Trivia: With her memorably statuesque figure and alluring countenance, African-American model-turned-actress Tracee Ellis Ross (the daughter of chanteuse Diana Ross and Robert Ellis Silberstein) plunged headfirst into print and fashion work with such enthusiasm and vigor that she became a frequent presence on the covers of such magazines as Essence, Jet, and Vibe Vixen, posing for such legends as Herb Ritts and Francesco Scavullo. Within this arena, Ross commandeered attention to rival any of her runway contemporaries. Ross segued into acting in the mid- to late '90s, with contributions such efforts as the low-key, ensemble-oriented psychological drama Far Harbor (1996, her cinematic debut) and Jim Yukich's romantic comedy A Fare to Remember (1999), and hosted the Lifetime talk program The Dish, before making her biggest splash as thirtysomething attorney-turned-restaurant proprietor Joan Clayton on the blockbuster UPN sitcom Girlfriends -- which enjoyed a lengthy run, maintained exemplary ratings, and netted more than a few industry awards for Ross. In 2007, the actress teamed up with writer/director Tyler Perry and actress Gabrielle Union for the big-screen romantic comedy Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls. A recurring role on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation followed in 2011, and that same year Ross starred opposite Cosby Show alumni Malcolm-Jamal Warner in the BET sitcom Reed Between the Lines, which followed a psychiatrist and a professor as they struggled to balance their careers with their roles as parents to three multi-racial children.

Trivia: The lithe and alluring African-American actress Golden Brooks began life in San Francisco in late 1970, and grew up in both the Bay Area and the City of Angels. As a young woman, she attended the University of California at Berkeley as a sociology major, later earning her master's degree from Sarah Lawrence College. Brooks first broke into films in the mid-'90s, with a small role in Spike Lee's phone sex-themed comedy drama Girl 6 (1996); the 2000 series Girlfriends, however, brought Brooks her first recognition in the American press. This rabidly popular sitcom -- which reeled in critical kudos and maintained a broad fan base -- constituted the pet project of Frasier star Kelsey Grammer and producer Mara Brock Akil. It told of four African-American female friends in the Los Angeles -- all white-collar women -- struggling to balance personal and professional demands. Brooks played an assistant at a legal firm and the only woman in the ensemble with a happy marriage and a growing family. After scattered roles in acclaimed features through the first several years of the new millennium, Brooks made the pivotal decision to join the cast of the Queen Latifah-starrer Beauty Shop, about the colorful proprietors and denizens of an Atlanta-based hair salon. The following year, she also starred in Sanaa Hamri's acclaimed dramedy Something New.

Trivia: Texas-born African-American actress and print model Jill Marie Jones (not to be confused with the musician/singer/songwriter Jill Jones, of Prince fame) first landed in the national spotlight for her regular role on the prime-time comedy drama Girlfriends, as Toni Childs, a slightly narcissistic and vociferous mother. Jones also starred in the 2007 black comedy Redrum, as a young woman who learns that she can pep up her flaccid marriage by committing cold-blooded murder. In terms of modeling, Jones maintained her highest profile gracing billboards and print ads for the Bailey's Irish Cream "Serve Chilled" campaign.

