Trivia: One of a number of American independent filmmakers launched to prominence in the '90s by virtue of their success at the Sundance Film Festival, writer/director Edward Burns was born in Woodside, Queens, in 1968 and raised on Long Island. After attending Oneonta College and S.U.N.Y.-Albany, he transferred to Hunter College in New York City to study motion pictures; there he helmed a number of short films, including the 15-minute Hey, Sco! Upon graduating, Burns began working at a local news outlet and made Brandy, a 45-minute effort screened as a work in progress at the 1992 Independent Feature Film Market. During the spring of 1993, while working as a production assistant for the television newsmagazine Entertainment Tonight, Burns began conceiving The Brothers McMullen, a comedy focusing on the romantic troubles facing three Irish-Catholic siblings. Shot primarily in his parents' Long Island home, with a cast of unknowns including Burns himself and his then-girlfriend Maxine Bahns, the feature was filmed over eight months' time with a budget of about 25,000 dollars and with the aid of a technical crew comprised largely of fellow Entertainment Tonight staffers. Rejected by a series of distributors, The Brothers McMullen bowed at Sundance in 1995 and won the festival's Grand Jury Prize, becoming one of the most successful independent efforts of the year.For his follow-up, She's the One, Burns retained much of the McMullen cast and crew, including Bahns and actor Mike McGlone; by virtue of his newfound fame, he was also able to cast up-and-coming stars Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz in pivotal roles, and he even solicited an original soundtrack from rocker Tom Petty. Filmed with a comparatively lavish budget of about three million dollars, the romantic comedy premiered during late August 1996. Burns soon began work on his third feature, No Looking Back, a romantic drama set in a coastal town's working-class community. The film co-starred Lauren Holly and was released in 1998; that same year, Burns co-starred in the Steven Spielberg World War II epic Saving Private Ryan. In 1999, he was back on the screen with an appearance in Oliver Stone's football drama Any Given Sunday. In the years that followed, Burns wrote and directed a series of additional comedy-dramas incluing Sidewalks of New York (2001), Ash Wednesday (2002), Looking for Kitty (2004) and The Fitzgerald Family Christmas.

Trivia: Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and possessing a certain bodacious je ne sais quoi, Heather Graham has had one of the more inspiring career trajectories of the 1990s. After debuting in 1988's License to Drive, which featured the two Coreys (Haim and Feldman) and little else, Graham worked in relative obscurity for years before hitting it big in a string of successful films, including Swingers, Boogie Nights, and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. Originally hailing from the Midwest, Graham was born in Milwaukee, WI, on January 29, 1970. The elder of two girls (younger sister Aimee is also an actress), Graham led a fairly itinerant childhood thanks to her father's job with the F.B.I. A quiet, unpopular girl, by her own account, Graham became interested in acting at a young age. She had her first role, as Dorothy, in a school production of The Wizard of Oz and remained active in the theater throughout high school, winning the title of Most Talented from her peers. After high school, Graham packed up and headed to Los Angeles, where she discovered that talented as she may have been, it was no guarantee of employment. She worked a variety of odd jobs, including a stint as an usher at the Hollywood Bowl, before making her 1988 film debut in License to Drive as the object of Corey Haim's desire. The following year, Graham's career began to travel in a more auspicious direction when she was cast as a doomed drug addict in Gus Van Sant's critically acclaimed Drugstore Cowboy. Despite winning raves for her performance, stardom eluded Graham, as her subsequent film roles were largely incidental. However, she did win a recurring role on the TV series Twin Peaks in 1990, and the following year, starred in the widely celebrated made-for-TV movie O Pioneers!. In 1992, Graham had a supporting role in Diggstown, the most notable effect of which was a relationship with co-star James Woods, who was twice her age. After appearing in a few more films of varying quality (Six Degrees of Separation [1993] at one end of the spectrum and 1994's Don't Do It, which paired her with Drugstore boyfriend James LeGros, at the other), the actress finally got a break with the 1996 hit Swingers, appearing in a small but memorable role as the girl of Jon Favreau's dreams. The part marked the beginning of an upswing in Graham's career; in the following year she had a bit part in the movie-within-a-movie in Scream 2, which led to her inclusion on a Rolling Stone cover featuring the movie's assorted Hot Young Things, and also had her breakthrough role in Boogie Nights. As Rollergirl, an underdressed, oversexed, coke-snorting young porn actress, Graham made an