s, Cox was much in demand in films as a corporate villain, notably in Paul Verhoeven's Robocop (1984) and Total Recall (1990). The flip side of this hard-nosed screen image was his portrayal of the apoplectic but scrupulously honest police chief in Eddie Murphy's Beverly Hills Cop films.

Trivia: Born January 30, 195, Charles Dutton attended the Yale School of Drama, and in 1983 he first appeared off-Broadway in Richard III. Before long he was delivering Tony-calibre performances in such Broadway productions as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and The Piano Lesson. In films since 1986's No Mercy, the forceful, thunder-voiced Dutton has been seen in movies ranging from the mirth-provoking Crocodile Dundee 2 to the spine-chilling Alien 3. In 1991, Charles Dutton began a long TV run as the star of the Fox Network sitcom Roc.Dutton became an actor while serving a seven and a half-year prison sentence for stabbing a man during a street fight. While in prison, Dutton was stabbed in the neck with an ice pick during a fight with another inmate. The incident proved to be the turning point in Dutton's life when he refused to retaliate. Shortly thereafter, he became interested in drama and while serving his sentence completed a two-year college degree course. Upon his release from prison, Dutton was admitted into the Yale School of Drama. There he studied under playwright August Wilson and director Lloyd Richards.In 2000, Dutton directed The Corner, an acclaimed miniseries from HBO adapted from David Simon and Ed Burns' novel "The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood". The Corner won several awards, including an Emmy for Best Miniseries, and Dutton himself was honored for his direction. This would not be the last Emmy he received; the actor won Emmy Awards in 2002 and 2003 for supporting roles in televisiond dramas The Practice and Without a Trace. In 2003, Dutton starred in the made-for-TV drama D.C. Sniper: 23 Days of Fear, and continued to make appearances on popular television shows including The L Word, The Sopranos, and House, M.D. Dutton joined the cast of Threshold in 2005. While the CBS science fiction series gained a loyal following, the show was short-lived. The actor went on to appear in filmmaker John Sayles' 2007 drama Honeydripper, which follows the owner of a blues club that was revitalized by a young electric guitarist.

Trivia: Actor George Hamilton got his start in high school dramatics. Movie-star handsome, Hamilton played the lead in his very first film, Crime and Punishment USA (1959). While his acting talent was barely discernible in his earliest effort, Hamilton steadily improved in such MGM films as Home From the Hill (1960), Where the Boys Are (1960), Light in the Piazza (1961). He was at his best in a brace of biopics: in Warner Bros.' Act One (1963) he played aspiring playwright Moss Hart, while in Your Cheatin' Heart (1965), he registered well as self-destructive C&W singer Hank Williams. His much-publicized mid-1960s dating of President Johnson's daughter Lynda Bird was unfairly written off by some as mere opportunism, a calculated ploy to buoy up a flagging career. In fact, it did more harm than good to Hamilton: by 1969, movie roles had dried up, and he was compelled to accept his first TV-series role, playing jet-setter Duncan Carlyle in The Survivors. The following year, he starred as State Department functionary Jack Brennan in the weekly TV espionager Paris 7000. He staged a spectacular comeback as star and executive producer of Love at First Bite (1979), a screamingly funny "Dracula" take-off that won the actor a Golden Globe nomination. Even better was Zorro the Gay Blade (1980), which unfortunately failed to match the excellent box-office performance of First Bite but which still provided a much-needed shot in the arm to Hamilton's career. He went on to play such campish roles as villainous movie producer Joel Abrigor in TV's Dynasty (1985-86 season only) and jaded 007-type Ian Stone in the weekly Spies (1987). Throughout the thick and thin of his acting career, Hamilton remained highly visible on the international social scene, squiring such high-profile lovelies as Elizabeth Taylor and Imelda Marcos. He also remained financially solvent with his line of skin products and tanning salons. In 1995, George Hamilton hopped on the talk-show bandwagon, co-starring with his former wife Alana (who'd remarried rocker Rod Stewart) on a not-bad syndicated daily TV chatfest.

