Trivia: A dancer, singer, highly regarded actress and metaphysical time traveler, Shirley MacLaine is certainly among Hollywood's most unique stars. Born Shirley MacLane Beaty on April 24, 1934 in Richmond, Virginia, MacLaine was the daughter of drama coach and former actress Kathlyn MacLean Beaty and Ira O. Beaty, a professor of psychology and philosophy. Her younger brother, Warren Beatty, also grew up to be an important Hollywood figure as an actor/director/ producer and screenwriter. MacLaine's mother, who gave up her own dreams of stardom for her young family, greatly motivated her daughter to become an actress and dancer. MacLaine took dance lessons from age two, first performed publicly at age four, and at 16 went to New York, making her Broadway debut as a chorus girl in Me and Juliet (1953). When not scrambling for theatrical work, MacLaine worked as a model. Interestingly, MacLaine's big break was the result of another actress's bad luck. In 1954, MacLaine was understudying Broadway actress Carol Haney The Pajama Game when Haney fractured her ankle. MacLaine replaced her and was spotted and offered a movie contract by producer Hal Wallis. With her auburn hair cut impishly short, the young actress made her film debut in Hitchock's black comedy The Trouble With Harry (1955). Later that year, she co-starred opposite Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in the comedy Artists and Models. In her next feature, Around the World in 80 Days (1956), she appeared as an Indian princess. MacLaine earned her first Oscar nomination for her portrayal of a pathetic tart who shocks a conservative town by showing up on the arm of young war hero Frank Sinatra in Some Came Running (1959). She then got the opportunity to show off her long legs and dancing talents in Can-Can (1960). Prior to that, she appeared with Rat Packers Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford in Oceans Eleven (1960). MacLaine, the only female member of the famed group, would later recount her experiences with them in her seventh book My Lucky Stars. In 1960, she won her second Oscar nomination for Billy Wilder's comedy/drama The Apartment, and a third nomination for Irma La Douce (1963). MacLaine's career was in high gear during the '60s, with her appearing in everything from dramas to madcap comedies to musicals such as What a Way to Go! (1964) and Bob Fosse's Sweet Charity! (1969). In addition to her screen work, she actively participated in Robert Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign and served as a Democratic Convention delegate. She was similarly involved in George McGovern's 1972 campaign. Bored by sitting around on movie sets all day awaiting her scenes, MacLaine started writing down her thoughts and was thus inspired to add writing to her list of talents. She published her first book, Don't Fall Off the Mountain in 1970. She next tried her hand at series television in 1971, starring in the comedy Shirley's World (1971-72) as a globe-trotting photographer. The role reflected her real-life reputation as a world traveler, and these experiences resulted in her second book Don't Fall Off the Mountain and the documentary The Other Half of the Sky -- A China Memoir (1975) which she scripted, produced and co-directed with Claudia Weill. MacLaine returned to Broadway in 1976 with a spectacular one-woman show A Gypsy in My Soul, and the following year entered a new phase in her career playing a middle-aged former ballerina who regrets leaving dance to live a middle-class life in The Turning Point. MacLaine was memorable starring as a lonely political wife opposite Peter Sellers' simple-minded gardener in Being There (1979), but did not again attract too much attention until she played the over-protective, eccentric widow Aurora Greenway in James L. Brooks' Terms of Endearment (1983), a role that finally won MacLaine an Academy Award. That same year, she published the candid Out on a Limb, bravely risking public ridicule by describing her experiences and theories concerning out-of-body travel and reincarnation. MacLaine's film appearances were sporadic through the mid '80s, although she did appear in a few television specials. In 1988, she came back strong with three great roles in Madame Sousatzka (1988), Steel Magnolias (1989) and particularly Postcards from the Edge (1990), in which she played a fading star clinging to her own career while helping her daughter Meryl Streep, a drug addicted, self-destructive actress. Through the '90s, MacLaine specialized in playing rather crusty and strong-willed eccentrics, such as her title character in the 1994 comedy Guarding Tess. In 1997, MacLaine stole scenes as a wise grande dame who helps pregnant, homeless Ricki Lake in Mrs. Winterbourne, and the same year revived Aurora Greenway in The Evening Star, the critically maligned sequel to Terms of Endearment.MacLaine's onscreen performances were few and far between in the first half of the next decade, but in 2005 she returned in relatively full force, appearing in three features. She took on a pair of grandmother roles in the comedy-dramas In Her Shoes and Rumor Has It..., and was a perfect fit for the part of Endora in the bigscreen take on the classic sitcom Bewitched. In the coming years, McLaine would continue to give critically acclaimed performances in movies like Coco Chanel, Valentine's Day, and Bernie.For a long time, MacLaine did seminars on her books, but in the mid '90s stopped giving talks, claiming she did not want "to be anyone's guru." She does, however, continue writing and remains a popular writer.

