Trivia: Daniel Baldwin is the third eldest child of six, four of whom are star actors (all the boys of the family, oddly enough). He attended Ball State University for about a year, planning to study psychology. He left school and began to work as a stand-up comedian before starting acting in 1988, making his debut in the TV movie Too Good To Be True. He landed a series regular role in Homicide: Life on the Street, staying with the show for three seasons. He later appeared in films like Mulholland Falls (1996) and Vampires (1998) and made guest appearances on television shows like The Outer Limits and NYPD Blue. In 2009, he played Julius Krug in the TV movie Grey Gardens and took on a recurring role in the series Cold Case.

Trivia: After supporting roles in a handful of small films and a short stint on the soap opera All My Children, New York-born Melissa Leo gained prominence on the critically-acclaimed Barry Levinson-produced television drama Homicide: Life on the Streets. After leaving the show in 1997, Leo continued to appear in a range of features, including 1999's 24 Hour Woman. But it was her role as Benicio Del Toro's wife in 2003's 21 Grams that gave Leo her first exposure to a wide moviegoing audience. The performance also won her recognition from the L.A. Film Critics Association, who named Leo the runner-up for the Best Supporting Actress honor.Leo continued to work steadily in a series of independent films including American Gun, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, and Stephanie Daley. In 2008 she landed the lead role in Courtney Hunt's debut feature Frozen River. As a financially strapped woman who turns to human-trafficking in order to earn a living, Leo earned thunderous critical praise as well as Best Actress nominations from both the Screen Actors Guild, and the Academy.Frozen River led her to steady work un a variety of projects, but it was as the matriarch of the boxing brothers in The Fighter that Leo had the biggest success of her career capturing numerous year-end critics awards as well as the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. In the years after that she appeared in works as diverse as the remake of Mildred Pierce for HBO, and Kevin Smith's Red State.

Trivia: Lead actor, onscreen from the late '80s.

Trivia: African American actor Yaphet Kotto was one of the most prominent beneficiaries of the upsurge in black-oriented theatrical pieces of the late 1950s; he appeared in many prestigious Broadway and off-Broadway productions, taking regional theatre work rather than accept stereotypical "mainstream" roles in movies and TV. Kotto's first film was Nothing But a Man (1964), an independently produced study of black pride in the face of white indifference. Though he vehemently steered clear of most of the '70s blaxploitation fare, in 1972, Kotto produced, directed and wrote the feature film Speed Limit 65 (aka The Limit and Time Limit), a one-of-a-kind "black biker" film. The biggest production with which Kotto was associated in the early 1970s was the James Bond film Live and Let Die, in which, as the villainous Mr. Big, he was blown up in the final scene (a similarly grisly fate awaited Kotto in 1979's Alien). On television, Yaphet Kotto was a regular on the TV series For Love and Honor (1983) and Homicide: Life on the Streets (1992), and was seen as Ugandan president Idi Amin in the 1977 TV movie Raid on Entebbe.

