Trivia: American actress Sheryl Lee has come a long way since her screen debut as the enigmatic, beautiful corpse of Laura Palmer, a murdered homecoming queen in David Lynch's surreal TV soap Twin Peaks (1990-1992). Later in the series, Lee got to play Laura's twin cousin, Madeleine Ferguson, until she too was slain. Though playing a dead girl may not have been the most ideal role, it earned Lee considerable fame, though she claims passerby recognizing her on the street would "look startled and look at me as if I were a ghost." She made her feature-film debut playing a supporting role in Lawrence Kasden's I Love You to Death (1990) and then played Glinda the Good Witch in Lynch's Wild at Heart (1990). Lee got to play an alive Laura Palmer in Lynch's panned feature-film prequel to his series, Twin Peaks: Firewalk With Me (1992). She has gone on to play the swinging German photographer who caused the "fifth Beatle" to leave the group in Back Beat (1994) and as Helga Noth in the screen adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night (1996). Though she has appeared in these and other relatively mainstream films, Lee is perhaps best known for appearing in American independent features such as Fall Time (1995) and Notes From the Underground (1996). In addition to her filmwork, Lee also performs in television movies and on-stage. One of her more famous stage roles was that of the title role in the New York production of Salome in which she starred opposite Al Pacino. As her career progresses, Lee has gained a reputation for appearing nude on stage, screen, and television. Though she claims she hates it, the nudity she displays is never exploitative, rather she imbues it with an ethereal quality that defies tawdriness. In 1997, she appeared in the sexually frank drama Bliss as a frustrated wife who visits a tantric sex therapist to learn how to find fulfillment with her spouse.

Trivia: Longtime character actor Ray Wise is beloved by genre fans for his over-the-top roles in Swamp Thing, RoboCop, Twin Peaks (both the series and the feature), and Jeepers Creepers 2, yet one look at the actor's diverse filmography reveals that it's Wise's diverse body of small-screen work that has been his bread and butter throughout the years.As an adolescent, Wise became keenly aware of his love for acting, and displayed his ambition by appearing in as many plays as possible throughout high school. A college theater major who spent most of his summer breaks in summer stock, Wise was well and ready to enter the professional world after receiving his degree in 1970. As with many other aspiring actors, Wise was drawn to the bright lights of Broadway and New York City, landing a job on the soap opera Love of Life after being in town for only two weeks. During the six years that he was acting on Love of Life, Wise would moonlight with stage roles both on and off-Broadway in addition to dabbling in repertory theater. When Love of Life was canceled in 1976, it was time to expand into features with supporting roles in Swamp Thing and Cat People (both 1982). Throughout the 1980s, Wise appeared on some of the most popular series on television, including Dallas, Trapper John, M.D., Knots Landing, and Moonlighting -- occasionally returning for a recurring role. While his part in Paul Verhoeven's over-the-top sci-fi action flick RoboCop offered the busy actor a chance to truly explore his inner villain, it was another menacing role that would propel Wise's career in the 1990s.Cast as grieving father Leland Palmer in the surreal David Lynch series Twin Peaks, Wise captivated television viewers with his emotionally charged performance -- Palmer was a challenging character, and few actors could have brought him to life quite as effectively as Wise. In 1992, Wise reprised the role of Leland Palmer for the polarizing feature Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, with subsequent performances in Bob Roberts and Powder, as well as on television in Star Trek: Voyager and Beverly Hills 90210, proving his highest-profile works of the decade. While by the year 2000 it appeared as if Wise had settled into a comfortable small-screen groove thanks to his numerous television credits, roles as a frightened father in the underappreciated, Twilight Zone-flavored frightener Dead End and a monster-fighting farmer in Jeepers Creepers 2 (which re-teamed him with Powder director Victor Salva) both gave genre fans cause to celebrate. In 2005, Wise took an affecting turn as communist witch-hunt victim Don Hollenbeck in director George Clooney's Oscar-nominated drama Good Night, and Good Luck, and the following year he had a recurring role as Vice President Hal Gardner in the hit Fox series 24. With additional small-screen roles in The Closer, CSI, Law & Order: SVU, and the supernatural series Reaper (on which he played the Devil himself) serving well to balance out feature work in Peaceful Warrior, Pandemic, and One Missed Call, it appeared that Wise remained as comfortable as ever fluctuating between work in film and television. He continued to work steadily on small and big-screen projects like Pandemic, One Missed Call, Crazy Eyes, Mad Men, and Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie.