indelible impression on audiences everywhere. In 1997 she also starred in Gregg Araki's Nowhere, in which she did little except have copious amounts of sex with the similarly golden-tressed Ryan Phillippe, and Two Girls and a Guy, a critically acclaimed piece that featured her as one of the title's two girls opposite Robert Downey Jr.'s guy.Unfortunately, Graham's first big-budget undertaking, the 1998 sci-fi film Lost in Space, was swallowed in a deep pit of critical and commercial quicksand. The actress more than rebounded the following year, however, earning top billing in two films, the Steve Martin comedy Bowfinger and the eagerly awaited Austin Powers sequel Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. The same year Graham earned the 1999 ShoWest convention's Female Star of Tomorrow title.Though she appeared to be on a track toward superstardom as the a new decade and millennium unfolded, a string of duds (From Hell, The Guru, Killing Me Softly, etc.) derailed Graham's career a bit. As many actors in her position often do, she decided to give television a try. Unfortunately, like much of her film work of the period, the ABC comedy Emily's Reasons Why Not was met with little excitement from critics audiences alike, and the heavily hyped series was cancelled after a single episode. Her recurring role on the comedy Scrubs, however, was well received. She continued to work in little-seen movies, but that changed in 2009 when she played a Vegas girl who falls for Ed Helms nerdy dentist in the smash hit The Hangover. Two years later she would play Aunt Opal in Jus Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer, and score a small part in the horror sequel Scream 4.

Trivia: Like many another contemporary movie and TV favorite, Stanley Tucci is a graduate of the drama department at SUNY-Purchase. Tucci made his film bow in 1985's Prizzi's Honor, after which he specialized in playing lowlifes and scuzzbags, despite his offscreen credentials as a loyal friend and loving family man. Some of his more memorable appearances were as Rick Pinzolo in TV's Wiseguy (1987-1989), a minor-league thug named Vernon in Beethoven (1992), and a Middle-Eastern assassin in The Pelican Brief (1993). Tucci acquired a fan following of sorts for his slimy year-long role of Richard Cross on the weekly TV series Murder One (1995).In 1996, Tucci broke loose from his established screen persona by playing an ambitious Italian-American restaurateur in Big Night, the most delightfully "gastronomic" film since Like Water for Chocolate. The art-house favorite was a sheer labor of love for Tucci, who served as its producer, co-wrote its script with his cousin Joe Tropiano, and shared directorial duties with his friend Campbell Scott. Tucci again directed two years later with The Impostors, a farcical comedy that cast him and longtime friend Oliver Platt as two stowaways on an ocean liner. Unlike Big Night, however, the film did not do well with audiences or critics. After starring in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1998) as Puck and In Too Deep (1999) as a police supervisor, Tucci again stepped behind the camera, this time to direct Joe Gould's Secret (2000). A historical drama about an eccentric man (Ian Holm) living on the streets of Greenwich Village, it received a very enthusiastic reception at the 2000 Sundance Festival, where it premiered. The early 2000s seemed to be a winning period for the versatile actor, with Tucci also taking home the Best Supporting Actor in a television movie award for his role in Conspiracy (2001). That same year he appeared in America's Sweethearts as an intense movie mogul. He continued doing solid work even when the finished films were sometimes lacking. He played in the Jennifer Lopez hit Maid in Manhattan, Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition, the American remake of Shall We Dance?, and landed his largest role in a major Hollywood production when Steven Spielberg cast him as the ambitious, officious manager of The Terminal. Tucci lent his voice to the animated film Robots in 2005, and the next year earned solid notices for his work as a fashion magazine editor loyal to the diva editor in chief Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada.The highly-respected character actor continued to work steadily in a variety of projects, but a pair of high-profile supporting roles in 2009 earned him strong reviews and awards consideration. As the husband to Julia Child in Julie & Julia, Tucci got to work opposite Meryl Streep yet again in another box-office hit, but it was his creepy turn as a child killer in the big screen adaptation of The Lovely Bones that earned him Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe, and Academy Award nominations.In 2010 he appeared opposite Cher in Burlesque, and was a loving father in the sleeper hit Easy A. In 2012, Tucci was cast as the announcer and emcee Caesar Flickman in the hit adaptation of the smash novel The Hunger Games. Tucci continued to be a work horse, appearing in seven films in 2014, including Transformers: Age of Extinction and a cameo in Muppets Most Wanted.

