Trivia: One of the most prominent female hip-hoppers of the 1990s thanks to her soulful and uplifting rhymes, Queen Latifah has also crafted an increasingly successful screen presence.Born Dana Owens in Newark, NJ, on March 18, 1970, this police officer's daughter worked at Burger King before joining the group Ladies Fresh as a human beatbox. Disgusted at the misogynistic, male-dominated rap scene, Owens adapted the moniker of Queen Latifah (meaning delicate and sensitive in Arabic) and was soon on her way to changing the way many people looked at hip hop. Soon gaining a loyal following due to her unique perspective and role model-inspiring attitude, Latifah recorded the single "Wrath of My Madness" in 1988 and the following year she released her debut album, All Hail the Queen. Making her feature debut three short years later in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, Latifah began refining a screen persona that would be equally adept in both drama and comedy. After starring as magazine editor Khadijah James on the FOX sitcom Living Single (1993-1998) and landing increasingly prominent film roles in Set It Off (1996), Living Out Loud (1998), and The Bone Collector (1999), she was given her own personal televised outlet in the form of The Queen Latifah Show in 1999. Losing her brother in a motorcycle accident in 1995 (she still wears the motorbike's key around her neck) in addition to grieving a friend who was shot when the two were carjacked the same year, Latifah has persisted in overcoming tragedy to remain positive and creative. The talented songstress has also appeared as both the Wicked Witch of the West (1998's The Wizard of Oz) and Glenda the Good (The O.Z. in 2002), in addition to remaining an innovative and inspiring recording artist. In 2003, Latifah hit a watershed moment in her career and in the public perception of her image: she signed to portray Matron Mama Morton in Rob Marshall's bold cinematization of the Bob Fosse musical Chicago. For Latifah, the turn embodied a breakthrough to end all breakthroughs - it dramatically reshaped the artist's image from that of a hip-hop singer turned actress to that of a multitalented, one-woman powerhouse with astonishing gifts in every arena of performance - voice, drama and dance. Latifah deservedly netted an Oscar nomination for this role, but lost to Catherine Zeta-Jones, who played Velma Kelly in the same film.Later that same year, the multifaceted singer/actress took a dramatic step down in ambition and sophistication, joining Steve Martin for the odd couple comedy Bringing Down the House. That farce tells the occasionally rollicking story of a hyper-anal white lawyer (Martin) who attempts to "hook up" with a barrister he meets online, but discovers that she is (surprise!) actually a slang-tossing black prison escapee with a mad taste for hip hop dancing (Latifah). Ironically - given the seemingly foolproof and ingenious premise - the film collapsed, thanks in no small part to an awkward and craven screenplay that fails to see the logic of its situations through to fruition, and wraps with a ludicrous denouement. The film did score with viewers, despite devastating reviews from critics across the country. (If nothing else, the picture offers the uproarious sight of Martin in hip-hop attire, and does celebrate Latifah's everpresent message of much-deserved respect for black women). Latifah's onscreen activity skyrocketed over the following half-decade, with an average of around 5-7 roles per year. One of her most popular efforts, Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004), constitutes a sequel to the urban comedy-drama Barbershop (2002). The original picture (without Latifah in the cast) concerned the proprietors and patrons of a (mostly) all-black barbershop on the south side of Chicago, with seriocomic lead characters portrayed by Ice-T, Cedric the Entertainer and others. In the second Barbershop go-round, Latifah plays Gina, the owner of an inner-city beauty parlor who operates her business next door. Those films reached a combined total of around $143 million worldwide, thanks in no small part to a pitch-perfect demographic that flocked to both efforts without abandon. The pictures also generated a Latifah-dominated sequel, Beauty Shop (2005), devoted to the exploits of Gina, her customers, and her employees, particularly the flamboyantly gay stylist Jorge Christoph (Kevin Bacon). The movie expanded the target audience of its predecessors and upped the ante by working in WASPy female characters played by A-listers Andie MacDowell and Mena Suvari and having Gina move her shop to the more audience-friendly Atlanta. Though the picture failed to match the grosses of its predecessors, it did reel in just under $38 million worldwide. Each of the installments generated mixed reviews from critics, Concurrent with Beauty Shop's release, Latifah signed on to collaborate with director Mark Forster and stars Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson in the comedy-fantasy Stranger than Fiction (2006). In that picture - about a man (Ferrell) who discovers he is the character in a book by a washed-up author (Thompson), and due to be killed shortly, Latifah plays Penny Escher, the "assistant" hired to end Thompson's creative block and put her back on track. Though Latifah's constituted a minor role (and, arguably, a throwaway at that), the film itself scored on all fronts, including craftsmanship, audience reactions, box office and critical response. After voicing Ellie in the CG-animated feature Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006), Latifah revisited cinematic song-and-dance (and reteamed with House director Adam Shankman) for the hotly-anticipated musical comedy Hairspray, based on the hit Broadway production (which was, in turn, based on the 1988 John Waters film). Latifah plays Motormouth Maybelle, in a cast that also includes Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfeiffer and an in-drag John Travolta, reprising the role originated by Divine. Latifah signed to star alongside Diane Keaton and Katie Holmes in the crime comedy Mad Money -- a remake of the British farce Hot Money (with echoes of 1976's How to Beat the High Cost of Living) about a trio of female janitors in the Federal Reserve bank who team up to rob the place blind. In addition to music, movies, and television, Latifah also found time to author a book on self-esteem entitled Ladies First: Revelations of a Strong Woman, and to serve as co-chairman of the Owens Scholarship Foundation, Inc., which provides assistance to academically gifted but financially underpriveleged students.