Trivia: Moira Kelly was born the third of six children in Queens, New York City, in March of 1968; her father was a professional violinist and her mother, a nurse. Inspired by classical and big band music, young Kelly followed in her father's musical footsteps by trying her hand at the violin, drums, and flute. Kelly was raised in Ronkonkoma, NY, and competed in opera while attending Connetquot High School in the mid-'80s. It was there that the acting bug bit, and when Kelly was cast in a small role in the high school's production of Annie, her role was unexpectedly expanded as the actress playing Miss Hannigan fell ill and Kelly was recast as Grace Ferrell. Rounding out her education at New York City's Marymount Manhattan College, Kelly worked a series of odd jobs while attending college in order to finance her education. Facing an important life decision, Kelly began to weigh her childhood dream of becoming a nun against a busy life in the limelight. Convinced by her priest that acting may be part of God's larger plan for her, Kelly eagerly began work on her first feature.Kicking off her career with a made-for-television feature entitled Love, Lies & Murder, Kelly would soon transition to the big screen, appearing in Billy Bathgate and the popular ice skating movie The Cutting Edge. Subsequently replacing Lara Flynn Boyle in director David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, the conflicted Kelly once again approached her priest to ask for guidance in a film that contained frank and explicit sexuality. Next drawing attention in dual roles as cinema legend Charles Chaplin's first love and fourth wife in Richard Attenborough's Chaplin, it was obvious to many that Kelly had a bright future ahead of her. Kelly's diversity truly began to shine in the mid- to late '90s, and though such films as Little Odessa (1994) and Changing Habits (1997) may not have found wide release or reached blockbuster status, the people who did happen to catch them when they were released on video found her performances as moving as ever. Rounding out the decade with everything from vocal work in The Lion King (1994) to a role as social activist Dorothy Day in Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story. She would next tackle the small screen with a role on The West Wing, and spent the next several years appearing on TV with the show One Tree Hill, as well as with other film projects like The Safety of Objects and Two Tickets to Paradise.

Trivia: Born in 1959, Washington native Kyle MacLachlan, among other things, claims to be a descendent of the legendary composer Johann Sebastian Bach. However, unlike his very distant relative, MacLachlan made his mark not in music, but in television and film. After performing in a variety of local theater productions throughout his youth -- and acting out scenes from the popular Hardy Boys fiction series in his even younger years -- MacLachlan made his feature-film debut in director David Lynch's adaptation Dune in 1984. This would mark the first of many collaborations with Lynch; in 1986, Lynch cast MacLachlan as a young man shocked at what lies under a small town's picture-perfect facade in Blue Velvet. A year later, MacLachlan starred as an alien FBI agent in The Hidden, Jack Sholder's 1987 cult hit. MacLachlan, however, wouldn't gain true mainstream notoriety until 1989, when David Lynch called upon the young actor to play another FBI agent; this time, he was Special Agent Dale Cooper, who was sent to a small Washington town to investigate the murder of a young girl in ABC's popular but ultimately short-lived prime-time drama, Twin Peaks. The role would earn him two Emmy nominations for Lead Actor in a Drama Series and pave the way for more silver-screen roles, some of which include Ray Manzarek in Oliver Stone's The Doors (1991), villain Cliff Vandercave in The Flintstones (1994), and a falsely accused bank clerk in The Trial (1993). MacLachlan offered several relatively well-received starring and supporting performances throughout the mid- to late '90s, and did what he could for his role in Paul Verhoeven's famous 1995 flop, Showgirls.Luckily, the late '90s to early 2000s were much kinder to MacLachlan. In addition to playing another smooth agent in David Koepp's The Trigger Effect (1996), which some critics claimed was his best performance since Blue Velvet, the actor also was cast as King Claudius in Michael Almereyda's adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet. However, it was television that once again made MacLachlan a household name, albeit temporarily. In 2000, he joined the cast of HBO's multiple-award-winning series Sex and the City as Charlotte's (Kristin Davis) mama's boy husband, Trey. In 2003, MacLachlan starred in the Bravo network's popular documentary series, The Reality of Reality. Over the coming years, McLachlan wouldenjoy successful arcs on popular TV shows, like How I Met Your Mother, Desperate Housewives, and Portlandia.

Trivia: In another era, Chris Isaak's steely good looks and affable, unaffected screen presence would have made him an overnight leading man. Whether by choice or fate, however, Isaak seems to be content with his status as a part-time character actor and full-time rockabilly-influenced crooner. Born in Stockton, CA, in 1956, Isaak dabbled in surfing and competitive boxing as a teenager -- leaving him with his trademark bent nose -- before enrolling in an exchange student program in Japan. Upon his return to the U.S., Isaak completed college and endured a series of odd jobs as he led the life of the Northern California beach bum.In the mid-'80s, Isaak and his friends secured a record deal and began recording their unique brand of Southwestern retro-pop under the moniker Silvertone. It was director Jonathan Demme -- already a fan of Isaak's music -- who gave him bit parts in 1988's Married to the Mob and Demme's 1991 breakthrough, The Silence of the Lambs. Though Isaak's acting career was slowly gaining momentum, his Roy Orbison-influenced ballads still weren't catching on with the general public. When David Lynch featured the jilted-lover anthem "Wicked Game" in his road movie Wild at Heart, however, radio requests for the song quickly grew, and Isaak found himself with a Top Ten hit by the end of 1990 -- well over a year since the track was originally released. Thanks to Herb Ritts' sultry video for the song, Isaak had become a reluctant sex symbol as well. Lynch would be the first to capitalize on Isaak's heightened public profile, casting him as Special Agent Chester Desmond in 1992's baffling, elliptical Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.Despite the film's lackluster box-office performance, director Bernardo Bertolucci took notice and gave Isaak a lead role in his fantasy-biopic Little Buddha. Though convincing as the stoic family man whose son is mysteriously believed to be the latest reincarnation of Buddha, the neophyte actor couldn't withstand the wellspring of negative critical response to the film, causing some wags to slight his work in it. Perhaps as a response, Isaak has usually maintained a low profile in features since Buddha, choosing instead to take distinctive supporting roles in period films such as That Thing You Do! and Grace of My Heart, both in 1996.Though his feature-film aspirations hadn't panned out, Isaak did find some success acting on the small-screen in 2001, when he was given his own television show on Showtime. The Chris Isaak Show attracted a cult following with its witty semi-fictional portrayal of musician Chris Isaak. In 2004, Isaak took to the big-screen again, starring in the NC-17-rated John Waters sex comedy A Dirty Shame amidst an eclectic cast that included British comedian Tracey Ullman, Jackass co-creator Johnny Knoxville, indie-film actress Selma Blair, and such Waters regulars as Patricia Hearst and Mink Stole.

