Trivia: A veteran of film and television, Chris Noth is probably best known for his work on Law and Order and HBO's Sex and the City, the latter of which featured him as the charming but terminally untrustworthy Mr. Big, erstwhile boyfriend/bad habit of the series' heroine, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker). Hailing from Madison, WI, where he was born November 13, 1954, Noth moved around a lot throughout his childhood, living in England, Yugoslavia, and Spain. Returning to the States, he studied with the storied acting coach Stanford Meisner before being accepted into the prestigious Yale School of Drama.Noth got his start on the stage and in television performing at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, CT, and appearing in productions with theater companies across the country, including the Manhattan Theater Club and Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum. Working in television beginning in 1982, he did a number of shows before breaking into film with small parts in Off Beat (1986) and the Diane Keaton comedy Baby Boom (1987). Noth's big break came in 1989, when he was chosen to play Det. Mike Logan on Law and Order. Noth portrayed the young policeman for five seasons, winning both critical nods and fans, many of whom were saddened when his Law and Order contract was not renewed in 1995. Noth continued to work on television and did minor work in films such as Naked in New York (1994) before getting his next big break in the form of Sex and the City (1998). As Big, he was one of the few male characters who could hold his own in the presence of the series' strong female protagonists, played by Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall, and Kristin Davis. The show proved to be an enormous critical and commercial hit, in the process winning Noth more fans. He would reprise the role for subsuquent big screen adaptations of the show, in addition to other films like My One and Only and Lovelace. Noth would also enoy successful turns on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Good Wife, and Titanic: Blood and Steel.

Trivia: Detroit-born Michael Moriarty was still in his teens when he received a Fulbright Fellowship to study acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. At 22, Moriarty played Octavius Caesar in a New York Shakespeare Festival production of Antony and Cleopatra, the first of many Shakespearean assignments. He made his Broadway bow in Trial of the Catonsville 9 and his film debut in 1972's Hickey and Boggs. In 1973 and 1974, no one was a likelier candidate for big-time stardom than Michael Moriarty. He starred as ingratiatingly egotistical ballplayer Henry Wiggen in theatrical feature Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), earned an Emmy for his portrayal of the Gentleman Caller in a TV adaptation of The Glass Menagerie, and won the Tony award for his work in the Broadway play Find Your Way Home. While his stage career flourished (he'd later star in well-received revivals of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial and My Fair Lady) his movie career was not as successful. It was television that made Moriarty a "name" in the eyes of the public, especially after his chillingly effective Emmy-winning turn as pasty-faced Nazi bureaucrat Erik Dorf in the 1978 miniseries Holocaust. In his film appearances of the late 1970s and early 1980s, Moriarty evinced a preference for working in director Larry Cohen's low-budget horror efforts, which brought little in the way of prestige but which assured him juicy leading roles. He was particularly good in Cohen's Q (1982), as a scuzzy, unprincipled mercenary who becomes the film's hero-by-default. From 1990 to 1994, Moriarty earned three Emmy nominations for his work as Assistant DA Ben Stone in TV's Law and Order; he left the series in 1995, complaining that Attorney General Janet Reno's criticisms of TV violence seriously endangered his ability to perform at fullest capacity. In addition to his considerable acting accomplishments, Moriarty is a superb jazz pianist; he has cut albums with his own jazz trio, and is a frequent performer at Michael's Pub, a New York nitery which occasionally features director Woody Allen on the clarinet. In addition, Michael Moriarty can be seen as the Governor of New Jersey in Crime of the Century, a 1996 TV-movie recreation of the Bruno Richard Hauptmann trial.