Trivia: An actress best known as Dorothy "Tootie" Ramsey, the lone African American student and consummate gossip at the exclusive Eastland Preparatory School for Women on NBC's sitcom The Facts of Life (1979-1988), Kim Fields actually appeared on several popular series in the 1970s-2000s. The Big Apple native grew up in a single-parent household and began acting in commercials well before she reached her teens, making her most widely seen appearance on an advertisement for Mrs. Butterworth's syrup. She made her foray into acting with scattered guest appearances on Good Times in 1978 and signed for the Facts of Life role one year later, at the age of 10, when Norman Lear (the producer of both Times and Facts) tapped her for that part. Fields remained with the program for its entire nine-year run, a run that witnessed numerous changes in the show's lineup and format, including the replacement of star Charlotte Rae with Cloris Leachman, and a change of venue in 1985. About five years after Facts folded in 1988, Fields scored her second major coup with a much different multiseason role as Regine Hunter, a loose, money-hungry employee of a clothing boutique on the urban-oriented Queen Latifah sitcom Living Single (1993-1998). Fields spent the following years appearing in scattered features, such as the 2000 telemovie Hidden Blessings and the 2001 telemovie Facts of Life Reunion (which reunited her with several of her ex-costars), and making guest appearances on programs including The Drew Carey Show and The Division; she also took time out to start a family.

Trivia: The son of African American director/writer Melvin Van Peebles, Mario van Peebles made his acting bow in a small role in his dad's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971). At the time, Van Peebles had no burning desire to become a performer, choosing instead to study economics at Columbia University. He wavered between a financial and an acting career before becoming a full-time actor with the 1984 film Cotton Club. In 1988, Van Peebles starred in a conformist TV comedy adventure series, Sonny Spoon, playing a glib private eye with a predilection for elaborate disguises; this brief series afforded him his first opportunity to direct. Three years later he made his film directing debut with New Jack City, a film widely praised by some as being a truthful, no-nonsense dissection of inner-city life, and widely derided by others as merely a slick outgrowth of the "blaxploitation" flicks of the 1970s. Van Peebles played a major role in New Jack City, as he would in his subsequent Posse (1993), a revisionist western about a Utopian all-black community. Van Peebles' next directorial endeavor was Panthers (1995), a recounting of the Black Panther Movement that came under fire from several of the real-life activists depicted in the film despite the fact that Van Peebles steadfastly defended it as historically accurate. In addition to making and starring in his own films, Van Peebles occasionally appears in the films of others. He had a starring role in Clint Eastwood's Heartbreak Ridge (1986) and for his performance earned an NAACP Image Award. On television, Van Peebles has starred in a number of prestigious productions, including The Emperor Jones for PBS and The Pool Hall opposite James Earl Jones. For this latter role, Van Peebles was nominated for a Cable ACE award. For his work in Children of the Night he received a Bronze Halo Award. He has also directed episodes of television series, notably those of producer Steven J. Cannell. For directing the ABC After School Special: Malcolm Takes a Shot, he received a nomination for a Directors Guild Award. In the late '90s, Van Peebles joined a growing trend and starred in an elaborate CD-Rom game for Sony called Solo in which he played an android superhero with a human learning capacity.

Trivia: The son of a black Chicago tailor, Melvin Van Peebles attended West Virginia State College, then earned a BA from Ohio Wesleyan. Van Peebles served three years in the Air Force as a navigator/bombardier. Out of uniform, Van Peebles pursued a painting career, made a handful of amateur films, and held down jobs as a postal worker and San Francisco cable-car grip. Refusing ever to allow grass to grow under his feet, he spent some time in Mexico, attended graduate school in Holland and picked up spare change (and a few overnight jail terms) as an unlicensed street entertainer in Paris. Still a relatively young man, he remained in Paris to write five novels (all in English, because he never bothered to learn any French); one of these was La Permission, the story of a star-crossed interracial romance. On the strength of his book, Van Peebles became eligible for admission to the French Cinema Center as a director. Unexpectedly receiving a grant of $70,000, he converted La Permission into his first feature film, The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1968). On the strength of this film, Van Peebles was courted by several Hollywood studios, who had no idea he was African American and assumed he was a French auteur. While few studios in 1968 were willing to take a chance on a black director (couldn't offend any bigots, you know), Columbia Pictures gave Van Peebles carte blanche to direct a satirical comedy-fantasy on the topic of black-white stereotyping, Watermelon Man (1970). He kept the costs low on this project so that he could invest his salary into a privately financed labor of love, Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song (1970). Crude and offensive by "establishment" standards, this tale of a black fugitive's one-man vendetta against Whitey proved to be an enormous hit with African American audiences. It also proved that Hollywood had itself a genuine "renaissance man" in Van Peebles; he not only produced, directed, wrote and starred in Sweet Sweetback, but also edited and scored the film. Having briefly satiated his filmmaking aspirations, Van Peebles turned to Broadway, writing and scoring the 1971 musical Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death. His next theatrical project was 1972's Don't Play Us Cheap, which won first prize at the Belgian Film Festival when a hastily produced movie version was offered in competition. Since that time, VanPeebles has developed a TV-movie pilot, Just an Old Sweet Song (1977), and has written and acted in a number of movie and TV projects, frequently in collaboration with his actor/director son Mario Van Peebles. As of this writing, Melvin Van Peebles' only movie directorial effort of the past two decades has been the hit-and-miss fantasy Identity Crisis (1990).