Trivia: Like his older brother, Keenan Ivory Wayans, African-American performer Damon Wayans matriculated from standup comedy to series television to movies. He was a regular on TV's Saturday Night Live and -- along with virtually everyone else in the Wayans family -- In Living Color. Exhibiting a fondness for the outrageous, Wayans attracted both adulation and condemnation for his many In Living Color characterizations, notably the dour Homey the Clown and the excessively effeminate co-host of the "Men on Film" skits. Damon's first film was 1984's Beverly Hills Cop 2; he has since functioned as co-star (with brother Marlon Wayans), co-producer, co-writer, and director of Mo' Money (1992), and has been heard but not seen as the voice of a troublesome baby in Look Who's Talking 2 (1992). In 1995, Damon Wayans played a role once essayed by Charlton Heston, in Major Payne, a remake of Heston's The Private War of Major Benson (1955).

Trivia: Though most commonly associated with her multi-season portrayal of marketing executive Gina Waters-Payne, significant other of Martin Payne (Martin Lawrence) on the Fox sitcom Martin (1992-97), Tisha Campbell began her lengthy Hollywood career with a role that film buffs will have little difficulty remembering. Campbell made her feature debut as Chiffon, a member of the black female doo-wop group that acts as a Greek chorus, in the 1986 Frank Oz musical comedy Little Shop of Horrors (1986). An Oklahoma City native, born to a coat factory employee father and a gospel singer mother, Campbell moved with her family to Newark, New Jersey at the age of three, where the entire clan suffered from abject poverty. At age 6, Campbell won a talent contest, and the following year landed a turn in an ABC Afterschool Special entitled Unicorn Tales, as well as a supporting role in the off-Broadway musical Really Rosie. Campbell attended and graduated from Newark's Arts High School, then made the ambitious trek out to Los Angeles (with her family's encouragement) and spent several years surviving numerous television pilots that failed to take off. Shop, however, rocketed Campbell to national attention and jump-started her film career. She landed additional roles in Spike Lee's School Daze (1988), House Party (1988) (which she also choreographed), and Boomerang (1992). Campbell met future co-star Lawrence on the set of House Party; according to Campbell's later recollections, Lawrence immediately invited her to play his girlfriend should he ever land a sitcom. In 1992, that plan materialized. The program scored sensational ratings and immediately connected with a young, black, urban market; the arc of the series witnessed Gina and Martin transitioning from lovers to intendeds to husband-and-wife. Campbell originally planned to remain with the series through its final season, but actually left Martin several months prematurely, in November of 1996, asserting that Lawrence verbally, physically and sexually abused her on the set of the program - allegations that Lawrence and his representatives aggressively denied, claiming that Campbell was using the actor as a pawn in a contractual dispute with the network despite the fact that the actress left in mid-season.After her stint on Martin, Campbell signed for supporting roles in a number of low-profile features including Linc's (1998), The Sweetest Gift (1998) and Snitch (1999), then returned to network television briefly as one of the stars of the domestically-themed situation comedy My Wife and Kids (2001).Campbell is also occasionally credited by her married name of Tisha Campbell-Martin. She enjoyed a brief tenure as a recording artist with a 1993 r&b release entitled Tisha.

Trivia: Mos Def may seem, to the casual observer, like a rare example of a musician successfully transitioning into acting, but in truth, his acclaimed music career did not take off until long after he'd cemented himself as a working actor. Nonetheless, the man has built both his music and film careers on a foundation of integrity, earning him critical praise and audience approval for both. His contributions to the underground hip-hop scene started with the 1996 single "Universal Magnetic," a rare example of introspection in a genre dominated by blustering and callousness. Def's film debut, however, came almost ten years before, when he appeared in the 1988 TV movie God Bless the Child at the age of 15. Then going by his birth name, Dante Terrell Smith, Mos Def landed appearances on shows like Here and Now, The Cosby Mysteries, Brooklyn South, Spin City, and NYPD Blue. The spots sustained his career throughout the '90s, as did his roles in feature films like Bamboozled and MTV's Carmen: A Hip Hopera. Slowly but steadily becoming a recognizable face in acting, Mos Def continued to take parts in high-quality films, even if this meant a lower profile for himself as an actor. His supporting roles in Monster's Ball, Brown Sugar, The Italian Job, and The Woodsman, however, garnered him attention on talent alone. In 2004, he co-starred in the HBO movie Something the Lord Made with Alan Rickman and was honored with an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie, along with Rickman. By the time Def appeared in 2005's Golden Globe award-winning HBO miniseries Lackawanna Blues alongside Terrence Howard and S. Epatha Merkerson, he was a recognized and sought-after face in film. Def soon afterward donned a British accent for a leading role in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, giving audiences a taste of his comedic skills -- which were also on display in his recurring role on the hit Comedy Central series Chappelle's Show, as well as Michel Gondry's retro comedy Be Kind, Rewind -- which found the actor playing a hapless video store clerk opposite Jack Black. Increasingly versatile, Def was just as effective as a key witness hoping to avoid assassination in Richard Donner's 16 Blocks as he was as legendary rock & roller Chuck Berry in 2008's Cadillac Records. Back on the small screen, Def's recurring role as the haunted Brother Sam on Showtime's Dexter found the actor earning even more critical praise in 2011.