Trivia: A perpetually haggard character actor with hound-dog eyes and the rare ability to alternate between menace and earnest at a moment's notice, Harry Dean Stanton has proven one of the most enduring and endearing actors of his generation. From his early days riding the range in Gunsmoke and Rawhide to a poignant turn in David Lynch's uncharacteristically sentimental drama The Straight Story, Stanton can always be counted on to turn in a memorable performance no matter how small the role. A West Irvine, KY, native who served in World War II before returning stateside to attend the University of Kentucky, it was while appearing in a college production of Pygmalion that Stanton first began to realize his love for acting. Dropping out of school three years later to move to California and train at the Pasadena Playhouse, Stanton found himself in good company while training alongside such future greats as Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall. A stateside tour with the American Male Chorus and a stint in New York children's theater found Stanton continuing to hone his skills, and after packing his bags for Hollywood shortly thereafter, numerous television roles were quick to follow. Billed Dean Stanton in his early years and often carrying the weight of the screen baddie, Stanton gunned down the best of them in numerous early Westerns before a soulful turn in Cool Hand Luke showed that he was capable of much more. Though a role in The Godfather Part II offered momentary cinematic redemption, it wasn't long before Stanton was back to his old antics in the 1976 Marlon Brando Western The Missouri Breaks. After once again utilizing his musical talents as a country & western singer in The Rose (1979) and meeting a gruesome demise in the sci-fi classic Alien, roles in such popular early '80s efforts as Private Benjamin, Escape From New York, and Christine began to gain Stanton growing recognition among mainstream film audiences; and then a trio of career-defining roles in the mid-'80s proved the windfall that would propel the rest of Stanton's career. Cast as a veteran repo man opposite Emilio Estevez in director Alex Cox's cult classic Repo Man (1984), Stanton's hilarious, invigorated performance perfectly gelled with the offbeat sensibilities of the truly original tale involving punk-rockers, aliens, and a mysteriously omnipresent plate o' shrimp. After sending his sons off into the mountains to fight communists in the jingoistic actioner Red Dawn (also 1984) Stanton essayed what was perhaps his most dramatically demanding role to date in director Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas. Cast as a broken man whose brother attempts to help him remember why he walked out on his family years before, Stanton's devastating performance provided the emotional core to what was perhaps one of the essential films of the 1980s. A subsequent role as Molly Ringwald's character's perpetually unemployed father in 1986's Pretty in Pink, while perhaps not quite as emotionally draining, offered a tender characterization that would forever hold him a place in the hearts of those raised on 1980s cinema. In 1988 Stanton essayed the role of Paul the Apostle in director Martin Scorsese's controversial religious epic The Last Temptation of Christ. By the 1990s Stanton was a widely recognized icon of American cinema, and following memorably quirky roles as an eccentric patriarch in Twister and a desperate private detective in David Lynch's Wild at Heart (both 1990), he settled into memorable roles in such efforts as Against the Wall (1994), Never Talk to Strangers (1995), and the sentimental drama The Mighty (1998). In 1996, Stanton made news when he was pistol whipped by thieves who broke into his home and stole his car (which was eventually returned thanks to a tracking device). Having previously teamed with director Lynch earlier in the decade, fans were delighted at Stanton's poignant performance in 1999's The Straight Story. Still going strong into the new millennium, Stanton could be spotted in such efforts as The Pledge (2001; starring longtime friend and former roommate Jack Nicholson), Sonny (2002), and The Big Bounce (2004). In addition to his acting career, Stanton can often be spotted around Hollywood performing with his band, The Harry Dean Stanton Band.

