Trivia: If Harrison Ford had listened to the advice of studio heads early in his career, he would have remained a carpenter and never gone on to star in some of Hollywood's biggest films and become one of the industry's most bankable stars. Born July 13, 1942, in Chicago and raised in a middle-class suburb, he had an average childhood. An introverted loner, he was popular with girls but picked on by school bullies. Ford quietly endured their everyday tortures until he one day lost his cool and beat the tar out of the gang leader responsible for his being repeatedly thrown off an embankment. He had no special affinity for films and usually only went to see them on dates because they were inexpensive and dark. Following high school graduation, Ford studied English and Philosophy at Ripon College in Wisconsin. An admittedly lousy student, he began acting while in college and then worked briefly in summer stock. He was expelled from the school three days before graduation because he did not complete his required thesis. In the mid-'60s, Ford and his first wife, Mary Marquardt (his college sweetheart) moved to Hollywood, where he signed as a contract player with Columbia and, later, Universal. After debuting onscreen in a bit as a bellboy in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966), he played secondary roles, typically a cowboy, in several films of the late '60s and in such TV series as Gunsmoke, The Virginian, and Ironside. Discouraged with both the roles he was getting and his difficulty in providing for his young family, he abandoned acting and taught himself carpentry via books borrowed from the local library. Using his recently purchased run-down Hollywood home for practice, Ford proved himself a talented woodworker, and, after successfully completing his first contract to build an out-building for Sergio Mendez, found himself in demand with other Hollywood residents (it was also during this time that Ford acquired his famous scar, the result of a minor car accident). Meanwhile, Ford's luck as an actor began to change when a casting director friend for whom he was doing some construction helped him get a part in George Lucas' American Graffiti (1973). The film became an unexpected blockbuster and greatly increased Ford's familiarity. Many audience members, particularly women, responded to his turn as the gruffly macho Bob Falfa, the kind of subtly charismatic portrayal that would later become Ford's trademark. However, Ford's career remained stagnant until Lucas cast him as space pilot Han Solo in the megahit Star Wars (1977), after which he became a minor star. He spent the remainder of the 1970s trapped in mostly forgettable films (such as the comedy Western The Frisco Kid with Gene Wilder), although he did manage to land the small role of Colonel G. Lucas in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979). The early '80s elevated Ford to major stardom with the combined impact of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and his portrayal of action-adventure hero Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), which proved to be an enormous hit. He went on to play "Indy" twice more, in 1984's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989. Ford moved beyond popular acclaim with his role as a big-city police detective who finds himself masquerading as an Amish farmer to protect a young murder witness in Witness (1984), for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his work, as well as the praise of critics who had previously ignored his acting ability. Having appeared in several of the biggest money-makers of all time, Ford was able to pick and choose his roles in the '80s and '90s. Following the success of Witness, Ford re-teamed with the film's director, Peter Weir, to make a film adaptation of Paul Theroux's novel The Mosquito Coast. The film met with mixed critical results, and audiences largely stayed away, unused to the idea of their hero playing a markedly flawed and somewhat insane character. Undeterred, Ford went on to choose projects that brought him further departure from the action films responsible for his reputation. In 1988 he worked with two of the industry's most celebrated directors, Roman Polanski and Mike Nichols. With Polanski he made Frantic, a dark psychological thriller that fared poorly among critics and audiences alike. He had greater success with Nichols, his director in Working Girl, a saucy comedy in which he co-starred with Melanie Griffith and Sigourney Weaver. The film was a hit, and displayed Ford's largely unexploited comic talent. Ford began the 1990s with Alan J. Pakula's courtroom thriller Presumed Innocent, which he followed with another Mike Nichols outing, Regarding Henry (1991). The film was an unmitigated flop with both critics and audiences, but Ford allayed his disappointment the following year when he signed an unprecedented 50-million-dollar contract to play CIA agent Jack Ryan in a series of five movies based upon the novels of Tom Clancy. The first two films of the series, Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), met with an overwhelming success mirrored by that of Ford's turn as Dr. Richard Kimball in The Fugitive (1993). Ford's next effort, Sydney Pollack's 1995 remake of Sabrina, did not meet similar success, and this bad luck continued with The Devil's Own (which reunited him with Pakula), despite Ford's seemingly fault-proof pairing with Brad Pitt. However, his other 1997 effort, Wolfgang Petersen's Air Force One, more than made up for the critical and commercial shortcomings of his previous two films, proving that Ford, even at 55, was still a bona fide, butt-kicking action hero. Stranded on an island with Anne Hesche for his next feature, the moderately successful romantic adventure Six Days, Seven Nights (1998), Ford subsequently appeared in the less successful romantic drama Random Hearts. Bouncing back a bit with Robert Zemeckis' horror-flavored thriller What Lies Beneath, the tension would remain at a fever pitch as Ford and crew raced to prevent a nuclear catastrophe in the fact based deep sea thriller K-19: The Widowmaker. As the 2000's unfolded, Ford would prove that he had a strong commitment to being active in film, continuing to work in projects like Hollywood Homicide, Firewall, Extraordinary Measures, Morning Glory, and Cowboys & Aliens. Ford would also reprise one of his most famous roles for the disappointing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Trivia: Though she'd always harbored a hankering to become an actress, Kate Capshaw put these plans in mothballs to earn a master's degree in special education at the University of Missouri. She taught exceptional-ed classes for two years before finally heading to New York to seek out acting jobs. Capshaw played small roles in commercials and soap operas, then in 1982 made her film bow in A Little Sex. Two years later, she was cast as the heroine in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and while playing the female character in the "Indiana Jones" series, she met producer/director Steven Spielberg , whom she would eventually marry in 1991. Capshaw's roles improved with each subsequent film; in 1995 she was showered with critical acclaim for her performance in How to Make an American Quilt. In addition to her theatrical-film work, Kate Capshaw has been seen in such made-for-TV movies as Missing Children: A Mother's Story (1982), Her Secret Life (1987) and Showtime's Duke of Groove (1996); she was also a regular on the brief 1993 series Black Tie Affair.

