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Dawn Orienne Olivieri is an American actress perhaps best known for her turn as Lydia in Heroes and Monica Talbot in House of Lies. She has appeared in the Showtime series House of Lies for 41 episodes, starting in 2012, playing the competitive management consultant and ex-wife of main character Marty Kaan and mother of their son, Roscoe Kaan. She acted as Janice Herveaux in the third season of the HBO series True Blood. She played a reporter and Damon Salvatore's girlfriend Andie Star in the hit CW show The Vampire Diaries. Wrapping up the 4th season on Heroes, she has also completed parts on TBS's My Boys, NBC's Knight Rider, TNT's Trust Me, and SyFy's Stargate: Atlantis, and recurred on CBS's How I Met Your Mother. Olivieri played a lead role in the SyFy movie Hydra, and she is the voice of Pepper Potts in the new Avengers animated series on Disney XD. She appeared in the October 2009 issue of Maxim. Olivieri appeared on HBO's Entourage on September 13, 2009, and hosted a contest on Scripped. She voiced Lucy Kuo in a PlayStation 3 video game, Infamous 2, which was released in June 2011. As of March 2018, she has a recurring role in the CBS action-adventure series SEAL Team as Amy Nelson.

Kathryn co-starred as Cassie Lang in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania 2023, followed by Lisa Frankenstein starring alongside Cole Sprouse and Winner starring Emilia Jones, with release dates sometime in 2023. She can be seen as the lead of Amazon's The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, on Prime Video. In the fall of 2020, Kathryn starred opposite Vince Vaughn in Universal's highly anticipated horror-comedy Freaky, in which she starred as a high schooler who switches bodies with the local serial killer, played by Vaughn.

Previously, Kathryn has starred opposite Ryan Reynolds and Justice Smith in Pokemon Detective Pikachu for Legendary. She can be seen in Netflix's The Society and Blockers for Universal, which was the highest earning R-rated comedy of 2018.

She has worked with Martin McDonagh in the critically acclaimed film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Peter Hedges in Ben is Back and Greta Gerwig in Lady Bird. She has also worked with Jean-Marc Vallee and Andrea Arnold in Big Little Lies in which she played Reese Witherspoon's daughter.

Previous credits for Newton include CW's Supernatural, AMC's Mad Men, AMC's Halt and Catch Fire, CBS's Bad Teacher, Gary Unmarried and Paramount's Paranormal Activity 4. Newton started her acting career at the age of 4 and is also an avid golfer.

Quintessa Swindell was born on February 8, 1997 in New York, USA. They are an actor, known for Voyagers (2021), Black Adam (2022) and Euphoria (2019). In December 2020, they were cast in the role of Cyclone in the DCEU film Black Adam, starring Dwayne Johnson in the title role.

Swindell is non-binary and they use they/them and he/him pronouns.

Mary Steenburgen is an Academy Award-winning American actress.

She was born in Newport, Arkansas, USA. Her mother, Nellie May (Wall) Steenburgen, was a school-board secretary, and her father, Maurice H. Steenburgen, was a freight-train conductor. Her surname comes from distant Dutch ancestry, and her roots also include English, Scottish, and Welsh.

Young Steenburgen was fond of arts and literature. Mary grew up tap-dancing her way through talent shows and school functions. She was active in her school drama class. After appearing in a number of high school plays, she enrolled at Hendrix College, a highly progressive Southern School located in Conway, Arkansas. Upon the recommendation of her drama professor, she left college in 1972 and moved to New York to study acting professionally. In the past several years, Mary Steenburgen has emerged as one of the most accomplished and sought-after screen actresses. Ever since Jack Nicholson discovered her and cast her as a sassy adventuress in his rollicking western, Goin' South (1978), her career has skyrocketed and she has won acclaim for exceptional performances in each of her diverse film roles. In Nicholas Meyer's Time After Time (1979), Steenburgen was afforded critical praise for her portrayal of a somewhat dippy but liberated young bank clerk in San Francisco who crosses paths, via time machine, with English author H.G. Wells (played by Malcolm McDowell, who later became her husband). In 1980 she shot to fame with her role as Lynda Dummar in Melvin and Howard (1980) for which she won Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Steenburgen again impressed audiences and critics alike with her stunning performance as the strong-willed turn-of-the-century mother in Ragtime (1981).