Trivia: Onstage, on television, in the movies or in a serious interview, listening to and watching comedian/actor Robin Williams was an extraordinary experience. An improvisational master with a style comparable to Danny Kaye, his words rushed forth in a gush of manic energy. They punctuated even the most basic story with sudden subject detours that often dissolved into flights of comic fancy, bawdy repartee, and unpredictable celebrity impressions before returning earthward with some pithy comment or dead-on observation.Born in Chicago on July 21st, 1951, Williams was raised as an only child and had much time alone with which to develop his imagination, often by memorizing Jonathan Winters' comedy records. After high school, Williams studied political science at Claremont Men's College, as well as drama at Marin College in California and then at Juilliard. His first real break came when he was cast as a crazy space alien on a fanciful episode of Happy Days. William's portrayal of Mork from Ork delighted audiences and generated so great a response that producer Garry Marshall gave Williams his own sitcom, Mork and Mindy, which ran from 1978 to 1982. The show was a hit and established Williams as one of the most popular comedians (along with Richard Pryor and Billy Crystal) of the '70s and '80s.Williams made his big screen debut in the title role of Robert Altman's elaborate but financially disastrous comic fantasy Popeye (1980). His next films included the modestly successful The World According to Garp, The Survivors, Moscow on the Hudson, Club Paradise, The Best of Times. Then in 1987, writer-director Barry Levinson drew from both sides of Williams - the manic shtickmeister and the studied Juliard thesp - for Good Morning, Vietnam, in which the comedian-cum-actor portrayed real-life deejay Adrian Cronauer, stationed in Saigon during the late sixties. Levinson shot the film strategically, by encouraging often outrageous, behind-the-mike improvisatory comedy routines for the scenes of Cronauer's broadcasts but evoking more sober dramatizations for Williams's scenes outside of the radio station. Thanks in no small part to this strategy, Williams received a much-deserved Oscar nomination for the role, but lost to Michael Douglas in Wall Street.Williams subsequently tackled a restrained performance as an introverted scientist trying to help a catatonic Robert De Niro in Awakenings (1990). He also earned accolades for playing an inspirational English teacher in the comedy/drama Dead Poets Society (1989) -- a role that earned him his second Oscar nomination. Williams's tragi-comic portrayal of a mad, homeless man in search of salvation and the Holy Grail in The Fisher King (1991) earned him a third nomination. In 1993, he lent his voice to two popular animated movies, Ferngully: The Last Rain Forest and most notably Aladdin, in which he played a rollicking genie and was allowed to go all out with ad-libs, improvs, and scads of celebrity improvisations.Further successes came in 1993 with Mrs. Doubtfire, in which he played a recently divorced father who masquerades as a Scottish nanny to be close to his kids. He had another hit in 1995 playing a rather staid homosexual club owner opposite a hilariously fey Nathan Lane in The Birdcage. In 1997, Williams turned in one of his best dramatic performances in Good Will Hunting, a performance for which he was rewarded with an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.Williams kept up his dramatic endeavors with both of his 1998 films: the comedy Patch Adams and What Dreams May Come, a vibrantly colored exploration of the afterlife. He next had starring roles in both Bicentennial Man and Jakob the Liar, playing a robot-turned-human in the former and a prisoner of the Warsaw ghetto in the latter. Though it was obvious to all that Williams' waning film career needed an invigorating breath of fresh air, many may not have expected the dark 180-degree turn he attempted in 2002 with roles in Death to Smoochy, Insomnia and One Hour Photo. Catching audiences off-guard with his portrayal of three deeply disturbed and tortured souls, the roles pointed to a new stage in Williams' career in which he would substitute the sap for more sinister motivations.Absent from the big-screen in 2003, Williams continued his vacation from comedy in 2004, starring in the little-seen thriller The Final Cut and in the David Duchovny-directed melodrama The House of D. After appearing in the comic documentary The Aristocrats and lending his voice to a character in the animated adventure Robots in 2005, he finally returned full-time in 2006 with roles in the vacation laugher RV and the crime comedy Man of the Year. His next project, The Night Listener, was a tense and erosive tale of literary trickery fueled by such serious issues as child abuse and AIDS.Williams wasn't finished with comedy, however. He lent his voice to the cast of the family feature Happy Feet and Happy Feet 2, played a late night talk show host who accidentally wins a presidential election in Man of the Year, portrayed an enthusiastic minister in License to Wed, and played a statue of Teddy Roosevelt that comes to life in Night at the Museum and its sequel Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. He would also enjoy family-friendly comedic turns in World's Greatest Dad, Shrink, and Old Dogs.In 2013, he returned to television, playing the head of an advertising agency in The Crazy Ones; the show did well in the ratings, but was canceled after only one season. He also played yet another president, Dwight Eisenhower, in Lee Daniel's The Butler. Williams died in 2014 at age 63.

Trivia: Portly American character actor Ned Beatty originally planned to enter the clergy, but after appearing in a single high-school play, he changed his mind and decided to become a thespian instead. By his early twenties, Beatty was playing Broadway and it was his work in the play The Great White Hope that attracted the interest of film director John Boorman, who cast him as one of the four main stars in his gripping backwoods thriller Deliverance (1972). Forever immortalized in the notorious "squeal like a pig" rape scene, Beatty subsequently went on to become one of the screen's more prolific supporting actors, frequently appearing in up to four films per year. His more notable film work includes Nashville (1975), All the President's Men (1976), Network (for which he earned an Oscar nomination), The Big Easy (1987), Hear My Song (1991), A Prelude to a Kiss (1992), Radioland Murders (1994), and He Got Game (1998). In 1999, he could be seen as a small-town sheriff in the Robert Altman ensemble film Cookie's Fortune.At the start of the 21st century the always-employed character actor continued to work steadily in projects as diverse as Roughing It, Where the Red Fern Grows, Shooter, and Charlie Wilson's War. He joined the Pixar family when he voiced Lotso, the bad guy in Toy Story 3, and he provided the voice of Mayor in 2011's Oscar winning animated feature Rango.