Trivia: Initially gaining widespread exposure thanks to his role as ADA Paul Robinette on Law & Order in the early '90s, stage and screen actor Richard Brooks has expanded his responsibilities to include directing with the release of his freshman feature Johnny B. (1998). A native of Cleveland who studied acting, dance, and voice work at Michigan's Interlochen Academy of Arts, it wasn't long before Brooks was packing his bags for New York. He excelled as a student of the famed Circle in the Square Professional Theater School and his performances in the Eugene O'Neil Theater Conference production of August Wilson's Fences quickly gained him a reputation as a stage force to be reckoned with. A subsequent move to Los Angeles found the burgeoning actor landing numerous television roles, and with such made-for-TV features as Badge of the Assassin (1985) and Resting Place (1986), he began to come into his own as a notable screen presence, as well. With Teen Wolf (1985) and The Hidden (1987), Brooks began his ascent in the world of feature films. Throughout the '90s, most of his popularity came from his role in Law & Order, and the busy actor would constantly find himself alternating between the big screen, the small screen, and the bright lights of the stage. After turning up in The Substitute and terrorizing the undead in The Crow: City of Angels (both 1996), Brooks opted to try his hand at directing, and the result was the refreshingly honest Johnny B. Good. Although his tale of a young, urban black man who makes a positive change after suffering amnesia went largely unseen, those who did give it a chance as a video rental received a pleasant and unexpected surprise. Returning to the small screen for the short-lived G vs E in 1999, many cited Brooks as one of the strongest aspects of the wild, supernatural pop-culture actioner. In addition to his film work, Brooks also founded his own production company Flat Top Entertainment LLC. At the dawn of the millennium, Brooks released his first solo R&B album, Smooth Love, on Flat Top Records.

Trivia: After a four-year hitch with the Naval Reserve, actor Steven Hill made his first New York stage appearance in Ben Hecht's A Flag is Born (1946), which also featured a young Marlon Brando. Hill made his film debut in 1950, then returned to the Navy for two more years before settling down to acting on a permanent basis. He was particularly busy in the so-called Golden Age of live TV drama, appearing in such prestigious video offerings as The Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti (1959). In 1966, he was cast as Daniel Briggs--as in "Good morning, Mr. Briggs"--on the hit TV adventure series Mission: Impossible. He left this lucrative assignment in 1967, reportedly because his Orthodox Jewish faith prevented him from filming on weekends; his replacement was Peter Graves as "Mr. Phelps" (in 1989, Hill guest-starred on the short-lived Mission: Impossible revival). Hill remained very much in demand throughout the 1980s and 1990s playing parental and authority-figure roles in such films as Yentl (1983) Heartburn (1986) and Billy Bathgate (1991). Contemporary TV viewers are most familiar with Steven Hill for his work as Michael Steadman's father on thirtysomething (1987-91) and DA Adam Schiff on the weekly TVer Law and Order, a role he stayed with from 1990 to 2000. Hill died in 2016, at age 94.

Trivia: It took 18 years of voice lessons for Paul Sorvino to console himself to the fact that an operatic career was beyond his reach. Having done some acting while attending the American Music and Dramatic Academy, Sorvino decided to pursue the theatre full-time, continuing his studies at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He made his Broadway debut as a constable in the 1964 musical Bajour, and six years later appeared in his first film, Where's Poppa. His stardom was secured when he received an avalanche of critical praise for his performance as Phil Romano in the 1972 Broadway play That Championship Season, a role he repeated in the 1981 film version. A convincing heavy in such films as Goodfellas and Dick Tracy, Sorvino has been even more effective in comedy, notably as the Reverend Willie Williams, a flamboyant Jimmy Swaggart takeoff in Carl Reiner's Oh, God (1978). And in the 1976 Elliott Gould-Diane Keaton vehicle I Will, I Will...For Now, Sorvino served up a near-autobiographical vignette in which he tearfully mimed to a recording of I Pagliacci. Squeezing as many TV appearances into his schedule as possible, Sorvino has starred in the weekly series We'll Get By (1975, as George Platt), Bert D'Angelo/Superstar (1976, in the title role) and The Oldest Rookie (1987, as Detective Ike Porter). In 1991, he took over from George Dzundza on the popular series Law and Order, and in 1993 he subbed for the late Raymond Burr in a Perry Mason TV movie. Additional scattered TV credits have included sporadic appearances as Bruce Willis' dad in Moonlighting, and the "Lamont" counterpart in the never-aired original pilot for Sanford and Son. Possessed of seemingly inexhaustible versatility, Sorvino played Henry Kissinger in Oliver Stone's Nixon (1995). Despite his many on-camera commitments, Sorvino has remained active in the theatre as both an actor and director. Paul Sorvino is the father of Oscar-winning actress Mira Sorvino. In the years to come, Sorvino would remain active on screen, appearing in films like The Cooler and Mr. 3000. In 2014, he guest-starred on the comedy The Goldbergs, playing Jeff Garlin's semi-estranged father.

