Trivia: Over the course of a single decade - the 1990s - Leonardo DiCaprio graduated from supporting work in television to a status as one of the most sought-after Hollywood actors under 30. After leading roles in William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and James Cameron's Titanic, the actor became a phenomenon, spawning legions of websites and an entire industry built around his name. DiCaprio was born November 11, 1974, in Hollywood, CA. The son of a German immigrant mother and an underground comic book artist father who separated shortly after Leonardo's birth, he was raised by both of his parents, who encouraged his early interest in acting. At the age of two and a half, the fledgling performer had his first brush with notoriety and workplace ethics when he was kicked off the set of Romper Room for what the show's network deemed "uncontrollable behavior." After this rather inauspicious start to his career, DiCaprio began to hone his skills with summer courses in performance art while he was in elementary school. He also joined The Mud People, an avant-garde theater group, with which he performed in Los Angeles. In high school, DiCaprio acted in his first real play and began doing commercials, educational films, and the occasional stint on the Saturday morning show The New Lassie. In 1990, after securing his first full-time agent at the age of 15, DiCaprio landed a role as a teenage alcoholic on the daytime drama Santa Barbara. He also continued to appear on other TV shows, such as The Outsiders and Parenthood, and made his film debut in the 1991 horror film Critters 3. The actor got the first of many big breaks with a recurring role on the weekly sitcom Growing Pains. His portrayal of a homeless boy won him sufficient notice to get him an audition for Michael Caton-Jones's harrowing screen adaptation of Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life. DiCaprio won the film's title role after beating out 400 other young actors and it became his career breakthrough. The 1993 film, and DiCaprio's performance opposite Robert DeNiro, won raves and the actor further increased the adulation surrounding him when, later that year, he played Johnny Depp's mentally retarded younger brother in Lasse Hallström's What's Eating Gilbert Grape. DiCaprio won an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance, and at the tender age of 19, was hailed as an actor to watch. Subsequent roles in three 1995 films, Sam Raimi's Western The Quick and the Dead; Total Eclipse (as the bisexual poet Rimbaud) and The Basketball Diaries (as a struggling junkie) all put the actor in the limelight, but it wasn't until the following year that he became a bona fide star, thanks to his portrayal of Romeo opposite Claire Danes in director Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996). The success of the film brought DiCaprio international fame, many lucrative opportunities, and frequent comparisons to predecessors such as James Dean. After starring with Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, and DeNiro in Marvin's Room (1996), DiCaprio achieved iconic status with his starring role in James Cameron's Titanic. With Kate Winslet as the female lead, the film became a box office sensation, earning garnered 14 Oscar nominations, winning 11, including Best Picture and Best Director, and earned a whopping 1.8 billion dollars at the global box office. DiCaprio's much-discussed exclusion from the Oscar nominations did nothing to hurt his popularity, and somewhat ironically, he next chose to parody his own celebrity with an appearance in Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998) as a badly behaved movie star. After displaying his nastier side, he tackled a dual role as twins in the same year's swashbuckler The Man in the Iron Mask, opposite Jeremy Irons, Gabriel Byrne, John Malkovich, and Gérard Depardieu. Following the commercial success of the film, DiCaprio then traveled in a completely different direction, with a lead role in Danny Boyle's screen adaptation of Alex Garland's novel The Beach. The film met with eager anticipation from its first day of shooting, as Leo fans everywhere waited with baited breath to see what kind of impression their golden child would next make on the film world; unfortunately, the muddled Beach drew neither praise nor box-office success. In 2002, DiCaprio began what became a series of collaborations with the legendary director Martin Scorsese, starting with the the epic Gangs of New York (2002) - a sprawling tale of gangland violence in early America. Reportedly delayed by a year given much-publicized disagreements between director Scorsese and producer Harvey Weinstein, the film was ultimately released in time for the 2002 holiday/Oscar season. The tireless actor re-united with director Steven Spielberg with the release of Catch Me if You Can, the true-life tale of Frank Abagnale, Jr., a scam artist so effective that he eluded authorities while assuming a number of high-profile false identities and racking-up over $2.5 million in fraudulent checks. Two years later, DiCaprio and Scorsese embarked on a sophomore collaboration - the biopic The Aviator (2004), with DiCaprio in a critically-praised, star-making turn as eccentric billionaire genius Howard Hughes in The Aviator. DiCaprio and Scorsese scaled even greater heights in 2006 with The Departed, a crime drama in which DiCaprio played an undercover cop trying to bring down criminal Jack Nicholson. Doubling up during Oscar season yet again, that same year he played the lead in Edward Zwick's Blood Diamond, as an Afrikaner who must team up with a South African mercenary in order to find a rare gem of great value to both of them. Both films opened to praise and box-office success, resulting in dual Golden Globe nominations. Perhaps pushing its luck, Warner Bros. -- the studio behind both films -- campaigned DiCaprio for a lead Oscar in Diamond and a supporting one in Departed; Oscar voters only nominated him for Diamond. In the years that followed, DiCaprio showed no signs of tapering off when it came to challenging and even iconic roles. He joined Titanic co-star Kate Winslet, megaproducer Scott Rudin and others for the blistering marriage drama Revolutionary Road (2008), teamed with Scorsese a fourth time for the thriller Shutter Island (2010), toplined Christopher Nolan's complex, elusive sci-fi drama Inception (2010), and in 2011, worked with director Clint Eastwood and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black on the biopic J. Edgar (2011), playing the famous titular FBI director. Meanwhile, DiCaprio also signed on for another collaboration with Baz Luhrmann - a new adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, co-starring Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan, not to mention a first-time collaboration with Quinten Tarantino for Django Unchained. In 2013, he and Scorsese joined forces yet again for The Wolf of Wall Street, earning DiCaprio two Oscar nominations, for both Best Actor and Picture.DiCaprio took the next two years off, focusing on environmental causes, but came back in 2015 in Alejandro G. Iñárritu's The Revenant. He nabbed his sixth Oscar nom for the film and finally landed his first win, for Best Actor.The hybrid-car driving DiCaprio has also been an outspoken proponent of environmentalism, a topic he is so passionate about he was allowed to interview then-President Bill Clinton on the issue in a 2000 televised prime-time special.

