Trivia: Dark-haired comedic actor Jon Cryer remains best-known for his lovable performance as Duckie Dale in the 1986 teen movie Pretty in Pink. Even though he was 21 years old playing a high school senior, he exhibited a vulnerable yet goofy freshness unlike most other teen stars. The son of Broadway performers, he was schooled in the Bronx before making his film debut in the romantic comedy No Small Affair as a young photographer obsessed with Demi Moore. He made some unfortunate movies after Pretty in Pink, including the Ferris Bueller knock-off Morgan Stewart's Coming Home, which suggested unfair comparisons with actor Matthew Broderick. Other forgettable movies followed until he was cast as the star of the sitcom The Famous Teddy Z, which was then followed by several other short-lived sitcoms. After appearing in the anarchic comedy Hot Shots!, he proved fairly successful with offbeat comedies and independent films. He helped write the talky romantic comedy The Pompatus of Love then starred in the similarly themed Plan B. He teamed up with director Richard Schenkman to write the offbeat comedy Went to Coney Island on a Mission From God...Be Back by Five. In 2003, Cryer re-teamed with Hotshots! co-star Charlie Sheen for the sitcom Two and a Half Men, which proved to be a massive success. The show was so popular that it stayed on the air, even after Sheen left in 2011, with Ashton Kutcher filling in the empty spot in the cast.

Trivia: Having acquired legions of loyal female followers with his portrayal of the ever-horny and dimwitted Kelso in the popular television comedy series That 70s Show, it may come as a surprise that male model-turned-actor Ashton Kutcher ironically majored in biochemical engineering at the University of Iowa before his "discovery" in an Iowa bar and subsequent stint on the catwalk for such fashion industry luminaries as Versace and Calvin Klein.Born in Cedar Rapids, IA, along with a fraternal twin named Michael, Kutcher was bitten by the acting bug in high school. Balancing his love for the stage with his talent for wrestling before gravitating toward the former in such high school productions as Annie, Kutcher worked numerous odd jobs during his tenure at the University of Iowa before winning the Fresh Faces of Iowa contest in 1997 and heading for New York. Competing in that same year's International Model and Talent Agency competition before being signed to the next agency, Kutcher relocated to Los Angeles the following year and soon landed his breakthrough role on That 70s Show. Though he had small roles in Down to You and Reindeer Games (both 2000), Kutcher's first major big-screen role was in Dude, Where's My Car? (also 2000), in which he teamed his airheaded goofiness with that of American Pie's Sean William Scott. Breaking out of the mold with a more serious turn alongside James Van Der Beek in 2001's Texas Rangers, a return to comedy wasn't far behind with a role in My Boss's Daughter scheduled for release later that same year. Though My Boss's Daughter would ultimately be pushed back to a late February 2003 release date, Kutcher and actress Brittany Murphy (8 Mile) scored a modest hit when Just Married was released into theaters in early January of the same year. Despite receiving only a lukewarm reception from critics, positive audience turnout ensured that Just Married would nevertheless hold on to a position in the box office top-ten for nearly a month after its release. Though My Boss's Daughter failed to stir up much at the box-office, the one-two punch of his immensely popular MTV prank show Punk'd and a high-profile romance with Demi Moore (whom he later married and then divorced) shot Kutcher's celebrity stock through the roof in 2003. He subsequently closed out the year with a self-depricating role in the holiday hit Cheaper by the Dozen.2004 saw Kutcher trying his hand at drama once again with the supernatural thriller The Butterfly Effect. Though the reviews were mixed, the film had its share of fans among critics and went on to makeup its budget more than three-times over. Kutcher continued finding success on the small-screen by producing the series Beauty and the Geek. In 2005 he teamed with Bernie Mac for the racial comedy Guess Who, and 2006 found Kutcher trying his hand at more action oriented fare teaming up with Kevin Costner for The Guardian. The actor would continue to find his place in the romcom niche with 2008's What Happens in Vegas, 2010's Valentine's Day and 2011's No Strings Attached, but made particular waves with a return to television, when he famously signed on to replace Charlie Sheen on the sitcom Two and a Half Men in 2011. His movie career slowed due to his television commitments, but he did find time to play Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in the 2013 bio-drama Jobs. Two and a Half Men wrapped up in 2015, leaving Kutcher free to return to movies and producing.