Trivia: The second-oldest child of the Wayans Brothers comic dynasty (brother of Damon, Marlon, Shawn, Kim, and Dwayne Wayans), "renaissance" man Keenen Ivory Wayans retains the highest profile among his siblings as a director and entrepreneur, and claims a brief but spectacular career, which qualifies him as a bona fide role model to young African-Americans interested in carving like paths in comedy or entertainment. A graduate of the Tuskegee Institute, Wayans entered the comic arena in the mid-'80s by stepping up to the mike and honing his stand-up act, but he later branched out into movies, by scripting the low-budget black satire Hollywood Shuffle (1987) and the aptly-titled comedy vehicle Eddie Murphy: Raw (1987), both for director pal Robert Townsend. Wayans broke through to a larger audience with I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988), a rollicking parody of 1970s blaxploitation flicks which he directed, produced, and starred in -- as Jack Spade, a black war vet who heads home to the ghetto, only to discover that his brother Junebug died from an "OG" (or overdose of gold chains). For credibility and weight, Wayans intuitively cast blaxploitation vets Isaac Hayes, Bernie Casey, and Jim Brown in leading roles; the film also features Chris Rock's debut. In 1988, Wayans created, produced, and starred in the Fox network's iconoclastic, influential, cutting-edge comedy-variety series In Living Color, which not only made "Wayans" a household name (synonymous with African-American comedy), but also solidified the stardom of comedians Jamie Foxx and the rubber-faced Jim Carrey (who, with his Fire Marshall Bill character, appeared as the ensemble's obligatory white schmuck). A dispute over the show erupted between Wayans and Fox in late 1992, as Wayans felt that the network was overrunning In Living Color in syndication; he argued that it would reduce the program's longevity. Yet Fox refused to back down. Consequently, the whole Wayans family left the program, leaving Jim Carrey center stage. In Living Color lasted two additional seasons, and wrapped in late summer 1994. For several years, Wayans retained a low profile (save limited involvement with straight-faced actioners like The Glimmer Man), but bounced back in 2000 with the multimillion-dollar box-office champion Scary Movie. Initially a parody of Wes Craven's Scream series, the film spawned three sequels, in 2001, 2003, and 2006 respectively; Wayans abandoned the franchise after Scary Movie 2, by which point, the films had expanded their satirical scope to include non-horror pictures and other elements of popular culture. In 2004, Wayans directed the farce White Chicks, about two black FBI agents, Marcus and Kevin (played respectively by the director's brothers, Marlon and Shawn), who disguise themselves as Caucasian sorority girls to foil a kidnapping plot. Despite scattered favorable notices, most critics despised the picture (Roger Ebert remarked, "Here is a film so dreary and conventional that it took an act of will to keep me in the theater"), but it soared at the box and became one of the top grossers for several weekends. The three brothers re-teamed for a follow-up (as co-producers and co-screenwriters, with Keenen directing) for the crass 2006 comedy Little Man, a kind of Clifford remake that revamps the adult-in-the-child's-body concept. Marlon plays a dwarf criminal, Calvin, who -- in an effort to retrieve a diamond he has stolen -- takes advantage of his size by masking himself as a baby and hiding out in the home of a wannabe dad (Shawn Wayans).

Trivia: Son of comedic legend Damon Wayans, Damon Wayans Jr. began following in his dad's footsteps in 1994 when, at the age of 12, he played the younger version of David Alan Grier's character Kevin in the movie Blankman. He would spend the next several years honing his stand-up comedy skills, eventually joining the cast of the sitcom My Wife and Kids in 2001. He would also become a writer on the show, penning several episodes before departing in 2004. In 2006, Wayans became a writer and actor on the outrageous sketch comedy series The Underground, joining forces with his father, who also helped create the show. Then in 2009, the comedian kept it in the family once again, playing Thomas in the parody Dance Flick, which was directed by Wayans' cousin Damien Wayans. He then appeared in the Will Farrell action comedy The Other Guys.