Trivia: A handful of actresses carry such a wellspring of inner grace and presence that they appear destined for celebrity from birth. Natalie Wood had it, as did Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly; many would doubtless place Kate Winslet among their ranks. A tender 11 when she commenced her formal dramatic training, 19 when she debuted cinematically, and 20 when she received her first Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, Winslet never "ascended" to stardom; she became a star overnight. The possessor of an hourglass-figured, full-lipped beauty that lends itself effortlessly to costume dramas, Winslet was roundly hailed by the press for standing in stark, proud contrast to her more conventional Hollywood peers. Born on October 5, 1975, and raised in Reading, England, as the daughter of stage actors and the granddaughter of a repertory theater manager, Winslet inherited the "drama bug" from her folks. After training exhaustively as a child and securing professional representation she went on the air as a spokesgirl for a popular British cereal, and later attended a performing-arts secondary school. Following an early graduation in 1991 (prior to the age of 16), Winslet launched her regional stage career, highlighted by roles in adaptations of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole and Peter Pan. It would be difficult to imagine a more auspicious film bow than the role of Juliet Hulme in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures -- or a more difficult one. This characterization -- that of an extroverted adolescent who constructs an incestuously exclusive fantasy world with her best friend (Melanie Lynskey) -- put Winslet on the map, and opened the door for follow-ups in international megahits such as Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995), as the willful, passionate Marianne; and James Cameron's Titanic (1997), as the object of Leonardo Di Caprio's affections, Rose DeWitt Bukater. She received dual Oscar nominations for those roles, but, surprisingly, failed to net either one.Meanwhile, Winslet concurrently shied away from the high gloss of Cameron and unveiled her stage origins, traveling the arthouse circuit with such productions as Michael Winterbottom's Jude (1996), as Sue Bridehead; and Kenneth Branagh's disappointing, overbaked, four-hour Hamlet (1996), as Ophelia. Hideous Kinky embodied a turn on a much smaller scale. Directed by Scottish helmer Gillies MacKinnon (and scripted by his brother, Billy), the film casts Winslet as a freewheeling young hippie who takes her children to Morocco in order to pursue spiritual enlightenment. Beyond the positive reviews gleaned by the film and the praise that critics lavished onto Winslet's performance, one of the most alluring sidelights happened off camera, when Winslet dated and then married James Threapleton, the third assistant director on the MacKinnon film. The couple divorced in 2001.During 1999 and 2000, Winslet dove into two roles that required her to cut loose and break free of all inhibitions. First, she played another young woman in search of spiritual enlightenment, this time in Jane Campion's Holy Smoke. Starring as an Australian girl who joins a cult on a visit to India, and is then "deprogrammed" by Harvey Keitel, Winslet's role pushed her beyond the limits of propriety and embarrassment (one scene has her standing naked and urinating in front of Keitel). Unfortunately, one or two brave performances did not an unequivocal masterpiece make; the picture sharply divided critics, falling far short of the praise heaped onto Campion's The Piano six years earlier. Even gutsier (though more successful on a dramatic level) was Winslet's turn as a laundress who delivers the Marquis de Sade's manuscripts to the outside world in Phil Kaufman's Quills. Winslet reentered the Oscar limelight with yet another Academy-nommed performance as a youthful Iris Murdoch in director Richard Eyre's Iris, but the gold statuette eluded her a third time when Jennifer Connelly netted it for A Beautiful Mind. In early 2003, she hit a low point as Bitsey Bloom, opposite Kevin Spacey in The Life of David Gale. Based on the experience of a University of Texas professor -- an avid anti-death-penalty activist faced with execution after a false conviction -- Winslet portrayed the reporter who broke the story in a desperate attempt to discover the truth behind the mysterious and brutal crime for which Gale was convicted. As scripted by Charles Randolph and directed by Alan Parker, the picture opened and closed almost simultaneously, to devastating, brutal reviews. Winslet fared better in 2004, as the love interest opposite Jim Carrey in Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This humorous and poignant mindbender, with a tender romance at its core, scored on all fronts, as did Winslet's performance, earning her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. She followed it up with a return to period film in Finding Neverland (2005), a movie about Victorian author J.M. Barrie, played by Johnny Depp. Playing the inspiration for the character of Wendy in the beloved novel Peter Pan seemed only natural for the charming actress, who had long since proven herself a similarly charismatic onscreen force. The next year, 2006, found Winslet in a quintet of back-to-back projects. In the CG-animated Flushed Away -- from Aardman and Dreamworks -- she voiced Rita, a scavenging sewer rat who helps Hugh Jackman's Roddy escape from the city of Ratropolis and return to his luxurious Kensington origins. That year, she also headlined the political drama All the King's Men, opposite Sean Penn. Written and directed by Schindler's List's Steven Zaillian, the picture cast Winslet as Jude Law's childhood sweetheart; while overflowing with talent, the long-gestating remake was a major misfire with critics and audiences. Perhaps more fortuitously, Winslet joined the cast of Todd Field's Little Children, an ensemble comedy drama about fear and loathing in an upper-class suburb in New England. The film would net her her fifth Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. More financially successful was her involvement in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy Holiday, as Iris, a British woman who temporarily "swaps homes," as part of a vacation ploy, with Cameron Diaz's Amanda, and has an affair with Jack Black. Meanwhile, Winslet and Johnny Depp reunited for the first occasion since Finding Neverland as narrators of the IMAX documentary Deep Sea 3D (2006), filmmaker Howard Hall's lavish exploration of the aquatic depths, designed for young viewers.After taking some time off in 2007, Winslet returned in 2008 with a pair of award-winning performances. Playing opposite her Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road earned her Best Actress nominations from both the Screen Actors Guild and the Hollywood Foreign Press, as well as a healthy number of year-end critics awards. But it was her work in Stephen Daldry's adaptation of The Reader that provided her with the sixth Academy nomination of her career, as well as Best Supporting Actress nods from the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes. The Hollywood Foreign Press made history that year selecting her the winner in both the Best Actress in a drama and the Best Supporting Actress categories at that year's Golden Globes.In 2011, Winslet would win an Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild award for her performance in HBO's 5-part miniseries Mildred Pierce, and take on a lead role in Contagion, a disaster film directed by Steven Soderbergh. In 2013, she starred in Labor Day and joined the Divergent film series, returning for the film's sequel, Insurgent, in 2015. She also starred in Steve Jobs, and earned her seventh Oscar nomination.