Trivia: One of the great chameleons of contemporary pop music, David Bowie long displayed a gift for remaking his image to suit his creative needs, which, when coupled with an approach that carried far more intellectual and creative weight than that of the average rock star, made him a better candidate than most musicians to become a solid screen actor. While David Bowie never graduated into a full-fledged movie star, over the years he established himself as a gifted (if idiosyncratic) thespian with a taste for offbeat projects.David Bowie was born David Robert Jones in the multi-cultural working-class city of Brixton, England on January 8, 1947. Jones developed an interest in creative matters early on, and picked up the saxophone at age 13. At 16, Jones left school and began a career as a commercial artist, while singing and playing sax with rock bands in his spare time. By 1966, Jones had recorded singles with three different combos, none of which fared well commercially, when he decided to set out on his own as a solo act; he also took on the stage name David Bowie to avoid confusion with Davy Jones, who had just become an international star with the pre-fab pop group the Monkees. After recording an unsuccessful solo album, Bowie dropped out of the music business for a spell and began to study mime with Lindsay Kemp; in 1969, Bowie even formed his own mime troupe, Feathers, as well as an experimental art ensemble, the Beckenham Arts Lab. Neither was a sure moneymaker by any stretch of the imagination, so Bowie signed a deal to record another album, which included an offbeat number called "Space Odyssey." Around the same time, Bowie made his screen-acting debut with a very small part in the film The Virgin Soldiers; that same year, he also appeared in an obscure experimental film called The Image, as well a promotional reel called David Bowie: Love You Till Tuesday, which remained unseen until the early 1970s; the film includes footage of Bowie playing his music and performing with the Feathers group.Bowie's next album, 1970's The Man Who Sold the World, represented a move toward a harder rock sound, and in 1972, he'd score his breakthrough with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, a concept album about a gender-bending rock star from outer space. Released as the glam rock scene was beginning to peak, Ziggy Stardust made Bowie a full-fledged superstar in both England and the United States, and D.A. Pennebaker shot a celebrated documentary about the final date of the group's 1973 tour. In 1976, with Bowie confirmed as a major international pop star, director Nicolas Roeg cast Bowie in his first leading role as an unhappy alien who becomes a famous industrialist and pop star as he tries to find a way home in The Man Who Fell to Earth; while the film was a few shades too arty and offbeat to become a box-office blockbuster, the story seemed made-to-order for Bowie's public persona, and he gave a fine performance which helped the film become a modest box-office success. Bowie's busy touring and recording schedule, however, kept him from taking another major film role until 1979, when he played Paul in Just a Gigolo, an ambitious but unsuccessful film best remembered for featuring Marlene Dietrich's final screen performance. For the next few years, Bowie's screen work was for the most part limited to contributing music to films, most notably Cat People, for which he provided the theme song, and Christane F., in which Bowie briefly appeared as himself in a concert sequence.In 1983, Bowie's album Let's Dance brought him to new heights of commercial success, and his next major film, Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence found him receiving top billing for what was essentially a supporting role. Despite Bowie's busy touring schedule, he continued pursuing film work, playing a key role in the offbeat vampire film The Hunger and lending a cameo to the comedy Yellowbeard, while also providing music for Hero, The Falcon and the Snowman, and Boy Meets Girl. In 1986, Bowie scored one of his rare leading roles in a mainstream film when he starred in the big-budget fantasy Labyrinth, which found George Lucas collaborating with Jim Henson; Bowie also played a small but highly distinctive role in the British pop-culture musical Absolute Beginners that same year, as well as penning and performing the title tune. Two years later, Bowie landed perhaps his most unusual role, playing Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese's controversial adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis' The Last Temptation of Christ.In the 1990s, while Bowie remained an international star in music circles, his following began to scale itself back, and as he spent less time on the road, he began devoting more time to his acting, playing mostly supporting roles in idiosyncratic projects such as The Linguini Incident, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and Basquiat, the latter of which found him playing pop art icon Andy Warhol. Bowie also continued to provide music for films, most notably the British satire The Buddha of Suburbia. He turned in a very amusing cameo as himself judging the "walk-off" between Hansel and Zoolander, and his music was used rather distinctly by Wes Anderson in The Life Aquatic. Bowie tackled his largest acting role in quite some time in 2006 when he was cast in Christopher Nolan's film about magicians, The Prestige. He lent his voice to an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, appeared in various music documentaries and concert films, and appeared as himself in the teen comedy Bandslam in 2009. Bowie released a new album, Blackstar, on his 69th birthday in January 2016; he succumbed to cancer only two days later.