Steenburgen is a notable patron of arts. She is also an active supporter of humanitarian causes. She has two children from her previous marriage to actor Malcolm McDowell. Since 1995 she has been married to actor Ted Danson, and the couple is living in the Los Angeles area.

Nick Nolte was born in Omaha, Nebraska and began his career on stage at the Pasadena Playhouse and in regional theatre productions. His breakthrough role was in the TV miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man (1976), playing the role of "Tom/Tommy Jordache". Nick Nolte said that when he played a young man in the early scenes of the project, he weighed about 160 pounds. When he played a middle-aged man in the later scenes, he weighed over 180 pounds.

Seth Green has starred in numerous films and television series including the Austin Powers trilogy, The Italian Job (2003), Without a Paddle (2004), Party Monster (2003), Can't Hardly Wait (1998), Old Dogs (2009) and dozens more, including starring roles in Sexy Evil Genius (2013), The Story of Luke (2012) and Yellowbird (2014). He's portrayed Christopher Guest in Netflix's National Lampoon origin film, A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018), and he starred opposite Katie Holmes and Michael Caine in Dear Dictator (2017). Green made his feature film directorial debut with Changeland (2019) starring Green, Breckin Meyer, Brenda Song, Macaulay Culkin, Clare Grant and Randy Orton. He is the co-creator/executive producer/primary voice talent and a writer/director on Robot Chicken (2001), 2010 & 2016 Emmy® Award-winner for Outstanding Short Format Animation Program. Green has voiced Chris Griffin on Family Guy (1999) since the series' inception. Green has been singled out for many Emmy voiceover nominations for Adult Swim's Robot Chicken. The show, the network's highest-rated original program, and their specials have won numerous Annie Awards for writing and producing, including one for Green for directing. In 2011, Green and his partners created Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, a full-service animation studio with many other projects including: Crackle's SuperMansion, Adult Swim's Hot Streets (2016) and WWE's Camp WWE (2016). In December 2017, the company signed a two-year first-look deal with 20th Century Fox Film to develop animated and live-action projects. Green has always been fascinated by space travel and has done a PSA for NASA and designed the CASIS patch for ISS U.S. National Laboratory missions for research to benefit life on Earth.

Mary McCormack began her acting career performing in a stage production of Gian Carlo Menotti's Christmas opera, "Amahl and the Night Visitors." "I was twelve but looked like an eight-year-old boy" she recalls. "As luck would have it, none of the boys in town could sing, so I got the part and wore a hat." Mary continued working regionally throughout New Jersey and continued her education at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. At Trinity, she majored in English and painting and continued her stage work in many more musicals. Mary finished an acting program at the William Esper Studio. She has worked in many New York theaters, some of which include The Atlantic Theatre Company, Alice's 4th Floor and Naked Angels, where she recently appeared in Jon Robin Baitz's "A Fair Country."

Susan Misner was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1971. She grew up in Pompton Plains where she fell in love with dancing. Her love of the dance led her to New York City where she landed roles in Broadway plays such as Guys and Dolls, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To A Forum, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and Dream.

After turning her focus toward acting, Susan appeared on, One Life to Live (1968), as Grace Davidson. She appeared in such films as Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You (1996), Chicago (2002), Stick It in Detroit (2008), Two Weeks (2006), Somebody's Hero (2012), Cayman Went (2009), and Hope Springs (2012). She can also be seen in music videos by C&C Music Factory and Taylor Dayne.

You can see Susan in CBS's Person of Interest (2011) as Jessica Arndt and in the 2013 Mid-season Thriller The Following (2013) as Jenny Mitchell, who has ties to Kevin Bacon's character.

Susan was just cast in The Americans (2013) as Sandra Beeman and will also play a handful of episodes in ABC's Nashville (2012) as Dr. Stacey Douglas.