Trivia: Actor Billy Zane kicked off his stage career in his hometown of Chicago. Able to harness his spoiled-brat countenance and quirky gestures to invoke either sympathy or repulsion, Zane has been seen principally in secondary roles in such films as Back to the Future (1985), Memphis Belle (1990), Orlando (1992), and Posse (1993). His most flamboyant role was as the young drifter who -- obvious to everyone but the hero and heroine -- is not what he seems in the Australian thriller Dead Calm (1989). Zane had a rare starring role in the filmization of the once popular comic strip The Phantom (1996), in which he showed off his lithe, muscular physique in a form-fitting purple body suit and performed many of the stylish film's daring stunts himself. The following year he had a lead role in the most successful film of his career, playing Kate Winslet's vile fiancé in Titanic. Zane is the younger brother of film and TV actress Lisa Zane.

Trivia: Actress Kathy Bates has been involved in the arts in one way or another since graduating from Southern Methodist University. Among the Memphis native's earliest jobs were a stint as a singing waitress in a Catskill resort and a sojourn as a gift shop cashier in New York's Museum of Modern Art. Bates was type-cast in character roles early on, which assured her a lot more work than the thousands of faceless ingenues in the business. Her film debut occurred with 1971's Taking Off, and she made her off-Broadway debut five years later in Vanities.For a long while, Bates made her name on the stage, only to see her roles go to other actresses in the plays' subsequent film adaptations. In 1983, she was nominated for a Tony award for her stage appearance as a garrulous would-be suicide in 'Night, Mother, a role played on screen by Sissy Spacek. She also appeared as Lenny McGrath in Beth Henley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Crimes of the Heart, a role played on screen by Diane Keaton. And in 1987, playwright Terrence McNally wrote a part specifically tailored to Bates' talents: the much-abused waitress Frankie in Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, a role which won her an Obie award, and, following a familiar pattern, was played on screen by Michelle Pfeiffer.Bates finally got to star in a movie herself in 1990. And what a starring role it was: in Misery, she portrayed the psychotic "Number One Fan" of romance writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan), a searing performance which earned the actress an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. Appropriately enough, Hollywood screenwriters subsequently began making more room for Bates in their scripts. She worked steadily throughout the rest of the decade in films of greatly varying quality. Particular highlights included Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), A Prelude to a Kiss (1992), Dolores Claiborne (1995), Titanic (1997), and Primary Colors (1998), the latter of which featured Bates giving an Oscar and Golden Globe nominated performance as a political muckraker. Following her firey, foul-mouthed performance in that thinly veilied political biopic, Bates added a new credential to her resume, that of director. Initially taking the helm for the made-for-cable feature Dash and Lilly, Bates would subsequently direct episodes of the quirky HBO drama series Six Feet Under, simultaniously taking minor film roles before returning to more substantial roles with the CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame entry My Sister's Keeper. Roles in Love Liza and Dragonfly (both 2002) were soon to follow, and with her turn as an extroverted mother who catches the attention of Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt Bates would recieve her third Oscar nomination.She directed a number of episodes of the HBO series Six Feet Under before joining the cast in season 3 as Bettina. The next year she portrayed Queen Victoria in the big-budget remake of Around the World in 80 Days. She directed he feature Ambulance Girl in 2005. She continued to act steadily in a variety of projects including Failure to Launch, P.S. I Love You, Fred Claus, Bee Movie, and Revolutionary Road. She provided expert support for Sandra Bulock as the younger actress was winning an Oscar in The Blind Side, and Bates joined the cast of The Office in 2009. She was part of the large ensemble in 2010'ss Valentine's Day, and in 2011 starred as Gertrude Stein in Woody Allen's Oscar winning Midnight in Paris. That same year she launched her own network Drama series Harry's Law.