Trivia: Brittany Murphy first came to the attention of film audiences as Tai, one of Alicia Silverstone's airhead friends, in the 1995 comedy Clueless. Though convincing as a dim-bulb character, Murphy cuts dramatically against this grain off-camera, as a ferociously intelligent and ambitious young performer who had acting in her blood from early childhood. As a teenager and young adult, she gave expression to the scope of her talent and versatility with a series of engaging film and television roles.Born in Atlanta on November 10, 1977, Murphy was raised by her single mother in Edison, New Jersey; she later indicated, in interviews, that her mom struggled financially - that they were forced to eat spaghetti night after night, and that on certain occasions, she had to beg her mother to buy clothes at KMart; this would later account for Murphy's marked social investment in homeless causes, as discussed in a February 2003 Glamour article.A precocious child who began putting on shows when she was a toddler, Murphy was acting in regional theatre productions by the age of nine. Work in various commercials followed, and in 1990 she landed her first television appearance at the age of twelve, on the sitcom Blossom. She also secured a supporting role as Brenda Drexell, the fourteen-year-old daughter of Dabney Coleman's fifth grade teacher Otis Drexell, on the (mercifully) short-lived 1991 FOX sitcom Drexell's Class. The following year, Murphy took her first cinematic bow in the dysfunctional family drama Family Prayers. Murphy's talent for portraying, dramatically, all degrees on the spectrum of behavioral dysfunction further came to light in three successive projects through 1999: the blackly comic Reese Witherspoon trailer trash odyssey Freeway (1996) (as a disfigured lesbian who befriends Witherspoon's Vanessa); a mental patient in Lloyd Kramer's made-for-TV David and Lisa (1998), and James Mangold's Girl, Interrupted (1999) (as yet another resident at a mental institution).Meanwhile, on a less ambitious (albeit more whimsical) note, Murphy also became a fixtureon King of the Hill, Mike Judge's long-running contemporary cartoon of suburban life in the southern U.S., as Luanne Platter, the hair stylist niece who comes to live with Hank Hill's family. Murphy kept a full plate as the millennium wrapped. In addition to her work for Mangold in 1999,she also explored the collective insanity of the beauty pageant world in Drop Dead Gorgeous, while on the small screen, she covered much darker thematic ground with the well-received Holocaust drama The Devil's Arithmetic (also 1999). In 2001, Murphy appeared in the Michael Douglas thriller Don't Say a Word, and alongside Drew Barrymore in Riding in Cars With Boys.Cast opposite Eminem in director Curtis Hanson's 2002 drama 8 Mile, Murphy performed compellingly as an aspiring rap star's unapologetic muse; in 2004, Murphy headlined Nick Hurran's thoroughly disappointing rom-com Little Black Book. She also made a splash in Robert Rodriguez's innovative graphic novel adaptation Sin City, as the arrogant waitress who becomes the prize in a heated rivalry between Benicio del Toro and Clive Owen. Murphy made appearances in four features in 2006. In Alex Keshishian's progressive romantic comedy Love and Other Disasters, she played a London-based American expatriate, employed at Vogue, who tries to fix up her gay roommate; in Ed Burns's sixth directorial outing, the Big Chill-like romantic comedy The Groomsmen, she played the expectant girlfriend of Burns's Paulie. She also portrayed a member of the ensemble in Karen Moncrieff's murder mystery The Dead Girl, about a group of seemingly disconnected individuals whose lives intersect as a girl's murderer comes to light, and one of the lead voices in George "Babe" Miller's Happy Feet, an animated penguin tale.Murphy's appearance alongside Ashton Kutcher in Just Married was - to some degree - a case of art imitating life: offscreen, Murphy and Kutcher began to date as well (and became a hot tabloid item), though unlike their onscreen counterparts, they never wed.In the several years that followed, Murphy remained active, both in front of and behind the camera; she lent her voice to the CG-animated George Miller comedy Happy Feet (2006), and starred in and produced a Robert Allan Ackerman directed comedy-drama, The Ramen Girl, that suggested tremendous promise (though it went straight to home video). Murphy also starred in a made-for-television movie on the Lifetime network, Nora Roberts' Tribute (2009). That marked the end of her career, however: the actress's life was tragically cut short when she died in December 2009 at the age of 32.

