Trivia: Born June 9th, 1961, Michael J. Fox made his television debut in Vancouver at the age of 15. Three years later, he moved to the U.S., living in spartan conditions until he was able to get his green card. Things started breaking for Fox in 1980, when he made his simultaneous American TV and movie bow, winning a regular role on the weekly series Palmerstown, U.S.A. and a supporting part in the theatrical film Midnight Madness. Previously billed as Michael Fox, the actor was compelled by the Screen Actors Guild to add the "J" to his name to avoid confusion with an older character actor who went by the same name. At 5'4", the baby-faced Fox was able to play adolescents and teenagers well into his twenties; during the early stages of his career, however, his height lost him as many roles as he won. Fox had sold all his furniture and was subsisting on macaroni and cheese at the time he won his star-making role as junior conservative Alex P. Keaton on the long-running (1982-1989) sitcom Family Ties. Before the series ran its course, Fox had won three Emmys, one of them for an unforgettable "one-man show" in which his character soliloquized over the suicide of a close friend. Fox's movie career caught fire after he replaced Eric Stoltz in the role of time-traveling teen Marty McFly in Back to the Future (1985), an enormous hit which spawned two sequels. Not all of Fox's subsequent movie projects were so successful -- although several of them, notably The Secret of My Success (1987) and Casualties of War (1989), were commendable efforts that expanded Fox's range. In later years, the actor seemed to be have difficulty finding the vehicle that would put him back on top, although he continued to keep busy. In the fall of 1996, Fox returned to television in the ABC sitcom Spin City, in which he starred as Michael Flaherty, the Deputy Mayor of New York City. That same year, he could also be seen in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! and Peter Jackson's The Frighteners. In 1999, the diminutive actor lent his talents to another wee character, voicing the title role of Stuart Little for the film adaptation of E.B. White's beloved children's book about a walking, talking mouse. Married to actress Tracy Pollan since 1988 -- she played his long-time girl friend on Family Ties -- Fox credited her with helping him survive his battle with Parkinson's Disease, with which he was diagnosed in 1991. Fox voiced a variety of animated characters throughout the 2000s, and appeared on TV shows including CBS' The Good Wife and the FX drama Rescue Me,

Trivia: A reclusive character actor with an elongated, skull-like face, manic eyes and flexible facial expressions, Christopher Lloyd is best known for portraying neurotic, psychotic, or eccentric characters. He worked in summer stock as a teenager, then moved to New York. After studying with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse, he debuted on Broadway in Red, White and Maddox in 1969. Lloyd went on to much success on and off Broadway; for his work in the play Kaspar (1973) he won both the Obie Award and the Drama Desk Award. His screen debut came in the hugely successful One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), in which he played a mental patient. He went on to appear in a number of films, but first achieved national recognition for playing the eccentric, strung out, slightly crazy cab-driver "Reverend" Jim in the TV series Taxi from 1979-83; he won two Emmy Awards for his work. He extended his fame to international proportions by playing the well-meaning, wild-haired, mad scientist Doc Brown in Back to the Future (1985) and its two sequels; this very unusual character continued the trend in Lloyd's career of portraying off-the-wall nuts and misfits, a character type he took on in a number of other films in the '80s, including The Addams Family (1991), in which he played the crazed uncle Fester. His "straight" roles have been infrequent, but include Eight Men Out (1989).

Trivia: A small, delicate-looking, perky actress, Thompson studied dance as a child, and was dancing professionally by age 14; she won scholarships to the Pennsylvania Ballet, American Ballet, and the San Francisco Ballet. However, she felt she was too short to become a prima ballerina and gave up dance in favor of acting. After moving to New York she appeared in some 20 Burger King TV commercials, then debuted onscreen in Jaws 3-D (1983). Shortly thereafter she got her first important role, opposite Tom Cruise in the hit All the Right Moves (1983). She is best known for her multiple roles in the three Back to the Future movies; aside from those highly successful movies, she has not gone on to appear in any hit productions. She also appeared in the TV movies Nightbreaker (1989), Montana (1990), and the PBS playhouse co-production The Wizard of Loneliness (1988).