Trivia: One of the actresses most indelibly associated with the descriptor "fiery redhead," Frances Fisher has enjoyed a long career as a respected stage, screen, and television performer. In addition to her professional work, she also earned recognition for her long relationship with Clint Eastwood, by whom she had a daughter.Born in Milford on Sea, England, Fisher spent much of her childhood traveling all over the world, thanks to her father's job as an international oil refinery construction supervisor. After time spent in England, Colombia, France, Canada, Brazil, Turkey, and Italy, the family settled in Orange, Texas, where Fisher completed her schooling. Deciding to follow her interest in theatre, she eventually moved to New York, where she subsequently enjoyed a 14-year stage career in regional and off-Broadway productions. During this time, she also became involved with the Actors Studio, where she studied with the legendary Lee Strasberg. Fisher segued into screen work via television, getting her start with regular roles on a number of soap operas. She began her film career with some help from Henry Jaglom, for whom she made her 1980 screen debut in Sitting Ducks, and went on to star in his Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (1983) and Babyfever (1994). Fisher spent the 1980s and 1990s appearing in a wide variety of film and TV productions, including the made-for-TV Lucy and Desi: Before the Laughter (1991), which cast her as Lucille Ball; Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992); the Texas Dust Bowl drama The Stars Fell on Henrietta (1995); James Cameron's Titanic (1997), in which she starred as Kate Winslet's mother; and The Big Tease (1999), a Scottish hairdressing mockumentary that featured her as a publicist in need of a new 'do.

Trivia: Blonde, serene-looking film actress Gloria Stuart forsook her stage career when she was signed to two separate movie contracts in 1932. It took a court arbitrator to determine which studio would be permitted to make use of Stuart's services, Paramount or Universal. Universal won, and soon the actress was starring in such memorable films as James Whale's The Old Dark House (1932) and The Invisible Man (1933). From 1936 on, Stuart, who was born in Santa Monica, CA, on July 4, 1910, was contracted to 20th Century Fox, where among many other films she appeared in John Ford's Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), the Shirley Temple vehicle Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938), and the Ritz Brothers version of The Three Musketeers (1939). Gradually retiring from films in the early '40s to return to her stage origins, Stuart subsequently decided to devote her time to her second husband, screenwriter/wit Arthur Sheekman, whom she had married in 1934. She became an accomplished painter, staging several one-woman exhibits in New York, Austria, and Italy during the 1960s. In 1982, Stuart made a long-overdue return to the screen in the cameo role of Peter O'Toole's matronly dancing partner in My Favorite Year. Sixteen years later, she became known to a whole new generation of fans when she starred as 100-year-old Rose DeWitt, the heroine of James Cameron's Titanic. The only member of Titanic's cast and crew to have been alive at the time of the actual catastrophe, Stuart, who was 88 when the film was released, made history with her performance in the record-breaking movie. Nominated for an Oscar in the Best Supporting Actress category, she became the oldest person in history to be nominated for an Academy Award; in addition to various other award nominations, she won a Best Supporting Actress prize from the Screen Actors Guild, an organization she had helped to found in 1933. Thanks to Titanic, Stuart enjoyed a late-life career renaissance, and was soon appearing in magazines (People dubbed her one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World"), Hanson videos, and, most importantly, in new films that ranged from the romantic comedy The Love Letter (1999) to Wim Wenders' The Million Dollar Hotel (2000).