Trivia: Acted in over 400 films in his career in a span of over four decades. Worked in Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, Marathi, Hollywood, Punjabi and Tamil films. Received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1979, the highest Indian recognition given to practising artists, for his theatre acting. Won the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award three times, for Meri Jung (1985), Ghatak (1997), and Virasat (1997). Described by Steven Spielberg as his favourite movie villain.

Trivia: Though his parts were often on the smallish side, British actor Philip Stone has been fortunate enough to appear in several international movie moneymakers. He was seen in the James Bond opus Thunderball (1965), in producer Dino De Laurentiis' Flash Gordon (1980), and in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1985) (as Captain Blumbartt). He had occasional important roles in a few non-hits as well, such as Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973), in which he played General Jodl. Stone was also an off-and-on particpant in the long-running Carry On series of British slapstick comedy films. As a member of director Stanley Kubrick's informal "stock company," Philip Stone appeared in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1976) and The Shining (1978).

Trivia: A native of New Delhi, India, British character actor of theater and film Roshan Seth honed the skills he learned at London's Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in British repertory theater. His first break came in Peter Brook's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which toured in 1972. Seth entered feature films in Richard Lester's Juggernaut (1974), but because subsequent filmmakers only wanted Seth for ethnic roles, his career abruptly stalled. Discouraged, he abandoned acting and returned to India, where he worked as an editor and journalist until the early '80s, when Richard Attenborough asked Seth to play Pandit Nehru in Gandhi (1982). Shortly thereafter, Seth essayed Indian author Victor Mehta and toured the globe in playwright David Hare's biography A Map of the World. After the play's Broadway run, Seth's movie career took off, with roles in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and David Lean's A Passage to India (1984). Seth's subsequent film credits include Mississippi Masala (1992), Street Fighter (1994), and The Journey (1997).