Trivia: Thomas F. Wilson studied international politics at Arizona State University, then switched his career focus by becoming a summer stock actor. In 1979, the 20-year-old Wilson returned to his native Philadelphia to begin his career as a standup comic, studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts between nightclub gigs. While on the bumpy road to fame, he shared an apartment with two other aspiring funnymen, Yakov Smirnoff and Andrew Dice Clay. He finally struck paydirt in the role of thick-eared, thick-skulled high school bully Biff ("Why don't you make like a tree...and go away?) in the first two Back to the Future films. In Back to the Future Pt. 3 (1988), he offered a fascinating variation of this character in the role of Biff's splendidly stupid great-grandfather, gunslinger Buford Tannen. What could have been a one-note characterization -- Biff/Buford wound up covered in manure in all three films -- was enlivened by Wilson's comic nuances and split-second timing. Computer game fans know Thomas F. Wilson best as Major Todd "Maniac" Marshall, star of the interactive CD-ROM Wing Commander series.

Trivia: American actress Elisabeth Shue was first seen on a national basis as Jackie Sarnac, teenaged daughter of Air Force colonel Raynor Sarnac on the 1984 TV series Call to Glory. She spent the next few years concentrating on "best girl" film roles: girlfriend to Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid (1984), to Tom Cruise in Cocktail (1988), and to Michael J. Fox in the second and third Back to the Future flicks. She gave a marvelous interpretation of resourceful teenager Chris Parker in 1987's Adventures in Babysitting and was the daughter Sally Field never knew in Soapdish (1991). In 1996, Elisabeth Shue was nominated for an Academy award for her starring role opposite Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas. Shue shone again playing Woody Allen's much-younger girlfriend in Deconstructing Harry (1997). Shue is the sister of TV actor Andrew Shue, who played Billy on the popular Fox series Melrose Place.

Trivia: Upon leaving the Midwest where he was born, raised, and educated (University of Iowa), James Tolkan headed for New York, where he studied acting with Stella Adler. In movies since 1969, Tolkan has been seen in gritty urban character roles in such films as The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), Author! Author! (1981), Off Beat (1985), and Made in Heaven (1987). In the first two Back to the Future films, Tolkan appeared as acerbic high school teacher Strickland; in Top Gun (1986), he was seen as Stinger; and in Dick Tracy (1990), he showed up as minor criminal Numbers. On television, James Tolkan appeared on the short-lived 1985 Mary Tyler Moore sitcom Mary as mobster Lester Mintz, and on both installments of the two-episode Sunset Beat (1990), in which he played Captain Parker.

Trivia: Though not among Hollywood's best known supporting actors, Casey Siemaszko (pronounced Sheh-MA-zshko) has worked with some of Tinseltown's most important directors. Born Kazimierz Siemaszko in Chicago to a Polish survivor of a Nazi concentration camp and an English dancer, Siemaszko started performing at age five with his father's dance troupe, the Kosciuszko Dancers. As a young man, Siemaszko studied fine arts at Chicago's Goodman School of Drama and launched his professional career on the Chicago stage before moving to L.A. where it took him four years before landing a role in Class (1983). In 1985, he played 3-D in Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future (1985); he later reprised the role in the 1989 sequel. Since then Siemaszko has worked with Steven Spielberg on an episode of Amazing Stories, with Rob Reiner in Stand By Me(1986) where he played a member of Keifer Sutherland's gang, and had a major supporting role in Mike Nichol's Biloxi Blues (1989). Siemasko's film career slowed considerably in the 1990s with notable roles in Gary Sinise's Of Mice and Men (1992) and in Lance Young's sexually charged Bliss (1997).

Trivia: Actor Billy Zane kicked off his stage career in his hometown of Chicago. Able to harness his spoiled-brat countenance and quirky gestures to invoke either sympathy or repulsion, Zane has been seen principally in secondary roles in such films as Back to the Future (1985), Memphis Belle (1990), Orlando (1992), and Posse (1993). His most flamboyant role was as the young drifter who -- obvious to everyone but the hero and heroine -- is not what he seems in the Australian thriller Dead Calm (1989). Zane had a rare starring role in the filmization of the once popular comic strip The Phantom (1996), in which he showed off his lithe, muscular physique in a form-fitting purple body suit and performed many of the stylish film's daring stunts himself. The following year he had a lead role in the most successful film of his career, playing Kate Winslet's vile fiancé in Titanic. Zane is the younger brother of film and TV actress Lisa Zane.