Trivia: Despite the phenomenon of many young actors struggling for years to break into Hollywood -- driving taxicabs and waiting tables until determination, persistence, and raw ability reel in a breakthrough -- a select few stumble into acting and celebrity by sheer happenstance. Malik Yoba epitomizes this idea. While working in a field with virtually no connection to the entertainment industry, Yoba decided, simply for fun, to attend a casting call session for a forthcoming Disney comedy called Cool Runnings. When his phone rang one month later, that single call changed Yoba's life forever.Born September 17, 1967, in New York City, Yoba came of age in the crime-ridden ghettoes of the Bronx and Harlem -- so crime-ridden and dangerous, in fact, that he found it impossible to escape the reach of violence. He fell into the path of a bullet at age 15, which hit him in the neck but (fortunately) did not inflict permanent injury or disability. A self-described "misunderstood child," Yoba empathized deeply, as a young man, with troubled inner-city youth, and regarded many as the victims of widely held racial and social misperceptions. Yoba thus opted to devote himself to volunteering, and later (in his early twenties) to full-time counseling, with endless exhaustive hours spent in NYC youth organizations. His specialties and passions in this role included teaching music and acting to school-age children and adolescents, and he would often organize teenagers around a specific cause, to pass on the flame of activism -- encouraging them to mount their own grass-roots social activism. These years found Yoba paying fervent and frequent visits to such institutions as secondary schools, homeless shelters, and penitentiaries.The open casting call for Cool Runnings arrived in late 1991, and Yoba reportedly only sought it out on a lighthearted note, at a friend's request. By all accounts, he auditioned and then promptly forgot about it, only to be astonished one month later by the studio's callback and invitation to co-star in the picture alongside John Candy, Leon, and Doug E. Doug. Released in October 1993, the comedy stars Candy as the out-of-shape Olympic gold medalist Irv Blitzer, recruited by a bunch of happy-go-lucky Jamaicans to coach their bobsledding team in the 1988 Olympic Games; Yoba played irascible and cantankerous team member Yul Brenner. Critics responded coolly to the film (many attacking it as yet another in a seemingly endless string of formula sports pictures), but audiences disagreed, and Cool Runnings shot up to break the 68-million-dollar mark at the domestic box office.Yoba then landed one of the two highly coveted lead roles in the first season of the Fox series drama New York Undercover. Something of an ethnic update of ABC's controversial smash hit NYPD Blue (which had premiered exactly one year earlier), the gritty program co-starred Yoba and Michael de Lorenzo as, respectively, J.C. Williams and his partner, the Puerto Rican detective Eddie Torres, assigned to the Harlem beat and juggling personal difficulties (including extramarital parenthood, the ups and downs of "playing the field," and family members with substance-abuse problems) with routine drug busts and criminal pursuits. Critics heavily lauded the series for its intense, take-no-prisoners realism, high-voltage street slang, and careful reliance on hip contemporary music (via a slew of pop and R&B guest stars who turned up, one per week, for a live musical performance at the end of each episode).New York Undercover lasted four seasons and wrapped in late June 1998; in the meantime, a brief supporting role as cigar-store patron named The Skunk in Wayne Wang and Paul Auster's beautifully wrought and understated slice-of-life drama Smoke (released stateside in the late summer of 1995) reunited Yoba with occasional Undercover co-star Giancarlo Esposito. A turn in Wang's improvisational follow-up (and semi-sequel), Blue in the Face, ensued that fall.At around the same time, Yoba returned to activism with full force, helming a series of interactive lectures for troubled urban youth called "Why Are You on This Planet?" The program combined exercises in reading, writing, art, music, and visualization to teach children self-empowerment and the wisdom of solid decision-making. "Why Are You on This Planet?" qualified as an instant, triumphant success and continued seemingly without end; in the meantime, Yoba perpetuated his dramatic efforts as well, with contributions to innumerable motion pictures. He essayed a pair of small, impressive performances in two very different 1997 indie dramas -- first as Detective Carson in James Mangold's all-star New Jersey policier CopLand (1997), then as a studio engineer in George Tillman Jr.'s ensemble comedy drama Soul Food, alongside Vivica A. Fox and Vanessa L. Williams.These options suggested that Yoba had an inherent strategy of signing for parts in small, finely wrought low-budget pictures outside of the Hollywood mainstream. Nevertheless, several of Yoba's project choices during the late '90s and early 2000s (though in keeping with this trend) brought the him decidedly mixed success and thus challenged the "foolproof wisdom" of this strategy. The films Oh Happy Day (2004), Kids in America (2005), and They're Just My Friends (2006), for instance, scarcely made a splash with critics or the public, and thus did little to advance Yoba's career. On the small screen, the stock-market series drama Bull (2000), co-starring Yoba and Donald Moffat, appeared and disappeared almost instantly. Yoba fared far better with his second billing in an acclaimed 2006 crime series, Thief; he plays Elmo, a member of master thief Andre Braugher's safecracking team. Thief premiered on the FX network in March 2006 to excellent ratings. In 2007 he appeared in the TV Series Raines, and also starred in Tyler Perry's Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? He appeared in that film's sequel three years later and also tried his hand at small-screen success again in the show's Defying Gravity and Alphas.