Trivia: Possessing a special talent for totally immersing himself in his roles, Bill Paxton did not always get the recognition he deserves. Tall, rangy, and boyishly good looking, Paxton's career was a curiosity that found the character actor-turned-filmmaker succeeding in intermittently pulling the rug from under filmgoers' feet with a constantly expanding sense of maturity and range.Paxton's interest in films emerged during his teens when he began making his own movies with a Super-8 camera. He formally entered the entertainment industry in 1974 as a set dresser for Roger Corman's New World Pictures. Paxton made his acting debut as a bit player in Crazy Mama (1975), and afterward, the young thespian moved to New York to hone his skills. Following performances in a couple of horror quickies, Paxton formally launched his Hollywood career with a tiny part in Ivan Reitman's Stripes (1981) and this led to a steady if not unremarkable career in film and television during the '80s. In addition to acting, Paxton made short independent films such as Fish Heads, (1982) which became a favorite on NBC's Saturday Night Live. Paxton's acting career got a much-needed boost in 1985 when he was cast as Ilan Mitchell-Smith's obnoxious big brother Chet Donolley in John Hughes' Weird Science. Some of Paxton's more memorable subsequent roles include that of a cocky intergalactic soldier in James Cameron's Aliens (1986), a crazed vampire in Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark, and sickly astronaut Freddie Hayes in Ron Howard's Apollo 13. In 1996, Paxton landed a starring role, opposite Helen Hunt, in the special-effects blockbuster Twister; his career took an upward turn and Paxton got more leads than ever. Though few audiences saw it in its limited release, critics were quick to praise Paxton's turn as con-artist Traveler in the 1997 movie of the same name. Following a doomed voyage on the Titanic the same year, the workhorse actor once again intrigued filmgoers as a small-town dweller struggling with his conscience after stumbling into over a million dollars in usually flamboyant director Sam Raimi's strikingly subdued A Simple Plan. A quiet and intense performance enhanced by a talented cast including Billy Bob Thornton and Bridget Fonda, the psychological crime drama once again provided further proof that Paxton's impressive range of emotion stretched beyond what many filmgoers may have previously suspected. Though subsequent performances in Mighty Joe Young (1998) and U-571 (2000) did little to backup the promise shown in A Simple Plan, Paxton still had a few tricks up his sleeve, as evidenced by his directorial debut Frailty (2002), a surprisingly competent and genuinely frightening tale of religious fervor and questionable sanity. Though cynical filmgoers may have initially viewed the trailer-touting praises of former collaborators Raimi and James Cameron as favors from old friends, the taut tale of a father who claims that God has provided him with a list of "demons" that he and his sons must cast from the earth blind-sided critics and filmgoers with its disturbingly minimalistic yet complex psychological thriller that recalled the thematic elements of previous efforts as Michael Tolkin's The Rapture (1991). His performance as a loving father who reluctantly embarks on God's mission was a vital component of the films emotional impact, and was once again proof that this former supporting player still had a few tricks up his sleeve.Though he hadn't paid much attention to television since his early career, in 2006, Paxton took on the lead role in HBO's Big Love, playing a polygamous husband with three wives. The show was a hit and garnered critical acclaim, including three Golden Globe nominations for Paxton. When the show wrapped up after five seasons, Paxton joined the miniseries Hatfields & McCoys, earning his only Emmy nomination of his career for the role. In 2014, Paxton took on a recurring role in Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., playing the villainous John Garrett. He also played Sam Houston in 2015 miniseries Texas Rising. In 2017, his new network show Training Day (a small-screen version of the film) aired only three episodes before Paxton suddenly died of complications from surgery at age 61.

Trivia: When producers of the Lord of the Rings trilogy needed an actor of eminence and power to play King Théoden in the second and third films, they went fishing and reeled in a prize catch: Bernard Hill. It was Hill who portrayed Captain E.J. Smith in the 1997 box-office blockbuster Titanic. By sinking to the bottom as the stiff-upper-lipped commanding officer of the doomed ship, Hill rose to new heights in his profession, receiving international recognition for his acting skill. Although Titanic was mediocre artistically, audiences loved it for its soapy melodrama, special effects, and strong performances from veteran actors like Hill. But who was Hill? When fans checked into his background, they discovered that he was among Britain's most accomplished actors. In the 1980s, he earned critical acclaim for roles in stage and television productions of Shakespeare's plays and won Britain's Press Guild award for Achievement of the Decade for his performance in the TV miniseries Boys From the Blackstuff. In 1994, he received a British Academy award for his starring role in Skallagrigg. Further research revealed that Hill had portrayed Gratus in what was unquestionably one of the top three or four TV miniseries of all time -- I, Claudius (1976) -- and Sergeant Putnam in the 1982 Academy Award-winning biodrama Gandhi. Hill was born on December 17, 1944, in Manchester, England, and eventually resided with his own family in Suffolk. Since the early '70s, he has acted in television and film, as well as theater. Hill has appeared in TV adaptations of such classics as The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot; The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame; and Antigone by Sophocles. Hill accepted roles in a string of films with offbeat names: Besides Skallagrigg, he appeared in Madagascar Skin (1995), Drug-Taking and the Arts (1994), Dirtysomething (1993), Drowning by Numbers (1988), Bellman and True (1987), Milwr Bychan (1986), Squaring the Circle (1984), The Spongers (1978), and Pit Strike (1977). In the Lord of the Rings films, Hill plays white-haired Théoden Ednew, the 17th king of Rohan and a defender of Middle-earth. Made old and decrepit beyond his chronological age by the machinations of Grima Wormtongue and Saruman, Théoden regains his vigor through the intervention of Gandalf and rides his horse, Snowmane, to battlefield glory.