Trivia: New York-born and bred actress Rosario Dawson made her screen debut in Larry Clark's controversial Kids (1995). Literally picked off the street to play Ruby, one of the film's titular teens, Dawson -- who is of Puerto Rican, Cuban, Black, Irish, and Native American heritage -- had never acted before being cast in the film. Following Kids, she next appeared in Spike Lee's He Got Game (1998) and that same year starred in Side Streets, a series of vignettes about life in New York's five boroughs. Faithful to her New York roots through and through, Dawson has continued to star in films set in her hometown, including Light It Up and Down to You.Soon, Dawson branched into mainstream film, appearing in populist projects like Josie and the Pussycats, Men in Black 2, The Rundown, and the big-screen adaptation of Rent. The actress would also appear in harder films, like Sin City and Death Proof, as well as damanding dramatic roles, like that of a rape victim struggling to recover in Descent.

Trivia: One of the more accomplished young actors to be immortalized on celluloid in the late 1990s, David Krumholtz has distinguished himself with both talent and the sort of unconventional looks that allow him to be both dashing and nebbish at the same time.A native of New York City, where he was born May 15, 1978, Krumholtz began his professional career at the age of 13, when he starred opposite Judd Hirsch in the Broadway production of Conversations with My Father. He went on to make his film debut in 1993, appearing as an obnoxious child actor in the Michael J. Fox comedy Life with Mikey. That same year, he had a small role as Wednesday Addams' (Christina Ricci) socially stunted love interest in Addams Family Values. Krumholtz's first truly memorable film role was that of Francis Davenport, the Upper East Side brat who gets Katie Holmes drunk in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (1997). He'd go on to play Natasha Lyonne's older brother in The Slums of Beverly Hills, and a high schooler in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). As the years wore on, Krumholtz would prove himself to be a viable force on screen, appearing in movies like Ray, Serenity, Walk Hard, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and This is the End,, and on the popular crime proceedural Numb3rs.

Trivia: Lovable tough guy character actor Dennis Farina was already well into his first career as a Chicago cop before he was able to turn his occasional acting gigs into a prodigious new line of work.Raised in Chicago by Italian immigrant parents, Farina joined his hometown's police force in the mid-'60s, settling into a life of law enforcement. When he was hired to be a local consultant on Michael Mann's film Thief (1981), however, Farina wound up with a bit part as the villain's heavy. Farina continued to moonlight as an actor for several years, appearing in local theater and occasional movies, including Final Jeopardy (1985) and the Chuck Norris vehicle Code of Silence (1985). Though he never took an acting class, Farina was a natural; after Michael Mann offered him the lead in the series Crime Story in 1986, Farina left the police force to play a TV cop. During his 1986-1988 stint on the series, Farina also played FBI agent Jack Crawford (Scott Glen's part in Silence of the Lambs [1991]) in Mann's stylish thriller Manhunter (1986), was the Birdman of Alcatraz in the TV movie Six Against the Rock (1987), and a cop in TV movie mystery Through Naked Eyes (1987). Drawing on his no-nonsense charm as well as his eclectic life experience, Farina continued to shine in roles on both sides of the law, such as serial killer Angelo Buono in The Case of the Hillside Stranglers (1989) and the lead prosecutor in the TV docudrama Blind Faith (1990). As nimble with comedy, Farina went up against Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin as a mobster in the popular buddy yarn Midnight Run (1988). His versatility firmly established by the 1990s, Farina's early '90s work ranged from playing a billionaire in People Like Us (1990), to Banquo in a New York gangland version of Macbeth, Men of Honor (1991), as well as supporting roles in the comedy Another Stakeout (1993), Bruce Willis actioner Striking Distance (1993), John Turturro's Italian-American family drama Mac (1993), and vicious neo-noir Romeo Is Bleeding (1994). Farina's appearance as John Travolta's nemesis, hilariously bumbling tough guy Ray "Bones" Barboni, in Barry Sonnenfeld's adaptation of Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty (1995), led to his most notable hit since Midnight Run. His career hitting a new high, Farina co-starred with Bette Midler as reunited exes in Carl Reiner's That Old Feeling (1997), and starred as a Sicilian bigwig in the high-profile TV miniseries Bella Mafia (1997). Though his Marshall Sisco made only a brief appearance in Steven Soderbergh's esteemed Elmore Leonard adaptation Out of Sight (1998), Farina was pitch-perfect as Jennifer Lopez's protective dad. After joining the superb corps in Steven Spielberg's award-winning Saving Private Ryan (1998), Farina returned to series TV, playing