Trivia: American character actress Molly Price fell into a career niche during the 1990s and 2000s, typecast frequently as detectives, military women, and officers of the law. Her resumé includes occasional guest appearances on Law & Order (as an OCCB detective and a naval quartermaster) and a long-running stint on the popular Third Watch (as Detective Faith Yokas) -- a role she carried over into an episode of ER. She also guest starred on other popular series like Sex and the City, Without a Trace, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. On the big screen, Price could be seen in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite and Sweet and Lowdown, as well as Kiss Me, Guido, Pushing Tin, and Random Hearts. In 2007, she signed to portray Ruth Truewell, a tough, high-ranking operative in the secret organization that Jaime Sommers works for, in NBC's reworking of the late '70s series The Bionic Woman. Shortly after that show was canceled, Price appeared in a supporting role in the Vadim Perelman literary adaptation The Life Before Her Eyes, starring Uma Thurman. She continued to work in a variety of projects including What Goes Up, the James L. Brooks comedy How Do You Know, and David Chase's 2012 drama Not Fade Away.

Trivia: Pleasant-looking and genial American character player Reed Diamond delivered a number of early performances prior to his first major assignment -- as Detective Mike Kellerman on the series Homicide: Life on the Street. Diamond carried the role from 1995 through 1998, and reprised it in Jean de Segonzac's 2000 feature Homicide: The Movie. After essaying the Lloyd Bridges role in that same year's telemovie remake of High Noon, Diamond then branched off into cinematic work. He was memorable as John Aaron in George Clooney's Edward R. Murrow biopic Good Night, and Good Luck., and lent supporting roles to the horror picture The Darkroom (2006) and the thriller Adrenaline (2007). Diamond continued to work on the small screen as well, playing Stuart Collins for many episodes of Judging Amy and appearing in episodes of such popular series as CSI, Law & Order, The West Wing, and Ghost Whisperer. In 2007, he scored a regular role on the short-lived sci-fi drama Journeyman, as Jack Vassar, the brother of main character Dan Vasser (Kevin McKidd). He also appeared in the first season of Joss Whedon's short-lived series Dollhouse in 2009, and the next year he landed a recurring part on the 8th season of the FOX action series 24. He returned to the big screen in 2011 playing Mark Shapiro in Moneyball, and returned to the Whedonverse with a role in the director's 2012 adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

Trivia: After making his feature-film debut in For Pete's Sake! (1966) and playing a larger supporting role in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), actor Nicolas Surovy spent the bulk of his career in television movies such as Laura Lansing Slept Here (1988) and Coopersmith (1992). Surovy is the son of opera singer Rise Stevens.

Trivia: Hefty Brooklyn-born actress Shirley Stoler couldn't have escaped being a Cult Figure if she wanted to. Stoler's most colorful screen roles included the sadistic, sexually supercharged prison-camp commandant in Wertmullers Seven Beauties (1976), as Spike the Bartender in Frankenhooker (1990), and as pawnshop owner Edie Wulgemuth in Miami Blues (1990) (in the latter film, she expresses her displeasure with sleazy con man Alec Baldwin by cutting off his fingers with a machete!). It was par for the course for Stoler, who'd first made her mark on the cinematic world with a chilling and compeling performance as homicidal 200-pounder Martha Beck in the 1970 sleeper The Honeymoon Killers. Prior to that, Stoler was a veteran of the ground-breaking La Mama and Living Theatre performance companies; her resume also included several Broadway productions and a number of TV guest shots. A comparatively laid-back Shirley Stoler can be seen in a few scattered pictures like The Deer Hunter (1978, as John Savage's mother) and Malcolm X (1992); she also evinced signs of normality as Dottie Jessup on the 1980 TV series Skag. Stoler died of heart failure in 1999.