Trivia: The similarity in name and physique has led some people to mistakenly assume that actor Jason Scott Lee is in some way related to the late and legendary Bruce Lee; indeed, he is not. Confusion was compounded when Lee starred in the moderately acclaimed 1993 biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993). It is possible that the younger Lee's "association" with Bruce has prevented him from getting parts of wider range. Lee also starred in the notorious Kevin Reynolds-directed Easter Island fiasco Rapa Nui (1994), and garnered positive reviews for his work in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1994).

Trivia: Born January 28, 1981, Elijah Wood has grown up to be one of the most well-respected and steadily employed actors of his generation. Born in Cedar Rapids, IA, Wood modeled and did local commercials before moving with his family to Los Angeles in 1988. It was there that Wood got his first break, a small role in a Paula Abdul video. Film work almost instantly followed, with a bit part in the 1989 Back to the Future II. It was Wood's role as Aidan Quinn's son in Barry Levinson's 1990 Avalon (the third film in the Baltimore trilogy containing Diner [1982] and Tin Men [1987]) that first gave Wood attention, as the film received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for four Academy Awards. After a small part in the Richard Gere potboiler Internal Affairs (1990), Wood secured his first starring role in Paradise (1991), in which he played a young boy who brings estranged couple Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson back together. He received good reviews for his performance -- some said it was one of the best things about the film -- and from there went on to co-star with Mel Gibson and Jamie Lee Curtis in Forever Young and in Radio Flyer (both 1992). In 1993, Wood co-starred with Macaulay Culkin in The Good Son, which was a failure both at the box office and with filmgoers who couldn't stomach the idea of the little blond boy from Home Alone as a pre-teen psychopath. In casting Wood as the good to Culkin's evil, the film helped further establish the kind of characters Wood was to become known for: thoughtful, well meaning, and perhaps a bit confused. Wood's next film, the same year's The Adventures of Huck Finn, provided a departure from this type of character, but The War (1994) with Kevin Costner marked something of a return. Also in 1994, Wood had the title role in North, a film remarkable for the volume of bad reviews and bad box office it received, but also for the fact that practically every bad review contained a positive assessment of Wood's performance. Wood's follow-up, the 1996 Flipper, was hardly an improvement, but the subsequent critical and financial success of Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (1997) provided a positive development in the young actor's career. As the soulfully dazed and confused Mikey Carver, Wood gave a portrayal remarkable for its rendering of the thoughtfulness and exquisite hopelessness inherent in the character. 1998's Deep Impact and The Faculty did not allow Wood the same degree of character development, but were great financial successes and further stepping stones in Wood's evolution from winsome child star to impressive young actor. Following a brief turn as the boyfriend of a wannabe hip-hop groupie in James Toback's problematic Black and White (1999), Wood further evolved as an actor in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the first installation of director Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. His most hotly anticipated project, the 2001 film gave Wood top billing as Frodo Baggins alongside a glittering cast that included Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, and Liv Tyler. That same year the young actor could be seen in less mystical surroundings courtesy of Ed Burns' Ash Wednesday, a crime drama that also featured Oliver Platt and Rosario Dawson. In 2002, Wood let his vocal chords for Disney's straight-to-video release of The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina. Of course, his most substantial role of 2002 is unarguably his return to the role of hobbit Frodo Baggins in the second installment of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy; specifically, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.2003 proved to be a similar year for Wood -- after two relatively small jobs (his role credited only as "The Guy" in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over and his stint as First Assistant Director in Sean Astin's The Long and Short of It served purely as a break for Elijah), the young actor once again resumed his role for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Though Return of the King is the last in the Tolkien trilogy, 2004 nonetheless looks to be a significant year for Wood, as he is slated to star in soccer flick Hooligans, as well work alongside Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in director Michel Gondry's fantasy feature Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In the latter, Wood significantly stretched his image by playing the Machiavellian Patrick, who slimily attempts to wheedle Kate Winslet away from Jim Carrey by trading on insider knowledge of the couple's sweet nothings. Riding high on the quadruple successes of the three Rings films and Eternal Sunshine, Wood projected wisdom and demonstrated great care in selecting his projects over the course of 2005 - his three features from that year scored with reviewers and at the box. Those included: Robert Rodriguez's critical darling Sin City, a testosterone-infused, live action adaptation of a comic book; Green Street Hooligans, where Wood tackles the challenging role of an expulsionary Harvard student thrust into the brutality of English football; and Liev Schrieber's bittersweet comedy-drama Everything is Illuminated, as Jonathan, a young man who travels to the Ukraine on a quest to find the woman who saved his grandmother's life. Over the course of 2006, Wood's fans can catch him in the period piece Bobby (on the assassination of RFK), the animated feature Happy Feet, and the military drama Day Zero, on the reinstatement of the USAF draft. He voiced the lead role in Happy Feat, and had a major role for internationally respected director Alex de la Iglesia in The Oxford Murders. He lent his voice to the title character in the movie 9, and starred again in the sequel Happy Feet Two. In 2011 he took the leading part on the odd FX series Willard which concerns a man who sees his next door neighbor's canine as a man in a dog suit. In 2012 he returned to his iconic role playing Frodo Baggins for director Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Hobbit.