Trivia: Perhaps the most definitive descriptor for Kiefer Sutherland's career is not any particular niche he's carved for himself, but rather his versatility. From the perfected subtleties he has portrayed in supporting roles, to his command of the screen as a star, Sutherland has covered abundant ground. His roles have ranged from deeply psychological, such as the medical student in Flatliners, to upbeat and authoritative, like the sheriff in Picking Up the Pieces. In addition to his talent on the big screen, Sutherland has earned directorial credits, as well as a Golden Globe Award in 2001 for Best Actor in a TV Drama.Kiefer Sutherland and his twin sister, Rachel, were born to acting parents Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas in the U.K. on December 21, 1966. In 1971, his parents divorced, and Sutherland moved from their home in L.A. to Toronto with his mother. Just six years later, he was appearing in theatrical performances, including a production of Throne of Strow. His first film appearance occurred in 1983, in Max Dugan Returns, with a scene featuring Sutherland alongside his father Donald Sutherland.The 1980s brought the beginning of what would become Kiefer Sutherland's lengthy list of film credits. Most notable were his roles in The Bay Boy -- a 1930s coming-of-age story set in Nova Scotia -- for which he won a Genie Award in 1984, and the Rob Reiner drama Stand by Me (1986) in which he played a scene-stealing bully. He appeared in The Lost Boys in 1987, also starring Jason Patric. In 1988, at age 20, Sutherland married Camelia Kath, who was 14 years his senior, and the couple had a daughter named Sarah Jude that same year. The marriage lasted for two years.Flatliners, 1990's groundbreaking psychodrama, starred Sutherland with Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin, and Julia Roberts. The story involved four medical students experimenting with death, attempting to actually die to experience the after-life, and then be revived by their peers. The unique story line and strong performances earned the stars a lot of attention for the film. Sutherland and Roberts engaged in an offscreen romance, which endured for some time after shooting had wrapped.In 1992, Sutherland starred in the blockbuster A Few Good Men, also starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, and Kevin Bacon. Within a year, he made his directorial debut with the made-for-television drama Last Light, in which he also starred as a prison inmate. He was married a second time, to Kelly Winn, in 1996, but the relationship had ended by 2000.In the late '90s, his career picked up pace, with multiple acting and directing credits occurring within single years. The year 1997 featured Sutherland as Joey in a modern film noir called The Last Days of Frankie the Fly, and as director of the psycho-thriller Truth or Consequences, N.M. In A Soldier's Sweetheart, adapted from a story by Vietnam-vet writer Tim O'Brien, he played the narrator of the flashbacks, in 1998. That same year, he starred in the science fiction-mystery film Dark City with Jennifer Connelly and Rufus Sewell. His second self-directed TV movie, Woman Wanted, was one of four projects released crediting his name in 1999. He also appeared in a German film called After Alice, the psychotic drama Ground Control with Kristy Swanson and Kelly McGillis, and the thriller The Break Up starring Bridget Fonda.Shifting gears from the deep, psychosomatic, and eerie tones of his late-'90s films, Sutherland played the sheriff in 2000's Picking Up the Pieces. Featuring David Schwimmer, Cheech Marin, and Sharon Stone, the film was a satirical comedy infused with screwball humor, with a notable appearance by Woody Allen. Again revisiting a more dramatic genre, Sutherland starred in Fox's revolutionary action series 24 as antiterrorism agent Jack Bauer. With each 1-hour episode told in real time, the 24 episode season represented a single day in the show's chronology. Immediately garnering rave reviews and a rabid core fanbase, the series became a hit and in 2001, Sutherland's role on the program earned him recognition as Best Actor in a TV Drama at the Golden Globe Awards. The innovative series would continue to collect awards and nominations as it was renewed for successive seasons which each followed the single-day format, but took place months or sometimes years later in the timeline.As he continued to star on 24, Sutherland parlayed the show's success into some higher-profile film roles. In 2003, he played the menacing villain in the thriller Phone Booth, and the following year, he played another bad-guy opposite Ethan Hawke and Angelina Jolie in Taking Lives. 24 continued to be the actor's main gig, however, and by the time he began season six in 2006, the of character Jack Bauer had become a cultural icon as the ultimate anti-hero: and a man capable of doing or enduring anything in the name of justice, protection, or even vengeance. In addition to his work on 24, Sutherland took on a variety of voice roles (Monsters vs Aliens, Twelve, Marmaduke), and co-starred with Kristin Dunst in Lars von Trier's Melancholia (2011).

Trivia: Despite over four decades in the industry, actress Peggy Lipton is best known for a role she played in 1968, that of undercover cop Julie Barnes in The Mod Squad (1968-1973). However, prior to life as Julie Barnes, Lipton had participated in The John Forsythe Show (1965-1966) and starred alongside Kurt Russell in Mosby's Marauders, a critically praised three-part tale from The Wonderful World of Disney series. After the finale of The Mod Squad (and the reunion in 1979's The Return of the Mod Squad), Lipton played supporting roles in Purple People Eater and Keenen Ivory Wayans' I'm Gonna Git You Sucka! (both 1988). Before long, another television role launched Lipton's name back into the mainstream -- David Lynch's surreal drama series Twin Peaks (1990-1991), which featured Lipton in the role of Norma Jennings.Lipton reprised her Twin Peaks role in 1992, though, unlike The Return of the Mod Squad, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was a feature-film prequel to the television series. Lipton continued to make sporadic appearances in film and television throughout the '90s -- she had decided to focus most of her attention on raising a family rather than pursuing acting full-time -- and played a small, supporting role in Kevin Costner's ill-conceived film The Postman in 1997. In 2000, Lipton worked with Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Jason Leigh in director Tamra Davis' coming-of-age drama Skipped Parts, and went on to perform in Michael and Mark Polish's Jackpot in 2001. She also turned up on the popular spy series Alias in 2004 as the duplicitous mother of the similarly deceptive government agent Lauren Reed (Melissa George). Peggy Lipton was married to composer/producer Quincy Jones from 1974-1989, and the former couple have two daughters together.

Trivia: To say that Grace Zabriskie has specialized in maternal roles is hardly adequate. Many of the mothers portrayed by Zabriskie in films and on TV are the sort of parents that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy: clinging, castrating, and constantly jabbering away about nothing in particular (to be fair, she has essayed a few benign, likeable moms). She has been prominently featured in such films as Norma Rae (1979), Drugstore Cowboy (1988), and The Big Easy (1989). Her TV work includes the roles of Laura Palmer's hysterical mother in Twin Peaks (1990) and the recurring part of Thada Duvall in the NBC daytimer Santa Barbara. Undoubtedly, Zabriskie's most bizarre screen assignment was her S&M sex scene in Chain of Desire (1991). As brash and outspoken as ever, Grace Zabriskie played Granny in first-time director Anjelica Huston's controversial Bastard out of Carolina (1996).