Jack Lemmon was born in Newton, Massachusetts, to Mildred Lankford Noel and John Uhler Lemmon, Jr., the president of a doughnut company. His ancestry included Irish (from his paternal grandmother) and English. Jack attended Ward Elementary near his Newton, MA home. At age 9 he was sent to Rivers Country Day School, then located in nearby Brookline. After RCDS, he went to high school at Phillips Andover Academy. Jack was a member of the Harvard class of 1947, where he was in Navy ROTC and the Dramatic Club. After service as a Navy ensign, he worked in a beer hall (playing piano), on radio, off Broadway, TV and Broadway. His movie debut was with Judy Holliday in It Should Happen to You (1954). He won Best Supporting Actor as Ensign Pulver in Mister Roberts (1955). He received nominations in comedy (Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960)) and drama (Days of Wine and Roses (1962), The China Syndrome (1979), Tribute (1980) and Missing (1982)). He won the Best Actor Oscar for Save the Tiger (1973) and the Cannes Best Actor award for "Syndrome" and "Missing". He made his debut as a director with Kotch (1971) and in 1985 on Broadway in "Long Day's Journey into Night". In 1988 he received the Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute.

Brooke Adams was born on February 8, 1949 in New York City, to Rosalind (Gould), an actress, and Robert Kaufmann Adams, a former CBS vice president. She was educated at the prestigious High School for the Performing Arts and the School of the American Ballet.

Starting her career on the stage, her film career took off with a break through role opposite Richard Gere and Sam Shepard in Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978). She also starred in Philip Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), and repeated her off-Broadway role in the film version of Kevin Wade's romantic comedy Key Exchange (1985). Other film credits include Gas Food Lodging (1992), The Dead Zone (1983) opposite Christopher Walken, Cuba (1979) with Sean Connery, and Tell Me a Riddle (1980). She produced and starred in Made-Up (2002), written by her sister Lynne Adams.

Her stage credits include The Heidi Chronicles on Broadway, Key Exchange at the Orpheum, Split at The Second Stage, The Old Neighborhood at A.R.T. If Memory Serves at the Pasadena Playhouse, The Philanderer at Yale Rep, The Cherry Orchard at The Atlantic Theatre Co. and Lend Me a tenor on Broadway with her husband Tony Shalhoub directed by Stanley Tucci. She has most recently starred in Samuel Becket's Happy Days with her husband Tony Shalhoub.

On television, she has appeared in Thirtysomething (1987), Moonlighting (1985), Family (1976), The Lion of Africa (1987), Special People (1984), the miniseries Lace (1984) and Lace II (1985), 5 episodes of Monk (2002), BrainDead (2016) on CBS and is writing, producing, directing, and starring in a web-series, All Downhill from Here (2015).

Ryan Pinkston was born on February 8, 1988 in Silver Spring, Maryland to parents Linda and Mark. He studied karate from age 4 and by 9 had earned his second degree in Wushu and first degree in Tae Kwon Do. He holds World Titles in the United States, France, Canada, and Central America, including Individual Grand Champions and Synchronized Teams with his team partner, Anthony Atkins. Ryan began auditioning in 2002 after receiving a call from a talent agent who saw him on "The Most Talented Kids" episode on the Jenny Jones Show. Within a month, he had a starring role in Spy Kids 3-D and was pulling pranks on unsuspecting celebrities on the first season of Punk'd. Although the next few years were busy, Ryan was adamant about staying in Maryland and finishing school with his friends. He moved to LA a month after his high-school graduation.

As one of the best known, awarded, and financially successful composers in US history, John Williams is as easy to recall as John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland or Leonard Bernstein, illustrating why he is "America's composer" time and again. With a massive list of awards that includes over 52 Oscar nominations (five wins), twenty-odd Gold and Platinum Records, and a slew of Emmy (two wins), Golden Globe (three wins), Grammy (25 wins), National Board of Review (including a Career Achievement Award), Saturn (six wins), American Film Institute (including a Lifetime Achievement Award) and BAFTA (seven wins) citations, along with honorary doctorate degrees numbering in the teens, Williams is undoubtedly one of the most respected composers for Cinema. He's led countless national and international orchestras, most notably as the nineteenth conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980-1993, helming three Pops tours of the US and Japan during his tenure. He currently serves as the Pop's Conductor Laureate. Also to his credit is a parallel career as an author of serious, and some not-so-serious, concert works - performed by the likes of Mstislav Rostropovich, André Previn, Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham, Leonard Slatkin, James Ingram, Dale Clevenger, and Joshua Bell. Of particular interests are his Essay for Strings, a jazzy Prelude & Fugue, the multimedia presentation American Journey (aka The Unfinished Journey (1999)), a Sinfonietta for Winds, a song cycle featuring poems by Rita Dove, concerti for flute, violin, clarinet, trumpet, tuba, cello, bassoon and horn, fanfares for the 1984, 1988 and 1996 Summer Olympics, the 2002 Winter Olympics, and a song co-written with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman for the Special Olympics! But such a list probably warrants a more detailed background...