Trivia: A writer who evolved into a triumphant R&B performer and then a stage and film actress, Jill Scott grew up in Philadelphia and wrote lyrical, evocative poetry -- poetry that prompted her discovery by Amir, drummer of the R&B band the Roots. A studio collaboration between Scott and that band yielded the 1999 Top 40 pop hit "You Got Me"; afterward, in lieu of doing the expected by issuing her first solo recording, Scott first garnered legions of fans by touring across Canada in a powerhouse revival of the Jonathan Larson musical Rent; she then began issuing solo recordings in the summer of 2000. Scott's film career largely grew out of her music act, beginning as it did with solo performances in the 2005 Dave Chappelle's Block Party and the 2006 documentary Finally Sayin' What I Really Mean.... She segued into pure dramatic roles in 2007, with a pair of memorable performances -- one in the comedy drama Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? and an outstanding turn as blues maven Big Mama Thornton in the coming-of-age period piece Hounddog. She returned for the sequel to Why Did I Get Married, and was cast in TV series The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Scott continued to split her time between her singing and acting careers, releasing albums in 2011 and 2015 and appearing in films like Baggage Claim and the 2012 television movie remake of Steel Magnolias.

Trivia: Born in Guyana on December 25, 1952, actress CCH Pounder made her first film appearance as a nurse in Bob Fosse's All That Jazz (1979). Pounder went on to play a small part in Prizzi's Honor before her first big role as truckstop owner Brenda in Bagdad Cafe. Her first TV-series assignment was as husband-murderer Dawn Murphy in the short-lived FOX sitcom Women in Prison. Many dramatic TV movies followed, including Leap of Faith, Third Degree Burn, Murder in Mississippi, and the two-part CBS miniseries Common Ground. On the big screen, she had supporting parts in Postcards From the Edge, Kurt Baker's version of The Importance of Being Earnest, and the romantic comedy Benny & Joon. After appearing in Sliver and Robocop 3, she returned to television for the role of Dr. Angela Hicks on ER, earning her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. She left the show in 1997 and went on to countless TV movies (Final Justice, Netforce, A Touch of Hope, just to name a few), as well as a couple feature films (Face/Off, End of Days) and TV miniseries (House of Frankenstein, To Serve and Protect). In 2001, she narrated the PBS documentary series Race: The Power of an Illusion and played a judge in Allison Anders' independent drama Things Behind the Sun. In 2002, she was back on television as Detective Claudette Wynn on the FOX police drama The Shield.Pounder continued to work on The Shield until the series concluded in 2007, and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for her role as Detective Wynn. The actress appeared in 2009's psychological horror The Orphan, and voiced Mo'at, the spiritual leader of the Omaticaya clan, in James Cameron's mega-blockbuster Avatar the same year. 2009 would prove a rewarding year for Pounder, as her guest appearances on the BBC/HBO series No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency would earn her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.

Trivia: Character actor Richard Kind has done most of his work on television and on stage, but he also occasionally appears in feature films. Fans of the NBC sitcom Mad About You will recognize him for playing Fran's ex-husband Mark. Kind grew up in Bucks County, PA (he was born in Trenton, NJ), and has had a lifelong interest in acting. But despite his interest, he enrolled at Northwestern University as a pre-law major. He had planned on attending law school immediately after graduation, but instead heeded a family friend's advice and decided to pursue drama for a while. Kind moved to New York, but despite occasional work in commercials and showcases, got no breaks. He did much better in Chicago, where he found employment and gained valuable experience working first with the comedic actors at the Practical Theatre Company and then with those at Second City. Eventually, he moved to L.A. to perform with that city's division of the illustrious satirical theater. Since his arrival in Southern California, Kind has been a regular and a guest star on various series. He made his feature film debut in Vice Versa (1988). He would go on to appear in many feature films, from the Station Agent to Argo. He would also star on several TV series, like Spin City and Luck.