Trivia: Manchester native David Warner supported himself as a book salesman while studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Warner made his stage bow at the Royal Court Theater in 1962, the same year that he first appeared on television. In 1965, Warner became the youngest-ever member of the Royal Shakespeare Company to tackle the role of Hamlet. In films from 1963 (he played Master Blifil in Tom Jones), Warner achieved international fame for his star turn as the certifiably insane protagonist of Morgan! (1966). His appearance as the village idiot in Straw Dogs (1971) went uncredited due to an injury that rendered him uninsurable on the set; but this was the only time that Warner's contribution to a film would ever go unofficially unheralded. Seldom settling for a normal, sedate characterization, Warner has been seen as Jack the Ripper in Time After Time (1981), the Evil Genius in Time Bandits (1983), Dr. Alfred Necessiter (who had some interior decorator!) in The Man With Two Brains (1984), and genially eccentric Professor Jordan Perry (a good guy, for a change) in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (1992). He has also played two different roles in two consecutive Star Trek films. On television, David Warner has played Heydrich in Holocaust (1978), Pomponius Falco (a performance that won him an Emmy) in Masada (1981), and Bob Cratchit (what-not Scrooge?) in the 1984 adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

Trivia: Broadway actor Victor Garber was born on March 16th, 1940 in London, Ontario, Canada. Through years of working on-stage, he has earned several Tony and Drama Desk nominations. He earned his first Obie award for his performance in Wenceslas Square at the 1988 New York Shakespeare Festival. Some of his other stage credits include Macbeth, Sweeney Todd, Damn Yankees, and Yasmina Reza's Art. After playing Jesus on-stage in Toronto, Garber reprised his role in David Greene's 1973 film musical Godspell. He joined Greene again to play the lead in Liberace: Behind the Music (1988).Staying busy with theater, Garber occasionally acts in supporting roles on the big screen. He appeared in two of Nora Ephron's feature comedies: Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and Mixed Nuts (1994). He also appeared in the tense drama Exotica in 1994, directed by fellow Canadian Atom Egoyan. Throughout the '90s and beyond, he appeared in countless TV movies, from Woman on the Run: The Lawrencia Bembenek Story (1993) to Torso: The Evelyn Dick Story (2002). Some of his mainstream feature appearances include small parts in The First Wives Club, Titanic, and Legally Blonde. Meanwhile, he regularly appeared in a Canadian television mystery series, Criminal Instincts, based on the novels by Gail Bowen, starting with the first installment Love and Murder in 2000. He played Inspector Phillip Menard to head police detective Joanne Kilborne (Wendy Crewson). He also had a very comfortable home in Disney movies during this time, as he played the dad in Tuck Everlasting, the king in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, and Daddy Warbucks in Rob Marshall's 1999 TV feature Annie.In 2001, Garber was cast as another dad in the dramatic spy series Alias. He played Jack Bristow, the CIA agent dad of Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner). He earned an Emmy nomination for his work on the show. Characters for 2003 included a mayor in the ABC musical The Music Man and a detective in the independent drama Home Room. The actor continued his work in Alias until 2005, and enjoyed further success on the television series' Justice and Eli Stone. In 2008, the actor took on the role of Mayor Moscone for the Academy Award-winning Milk, and lent his voice to Kung Fu Panda 2 in 2011.

Trivia: Left Australia for the United Kingdom in 1969; shortly after his arrival, he saw Ian McClellan perform on the stage in Richard II and decided to become an actor. Was an original cast member of Not the Nine O'Clock News; left the show when it underwent heavy cast changes for the second season. Is an Associate Member of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. A member of the Royal Shakespeare Company; performed in the RSC's tour of King Lear in 2007, opposite Ian McKellan. Is an accomplished singer and painter.

Trivia: Advertised as "the face of the '80s," one-time model and Actors Studio-graduate Suzy Amis made her film bow in Fandango (1985). While making the film, Amis met her future husband Sam Robards, the son of Jason Robards, Jr. and Lauren Bacall. She followed Fandango with an off-Broadway appearance in Fresh Horses and next essayed an unprepossessing "goodie two-shoes" film role in The Big Town (1987). Despite having the least interesting assignment in that film, Amis managed to steal several scenes away from villainess Laura Dern. She further proved her acting mettle as the titular heroine of The Ballad of Little Jo (1993), portraying a young woman who passes herself off as a man to survive a harsh existence in the Old West. Unfortunately, although Amis earned a number of plaudits for her performance, the film all but disappeared at the box office. The actress turned up in lead and supporting roles in a number of varied films, including Rocket Gilbraltar (1988), Rich in Love (1993), The Usual Suspects (1995) -- which cast her as the film's only substantial female character -- and Titanic (1997), in which she played heroine Kate Winslet's great-granddaughter.

Trivia: Lead actor Nicholas Cascone appeared on screen beginning in the late '80s.