Trivia: From the beginning of his career, David Lynch quickly established himself as the Renaissance man of modern American filmmaking, an acclaimed and widely recognized writer-director as well as television producer, photographer, cartoonist, composer, and graphic artist. Walking the tightrope between the mainstream and the avant-garde with remarkable balance and skill, Lynch brought to the screen a singularly dark and disturbing view of reality, a nightmare world punctuated by defining moments of extreme violence, bizarre comedy, and strange beauty. More than any other arthouse filmmaker of his era, he enjoyed considerable mass acceptance and helped to redefine commercial tastes, honing a surrealistic aesthetic so visionary and deeply personal that the phrase "Lynchian" was coined simply to describe it. Born January 20, 1946, in Missoula, Montana, David Keith Lynch grew up the archetypal all-American boy. The son of a U.S. Department of Agriculture research scientist, he was raised throughout the Pacific Northwest, eventually becoming an Eagle Scout and even serving as an usher at John F. Kennedy's presidential inauguration. Originally intending to become a graphic artist, Lynch enrolled in the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1963, falling under the sway of expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka and briefly studying in Europe. By the early weeks of 1966, he had relocated to Philadelphia, where he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and began his first experimentation with film.The violence and decay which greeted Lynch in Philadelphia proved to have a profound and long-lasting effect, as his work became increasingly obsessed with exploring the dark corners of the human experience. From his first experimental student film (1967's "moving painting" Six Men Getting Sick, onward, his vision grew more and more fascinated with the seedy underbelly of everyday life. He received an American Film Institute Grant and made The Alphabet, a partially animated 16 mm color film, soon after, but then turned away from the cinema to renew his focus on fine art. His next short film, The Grandmother, did not appear until 1970.In 1972, Lynch began work on his first feature effort, Eraserhead. A surreal nightmare borne of the director's own fears and anxieties of fatherhood, the film took over five years to complete, finally premiering in March 1977. An instant cult classic, it was also a tremendous critical success, launching Lynch to the forefront of avant-garde filmmaking. Eraserhead not only established Lynch's singular world view but also cemented the team of actors and technicians who would continue to define the texture of his work for years to come, including cinematographer Frederick Elmes, sound designer Alan Splet, and actor Jack Nance.The success of Eraserhead brought Lynch to the attention of Mel Brooks, who was seeking projects to produce besides his own comedies. He recruited Lynch to helm 1980's The Elephant Man, the tale of John Merrick. Complete with a cast including such celebrated talent as John Hurt, Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft, and John Gielgud, the film marked Lynch's acceptance into the Hollywood mainstream, even netting an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture as well as a nod for Best Director. For a time, Lynch opted to advance his script Ronnie Rocket at Francis Coppola's Zoetrope Studios, but when this failed to materialize, he went to work for Dino De Laurentiis, adapting the Frank Herbert science fiction novel Dune. The first of Lynch's films to star actor Kyle MacLachlan, the 1984 big-budget effort was a commercial and critical disaster -- Lynch himself even disowned the project after it was re-edited for release without his consent.Lynch had agreed to make Dune for de Laurentiis in order to film 1986's Blue Velvet, a long-simmering tale exploring the dark underbelly of small-town life. Insisting upon complete artistic control, he made the picture for under seven million dollars, casting actors ranging from MacLachlan to model Isabella Rossellini to Dennis Hopper and Dean Stockwell, former stars whose popularity had suffered in recent years. The completed film was an unqualified masterpiece, a hypnotically violent creep show which earned Lynch his second Oscar nomination as well as boosting the careers of all involved. In 1990, Lynch mounted his most commercially successful work, the ABC television series Twin Peaks. A surrealist soap opera created in conjunction with former Hill Street Blues producer Mark Frost, Twin Peaks became a cultural phenomenon, spurred by the mystery of "Who killed Laura Palmer?," the series' central plot thread. Suddenly, Lynch was a cultural figure of considerable renown, a filmmaker perhaps more famous than any of his actors. His fame was bolstered when his fifth feature, 1990s hallucinatory road movie Wild at Heart, grabbed the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. As quickly as the media had built Lynch up, however, they tore him down. Wild at Heart received mixed reviews from American critics, while Twin Peaks was scuttled off to a poorly suited Saturday-night slot, leading to its demise in early 1991. Two other Lynch-created series, the documentary anthology American Chronicles and the situation comedy On the Air, also met with premature deaths. In 1992, he released Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, a feature-film prequel to the television series. An ambitious, fractured work featuring Sheryl Lee as the ill-fated Laura Palmer, the picture was savaged by critics, leaving a wounded Lynch to plot his next move. He spent the next few years away from the limelight. Finally, in 1997, Lynch resurfaced with the enigmatic Lost Highway, another experimental, dream-like effort that polarized viewers' responses. He enjoyed more renown in 1999 when The Straight Story was released at the Cannes Film Festival. The film, based on a true story, marked a departure from Lynch's previous subject matter; the simple tale of a man (Richard Farnsworth) who gets on his tractor and drives 350 miles to see his brother, it offered few of the dark undertones and twisted subtext that had come to be known as the director's trademarks. That notion would continue with 2001's Hollywood-set thriller-melodrama, Mulholland Drive. Like Twin Peaks, the project was originally developed with ABC as a series pilot; unlike Lynch's first foray into television, however, Mulholland was scrapped before it could make a prime-time premiere. Although Lynch tinkered with the two-hour pilot several times in an attempt to satisfy the network brass, they remained unsatisfied. The frustrated director then turned to European financing in order to sculpt a feature film out of his material. Premiering at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, Mulholland garnered much acclaim, snagging Lynch the fest's Best Director award, and cementing his career resurgence.Lynch spent the next few years immersed in the world of digital video, first on his exclusive website -- members of which were allowed access to never-before-seen short films -- and then on the highly experimental feature Inland Empire. Crafted over a series of years using a light, mobile video camera and very few crew members, the film was Lynch's declaration of true artistic independence; the director himself heralded it as a breakthrough. The meandering, non-narrative, 3-hour opus, however, left critics and fans sharply divided as they tried to make sense of such disparate elements as a tortured, ghostly ingenue (played by Laura Dern), a Polish film crew, and Justin Theroux wearing a rabbit's-head mask. Dissatisfied with the response from possible buyers at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, Lynch chose to distribute the film himself, even mounting his own Oscar campaign -- stationing himself on various L.A. streetcorners, no less -- for Dern. In the years that followed, the director continued to immerse himself in experimental video, with short subjects including Boat, More Things That Happened and Lady Blue Shanghai - each of which alternately beguiled and delighted longtime Lynch adherents.

