Trivia: For an actor almost universally associated with a single character -- Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise -- William Shatner has found diverse ways to stay active in the public eye, even spoofing his overblown acting style in a way far more hip than desperate. Years after he last uttered "warp speed," Shatner remains a well-known face beyond Star Trek conventions, re-creating himself as the spoken-word pitchman for priceline.com, and starring in a popular series of smoky nightclub ads that featured some of the most cutting-edge musicians of the day.The Canadian native was born on March 22, 1931, in Montréal, where he grew up and attended Verdun High School. Shatner studied commerce at McGill University before getting the acting bug, which eventually prompted him to move to New York in 1956. He initially worked in such live television dramatic shows as Studio One and The United States Steel Hour in 1957 and 1958, as well as on Broadway. His big screen debut soon followed as Alexei in the 1958 version of Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.Throughout the 1960s, Shatner worked mostly in television. His most memorable appearance came in a 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone entitled "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," in which he plays a terrified airline passenger unable to convince the crew that there's a mysterious gremlin tearing apart the wing. He also appeared in such films as Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and the bizarrely experimental Esperanto-language horror film Incubus (1963). In 1966, he got his big break, though neither he nor anyone else knew it at the time. Shatner was cast as the macho starship captain James Kirk on Star Trek, commanding a crew that included an acerbic doctor, a Scottish engineer, and a logician with pointy ears, on a mission "to boldly go where no man has gone before." However, the show lasted only three seasons, considered by many to be high camp. After providing a voice on the even shorter-lived animated series in 1973, Shatner must have thought Star Trek too would pass. A costly divorce and a lingering diva reputation from Star Trek left him with few prospects or allies, forcing him to take whatever work came his way. But in 1979, after a decade of B-movie labor in such films as The Kingdom of Spiders (1977) and a second failed series (Barbary Coast, 1975-1976), Shatner re-upped for another attempt to capitalize on the science fiction series with Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This time it caught on, though the first film was considered a costly disappointment. With dogged determination, the producers continued onward with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), at which point fans finally flocked to the series, rallying behind the film's crisp space battles and the melodramatic tête-à-tête between Shatner and Ricardo Montalban.Shatner had to wrestle with his advancing age and the deaths of several characters in Star Trek II and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), but by Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), the actor got to indulge in his more whimsical side, which has since characterized his career. As the series shifted toward comedy, Shatner led the way, even serving as director of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), which many considered among the series' weaker entries. During this period, Shatner also began parodying himself in earnest, appearing as host of Saturday Night Live in a famous sketch in which he tells a group of Trekkies to "Get a life." He also turned in a wickedly energetic mockery of a moon base captain in Airplane II: The Sequel (1982). Shatner made one final appearance with the regular Star Trek cast in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), then served as one of the crossovers to the new series of films in Star Trek: Generations (1994), in which endlessly theorizing fans finally learned the fate of Captain Kirk.The success of the Trek movies reenergized Shatner's TV career, even if it didn't immediately earn him more film roles. Shatner played the title role on the successful police drama T.J. Hooker from 1982 to 1987, directing some episodes, then began hosting the medical reality series Rescue 911 in 1989. Shatner returned to the movies with another parody, Loaded Weapon I, in 1993, and in 1994 began directing, executive producing, and acting in episodes of the syndicated TV show TekWar, based on the popular series of Trek-like novels he authored. In the later '90s, Shatner was best known for his humorously out-there priceline.com ads, but also guested on a variety of TV shows, most notably as the "Big Giant Head" on the lowbrow farce Third Rock From the Sun. He also appeared as game show hosts both in film (Miss Congeniality, 2000) and real life (50th Annual Miss America Pageant, 2001). In 1999, Shatner suffered public personal tragedy when his third wife, Nerine, accidentally drowned in their swimming pool. The champion horse breeder and tennis enthusiast owns a ranch in Kentucky and remains active in environmental causes. Shatner took on a small role for 2004's Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, and voiced the villainous wildebeest Kazar in Disney's animated adventure The Wild in 2006. Shatner returned to television for a starring role on the popular dramady Boston Legal, in which he plays Denny Crane, a once unbeatable lawyer who co-founded the successful law firm where he continues to work despite his reputation as an eccentric old man.

Trivia: Philadelphia-born James Darren came to Hollywood armed with far more impressive credentials than most teen idols, notably several years' training with Stella Adler. Signed to a Columbia Pictures contract in 1956, Darren was developed into a popular leading man-and, briefly, a recording artist. Columbia required him to show up in everything from 1958's Gidget to a 1965 episode of TV's The Flintstones (as "Jimmy Darrock"). In 1966, Darren was cast as Dr. Tony Newman on the Irwin Allen sci-fi TVer Time Tunnel, wherein he was given the unenviable task of reacting in alarm to miles and miles of 20th Century-Fox stock footage. After Time Tunnel folded in 1967, Darren's career was one of a few peaks and several valleys. Though he'd never really been away, Darren made what was labelled a comeback in 1982 in the solid supporting role of Officer Jim Corrigan on the weekly William Shatner TV vehicle T.J. Hooker. Since that time, James Darren has received a number of plum guest-star assignments on various TV dramatic and comedy programs, and has directed individual installments of such programs as Police Story.