Trivia: Expressive comic actress Conchata Ferrell attended drama classes at West Virginia University and Marshall University. Ferrell's first off-Broadway appearance was as good-natured hooker April Green in Lanford Wilson's Hot L Baltimore (1972), a role she would reprise in the short-lived 1975 TV sitcom version. In 1973, she won an Obie Award for her performance in The Sea Horse. Her first major film role was feisty frontier widow Elinore in the 1981 western Heartland, a performance that earned her a "Wrangler Award" from the Cowboy Hall of Fame. She has also been seen in Network (1976), Mystic Pizza (1988) and Edward Scissorhands (1991), to name but a few. As active on TV as elsewhere, Conchata Ferrell has played such regular TV-series roles as female cop Wilhelmina "The Fox" Johnson in BJ and the Bear (1979), café owner Vangie Cruise in McClain's Law (1981), nurse Joan Thor in the original ER (1984), zoo secretary Kate Galindo in A Peaceable Kingdom (1989), entertainment lawyer Susan Bloom in LA Law (1991-92 season, earning an Emmy nomination in 1992), and cynical psychologist/advice columnist Dr. Madeline Stoessinger in Hearts Afire (1993-95).

Trivia: Philadelphia-born actress Holland Taylor majored in drama at Bennington College, and arrived in New York in 1966, hoping to take the theater world by storm. That didn't quite happen, despite Taylor making her Broadway debut in The Devils, starring Anne Bancroft, and working with Alan Bates in Butley (she was also in that notorious failure, Moose Murders). A protégée of legendary acting teacher Stella Adler, Taylor endured 14 years of disappointments interspersed with the occasional success, and played in one heavily hyped television series (CBS's Beacon Hill) that failed in less than a season, all of it broken up by work in the daytime drama The Edge of Night. Finally, in 1980, lightning struck when Taylor was cast in the series Bosom Buddies in the role of Ruth Dunbar, the acid-tongued advertising agency executive employing the two protagonists of the program, played by Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari. Taylor accepted the part despite some initial reluctance, mostly thanks to Adler's urging, but she proved almost as much of a breakout personality onscreen as Hanks and Scolari. Taylor took lines written with venom and added her own wry twists to their meanings and inflections, and made all of her scenes memorable. The series only lasted two full seasons, but when it folded, Taylor was being offered television and movie roles on a steady basis. Most of her subsequent series didn't last more than a season each, but Taylor's parts, usually as charmingly acerbic middle-aged women, stayed big and got larger, up through programs such as The Naked Truth, starring Téa Leoni. Taylor's big-screen appearances have included supporting roles in such diverse films as The Truman Show, Spy Kids 2, Legally Blonde, George of the Jungle, Romancing the Stone, The Jewel of the Nile, How to Make an American Quilt, Fame, She's Having a Baby, and To Die For. She's also had some choice parts in made-for-television movies, including playing Nancy Reagan in The Day Reagan Was Shot, but Taylor's most successful medium remains the television series. In recent years, she has proved a mainstay of producer David E. Kelley's stable of actors, taking on the recurring role of Judge Roberta Kittleson, a Boston jurist whose sex-drive is a match for her legal intellect, in the series The Practice (with a cross-over appearance in the same role on Ally McBeal), winning an Emmy for her work on the show's 1999 season. That series, which has included an episode featuring Taylor in a semi-nude scene, has not only given the middle-aged actress a chance to explore sides of her screen persona that other producers never even considered, but has transformed her into a sex symbol among the ranks of mature actresses, right up there with Kathleen Turner as Mrs. Robinson in the stage version of The Graduate.As the new century began she continued to work steadily in both movies and TV in projects such as Happy Accidents, playing the first-lady in The Day Reagan Was Shot, Legally Blonde, and Spy Kids 2. She returned to series television with a recurring role on Two and a Half Men, which was the most-watched sitcom on TV during part of its successful run. She also appeared in the big screen comedy Baby Mama.