Trivia: Both a member of Hollywood royalty and the Brat Pack, Emilio Estevez had the odds (and the press) against him when it came to forging a long-term career in show business. Yet, though he did become the butt of many jokes, Estevez has had the last laugh: he grew up into a prolific, if not acclaimed, actor/writer/director who managed to sidestep the celebrity pratfalls that befell his family and his Brat Pack colleagues.Born in New York on May 12, 1962, Estevez is the eldest son of actor Martin Sheen (formerly known as Ramon Estevez) and his wife, Janet. He grew up on Manhattan's Upper West Side with his two younger brothers, Ramon and Charlie, and his younger sister, Renée. Though Estevez started attending school in the New York public-school system, he transferred to a prestigious private academy once his father's career blossomed. In 1968, after Sheen landed a starring role in Catch-22 (1970), the family moved west to Malibu, CA. There, the young Estevez began writing short stories and poems. By the time he turned eight, he had already submitted a script to Rod Serling's Night Gallery television series (it was, unfortunately, rejected).When Estevez was 11, his father bought the family a portable movie camera. Estevez, his brother Charlie, and their friends, Sean and Chris Penn, and Chad and Rob Lowe, used it to make short films, which Estevez would often write. He then began acting in all the junior-high-school plays, including The Dumb Waiter, Hello Out There, and Bye, Bye, Birdie. While accompanying his father to the Philippine set of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), Estevez got his first professional acting role as a messenger boy in the film. His scene, however, did not make the picture's final cut. After returning home to attend Santa Monica High School, Estevez grew interested in sports and did not become involved with the drama department until his senior year. Uninspired by the usual high-school productions, he wrote an original play and drafted Sean Penn to direct it. Titled Echoes of an Era, the story was based on the life of a Vietnam vet whom Estevez met while staying in the Philippines. Around the same time, he landed his first professional stage role opposite his father in Mr. Roberts at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater in Jupiter, FL.Estevez made his small-screen debut right after graduating from high school. He appeared in the ABC Afterschool Special Seventeen Going on Nowhere (1980) before joining his father in the cast of To Climb a Mountain (1981), an installment of the religious television series Insight. In 1981, after returning from India where he served as his father's stand-in during the taping of Gandhi (1982), Estevez landed his first feature-film role opposite Matt Dillon in Tex (1982). The film marked the first of three adaptations of S.E. Hinton's books in which Estevez would appear. A year later, he starred in Francis Ford Coppola's unforgettable adaptation of Hinton's novel The Outsiders (1983), with Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, and Ralph Macchio.By 1983, Estevez found himself on the short list of young actors. Oliver Stone asked him to star in his Academy Award-winning Vietnam film Platoon (1986), but the director could not finance the project in time (Estevez's brother, Charlie, took the role five years later). Instead, Estevez decided to play a punk rocker-turned-car repossessor in Alex Cox's Repo Man (1984). Co-executive produced by former Monkee Mike Nesmith, the wacky comedy also starred cult favorite Harry Dean Stanton and was a lasting underground hit. Estevez next gave a successful reading for John Hughes' The Breakfast Club (1985), a film about five very different high-school kids who are forced to spend a Saturday together in detention. Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy rounded out the cast in what turned out to be the quintessential teen-angst film of the '80s.On the set of The Breakfast Club, Estevez refined a screenplay he had begun writing with Tom Cruise while working on The Outsiders. Based on another S.E. Hinton novel, That Was Then...This Is Now (1985) went into production under the auspices of Paramount and director Christopher Cain, with Estevez as its star. It opened to scathing reviews and little praise for its young writer, but was a moderate box-office success.Estevez's next role featured him as a recent college graduate opposite Rob Lowe, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, and Mare Winningham in St. Elmo's Fire (1985). The film debuted at the same time as a New York magazine cover story that labeled its actors (many of whom had worked together before) as the Brat Pack and elected Estevez as the "unofficial president" of the group. The actor immediately tried to shake the moniker with a part in Stephen King's directing debut, Maximum Overdrive (1986), but the film flopped. He then tried his own hand behind the camera. At age 23, he wrote, directed, and starred in Wisdom (1986), making cinematic history as the youngest feature filmmaker to take on all three roles. The picture, a meandering heist-road film, flopped.Estevez revived his career with Stakeout (1987), a hit action comedy that co-starred veteran actor Richard Dreyfuss, and Young Guns (1988), a successful youth-oriented Western helmed by That Was Then...This Is Now director Christopher Cain. The actor reprised his Young Guns role as Billy the Kid for its sequel, Young Guns 2 (1990), before writing, directing, and starring in Men at Work (1990). The buddy film, a comedy about two garbage men who become wrapped up in a murder case, also featured his brother, Charlie Sheen.After an embarrassing turn in the bizarre sci-fi thriller Freejack (1992), Estevez starred as a lawyer who is forced to coach a children's hockey team in Disney's triumphant The Mighty Ducks (1992). He