Trivia: While most recognizable for his portrayal of Leonardo Di Caprio's doomed Italian sidekick in Titanic (1997), actor Danny Nucci had over three dozen film and television credits on his resumé before he even auditioned for the blockbuster. Born in Klagenfurt, Austria, and raised just outside of Venice, Italy, Nucci is the second child of a French Moroccan mother and an Italian father. His family relocated to the States when Nucci was only seven years old. They lived temporarily in Queens, NY, (where Nucci attended P.S. 144 in Forest Hills and P.S. 90 in Kew Gardens) before settling in California's San Fernando Valley. Nucci caught the acting bug as a student at Ulysses S. Grant High School in Van Nuys, CA, when the drama teacher recruited him for a production of West Side Story. Soon afterward, he volunteered to answer phones at a Variety Club charity telethon just for the chance to be on television, which was his first break.Forty auditions later, Nucci began his professional acting career at age 14 with a bit part on the ABC soap opera General Hospital. Roles on Richard Pryer's kids show Pryor's Place, Family Ties, and in the teen science fiction film The Explorers (1985) quickly followed. Yet, Nucci suffered a temporary emotional set back when he did not make the cast of Rob Reiner's Stand by Me (1986), after being called back several times. Devastated, he took a five-year hiatus from feature films in order to polish his skills on the small screen. He appeared on Hotel, The Twilight Zone, Growing Pains, Magnum, P.I., and Tour of Duty, and in numerous television films (including a stint as Keanu Reeves' younger brother in 1986's Brotherhood of Justice), as well as garnered three Young Artist Award nominations. Nucci's performance in the 1987 CBS Schoolbreak Special An Enemy Among Us was so powerful that the network showed the telefilm during prime time. He then played Gabriel Ortega on Falcon Crest from 1988 to 1989 -- earning his fourth Young Artist Award nomination for his performance -- before returning to features as Chris Young's sidekick in the teen comedy Book of Love (1991). This led to a small role in Frank Marshall's Alive (1993), the true story of a Uruguayan rugby team that is stranded in the Andes after a plane crash, starring Ethan Hawke, Vincent Spano, and Illeana Douglas. Work in several television films, B-movies, and independent features ensued, including A Matter of Justice (1993), Ray Alexander: A Taste for Justice (1994), and Blind Justice (1994).Nucci's big break arrived when casting directors tapped him to play Petty Officer Rivetti in Tony Scott's box-office smash Crimson Tide (1995). He held his own opposite the film's stars, Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman, impressing producer Jerry Bruckheimer who immediately cast Nucci as a Navy SEAL in Michael Bay's The Rock with Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, and Ed Harris. He then appeared as a doomed deputy in the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Eraser (1996), before proving his comedic talent as a paparazzo stalking Bette Midler and Dennis Farina in That Old Feeling (1997).After rapping up his role as Fabrizio De Rossi in 1997's Titanic (which instantly became the world's highest-grossing film), Nucci returned to independent features like the thriller Love Walked In (1998) and the comedy Friends & Lovers (1999). He then joined the supporting cast of producer David E. Kelley's only unsuccessful television series, Snoops. After the show's cancellation, television producer Jonathan Axelrod (who is married to Nucci's Alive co-star, Illeana Douglas) tapped Nucci to star in the CBS sitcom Some of My Best Friends. Based on the independent film Kiss Me, Guido (1997), the show featured Nucci as Frank Zito, a big-hearted wannabe actor from Queens who unknowingly moves in with a gay roommate played by Jason Bateman. Though called "pretty darn funny" by the New York Times, the series was ultimately canceled. Yet, Nucci immediately bounced back with the Sci Fi Channel miniseries Firestarter 2: Rekindled (2002), the sequel to Mark Lester's blockbuster adaptation of the Stephen King novel. The four-part series, which stars Marguerite Moreau, Malcolm McDowell, and Dennis Hopper, gained such a following that the network decided to develop it into a regular series.In the meantime, Nucci completed filming on Monika Mitchell's Break a Leg (2003) with his girlfriend, actress Paula Marshall, before moving on to appear in such acclaimed films as World Trade Center, as well as TV series like The Booth at the End.