Trivia: When Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures was released to international acclaim in 1994, it launched the career of a then-unknown actress by the name of Kate Winslet. Unfortunately, it didn't do the same for Winslet's co-star, the similarly unknown and equally talented Melanie Lynskey. As Pauline Parker, a New Zealand schoolgirl who, along with best friend Juliete Hulme (Winslet), brutally murders her mother, Lynskey turned in a performance that combined sullen adolescent alienation with cold-blooded brutality. Although marked as a promising newcomer, she did not enjoy a subsequent breakthrough of the magnitude of Winslet's but instead worked quietly for a few years, gradually earning belated recognition from audiences and industry figures alike.Born in New Plymouth, New Zealand, on May 16, 1977, Lynskey was a high school student when she was discovered by Peter Jackson's wife, Frances Walsh, who cast her in Heavenly Creatures. Following the film's success, the fledgling actress moved to Los Angeles, but encountered endless rejection thanks to her non-blonde, non-waifish physique, and after only six weeks returned to her native country. Eighteen months of film, theatre, and English studies at Victoria University followed, as did a supporting role in Jackson's The Frighteners (1996). A self-professed attitude change -- the result of her friendship with director Gaylene Preston, who encouraged the actress to make herself a stronger person -- also altered Lynskey's approach to acting, and she subsequently won a role in her first Hollywood film, Andy Tennant's Ever After (1998). Cast as the not-so-evil stepsister of Drew Barrymore's Cinderella-like heroine, Lynskey enjoyed the greater recognition the film's success afforded her and went on to supporting roles the next year in Detroit Rock City, in which she co-starred with Natasha Lyonne and Edward Furlong, and Michael Cacoyannis' adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, which also starred Alan Bates, Charlotte Rampling, and Katrin Cartlidge. With another successful independent film, Jamie Babbit's But I'm a Cheerleader (1999), and a Jerry Bruckheimer chick flick, Coyote Ugly, also under her belt, Lynskey began the new decade on a decidedly promising note.

Trivia: The slightly stocky American actor Angus T. Jones began his career as a child star, before the age of ten, in the early 2000s. Best known as the "half" in the blockbuster sitcom Two and a Half Men (2003) -- a role this pint-sized tyro tackled admirably alongside Gen-X screen heavies Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer -- Jones also appeared in a number of Hollywood features. He played James in the poorly received animal picture See Spot Run (2001), Hunter in the outstanding Disney baseball melodrama The Rookie (2002), and George Junior in George of the Jungle 2 (2003).