Trivia: Born February 7, 1955, intense character actor Miguel Ferrer specialized in playing villains, and brought to each role an unpredictable energy. Working steadily on television and in feature films, Southern California-born and raised, Ferrer was the eldest of five children and is the son of famed actor José Ferrer and jazz artist Rosemary Clooney. Inspired by watching Little Ricky banging away on drums during the I Love Lucy show and by Beatles percussionist Ringo Starr, Ferrer first aspired to become a professional drummer and for a few years worked as a studio musician. Acting credits came by way of small television and feature film roles. He debuted on television guest starring as a drummer on the NBC series Sunshine (1975). His first real break in movies came when he was cast in Paul Verhoeven's sci-fi actioner Robocop (1986). The tall, rangy actor subsequently appeared in films such as Revenge (1987) and Point of No Return (1991). Back on television, he gave a memorable performance as an emotionally volatile FBI pathologist in David Lynch's cult series Twin Peaks. Ferrer also starred as a Louisiana cop in Broken Badges. Other television credits include a guest-starring role on the NBC medical drama E.R., a supporting role in the telemovies Shannon's Deal and Brave New World, and a regular role on the comedy Lateline. In 2002, Ferrar appeared alongside Michael Douglas, Don Cheadle, and Benicio Del Toro in filmmaker Steven Soderbergh's Academy award-winning drama Traffic, and worked in John Sayles' Sunshine state during the same year. Ferrer took on the role of Colonel Garrett in the 2004 update of The Manchurian Candidate, and lent his voice to episodes of the Cartoon Network favorites Robot Chicken (2006) and American Dad! (2007). The actor continued to work in television over the next couple of years, making appearances in NBC's update of the Bionic Woman series, and took on the part of LAPD Lt. Felix Valdez for The Protector, a made-for-television police procedural drama. He also had a recurring role as NCIS assistant director Owen Granger in NCIS: Los Angeles. Ferrer was diagnosed with cancer during his run on NCIS, but chose to stay on the show and work through his illness. He died in 2017, at age 61.

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: An actor since the age of 14, Berlin-born Jürgen Prochnow was firmly established on stage and TV when he was featured in his first film, Zoff, in 1971. Prochnow has been able to harness his well-modulated voice, versatile facial features, and athletic frame to portray both the most admirable of heroes and the most despicable of villains. It was for his portrayal of a character in the former category that the actor achieved international fame. He appeared as the stern but humanistic submarine commander in the 1981 Oscar-winning Das Boot. In the latter category, Prochnow all but entreated hisses and tossed tomatoes with his portrayal of the sadistic South African secret police captain in 1989's A Dry White Season. Prochnow's career has subsequently had its fair share of highs and lows, with his appearances in such high profile projects as The English Patient (1996), Air Force One (1997), and The Replacement Killers (1998) helping to sustain him as a fixture in international cinema. Over the coming decades, Prochnow would remain an active force on screen, appearing in a host of German projects, as well as projects like The Da Vinci Code and Beerfest, and the TV series 24.