Trivia: Known to legions of fans as a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, bassist Flea has also maintained a side career as a supporting player in feature films. Born Michael Balzary, Flea moved from Australia to Los Angeles as a teen; it was there that he met eventual Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis in high school. Flea acted in his first major film, Penelope Spheeris' suburban punk story The Wild Side (1983), the same year he co-founded the band. Merging both of his performing interests, he appeared with the Chili Peppers in Tough Guys (1986) and Thrashin' (1986), as himself in Bruce Weber's Chet Baker documentary Let's Get Lost (1988), and played musicians in Less Than Zero (1987), the hip nostalgic road movie Roadside Prophets (1992), and Terry Gilliam's unpopular adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998). Flea has also worked solely as an actor, playing small roles most notably in Back to the Future Part II (1989), Back to the Future Part III (1990), and in Gus Van Sant's Shakespearean street hustler tale My Own Private Idaho (1991); he has also added his voice to the animated TV show The Wild Thornberries (1998). Playing off his distinctive rock star image, Flea appeared as one of the black-clad nihilists in Joel Coen and Ethan Coen's bowling comedy/western/caper The Big Lebowski (1998). Departing from his more frequent bit-player status, Flea stepped into a more substantial part in the indie crime drama Liar's Poker (1999). He lent his voice to The Wild Thornberrys Movie as well as Rugrats Go Wild, and has contributed to various documentaries including Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, Patti Smith: Dream of Life, and The Other F Word.

Trivia: Carolina-based actor/writer/producer George "Buck" Flower started out in "regionals"--non-Hollywood productions aimed at Southern neighborhood moviehouses and drive-ins. Flower also showed up in "four-wallers" for the family-matinee trade: he was seen as Boomer in all three Wilderness Family flicks of the late 1970s-early 1980s. Additional appearances include the Cook in John Carpenter's Starman (1984), the title character's father in Alan Parker's Birdy (1984), and "Nuke" LaLoosh's dad in Ron Shelton's Bull Durham (1988). The bulk of George "Buck" Flowers' work can be found in such low-budget esoterica as Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-o-Rama (1987).

Trivia: An alumnus of the famous Second City improvisational troupe that produced some of the best comics of the '70s and '80s, Joe Flaherty is best remembered for playing Guy Caballero, the Argentine owner of the fictional Channel 109, the home of Second City TV (1977-1981), a hilarious Toronto-based parody of all things television. Flaherty made his feature-film debut in Alex and the Gypsy (1976). He has subsequently gone on to play small character roles in numerous films of widely varying quality. Flaherty also occasionally appeared as a television guest star in shows such as Ellen (1994-1998).

Trivia: Best remembered for playing plucky cub reporter Jimmy Olson in all four of the Superman films that starred Christopher Reeve, Marc McClure made his film debut in the Disney film Freaky Friday and in the television movie James at 15 (both 1977). He went on to play supporting roles and occasional leads in both venues. In 1979, McClure starred in the short-lived TV series California Fever.