Trivia: While his police-chief father wanted him to become a soccer player, Austrian-born actor Arnold Schwarzenegger opted instead for a bodybuilding career. Born July 30, 1947, in the small Austrian town of Graz, Schwarzenegger went on to win several European contests and international titles (including Mr. Olympia) and then came to the U.S. for body-building exhibitions, billing himself immodestly but fairly accurately as "The Austrian Oak." Though his thick Austrian accent and slow speech patterns led some to believe that the Austrian Oak was shy a few leaves, Schwarzenegger was, in fact, a highly motivated and intelligent young man. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in business and economics, he invested his contest earnings in real estate and a mail-order bodybuilding equipment company.A millionaire before the age of 22, Schwarzenegger decided to try acting. Producers were impressed by his physique but not his mouthful of a last name, so it was as Arnold Strong that he made his film bow in the low-budget spoof Hercules in New York (1970, with a dubbed voice). He reverted to his own name for the 1976 film Stay Hungry, then achieved stardom as "himself" in the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron. In The Villain (1979), a cartoon-like Western parody, he played "Handsome Stranger," exhibiting a gift for understated comedy that would more or less go unexploited for many years thereafter. With Conan the Barbarian (1982) and its sequel, Conan the Destroyer (1984), the actor established himself as an action star, though his acting was backtracking into two-dimensionality (understandably, given the nature of the Conan role). As the murderous android title character in The Terminator (1984), Schwarzenegger became a bona fide box-office draw, and also established his trademark of coining repeatable catchphrases in his films: "I'll be back," in Terminator, "Consider this a divorce," in Total Recall (1990), and so on.As Danny De Vito's unlikely pacifistic sibling in Twins (1988), Schwarzenegger received the praise of critics who noted his "unsuspected" comic expertise (quite forgetting The Villain). In Kindergarten Cop (1991), Schwarzenegger played a hard-bitten police detective who found his true life's calling as a schoolteacher (his character was a cop only because it was expected of him by his policeman father, which could have paralleled his own life). Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), wherein Schwarzenegger exercised his star prerogative and insisted that the Terminator become a good guy, was the most expensive film ever made up to its time -- and one of the biggest moneymakers. The actor's subsequent action films were equally as costly; sometimes the expenditures paid off, while other times the result was immensely disappointing -- for the box-office disappointment Last Action Hero (1992), Schwarzenegger refreshingly took full responsibility, rather than blaming the failure on his production crew or studio as other "superstars" have been known to do.A rock-ribbed Republican despite his marriage to JFK's niece, Maria Shriver (with whom he has four children), Schwarzenegger was appointed by George Bush in 1990 as chairman of the President's Council of Physical Fitness and Sports, a job he took as seriously and with as much dedication as any of his films. A much-publicized investment in the showbiz eatery Planet Hollywood increased the coffers in Schwarzenegger's already bulging bank account. Schwarzenegger then added directing to his many accomplishments, piloting a few episodes of the cable-TV series Tales From the Crypt as well as a 1992 remake of the 1945 film Christmas in Connecticut.Schwarzenegger bounced back from the disastrous Last Action Hero with 1994's True Lies, which, despite its mile-wide streak of misogyny and its gaping plot and logic holes, was one of the major hits of that summer's movie season. Following the success of True Lies, Schwarzenegger went back to doing comedy with Junior, co-starring with Emma Thompson and his old Twins accomplice Danny De Vito. The film met with critically mixed results, although it fared decently at the box office. Undeterred, Schwarzenegger continued down the merry, if treacherous, path of alternating action with comedy with 1996's Eraser and Jingle All the Way, the latter of which proved to be both a critical bomb and a box-office disappointment. In a move that suggested he had realized that audiences wanted him back in the world of assorted weaponry and explosives, Schwarzenegger returned to the action realm with 1997's Batman & Robin, which unfortunately proved to be a huge critical disappointment, although, in the tradition of most Schwarzenegger action films, it did manage to gross well over 100 million dollars at the box office and over 130 million dollars more the world over.The turn of the century found Schwarzenegger's star losing some of its luster with a pair of millennial paranoia films, 1999's End of Days and 2000's The 6th Day. The former film -- in which a security consultant has to save the world from Satan -- was critically lambasted and, despite a powerful opening weekend, failed to recoup its cost in the States. The latter film -- a cloning parable which bore more than a passing resemblance to Total Recall -- received more positive notices, but took in less than half the receipts Days did just one year prior. Perhaps as a response to these failures, Schwarzenegger prepped three films reminiscent of former successes, all scheduled for release in 2001 and 2002: the terrorist action thriller Collateral Damage, True Lies 2, and the long-anticipated Terminator 3. Though Collateral Damage received a chilly reception at the box office and the development of True Lies 2 fell into question, longtime fans of the cigar-chomping strongman rejoiced when Arnold resumed his role as a seriously tough cyborg in Terminator 3. Though he made a cameo in director Frank Coraci's adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days, Arnold's most notable role of the new millenium was political -- Schwarzenegger replaced Gray Davis as governor of California in the highly controversial recall election of 2003.In 2010, Schwarzenegger played the character of Trench in The Expendables, an action thriller following a group of tough-as-nails mercinaries as they deal with the aftermath of a mission gone wrong, and reprised the role for The Expendables 2 in 2012.

Trivia: As the daughter of American child star-turned-cult favorite Russ Tamblyn (Peyton Place, Twin Peaks), Hollywood heartthrob and ingenue Amber Tamblyn inherited the stunning red hair, fair complexion, and acting chops of her famous dad. Born in the early '80s to Russ and wife Bonnie Murray, Tamblyn was discovered by an agent at her school during her preteen years, and soon landed a prominent role as the maniacal tot Emily Quartermaine on General Hospital -- a turn she sustained from 1995 to 2001.Tamblyn guested on such series as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Boston Public in the early 2000s, and tackled a small role in Gore Verbinski's 2002 shocker The Ring (as one of Samara's unfortunate victims), but the actress failed to generate a sizeable fan base prior to the advent of the fantasy-tinged drama series Joan of Arcadia in 2003. Tamblyn received first billing in that program as Joan Girardi, a seemingly average high school teenager who is tapped by the Almighty to perform various assignments. Joan drew a substantial cult following and outstanding critical assessments (USA Today pegged it as the most promising dramatic series of 2003), but unfortunately, its popularity failed to spread beyond a small enthusiastic band of adherents and it folded within two years.Tamblyn then segued back into film work, with first billing in Ken Kwapis' coming-of-age comedy drama The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in 2005, as one of four teenage girlfriends (alongside America Ferrera, Blake Lively, and Alexis Bledel) who make a good-luck pact; the picture received outstanding reviews and ensured continued stardom for Tamblyn. In 2006, the young actress essayed the title role in Hilary Brougher's fine psychological drama Stephanie Daley, about a troubled teenager accused of killing her newborn child. Tamblyn also traveled the programmer route that year with a turn in the horror sequel The Grudge 2. The following year, the actress starred in Beth Schacter's teen comedy Normal Adolescent Behavior and Rigoberto Castaneda's indie thriller Blackout. In the latter -- a high-wire suspense picture about a bunch of people trapped in a hospital elevator -- Tamblyn played a young woman desperate to reach her grandmother before the elderly woman dies. In 2008, she reprised her Traveling Pants role in the sequel, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.Amber Tamblyn is also a prolific poet and runs her own website, The Rebel Asylum, with postings of her work. Her volume of poetry Free Stallion was published by Simon & Schuster in 2005.