Trivia: Raised in the 1970s bohemia of New York's Greenwich Village, Yancy Butler dabbled in acting in college at Sarah Lawrence, but didn't decide to make it her career until after graduation. After guest appearances on TV, including 1990s New York stalwart Law & Order, and featured roles in the short-lived series Mann and Machine (1992) and South Beach (1993), the husky-voiced Butler made her film debut opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme in John Woo's inaugural American effort, Hard Target (1993). Aided by her exotic good looks as well as her acting chops, Butler became the action babe du jour with subsequent starring roles in Drop Zone (1994) opposite Wesley Snipes and B-actioner Fast Money (1995). Breaking away from the genre, Butler joined the cast of the ill-received ballroom dance comedy Let It Be Me (1995) and played the titular psycho in B-thriller The Ex (1997). Butler got a potentially major career break when she was cast in distinguished TV producer Steven Bochco's 1997 TV police drama Brooklyn South, but the series failed to catch on with viewers; Butler returned to B-movies, including the thriller Witness Files (1998). Her father is Lovin' Spoonful drummer Joe Butler.

Trivia: Dann Florek was a working actor for 15 years, on stage, in movies, and on television before he became a television star on Law and Order. Born in Flat Rock, MI (near Detroit) in 1950, he was a physics major at Eastern Michigan University until he discovered his affinity for acting and theater. He moved to New York in the early 1970s and became a member of The Acting Company at The Juilliard School. Florek's New York theater credits included work in productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Love's Labour's Lost, and Death of a Salesman. He later performed in many productions staged at the La Jolla Playhouse and the Old Globe Theater in San Diego. Florek's film credits include Sweet Liberty, Hard Rain, Angel Heart, and The Flintstones, and he has made appearances on NYPD Blue, Wings, The Pretender, and The Practice. Additionally, he played Abraham Lincoln in the short-lived Fox Network series The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer. It was as Dave Meyer on L.A. Law that Florek first came to the attention of television viewers, but it was his four seasons on Law and Order that made him a star. He became a familiar and popular actor as Lieutenant (and later Captain) Donald Cragen, the head of the detective squad on whose investigations the series focuses from week to week. Florek also directed several episodes of the series after leaving the cast of the show in 1993, and is an active member of the Directors Guild of America. In 1999, he joined the cast of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, reprising and greatly expanding his role of Captain Cragen, now head of a detective unit specifically assigned to the investigation of sex crimes. Equally skilled at comedy and drama (although more familiar for his work in the latter), Florek is one of a new generation of triple-threat actor/directors to emerge from television in the 1980s and 1990s. Florek continued to work on Law & Order until 2010.

Trivia: S. Epatha Merkerson is a Tony-nominated and Obie-winning, African-American stage actress, but is best known for her portrayal of detective squad chief Lt. Anita Van Buren in the series Law and Order. Born and raised in Detroit as the youngest of five children, she was a fine arts graduate of Wayne State University and began her New York theater career in the late 1970s. Merkerson was nominated for a Tony award for Best Actress for her performance as Berniece in The Piano Lesson and won an Obie award in 1992 for her work in I'm Not Stupid. Her screen credits include Jacob's Ladder and Loose Cannons and, perhaps most visibly, her role as Joe Morton's terrified wife in James Cameron's Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Merkerson made her television debut as Reba, the Mail Lady on Pee Wee's Playhouse, and has appeared on The Cosby Show, among other series, but her most important single television appearance may have been in the first season Law and Order show "Mushrooms," in which she portrayed the grief-stricken mother of an 11-month-old boy who is shot accidentally. Her work was not only memorable to the audience during that key first season, but also to the producers, who later picked Merkerson for the role of the new detective squad chief in the series' fourth season--a role she continued to play for over ten years. Merkerson's talent on the small screen led to roles in numerous TV movies such as Breaking Through and A Mother's Prayer, as well as roles in such films as Radio and The Rising Place. Still, her monumental gifts in both presence and interpretation may not have truly been utilized until she took the part of a strong matriarch who runs a 1960's boarding house in HBO's mini series Lackawanna Blues. Her first leading role in almost twenty years on screen, her performance earned her an Emmy Award as well as a Golden Globe. After her triumphant turn in Lackawanna Blues she returned to the big-screen in Craig Brewer's follow-up to Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan co-starring Christina Ricci and Samuel L. Jackson.Over the coming years, Merkerson would appear in a number of films, like The Six Wives of Henry Lefay and Mother and Child.