Trivia: With his rugged good looks and icon status, Clint Eastwood was long one of the few actors whose name on a movie marquee could guarantee a hit. Less well-known for a long time (at least until he won the Academy Award as Best Director for Unforgiven), was the fact that Eastwood was also a producer/director, with an enviable record of successes. Born May 31, 1930, in San Francisco, Eastwood worked as a logger and gas-station attendant, among other things, before coming to Hollywood in the mid-'50s. After his arrival, he played small roles in several Universal features (he's the pilot of the plane that napalms the giant spider at the end of Tarantula [1955]) before achieving some limited star status on the television series Rawhide. Thanks to the success of three Italian-made Sergio Leone Westerns -- A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) -- Eastwood soon exchanged this limited status for bona fide international stardom.Upon his return to the U.S., Eastwood set up his own production company, Malpaso, which had a hit right out of the box with the revenge Western Hang 'Em High (1968). He expanded his relatively limited acting range in a succession of roles -- most notably with the hit Dirty Harry (1971) -- during the late '60s and early '70s, and directed several of his most popular movies, including 1971's Play Misty for Me (a forerunner to Fatal Attraction), High Plains Drifter (1973, which took as its inspiration the tragic NYC murder of Kitty Genovese), and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). Though Eastwood became known for his violent roles, the gentler side of his persona came through in pictures such as Bronco Billy (1980), a romantic comedy that he directed and starred in. As a filmmaker, Eastwood learned his lessons from the best of his previous directors, Don Siegel and Sergio Leone, who knew just when to add some stylistic or visual flourish to an otherwise straightforward scene, and also understood the effect of small nuances on the big screen. Their approaches perfectly suited Eastwood's restrained acting style, and he integrated them into his filmmaking technique with startling results, culminating in 1993 with his Best Director Oscar for Unforgiven (1992). Also in 1993, Eastwood had another hit on his hands with In the Line of Fire. In 1995, he scored yet again with his film adaptation of the best-selling novel The Bridges of Madison County, in which he starred opposite Meryl Streep; in addition to serving as one of the film's stars, he also acted as its director and producer.Aside from producing the critical and financial misstep The Stars Fell on Henrietta in 1995, Eastwood has proven to be largely successful in his subsequent efforts. In 1997, he produced and directed the film adaptation of John Berendt's tale of Southern murder and mayhem, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and he followed that as the director, producer, and star of the same year's Absolute Power, 1999's True Crime, and 2000's Space Cowboys. With Eastwood's next movie, Blood Work (2002), many fans pondered whether the longtime actor/director still had what it took to craft a compelling film. Though some saw the mystery thriller as a fair notch in Eastwood's belt, many complained that the film was simply too routine, and the elegiac movie quickly faded at the box office. If any had voiced doubt as to Eastwood's abilities as a filmmaker in the wake of Blood Work, they were in for quite a surprise when his adaptation of the popular novel Mystic River hit screens in late 2003. Featuring a stellar cast that included Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon, Mystic River was a film that many critics and audiences cited as one of the director's finest. A downbeat meditation on violence and the nature of revenge, the film benefited not only from Eastwood's assured eye as a director, but also from a screenplay (by Brian Helgeland) that remained fairly faithful to Dennis Lehane's novel and from severely affecting performances by its three stars -- two of whom (Penn and Robbins) took home Oscars for their efforts. With Eastwood's reputation as a quality director now cemented well in place thanks to Mystic River's success, his remarkable ability to craft a compelling film was nearly beginning to eclipse his legendary status as an actor in the eyes of many. Indeed, few modern directors could exercise the efficiency and restraint that have highlighted Eastwood's career behind the camera, as so beautifully demonstrated in his 2004 follow-up, Million Dollar Baby. It would have been easy to layer the affecting tale of a young female boxer's rise from obscurity with the kind of pseudo-sentimental slop that seems to define such underdog-themed films, but it was precisely his refusal to do so that ultimately found the film taking home four of the six Oscars for which it was nominated at the 77th Annual Academy Awards -- including Best Director and Best Picture. Eastwood subsequently helmed two interrelated 2006 features that told the story of the Battle of Iwo Jima from different angles. The English-language Flags of Our Fathers relayed the incident from the American end, while the Japanese-language Letters from Iwo Jima conveyed the event from a Japanese angle. Both films opened to strong reviews and were lauded with numerous critics and industry awards, with Letters capturing the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language film before being nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award. Nowhere near slowing down, Eastwood would direct and star in the critically acclaimed Gran Torino, as well as helming critical favorites like Invictus, the Changeling, Hereafter, and J. Edgar, racking up numerous awards and nominations. In 2014, he helmed the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Jersey Boys, to mixed reviews, and the biographical adaptation American Sniper.A prolific jazz pianist who occasionally shows up to play piano at his Carmel, CA restaurant, The Hog's Breath Inn, Eastwood has also contributed songs and scores to several of his films, including The Bridges of Madison County and Mystic River. Many saw his critically championed 1988 film Bird, starring Forest Whitaker (on the life of Charlie "Bird" Parker), as the direct product of this interest. Eastwood also served as the mayor of Carmel, CA, from 1986 until 1988.