Trivia: Born August 19th, 1964, John Stamos started his career as Blackie Parrish on the soap opera General Hospital, but his most recognizable role remains Uncle Jesse on the family sitcom Full House. He made his film debut in the motorcycle movie Born to Ride, but he never fully made a transition to films. After a short time recording with the Beach Boys as a singer and drummer, he started dancing as well and joined the Broadway cast of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. In 1998, he married his model/actress Rebecca Romijn and hosted the VH1 celebrity talk show The List. He then turned to producing television with the ABC miniseries The Beach Boys: An American Family. In 2002, he began playing the Master of Ceremonies in the Broadway production of Cabaret, and in 2006 Stamos joined cast of the long-running medical drama ER in the role of paramedic-turned-intern Tony Gates. Stamos enjoyed a resurgence of popularity for his turn as the dentist boyfriend of a charmingly obsessive compulsive high school guidance counselor on the popular television show Glee.

Trivia: Born into a show business family -- father Michael Hawkins is a stage actor and mother Mary Jo Slater is a casting director -- Christian Slater made his acting debut at age eight after his mother cast him in the television soap opera One Life to Live on a lark. The following year Slater was on Broadway starring opposite Dick Van Dyke in The Music Man. Slater would remain on Broadway for at least two more productions. As a youth, Slater attended Manhattan's Professional Children's School. He made his television debut in the movie Living Proof: The Hank Williams Junior Story (1983) and his film debut two years later when he was only 16 in The Legend of Billy Jean. Slater earned some of his first favorable notice starring opposite Sean Connery in The Name of the Rose (1986). He next appeared in Tucker, a Man and His Dream (1988), and more films followed after that, but Slater did not become a star until he co-starred opposite Winona Ryder in the darkly satirical Heathers in which he played an anarchic sociopath. His maniacal over-the-top performance led to comparisons with Jack Nicholson. After Heathers, it looked as if Slater was destined to be typecast into playing lunatic villains or seriously troubled youths. In the latter regard, life seemed to mirror his art.In 1989, he was arrested in West Hollywood for leading the police on a drunken car chase that ended when Slater crashed his car into a telephone pole. While trying to escape the car, he kicked a cop with his cowboy boot and then attempted to flee over a fence. In 1994, he was arrested for taking a gun aboard a plane. In 1997, Slater was arrested for attacking his lover and biting a police officer in the belly while drinking heavily; he was sentenced to spend 90 days in a suburban jail in early 1998, all this just one day after his newest film, Hard Rain, premiered. Shortly after sentencing, Slater admitted that he had also been taking cocaine and heroin at the time. As part of his sentence, he had to serve post-jail time in a drug/alcohol rehab program and attend a year-long program on preventing domestic violence. Despite his personal struggles, Slater has maintained a film career starring as a high school geek with a cool secret life in Pump Up the Volume (1990) to the romantic Bed of Roses (1996) to high-voltage actioners like Broken Arrow (1996). In his 1997 production Julian Po, he gained weight, grew a mustache, and appeared as a suicidal bookkeeper who embezzles money from his company so he can fulfill one final wish. Though subsequent roles in such critically-panned films as 3000 Miles to Graceland, Windtalkers, and Alone in the Dark did little to advance Slater's career, recurring roles in such popular television series' as Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing and J.J. Abrams' Alias offered not only more exposure, but a chance to reestablish himself on the small screen as well. Meanwhile, a promising debut as a secret agent with a duel personality on NBC's My Own Worst Enemy proved a bit of a false start when the network never offered the show a chance to find its legs. Ever resiliant, Slater quicky bounced back with ABC's The Forgotten in 2009 and Fox's Breaking In in 2011, though neither series failed to catch on, leaving the veteran actor to take up arms as a vengeful gunslinger in the 2012 western Dawn Rider, and get caught up in one of history's most notorious blood feud's in Fred Olen Ray's Bad Blood: The Hatfiends and McCoys.