Trivia: Born in Georgia and raised in a black Long Island ghetto, Jim Brown distinguished himself in high school athletics. Recruited from Syracuse University, Brown was signed with the Cleveland Browns in 1957, remaining with that organization as star fullback for ten years. Breaking any number of NFL records, Brown was named Rookie of the Year in 1958 and Player of the Year in 1960; he played in every Pro Bowl game from 1958 through 1965, and in 1971 was elected to the Football Hall of Fame. While still with Cleveland, Brown made his film debut in the 1963 Western Rio Conchos, an event deemed worthy of a four-page color spread in Life magazine. He became a full-time actor upon his retirement from the NFL in 1967, co-starring that year in The Dirty Dozen. Though he had trepidation about the climactic scene in which he blew dozens of helpless Nazi officers and their sweethearts to bits with hand grenades, it was this uncompromising sequence that truly "socked" Brown over with the audience. He rapidly rose to leading roles in such actioners as Ice Station Zebra (1968) and 100 Rifles (1969); in the latter film, he stirred up controversy by sharing several steamy scenes with white actress Raquel Welch. Brown also headlined the above-average crime capers Kenner (1969) and Black Gunn (1972) as well as the ultraviolent Slaughter series. He cut down on his film appearances in the late '70s, devoting most of his time to his many civic activities and business concerns; during this period, he also founded the Black Economic Union. After several years' absence from the screen, Jim Brown co-starred with fellow blaxploitation icons Fred Williamson, Pam Grier, and Richard Roundtree in the delightfully "retro" action-fest Original Gangstas (1996).

Trivia: Although she officially launched her dramatic career on the big screen, with bit parts in Jonathan Demme's nostalgic period piece Swing Shift (1984) and Wes Craven's gore picture The Hills Have Eyes, Part II (1984), African-American actress Penny Johnson (also occasionally credited by her full married name, Penny Johnson Jerald) gained broadest recognition as a network mainstay on innumerable short-lived and long-running U.S. television series. Her presence on the glitter box quickly became so widespread, in fact, that devoted prime-time viewers who fail to connect with Johnson's name will invariably identify her countenance.Born March 14, 1961, in Baltimore, MD, Johnson recognized acting as her life's work while a teenager, and subsequently commenced dramatic training at her home city's Centre Stage Theatre, at age 13, by lying about her age to get in. (She claimed to be 14 -- the ensemble's minimum age requirement.) The ruse worked, and Johnson's success with that troupe encouraged her to subsequently perform in a traveling ensemble (as a mime, juggler, and fire eater) with the Baltimore-based Theatre Project, and attend university for dramatic training at Juilliard several years later. After the aforementioned film roles, Johnson segued into television, first with a brief ongoing role as Debbie on the daytime soap General Hospital (in 1986), then as university law student Vivian on the Showtime pay cable service's revival of the late '70s CBS series The Paper Chase, retitled The Paper Chase: The Second Year (a role she sustained from 1984-1986). After guest spots on such programs as The Jeffersons, Simon & Simon, and Tour of Duty, Johnson landed one of the leads on the very short-lived ABC sitcom Homeroom -- starring as Virginia "Vicki" Harper, the medical-student wife of adman-turned-fourth grade teacher Darryl Harper (Darryl Sivad). That program premiered on September 24, 1989, and wrapped not three months later, unable to find an audience.Johnson then re-teamed with Craven for the director's telemovie Night Visions (1990), about a tough L.A. cop (James Remar) who solicits the help of a psychic (Loryn Locklin) to root out a serial murderer. Craven and co. shot that effort as a pilot for a prospective series, but it never took off. In 1992, the actress returned to pay cable by joining the cast of The Larry Sanders Show, comedian Garry Shandling's HBO satire about the behind-the-scenes shenanigans at a late-night, Carson-style talk program. Johnson struck gold with that move; the show lasted until 1998 and became a massive runaway hit and a critical darling.After small turns in two A-list cinematic releases -- 1993's Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do With It? (as Lorraine) and Rusty Cundieff's 1994 gangsta rap satire Fear of a Black Hat (as Re-Re) -- Johnson carved a permanent niche for herself on three number-one television series, sequentially Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, ER, and 24. In the first, she played Kasidy Yates, a stunningly gorgeous freighter captain who meets and falls in love with Benjamin Sisko, but is indefinitely abandoned by him when he moves into another dimension with The Prophets. She then donned a nurse's uniform for a season (1998-1999) as Lynette Evans at ER's Chicago County General Hospital, alongside co-stars George Clooney, Anthony Edwards, and others, and keyed up for her most prominent role: Sherry Palmer, the wife of Senator David Palmer, and essentially a shrewd, diabolical, Lady Macbeth-like character willing to break any and every moral precept to lock down the presidency of her husband. More recently, Johnson portrayed Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in the 2003 TV movie DC 9/11: Time of Crisis and again in another TV movie, The Path to 9/11, in 2006. Johnson married her husband, musician Gralin Jerald, in 1982. They have one daughter. In her off time, Johnson is actively involved with her church and with many progressive social causes; she played a significant role in securing aid for victims of Hurricane Katrina.