filmed the spoof National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 (1993) and Another Stakeout (1993), before coaching the Mighty Ducks again in D2 (1994). Estevez then agreed to make a cameo appearance in the third installment of the franchise, D3 (1996), if Disney helped finance his own picture, The War at Home (1996). Estevez produced, directed, and starred in the Vietnam-era drama, along with his father and Academy Award winner Kathy Bates. Sadly, after premiering at the Austin Film Festival, The War at Home played in only three cities.In 1998, Estevez made a comeback as the cowboy in the TNT made-for-cable spaghetti Western, Dollar for the Dead. Two years later, he directed Rated X (2000), a Showtime original movie based on brothers Jim and Art Mitchell, the troubled directors of the infamous adult film Behind the Green Door. After casting himself as Jim, Estevez recruited his own brother Charlie to play Art -- a move which gave the heralded film added clout and a moneymaking edge. Its positive press also put both brothers back in the spotlight. Nevertheless, the actor-cum-director maintained a comparatively low profile over the following half-decade, with only a scant few film appearances here and there. 2005 broke the silence, with the release of the live performance film Culture Clash in AmeriCCa -- a documentary record of an infamously acerbic Hispanic-American comedy troupe (Richard Montoya, Ricardo Salinas, Herbert Siguenza). The picture -- which received severely limited distribution (read: only a few theaters across the country) -- went almost straight to video, and the few critics who did see it scourged it as an insult to spectators and to the film's subjects.Despite this and other disappointments on the filmmaker's spotty track record, however, expectations soared for his sixth turn in the director's chair -- which also marked his most ambitious outing to date. The massive period piece/ensemble drama Bobby (2006) darkly recounted -- via a multilayered and multi-plotted script and a massive, Altmanesque ensemble cast to rival even Altman's most impressive assemblages of talent -- the events in Los Angeles' Algonquin Hotel on June 6, 1968, the night Robert F. Kennedy was shot. The cast included William H. Macy, Martin Sheen, Demi Moore, Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone, and Elijah Wood. Four years later, Estevez returned to direct the reflective adventure drama The Way, in which he also appeared as the son of his real life father Sheen. The film told the tale of a father who travels overseas to recover his estranged son's body after learning he perished while walking the El camino de Santiago, and ultimately decides to complete his son's pilgrimage.

Trivia: Before he became an actor, Charles Durning, the son of an Army man, continued in his father's footsteps with valor and distinction, earning a silver star and purple heart in World War II. Durning held down several "joe jobs" -- iron worker, elevator operator, cabbie, waiter, and dance instructor -- until turning to acting in the late 1950s. Fresh from the national tour of The Andersonville Trial, Durning began his long association with Joseph Papp in 1962, distinguishing himself in Shakespearean roles. He made his earliest film appearance in Ernest Pintoff's Harvey Middleman, Fireman (1965). Durning's film roles increased in size and importance after his interpretation of a crooked cop in the Oscar-winning The Sting (1973). He went on to appear in several Burt Reynolds films, most memorably as the singing governor in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982). That performance landed him an Oscar nomination, as did his spin on "Concentration Camp" Erhardt in the 1983 remake of To Be or Not to Be. In 1975, Durning was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his portrayal of ulcerated police lieutenant Moretti in the theatrical feature Dog Day Afternoon (1975); he finally won that award 15 years later for his work as "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald in the TV miniseries The Kennedys of Massachusetts. Other notable film roles to his credit include Peter Stockmann in the Steve McQueen-produced An Enemy of the People (1978), Dustin Hoffman's "suitor" in the cross-dressing classic Tootsie (1982) (he later co-starred with Hoffman in the 1984 stage revival of Death of a Salesman), and the foredoomed Waring Hudsucker in the Coen Brothers' Hudsucker Proxy (1994).On television, Durning played Lt. Gil McGowan on the daytime soap Another World, officer Frank Murphy in The Cop and the Kid (1975), Big Ed Healey in Captains and the Kings (1976), Studs' dad in Studs Lonigan (1979), private-eye Oscar Poole in Eye to Eye (1985), the title character in PBS' I Would Be Called John: Pope John XXIII (1987), crooked industrialist Dan Packard (the old Wallace Beery role) in Dinner at Eight (1989), and Dr. Harrlan Eldridge in the Burt Reynolds TV vehicle Evening Shade (1990-1994), an assignment which afforded the far-from-sylph-like Durning his first nude scene.While his television and film career have continued to be prolific, Durning has also continued to earn acclaim for his stage work. In 1990, he won a Tony Award for his performance as Big Daddy in the Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.He continued to work steadily well into his seventies in a variety of projects including Jodie Foster's dysfunctional family comedy/drama Home for the Holidays, the absurd comedy Spy Hard, and Jerry and Tom. At the beginning of the 20th century he reteamed with the Coen Brothers for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and was part of the impressive ensemble in David Mamet's State and Main. He was also part of the original cast of the firefighter drama series Rescue Me. Durning died at age 89 in late December 2012, two months before his 90th birthday.