Trivia: Actor/director Manolo Fabregas represented the third generation of a proud Mexican theatrical family and like them, spent most of his life performing. He began appearing in films in the early '30s and over his long career appeared in at least 50 Mexican films, including Pecados de Amor (1933), Captain Scarlett (1953), and El Processo de las Senoritas Vivanco (1959). English-language films in which Fabregas appeared in include Candy Man (1979) and most notably Two Mules for Sister Sara (1969), in which he played opposite Shirley MacLaine and Clint Eastwood. In addition to acting, Fabregas also directed and produced many Mexican theatrical productions.

Trivia: Born in Puerto Rico, actor Alberto Morin received his education in France. While in that country he worked briefly for Pathe Freres, a major film distribution firm, then studied theatre at the Escuela de Mimica in Mexico. Upon the advent of talking pictures, Morin was signed by Fox Pictures to make Spanish-language films for the South American market. He remained in Hollywood as a character actor, seldom getting much of a part but nearly always making an impression in his few seconds of screen time. Morin also worked steadily in radio and on such TV weeklies as Dobie Gillis and Mr. Roberts, sometimes billed as Albert Morin. During his five decades in Hollywood, Alberto Morin contributed uncredited performances in several of Tinseltown's most laudable achievements: he played Rene Picard in the Bazaar sequence in Gone With the Wind (1939), was a French military officer at Rick's Cafe Americain in Casablanca (1942), and showed up as a boat skipper in Key Largo (1947).

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from 1950.

Trivia: An actor since the 1950s, Enrique Lucero is best remembered as host of the long-running Latin American radio series La Hora Latina. His screen credits include Villa (1958) and The Magnificent Seven (1960), both lensed in his native Mexico. In the 1960s, he was seen in a few horror films, quite a departure from his avuncular radio and TV image. Enrique Lucero's later films ranged from Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (in 1969 as Ignacio) to Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (in 1973 as Jake).

Trivia: The son of Mexican film legend Pedro Armendáriz, Pedro Armendáriz Jr. became a movie and television star in his own right, both in Mexico and abroad. Indeed, there are intriguing parallels between the careers of the two men: Both portrayed real-life Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa (Sr. in multiple films, Jr. in 1989's The Old Gringo), and both had supporting roles in James Bond movies (Sr. played 007's contact in Turkey in 1963's From Russia With Love, while Jr. played a corrupt politician in 1989's Licence to Kill).Armendáriz started acting in the '70s, mostly with bit parts in violent Westerns starring Anthony Quinn, John Wayne, or Clint Eastwood. While he became a leading man in his native country, he was relegated to mostly walk-on roles in U.S. productions for a long time; while American audiences would probably best recognize him from Licence to Kill or The Old Gringo, he also had small roles in Before Night Falls(2000), The Mexican (2001), Original Sin (2001), and The Crime of Padre Amaro (2002). Back in Mexico, he finally received greater recognition for his acting with starring roles in the acclaimed films La Ley de Herodes (2000) and Su Alteza Serenisma (2001).Interestingly, Hollywood grew more interested in casting him in positions of power toward the end of his life, as he he played authority figures in such diverse films as Robert Rodriguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), the Will Ferrell comedy Casa de mi Padre (2012), and The Mask of Zorro (1998) and its sequel The Legend of Zorro (2005). Armendáriz died of eye cancer on December 26, 2011.