Trivia: Educated at Yale and the Sorbonne, Sam Waterston, born November 15th, 1940, is far more than the "general purpose actor" he was pegged to be by one well-known film historian. A respected player on the stage, screen, and television, Waterston has cultivated a loyal following with his quietly charismatic, unfailingly solid performances. After beginning his career on the New York stage -- where he has continued to perform throughout his long career -- Waterston made his film debut in The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean in 1966. For a long time, his film career was not nearly as remarkable as his work on the stage and television, although non-New York audiences were made acutely aware of the depth and breadth of Waterston's talents when, in 1973, he starred in the television adaptation The Glass Menagerie (appearing alongside Katherine Hepburn) and -- also on TV -- in Tony Richardson's A Delicate Balance. The following year, the actor further impressed television audiences when he starred as Benedick in the CBS TV adaptation of Joseph Papp's staging of Much Ado About Nothing. Also in 1974, Waterston proved to be the best of the screen's Nick Carraways when he was cast in that expository role in the The Great Gatsby; subsequent films ranged from the midnight-movie favorite Rancho Deluxe (1975) to the unmitigated disaster Heaven's Gate (1981). In the late '70s, Waterston was "adopted" by Woody Allen, joining the director's ever-increasing unofficial stock company for such films as Interiors (1978), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), September (1987), and Crimes and Misdemeanors. Waterston was nominated for an Academy award for his powerful portrayal of a conscience-stricken American journalist in The Killing Fields (1984); three years later he appeared in Swimming to Cambodia, Spalding Gray's acclaimed documentary about the making of the film. Subsequent film appearances included a turn as Kathleen Turner's hilariously timid husband in Serial Mom (1994) and a role in Ismail Merchant's The Proprietor in 1996.However, Waterston has continued to make his greatest mark on television, starring in the acclaimed The Nightmare Years in 1989 and in the similarly lauded series I'll Fly Away and Law & Order. In addition, he has gained a certain amount of fame playing Abraham Lincoln multiple times: In 1988, he starred in Gore Vidal's Lincoln on television, while he won a Tony nod playing him in the Lincoln Center production of Abe Lincoln in Illinois and supplied the president's voice for Ken Burns' documentary The Civil War.Though Waterson is most recognizable for his work in Law & Order, he took on a variety of other television roles throughout the 1990s and 2000s, among them including a turn as the District Attorney Forrest Bedford in I'll Fly Away (the role would win him an Golden Globe). In 2012, Waterson joined the cast of HBO's The Newsroom.