Trivia: One of the most vibrant comic personalities of the 1970s and '80s, as well as a noted actor and screenwriter, Dan Aykroyd got his professional start in his native Canada. Before working as a standup comedian in various Canadian nightclubs, Aykroyd studied at a Catholic seminary from which he was later expelled. He then worked as a train brakeman, a surveyor, and studied Sociology at Carleton University in Ottawa, where he began writing and performing comedy sketches. His success as a comic in school led him to work with the Toronto branch of the famed Second City improvisational troupe. During this time -- while he was also managing the hot nightspot Club 505 on the side -- Aykroyd met comedian and writer John Belushi, who had come to Toronto to scout new talent for "The National Lampoon Radio Hour." In 1975, both Aykroyd and Belushi were chosen to appear in the first season of Canadian producer Lorne Michaels' innovative comedy television series Saturday Night Live. It was as part of the show that Aykroyd gained notoriety for his dead-on impersonations of presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter. He also won fame for his other characters, such as Beldar, the patriarch of the Conehead clan of suburban aliens, and Elwood, the second half of the Blues Brothers (Jake Blues was played by Belushi). Aykroyd made his feature-film debut in 1977 in the Canadian comedy Love at First Sight, but neither it nor his subsequent film, Mr. Mike's Mondo Video, were successful. His first major Hollywood screen venture was as a co-lead in Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979). But Aykroyd still did not earn much recognition until 1980, when he and Belushi reprised their popular SNL characters in The Blues Brothers, a terrifically successful venture that managed to become both one of the most often-quoted films of the decade and a true cult classic. Aykroyd and Belushi went on to team up one more time for Neighbors (1981) before Belushi's death in 1982. Aykroyd's subsequent films in the '80s ranged from the forgettable to the wildly successful, with all-out comedies such as Ghostbusters (1984) and Dragnet (1987) falling into the latter category. Many of these films allowed him to collaborate with some of Hollywood's foremost comedians, including fellow SNL alumni Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Eddie Murphy, as well as Tom Hanks and the late John Candy. In such pairings, Aykroyd usually played the straight man -- typically an uptight intellectual or a latent psycho. He tried his hand at drama in 1989 as Jessica Tandy's son in Driving Miss Daisy and received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. During the '90s, Aykroyd's career faltered just a bit as he appeared in one disappointment after another. Despite scattered successes like My Girl (1991), Chaplin (1992), Casper (1995), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), and Antz (1998), the all-out flops -- The Coneheads (1993), Exit to Eden (1994), Sgt. Bilko (1996) -- were plentiful. Likewise, the long-awaited Blues Brothers sequel, Blues Brothers 2000 (1998), proved a great disappointment. Aykroyd, however, continued to maintain a screen profile, starring as Kirk Douglas' son in the family drama Diamonds in 1999. During the next few years, he found greater success in supporting roles, with turns as a shifty businessman in the period drama The House of Mirth (2000), Woody Allen's boss in The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), pop star Britney Spears' father in her screen debut, Crossroads (2002), and (in a particularly amusing turn) as Dr. Keats in the Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore comedy 50 First Dates. Aykroyd also appeared in the 2005 Christmas with the Kranks, alongside Tim Allen and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry with Adam Sandler in 2006. He also provided the voice of Yogi Bear in the big screen adaptation of the titular cartoon -- but none of these projects did particularly well with fans. Aykroyd soon planned to revive the smashing success of the Ghostbusters franchise, collaborating with Harold Ramis to create a script and reunite the original four stars. However, ongoing hold-ups, including the public refusal of pivotal member Bill Murray to participate, continued to push the project back. In the meantime, Akroyd played a recurring role on TV shows like According to Jim, The Defenders, and Happily Divorced.Since 1983, Aykroyd has been married to the radiant Donna Dixon, a model who holds the twin titles of Miss Virginia 1976, and Miss District of Columbia 1977; the two co-starred in the 1983 Michael Pressman comedy Doctor Detroit. In Aykroyd's off time, he claims a varied number of interests, including UFOs and supernatural phenomena (his brother Peter works as a psychic researcher), blues music (he co-owns the House of Blues chain of nightclubs/restaurants), and police detective work.

Trivia: Supporting actor Jonathan Ke Quan (he originally billed himself by his birth name Quan Ke Huy) made his film debut playing the adorable and feisty street kid Short Round opposite Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). He then co-starred in Goonies (1985). He also was a regular in the TV series Together We Stand (1986) and between 1990 and 1991, he was a regular on the television sitcom Head of the Class. Quan's Hollywood film career ended in 1992 with the film Encino Man. Quan was born in Vietnam, but raised in the United States.

Trivia: It's not often that casting directors receive the kind of high-profile recognition that actors and other above-the-line personalities do -- but then again, there aren't too many people in that line of work who can boast of the accomplishments made by top British casting professional Mary Selway. Often cited as one of Britain's top talents for matching the right actor with the right role, Selway used her sharp eye to fill roles in such acclaimed features as Raiders of the Lost Ark, A Dry White Season, Gosford Park, and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. A native of Norwich, England, who enrolled at the Italia Conti stage school at the young age of 13, the aspiring talent defied her father's wishes of pursuing a more academic career to carve her own distinctive path in the entertainment industry. Though Selway was too much of a wallflower to command the boards, frequent modeling eventually led to work as a production assistant on television variety shows. Work in television and theater followed, with Selway eventually landing a job with top casting agent Miriam Brickman. In the decades that followed, Selway worked with such legendary filmmakers as Roman Polanski, Sydney Pollack, Steven Spielberg, and Robert Altman, among countless others -- contributing in no small part to the creation of some of the silver screen's most memorable characters. Plagued by recurring illness in her later years, Selway nevertheless continued working on such features as The Chronicles of Riddick and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire until she was physically able to work no more. In 2001, Selway was the recipient of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts' Michael Balcon Award for outstanding contribution to British film. On April 21, 2004, Mary Selway died of cancer in London. She was 68.

Trivia: Lead actress, onscreen from the early '80s.