Trivia: Launching his career as a standup comic, American performer Richard Belzer entered the 1970s as a member of an odd New York-based comedy troupe called Channel One. Anticipating the home video explosion by over a decade, Channel One staged satirical, scatological routines lampooning the banalities of television -- and staged them in front of TV cameras, which transmitted the routines to little TV monitors, which in turn were watched by the live audience. Some of the best sketches were assembled into an X-rated comedy feature, The Groove Tube (1970), which featured Belzer, Ken Shapiro, and a brash newcomer named Chevy Chase. For the next decade, Belzer played the comedy-club circuit, popped up as a talkshow guest, and appeared in occasional films like Fame (1982). He joined still another comedy troupe in 1983, which appeared nightly on the syndicated interview program Thicke of the Night. The host was Allan Thicke, and Belzer's comic cohorts included such incipient stars as Charles Fleischer, Chloe Webb and Gilbert Gottfried. Thicke of the Night was one of the more notorious bombs of the 1983-84 season, but it enabled Belzer to secure better guest-star bookings, and ultimately a hosting job on his own program, debuting in 1986 over the Lifetime Cable Service. It was on this series that wrestler Hulk Hogan, demonstrating a stranglehold on Belzer caused the host to lose consciousness -- which prompted a highly publicized lawsuit instigated by Belzer against the Hulkster. In the early 1990s, Richard Belzer could be seen as a non-comic regular on the TV series Homicide. His Homicide character, John Munch, would become one of the longest-running fictional creations on TV appearing in more than a half-dozen other television shows, most notably Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Trivia: Gaining notice in the early '90s for his Emmy-winning portrayal of Detective Francis Xavier "Frank" Pembleton on the popular television police drama Homicide: Life on the Street, tireless Chicago native Andre Braugher remained with the show through 1998 while simultaneously building a feature career with roles in such theatrical releases as Primal Fear (1996) and City of Angels (1998). A graduate of Stanford University who also received a M.F.A. from the prestigious Juilliard School, Braugher claims to have originally taken up acting to meet girls. He later changed his major after realizing his true calling during a production of Hamlet, and his first professional role came in a performance at the Berkley Shakespeare Festival. Making the leap from stage to screen with the 1989 civil war drama Glory proved an eye opening experience, and following numerous appearances as Detective Winston Blake in a series of made-for-TV Kojak features, Braugher held onto his badge by joining the cast of Homicide in 1993. Later alternating successfully between film and television, Braugher was voted one of the "50 Most Beautiful" people in a 1997 issue of People magazine; the following year, the handsome actor turned down a prominent role in the sci-fi drama Sphere in order to spend more time with his family. Jumping back into features in 2000, roles in Frequency, Duets and A Better Way to Die proved that Braugher was still in top form, and, in 2002, he turned back to the small screen with the made-for-TV feature Hack (and later reprised his role when the feature was turned into a weekly series). Following a role in the made-for-TV feature A Soldier's Girl (2002), Braugher joined the cast of the television remake of the Stephen King vampire chiller Salem's Lot (2004), then returned to television - and changed camps to tap into the underground element - on the weekly crime drama Thief. As Nick Atwater, one of the most genial and principled of all television criminals (!), Braugher evoked an unusual ethical balance in his character and tapped into the fence's deep-seated devotion to his family, even as he drummed up a fiery intensity from episode to episode. Successive years found the actor moving into supporting roles in Hollywood A-listers with a heightened emphasis on effects-heavy action, adventure and fantasy-themed material; projects included Poseidon (2006), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) and Stephen King's The Mist (2007).Braugher would star in the TV mini-series The Andromeda Strain in 2008, before taking on a role in the cult favorite comedy series Men of a Certain Age from 2009-2011. He would also enjoy a recurring role on House M.D., and play a memorable supporting role in the Angelina Jolie action flick Salt.

