Trivia: Whether on stage or the big screen, Delroy Lindo projects a powerful presence that is virtually impossible to ignore. Though it was not his first film role, his portrayal of manic depressive numbers boss West Indian Archie in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992) is what first attracted attention to Lindo's considerable talents. Since then, his star has slowly been on the rise and the actor has had steady opportunity to display his talent in a number of diverse films.The son of Jamaican parents, Lindo was born in London, England, on November 18, 1952. He was raised in Lewisham, England, until his teens, when he and his mother moved across the Atlantic to Toronto. Following a move to the U.S. a short time later, he became involved in acting, eventually graduating from San Francisco's renowned American Conservatory Theater. After graduation, he landed his first film role, that of an Army sergeant in More American Graffiti (1979). He would not appear in another film for a decade, spending the intervening years on the stage. In 1982, Lindo debuted on Broadway in Master Harold and the Boys, directed by the play's author, Athol Fugard. Six years later, he earned a Tony nomination for his portrayal of Harold Loomis in Joe Turner's Come and Gone.Although possessing obvious talent and the potential for a distinguished career, Lindo found himself in something of a rut during the late '80s. Wanting someone more aggressive and appreciative of his talents, he changed agents (he'd had the same one through most of his early career). It was a smart move, but it was director Spike Lee who provided the boost that the actor's career needed. The director was impressed enough with Lindo to first cast him in Malcolm X and then as patriarch Woody Carmichael in his semi-autobiographical comedy Crooklyn (1994), a role for which Lindo earned some long overdue praise. 1995 proved to be another big year for the actor, as he landed substantial supporting roles in two major films, playing a mercurial drug dealer in Barry Sonnenfeld's Get Shorty and another drug dealer in Lee's Clockers. The following year, he could be seen in yet another villainous role in Feeling Minnesota. However, he also proved that he could portray the other side of the law, in the Mel Gibson thriller Ransom, in which he played an FBI agent, and John Woo's Broken Arrow, which cast him as a colonel. He made good as baseball player Satchel Paige in the upbeat Baseball in Black and White that same year, winning himself an NAACP Image nomination in the process.Following a turn as a jaded angel opposite Holly Hunter in Danny Boyle's A Life Less Ordinary (1997), Lindo returned to a more earthly realm, further proving his talent for playing shadesters in The Cider House Rules (1999), in which he portrayed a cider house foreman who impregnates his daughter, and Romeo Must Die (2000), a loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet that cast him as a vengeful mob boss. Following roles in Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000), Heist (2001), and The Last Castle (also 2001), Lindo re-teamed with Romeo star Jet Li for another high-kicking action opus, The One, in late 2001. Supporting roles in such high profile Hollywood films as The Core, Sahara, and Domino kept Lindo in the public eye over the course of the following decade, and in 2009 the actor lent his voice to the character of Beta in the runaway Pixar hit Up.

Trivia: Born in Connecticut, John Ratzenberger spent most of his early adulthood in England and Europe. After a brief stint as assistant to a London tree surgeon, Ratzenberger helped organize the English improvisational troupe "Sal's Meat Market" in 1971. He made his first screen appearances in such British-based productions as The Ritz (1976), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Superman (1978), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Gandhi (1982). In 1982, Ratzenberger read for the part of post-office employee Norm on the upcoming American TV sitcom Cheers. Sensing that he hadn't won the role (which was true), Ratzenberger asked if the cast of Cheers included the character of "a bar know-it-all." Suddenly he launched into an impromptu ten-minute monologue, posing as an endlessly chattering repository of useless information. Then and there, the character of Cliff Clavin was born--a character Ratzenberger played for the next ten years. A man of many talents, Ratzenberger directed several Cheers episodes, and also co-wrote two British television plays Friends in Space (1978) and Scalped (1979). Tirelessly active in the pro-ecology movement, John Ratzenberger was owner and operator of Eco-Pak, a conservation-conscious packaging firm. Since the demise of Cheers, the actor has resurrected Cliff Clavin in the form of an advertising pitchman and has appeared in many commercials. He has also found success doing voice overs for advertising and voicework in films such as Toy Story (1995) and Dog's Best Friend (1997). Ratzenberger continued to make occasional guest appearances on television series such as Caroline in the City.He maintained a relationship with Pixar after Toy Story and went on to lend his distinctive voice to each of their films through Cars 2 in 2011. He returned to TV to appear in the fourth season of the reality competition series Dancing With the Stars.

Trivia: A student of mime artist Marcel Marceau, LA-born Laraine Newman utilized her artistic training in the cause of comedy. In 1972, she joined the Groundlings improvisational troupe (spawning ground for such major comic talents as Phil Hartman and Paul "Pee-wee Herman" Reubens), making her film debut with several fellow improvvers in the 1975 pastiche Tunnelvision. She went on to work as an ensemble player on the 1975 summer-replacement TV variety series Manhattan Transfer. From 1975 through 1980, Laraine was a regular on the ground-breaking weekend comedy series Saturday Night Live. While her contributions were always well-received, Laraine tended to play third banana to the other SNL ladies Gilda Radner and Jane Curtin, reportedly because of her acute shyness. Her best moments on the series occurred when she played alien teenager Laarta in the "Coneheads" sketches; her particular low point was the time she nearly drowned during a "witch-hunt" sketch starring Steve Martin. Free of her SNL duties in 1980, Laraine played a supporting role in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, and was featured in such "comedy salads" (Ms. Newman's own term for feature films overloaded with TV comedians) as Wholly Moses (1980) and Yellowbeard (1982). The world first saw Ms. Newman's new nose job when she co-starred in the 1985 John Travolta-Jamie Lee Curtis starrer Perfect. The following year, Laraine hosted a syndicated "bad movie" TV anthology, Canned Film Festival. Laraine Newman's screen appearances of the 1990s have included the role of Susan Rock in 1993's The Flintstones and a revival of Laarta in the like-vintage The Coneheads.