smooth detective Buddy Faro (1998); the series, however, lasted only one season. Returning to films, Farina followed his role as the police captain who recruits The Mod Squad (1999) with another comic turn as a New York gangster who sets the diamond larceny plot in motion in Snatch (2000), adding a dash of Hollywood celebrity (along with Brad Pitt and Benicio del Toro) to British lad director Guy Ritchie's sophomore effort. The releases of two of Farina's next films, Barry Sonnenfeld's caper Big Trouble (2001) and Edward Burns' romantic comedy Sidewalks of New York (2001), were delayed after the terrorist attack on New York on September 11, 2001. Sidewalks of New York surfaced later in 2001, but the romantic comedy failed to charm a large audience. Big Trouble finally made it into theaters in the first half of 2002, but despite the big name cast, Sonnenfeld's farce joined such high profile fare as Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Collateral Damage (2002) and the espionage actioner Bad Company (2002) on the list of 9/11-delayed flops. Farina's next film, the broad, witless comedy Stealing Harvard (2002), also failed at the box office. Farina returned to television during the fall 2002 season with a lead role as a comically monstrous Meet the Parents-esque father-in-law on the sitcom The In-Laws (2002). Despite initially withering reviews, The In-Laws managed to show signs of ratings life.As the 2000's rolled forward, Farina appeared in a number of movies, most notably in Bottle Shock and What Happens in Vegas. Farina would find even more success on the small screen, with roles on Law & Order and the much discussed horse-racing drama Luck. Sadly, Farina died of a bloodclot in his lung in July of 2013. He was 69 years old.

Trivia: An actress whose capability to seamlessly alternate between roles that call for unchallenged authority figures and vulnerable, coyly girlish types, Callie Thorne is equally comfortable on small-screen crime and police dramas (Homicide: Life on the Street, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Wire, and Prison Break) and big-screen comedies (Next Stop Wonderland, Wirey Spindell, and Strangers With Candy). It was her recurring role as Sheila Keefe on the hit FX series Rescue Me, however, that truly allowed Thorne to gain considerable notice as an actress. A graduate of Lincoln-Sudbury High School who went on to study at Wheaton College, Thorne credits much of her success to Wheaton theater director Pamela Bongas. While early roles in such features as Turbulence and Next Stop Wonderland served well to get the emerging actress comfortable in front of the camera, it was her performance as Detective Laura Ballard on Homicide: Life on the Street that truly propelled Thorne's career to the next level. After breaking the glass ceiling on the series by becoming the first female homicide detective to be paired with another female on a case, Thorne displayed her indie side with commendable roles in Ed Burns' Sidewalks of New York and Tim McCann's Revolution #9. But Thorne truly shined on the small screen, and despite the occasional appearance in such big-budget efforts as Analyze That, recurring roles on The Wire, ER, Prison Break, and, of course, Rescue Me made her a favorite of television viewers who liked their drama served with a side of grit.

Trivia: Aida Turturro, born September 25, 1962, in New York City, can be seen in numerous feature films in addition to her most well-known role as Janice on HBO's Sopranos series. Turturro has show business in her blood, attested by the careers of her cousins, Nicholas Turturro and John Turturro (actor-brothers), and is a long-term friend of Sopranos co-star James Gandolfini. She and Gandolfini have made collaborate film appearances in Fallen (1998) and Angie (1994) -- in the latter of which, Turturro supported the role of Geena Davis as her best friend. In 1992, Turturro and Gandolfini starred with Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin on Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire.Residing in New York for much of her life, Turturro attended the State University of New York at New Paltz as a theater student and graduated in 1984. Her first feature-film appearance came in 1989 as Grace in True Love, a film involving Italian family life. She has since made numerous film and network television appearances, including the features Jersey Girl and Denise Calls Up, and multiple episodes of both Law & Order and Mr. & Mrs. Smith.In 1998, she collaborated with cousin John Turturro in a supporting role under his direction in Illuminata. Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (2001), a silly adventure film following up a pair of Dundee hits in the 1980s, featured Turturro in the role of Jean. In that same year, she appeared in Edward Burns' Sidewalks of New York, the title of which attracted gratuitous attention to its theatrical release shortly after the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001.She enjoyed a long run on The Sopranos, and acted in her brother John's idiosyncratic musical Romance & Cigarettes, and had a major part in 2010's A Little Help.