Trivia: Black supporting actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Typically cast as a criminal or a cop, beefy, bald, American character actor Jon Polito has appeared on stage, television, and in feature films, notably the Coen brothers' Miller's Crossing (1990) and Barton Fink (1991). Polito can be recognized for his pencil-thin moustache. He launched his career on Broadway in 1977. In 1981, Polito debuted in the feature film The Killing Hour and then portrayed mobster Tommy Lucchese on the television series The Gangster Chronicles.

Trivia: Studied piano and saxophone when he was a teen.Has training from the Ernie McClintock's Jazz Actors Theatre and Negro Ensemble Company Actors Training Workshop.Made his television debut in the 1994 episode "Bop Gun" of the series Homicide: Life on the Street, playing Kid Funkadelic / Marvin.Is an avid fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers.Volunteers with Kids In The Spotlight (KITS), a non-profit organization founded by his wife, Tige Charity.

Trivia: As the offspring of producer/writer Naomi Foner and director Stephen Gyllenhaal, it is not surprising that Jake Gyllenhaal has been acting since childhood. Raised in Los Angeles, Gyllenhaal acted in school plays and made his winsome screen debut when he was in the fifth grade, playing Billy Crystal's son in the blockbuster summer comedy City Slickers (1991). Keeping it in the family while acting with some of the industry's most notable talents, Gyllenhaal subsequently appeared in his parents' 1993 adaptation of the novel A Dangerous Woman with Debra Winger, and played Robin Williams' son in a 1994 episode of TV's Homicide that was directed by his father. Poised to make the transition from child to adult actor, Gyllenhaal earned rave reviews, heralding him as a star in the making, for his emotionally sincere performance as real-life rocket builder Homer Hickam in the warmly received drama October Sky (1999). Though he opted to stay in school and attend college at Columbia University, Gyllenhaal continued his creative pursuits, playing in a rock band and starring as the oddball title character alongside Drew Barrymore in the Barrymore-produced Sundance Film Festival entrant Donnie Darko (2001). Gyllenhaal could be seen later that same year as the titular character in the ill-fated Bubble Boy.After co-starring on the London stage in This Is Our Youth in spring 2002, Gyllenhaal was declared one half of Entertainment Weekly's "It Gene Pool" (with sister Maggie Gyllenhaal) for his aversion to taking the easy, teen flick route. In keeping with his preference for off-center work, Gyllenhaal coincidentally played the younger love object of choice in two consecutive indie comedies, appearing as Catherine Keener's sensitive boss in Nicole Holofcener's slyly witty Lovely & Amazing (2002) and Jennifer Aniston's enticing yet disturbed co-worker in Miguel Arteta's sardonic The Good Girl (2002). As further proof that he had the acting chops to go with his sad-eyed good looks, Gyllenhaal subsequently co-starred with Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon as a young man enmeshed in his dead fiancée's family in Moonlight Mile (2002).With his star on the rise and his status as a heartthrob all but cemented, it became impossible for Gyllenhaal to avoid the draw of a big summer blockbuster. In 2004, he starred alongside Dennis Quaid in the mega-budgeted The Day After Tomorrow, and the success of that film put him in another league altogether. What followed was an interesting, challenging mix of roles for the young actor. He could be seen in the fall of 2005 starring in no less than three high-profile prestige films, all of them adaptations: the delayed big-screen version of the Pulitzer-prize winning play Proof, with Gwyneth Paltrow; the Gulf War memoir Jarhead, directed by American Beauty wunderkind Sam Mendes; and Ang Lee's cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain. The first two films received an indifferent response by critics, even though Jarhead's opening-weekend gross confirmed Gyllenhaal's bankability. Lee's film, however, garnered the most acclaim of 2005, and offered him perhaps his riskiest, most rewarding role to date. Playing the closeted, romantically frustrated rancher Jack Twist, Gyllenhaal added heartbreaking shades of vulnerability to his usual frat-boy cockiness, and more than held his own opposite a memorably gruff, taciturn Heath Ledger. As praise was heaped out upon the film and its two male leads, Gyllenhaal found himself the recipient of a BAFTA award, a National Board of Review notice, and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Gyllenhaal would spend the next several years enjoying his status as a leading man, appearing in projects like Zodiac, Brothers, Love and Other Drugs, and Source Code.