Trivia: Jerry Orbach often commented, without false modesty, that he was fortunate indeed to have been a steadily working actor since the age of 20. Such was an understatement: graced with not only formidable dramatic instinct but one of American theater's top singing voices, Orbach resisted others' attempts to peg him as a character actor time and again and established himself as one of the most unique talents in entertainment per se. Television producer Dick Wolf perhaps put it best when he described Orbach as "a legendary figure of 20th century show business" and "one of the most honored performers of his generation."A native of the Bronx, Orbach was born to an ex-vaudevillian father who worked full time as a restaurant manager and a mother who sang professionally on the radio. The Orbachs moved around constantly during Jerry's youth, relocating from Gotham to Scranton to Wilkes-Barre to Springfield, Massachusetts and eventually settling in Chicago - a mobility that gave the young Orbach an unusual ability to adapt to any circumstance or situation, and thus presaged his involvement in drama. Orbach later attended Northwestern University, trained with Herbert Berghof and Lee Strasberg, and took his Gotham theatrical bow in 1955, as an understudy in the popular 1955 revival of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera, eventually playing the lead role of serial killer Macheath. During the Threepenny run, Orbach made his first film appearance in the Manhattan-filmed low budgeter Cop Killer (1958). In 1960, Orbach created the role of flamboyant interlocutor El Gallo in the off-Broadway smash The Fantasticks, and later starred in such Broadway productions as Carnival (1961), Promises Promises (1966), Chicago (1975) and 42nd Street (1983). By day, Orbach made early-1960s appearances in several New York-based TV series, notably The Shari Lewis Show. In the early years, Orbach's film assignments were infrequent, but starting around 1981, with his pivotal role as officer Gus Levy in Sidney Lumet's masterful urban epic Prince of the City, the actor generally turned up in around one movie per year. His more fondly remembered screen assignments include the part of Jennifer Grey's father in Dirty Dancing (1987), Martin Landau's shady underworld brother in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) the voice of the Chevalieresque candellabra in the Disney cartoon feature Beauty and the Beast (1990), and Billy Crystal's easily amused agent in Mr. Saturday Night (1992). Orbach perhaps made his most memorable contribution to television, however. After headlining a brief, short-lived detective series entitled The Law and Harry McGraw from September 1987 to February 1988 (a spinoff of Murder, She Wrote), Orbach landed a role that seemed to draw heavily from his Prince of the City portrayal: Detective Lennie Briscoe, a sardonic, mordant police investigator on Wolf's blockbuster cop drama Law & Order.Orbach carried the assignment for twelve seasons, and many attributed a large degree of the program's success to him.Jerry Orbach died of prostate cancer at the age of 69 on December 28, 2004. Three years later, Orbach turned up, posthumously, on subway print advertisements for the New York Eye Bank. As a performer with nearly perfect vision, he had opted to donate his eyes to two women after his death - a reflection on the remarkable humanitarian ideals that characterized his off-camera self.