Trivia: Dubbed Britain's "very own Leonardo DiCaprio" after his role as the ship officer who rescues Kate Winslet in Titanic, Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd (pronounced "Yo-wan Griffiths") went from relative unknown to rapidly ascending Hot Young Thing in just a few short years. Bearing the kind of looks that inspire more than a few torrid fantasies, the arrestingly photogenic actor has proved to be the hottest Welsh export since Catherine Zeta-Jones. Hailing from Cardiff, where he was born on October 6, 1973, Gruffudd enjoyed a fairly happy childhood. Raised as one of three children by parents who were Welsh language educators, he developed an early interest in performing. This interest was directed at music, rather than acting, and Gruffudd developed into an accomplished oboist and singer while he was growing up. At the age of eleven, he decided to give acting a whirl, and two years later, he became a professional actor with a role in the Welsh soap opera Pobol Y Cwm (People of the Valley). Gruffudd's interest in acting proved lasting, and he was accepted at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art when he was eighteen. He studied there for three years, and, following graduation, he landed a part on the popular BBC series Poldark. He made his film debut in 1997, playing one of Oscar Wilde's lovers in Wilde. That same year, in his small role dredging Kate Winslet out of the Atlantic in Titanic, he managed to make an impression on more than a few viewers. In 1998, Gruffudd again went out to sea, in the acclaimed BBC series Horatio Hornblower. His title role in the series, adapted from C.S. Forester's 18th century tales of adventure on the high seas, made him a star in the UK, and soon there was no shortage of articles detailing everything from his physical attributes to his personal life. Thus, it was only a matter of time before Gruffudd got his first starring role on the big screen, and a year later, he did just that. 1999 saw him star in Solomon and Gaenor, a love story between a Jewish man and a Welsh woman set in turn-of-the-century Wales. Gruffudd won strong notices for his performance, and that same year he earned additional raves for his work in the BBC television adaptation of Great Expectations. He then exchanged period etiquette for contemporary perversion with his role in the BBC miniseries Love in the 21st Century, playing a man whose obsessive interest in masturbation threatens his relationship with his wife. 2001 saw Gruffudd showing off his American accent in the critically-acclaimed cinematic retelling of the bloody Battle of Mogadishu. The film cast him alongside several other up-and-comers such as Orlando Bloom and Eric Bana. Following roles in smaller fare like Happy Now and This Girl's Life, Gruffudd was cast opposite Clive Owen and Keira Knightly as Sir Lancelot in director Antoine Fuqua's gritty King Arthur. Gruffudd joined the cast of Fantastic Four in 2005, and again for its sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, in 2007. The actor was praised for his role as Tony Blair in W. (2008), Oliver Stone's biopic chronicling the life and career of former President George W. Bush. Playing the part of self-made millionaire Andrew Martin, Gruffudd co-starred with Sarah Michelle Gellar in Ringer, a short-lived television series from The CW.

Trivia: German-born Hans Gudegast was still in his teens when he made his first film appearance in The Colossus of Rhodes (1957). Spending virtually his entire career in Hollywood, Gudegast achieved TV fame as the eternally outflanked Afrika Korps officer Hauptman on the weekly TV series The Rat Patrol (1967-1969). Sensing that he'd forever be typecast as a Nazi under his given name, Gudegast changed his professional cognomen to Eric Braeden in 1970 (he reportedly borrowed the name of his home town in Germany, though some sources indicate that he was actually born in Kiel). The actor's instincts were correct: under his new professional name, Braeden was afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his versatility as both leading man -- he was Charles Forbin in Colossus: The Forbin Project -- and villain. He was often called upon to convey insufferable arrogance, vide his memorable appearance as a media critic on an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (that's the one where Braeden received a pie in the face, courtesy of Ted Knight). Eric Braeden's best-known characterization was as the smoothly sinister Victor Newman in the CBS daytime drama The Young and the Restless. Braeden played a small role as the wealthy John Jacob Astor in 1997's mega-hit Titanic, and co-starred in the comedy Meet the Deedles the following year. Following a long run on The Young and the Restless, Braeden co-starred with fellow Titanic alumni Billy Zane in The Man Who Came Back (2008), and took on the role of Robin Scherbatsky, Sr. for the television series How I Met Your Mother.

Trivia: Bernard Fox was descended from a long line of British stage actors; perhaps his most famous forebear was his uncle, veteran comic actor Wilfred Lawson. Fox made his screen debut in 1956's Soho Incident, appearing in several other British films before he was brought to Hollywood by actor/producer Danny Thomas in 1963. Generally cast in stuffy, old-school-tie roles, the toothbrush-mustached Fox flourished in American films and TV programs well into the late 1980s. Bernard Fox was most widely recognized for his TV work, notably his recurring appearances as gentleman's gentleman Malcolm Merriweather on The Andy Griffith Show and wacky warlock Dr. Bombay on Bewitched; he also played Dr. Watson opposite Stewart Granger's Sherlock Holmes in the 1972 TV-movie adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles. He appeared in blockbusters like Titanic (1997) and The Mummy (1999) towards the end of his career; one of his final roles was reprising his Dr. Bombay character on the supernatural soap opera Passions. Fox died in 2016, at age 89.

Trivia: Athlete-turned-actress Jenette Goldstein was well suited for her movie debut: James Cameron's pumped-up action sequel Aliens (1986). Born and raised in Los Angeles, Goldstein trained to be a gymnast before deciding she'd rather pursue an acting career. She went to New York and London to study the craft, and was living in Britain when she heard about the Aliens audition. Though she mistakenly thought it was a movie about immigrants, her athletic background as well as acting skills helped her get the role of super-tough Pvt. Vasquez, one of the small band of soldiers pitted against the formidable mother Alien. Buoyed by Aliens' blockbuster success and a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, Goldstein returned to Hollywood. Following a substantial role as one of the vampire gang in Kathryn Bigelow's cult classic Near Dark (1987), Goldstein appeared in several action movies, including The Presidio (1988) and Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), and also revisited science fiction in Star Trek: Generations (1994). Becoming a James Cameron blockbuster regular, Goldstein also played the small yet pointed role of Edward Furlong's foster mother in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and showed her softer side as a doomed Irish immigrant mom in Titanic (1997). Moving away from big budget genre pictures after Titanic, Goldstein joined the eclectic casts of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) and Living Out Loud (1998).