Trivia: Imposing Bahamian actor Calvin Lockhart was at one time an engineering student. Firmly established as a Broadway leading man in the early 1960, Lockhart found that worthwhile opportunities for black performers were severely limited in Hollywood; as a result, he moved to England, where he appeared with regularity in BBC television productions and in such films as A Dandy in Aspic (1966) and Joanna (1968). He returned to the U.S. for the racially supercharged urban drama Halls of Anger (1970), following this personal triumph with an embarrassing appearance in Myra Breckinridge (1970) and a fascinating turn as the charismatic villain of Cotton Comes to Harlem (1972). While he never quite became the "second Sidney Poitier" as predicted by movie publicists, Lockhart was directed by Poitier in Uptown Saturday Night (1974) and Let's Do It Again (1975). Calvin Lockhart's TV work has included recurring appearances on the nighttime serial Dynasty. Lockhart died on Mar 29, 2007, in the Bahamas, of complications from a stroke, shortly after shooting a supporting role in the Nassau-set family drama Rain. He was 72 years old.

Trivia: The three-and-a-half-foot-tall American actor Michael J. Anderson is often referred to as the dwarf from Twin Peaks. His height is due to a bone condition called osteogenesis imperfecta. Credited as The Little Man From Another Place, he appeared in dream sequences talking backwards and dressed in a red suit. He also appeared in two other early '90s David Lynch projects, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted.Anderson had actually made his feature debut in the Canadian family film The Great Land of Small in 1987. During the '90s, he made television guest-star appearances on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Picket Fences, and The X-Files. After a brief role in Roger Corman's daytime miniseries The Phantom Eye, he joined the cast of the ABC daytime drama Port Charles as double agent Peter Zorn. In 2001, he reunited with Corman for the short-lived TV series Black Scorpion and reunited with David Lynch for a brief part in Mulholland Drive. Back in the realm of children's entertainment, Anderson also appeared in the action fantasy film Warriors of Virtue (1997) and the made-for-TV film Snow White: The Fairest of Them All (2001). Anderson's major breakthrough came in the 2003 HBO series Carnivàle as Samson, the leader of a traveling carnival in 1930s Dust Bowl America. Projects for 2004 include a starring role in Geofrey Hildrew's Big Time, opposite the seven-and-a-half-foot-tall Matthew McGrory from Tim Burton's Big Fish.

Trivia: A student of dance, music and art as a child in Reno, Nevada, Madchen Amick decided to focus on acting as a teenager, and shortly thereafter, she got her major break in David Lynch's innovative TV series Twin Peaks (1990). After moving to L.A. at 16, Amick appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Baywatch, and mounted a small role in The Borrower (1991), John McNaughton's ill-fated gorefest about a roving alien of ere-shifting appearance who rips heads from his victims and uses them as his own. Amick became famous, however, as waitress Shelly Johnson, one of several beautiful young small-town women harboring terrible secrets, on the much-praised and memorably-eccentric Twin Peaks. Although Amick followed Twin Peaks with starring roles in the Stephen King horror fest Sleepwalkers (1992), it took the actress a few years to match her initial success. She hit her stride in the 2000's however, with a string of roles on ER, Joey, Freddie, Gossip Girl, Californication, My Own Worst Enemy, Damages, and Mad Men.

Trivia: Best known for playing biker James Hurley on David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks, actor James Marshall has gone on to play leading roles in low-budget or independent films of the '90s. He made his feature-film debut in the television movie Nightbreaker (1989). As the '90s progressed, Marshall obtained larger roles in more mainstream films such as Don't Do It (1994).

Trivia: Lead actress Pamela Gidley first appeared onscreen in 1988.

Trivia: Supporting actor, occasional lead, onscreen from the late '60s.

Trivia: If childhood dreams are indicators of ones' future career, actor Lenny Von Dohlen might today be riding a horse in a blinding circle of dust and speed. Thankfully for his fans, the once aspiring jockey decided on a career in film and television, instead. After attending the University of Texas at Austin, the Augusta, GA, native explored the stage while majoring in drama at Denver's Loretto Heights College. Though he had some pre-college on-stage experience, it was during his stint at Loretto Heights that Von Dohlen truly began to heed his calling. By the early '80s, the actor's extensive stage work earned him a role in the made-for-TV feature Kent State (1981), and he moved to features with a brief turn in the acclaimed drama Tender Mercies in 1983. Following a brief return to the small screen, Von Dohlen received his biggest role to date in the technophobic feature Electric Dreams (1984). Cast as a hapless architect whose self-aware home computer unexpectedly becomes his rival in romance, the film was a hit with audiences and played in a seemingly endless loop on cable TV for years. It may not have been Shakespeare, but Electric Dreams certainly earned the rising star a healthy collection of dedicated fans. In the following years, Von Dohlen found himself once again primarily relegated to supporting roles, though a turn as Karl Malden's steel-worker son in Billy Galvin in 1986 proved that the young actor was as capable with drama as he had been with comedy. After closing out the decade by fighting the undead in Dracula's Widow (1988) and getting tangled up in a murder plot in Love Kills (1991), Von Dohlen once again got a chance to shine as the agoraphobic Harold Smith in David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992). A marked disappointment for both critics and many fans of the series at the time, the actor's eccentric performance gave the film one of its most memorable characters. A series of forgettable thrillers preceded a turn opposite Fairuza Balk in the twisted drama Tollbooth (1994). Two years later, Von Dohlen got a chance to shine in the little-seen drama Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story. A swift thrashing by an eight-year-old in Home Alone 3 (1997) did little to dampen the actor's spirit, and, in 2001, Von Dohlen returned to the small screen with the TVdrama The Ponder Heart.