Trivia: Jesse L. Martin is proof that talent and popularity are not mutually exclusive. When the award-winning stage actor joined the cast of NBC's Law and Order in its tenth season, the program's already high ratings increased by 40 percent. Martin's debut episode drew the largest audience in Law and Order's history and positive press attracted more viewers throughout the season. The once starving artist is now both a critic's darling and one of T.V. Guide's "Sexiest People on Television," confirming that he is an actor with genuinely wide appeal. Martin was born Jesse Lamont Watkins on January 18, 1969, in Rocky Mountain, VA. He is the youngest of five sons. Martin's parents, truck driver Jesse Reed Watkins and college counselor Virginia Price, divorced when he was a child. Ms. Price eventually remarried and the boys adopted their stepfather's surname. When Martin was in grade school, the family relocated to Buffalo, NY, and the move was not an immediate success: Martin hated to speak because of his thick Southern accent and was often overcome with shyness. A concerned teacher influenced him to join an after-school drama program and cast him as the pastor in The Golden Goose. Being from Virginia, the young Martin played the character the only way he knew how: as an inspired Southern Baptist preacher. The act was a hit, and Martin emerged from his shell. The actor attended high school at Buffalo School for the Performing Arts, where he was voted "Most Talented" in his senior class. He later enrolled in New York University's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts Theater Program. After graduation, Martin toured the states with John Houseman's Acting Company. He appeared in Shakespeare's Rock-in-Roles at the Actors Theater of Louisville and The Butcher's Daughter at the Cleveland Playhouse, and returned to Manhattan to perform in local theater, soap operas, and commercials. Finding that auditions, regional theater, and bit parts were no way to support oneself, Martin waited tables at several restaurants around the city. He was literally serving a pizza when his appearance on CBS's Guiding Light aired in the same eatery. Martin made his Broadway debut in Timon of Athens, and then performed in The Government Inspector with Lainie Kazan. While employed at the Moondance Diner, he met the late playwright Jonathan Larson, who also worked on the restaurant's staff. In 1996, Larson's musical Rent took the theater world by storm -- with Martin in the part of gay computer geek Tom Collins. The '90s update of Puccini's La Bohème earned six Drama Desk Awards, five Obie Awards, four Tony Awards, and the Pulitzer Prize. Martin soon landed roles on Fox's short-lived 413 Hope Street and Eric Bross' independent film Restaurant (1998). Ally McBeal's creator, David E. Kelly, attended Rent's Broadway premiere and remembered Martin when the show needed a new boyfriend for Calista Flockhart's Ally. The actor's performance as Dr. Greg Butters on Ally McBeal caught David Duchovny's eye, who then cast Martin as a baseball-playing alien in a 1999 episode of The X-Files that he wrote and directed. While still shooting Ally McBeal, Martin heard rumors that actor Benjamin Bratt planned to leave the cast of Law and Order. Martin tried out for the show years before and won the minor role of a car-radio thief named Earl the Hamster, but decided to wait for a bigger part. With the opportunity presenting itself, Martin begged Law and Order producer Dick Wolf for Bratt's role. Wolf hoped to cast him, and upon hearing that CBS and Fox both offered Martin development deals, he gave the actor the part without an audition. During his first year on Law and Order, Martin co-produced the one-man show Fully Committed, about the amusing experiences of a waiter at an upscale restaurant. A skilled vocalist -- he sang in Rent, on Ally McBeal, and The X-Files -- Martin later appeared in the Rocky Horror Picture Show anniversary special and hopes to star in a big-screen biography of his mother's favorite singer, Marvin Gaye. Over the coming decade, Martin would appear in several more pictures, like The Cake Eaters, the big screen adaptation of Rent, and the TV series The Philanthropist.

Trivia: Character actress, onscreen from 1957.

Trivia: George Dzundza's face slowly sank into the collective subconscious of American culture after nearly 30 years before the cameras. Audiences may be hard-pressed to name him, though his familiar face is like that of a distant cousin one has never met but keeps stumbling across while thumbing through old family photo albums. From his turn as an enraged, cheated-on spouse in the horror classic Salem's Lot (1979) to a recent turn as Robert De Niro's partner in 2002's City by the Sea, you can't get away from Dzundza once you've put a name to the face. Aggressively pursued by the president of the Stagers Society (who threatened to have him expelled lest he audition for an upcoming production) at college orientation, a nervous Dzundza hastily agreed and quickly landed the part. A quick rise through the theater circuit soon landed Dzundza some prime supporting roles on the small screen, and it wasn't long until he was gaining exposure on such diverse shows as Starsky and Hutch and The Waltons. In 1975, Dzundza made his film debut with a role in The Happy Hooker, and through the remainder of that decade and well into the '80s he frequently alternated between television and film. Following appearances in The Deer Hunter and Salem's Lot, Dzundza was cast as the lead in the short-lived sitcom Open All Night, and through the remainder of the decade he landed roles in such high-profile theatrical releases as Best Defense (1984), No Mercy (1986), and No Way Out (1987). It wasn't until 1990 that Dzundza would make a return to weekly television, though his role as Sgt. Max Greevey on Law & Order certainly made up for lost time. Even if he did leave the series after only one season, the decision ultimately served him well and his feature career subsequently flourished. As Dzundza's career advanced into the '90s, it also evolved and found him branching out by lending his voice to such animated television efforts as Superman and Batman: Gotham Knights. A short-lived stint opposite Christina Applegate followed with Jesse in 1998, and after moving back to features with roles in Instinct (1999) and City by the Sea, Dzundza settled nicely into the role of Father Tom "Grizz" Grzelak in the popular television series Hack in 2002.