Born in Flushing, New York on February 8, 1932, John Towner Williams discovered music almost immediately, due in no small measure to being the son of a percussionist for CBS Radio and the Raymond Scott Quintet. After moving to Los Angeles in 1948, the young pianist and leader of his own jazz band started experimenting with arranging tunes; at age 15, he determined he was going to become a concert pianist; at 19, he premiered his first original composition, a piano sonata.

He attended both UCLA and the Los Angeles City College, studying orchestration under MGM musical associate Robert Van Eps and being privately tutored by composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, until conducting for the first time during three years with the U.S. Air Force. His return to the states brought him to Julliard, where renowned piano pedagogue Madame Rosina Lhevinne helped Williams hone his performance skills. He played in jazz clubs to pay his way; still, she encouraged him to focus on composing. So it was back to L.A., with the future maestro ready to break into the Hollywood scene.

Williams found work with the Hollywood studios as a piano player, eventually accompanying such fare such as the TV series Peter Gunn (1958), South Pacific (1958), Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), and To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), as well as forming a surprising friendship with Bernard Herrmann. At age 24, "Johnny Williams" became a staff arranger at Columbia and then at 20th Century-Fox, orchestrating for Alfred Newman and Lionel Newman, Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, and other Golden Age notables. In the field of popular music, he performed and arranged for the likes of Vic Damone, Doris Day, and Mahalia Jackson... all while courting actress/singer Barbara Ruick, who became his wife until her death in 1974. John & Barbara had three children; their daughter is now a doctor, and their two sons, Joseph Williams and Mark Towner Williams, are rock musicians.

The orchestrating gigs led to serious composing jobs for television, notably Alcoa Premiere (1961), Checkmate (1960), Gilligan's Island (1964), Lost in Space (1965), Land of the Giants (1968), and his Emmy-winning scores for Heidi (1968) and Jane Eyre (1970). Daddy-O (1958) and Because They're Young (1960) brought his original music to the big theatres, but he was soon typecast doing comedies. His efforts in the genre helped guarantee his work on William Wyler's How to Steal a Million (1966), however, a major picture that immediately led to larger projects. Of course, his arrangements continued to garner attention, and he won his first Oscar for adapting Fiddler on the Roof (1971).

During the '70s, he was King of Disaster Scores with The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Earthquake (1974) and The Towering Inferno (1974). His psychological score for Images (1972) remains one of the most innovative works in soundtrack history. But his Americana - particularly The Reivers (1969) - is what caught the ear of director Steven Spielberg, then preparing for his first feature, The Sugarland Express (1974). When Spielberg reunited with Williams on Jaws (1975), they established themselves as a blockbuster team, the composer gained his first Academy Award for Original Score, and Spielberg promptly recommended Williams to a friend, George Lucas. In 1977, John Williams re-popularized the epic cinema sound of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman and other composers from the Hollywood Golden Age: Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) became the best selling score-only soundtrack of all time, and spawned countless musical imitators. For the next five years, though the music in Hollywood changed, John Williams wrote big, brassy scores for big, brassy films - The Fury (1978), Superman (1978), 1941 (1979), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) ... An experiment during this period, Heartbeeps (1981), flopped. There was a long-term change of pace, nonetheless, as Williams fell in love with an interior designer and married once more.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) brought about his third Oscar, and The River (1984), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Accidental Tourist (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) added variety to the 1980s, as he returned to television with work on Amazing Stories (1985) and themes for NBC, including NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (1970). The '80s also brought the only exceptions to the composer's collaboration with Steven Spielberg - others scored both Spielberg's segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) and The Color Purple (1985).

Intending to retire, the composer's output became sporadic during the 1990s, particularly after the exciting Jurassic Park (1993) and the masterful, Oscar-winning Schindler's List (1993). This lighter workload, coupled with a number of hilarious references on The Simpsons (1989) actually seemed to renew interest in his music. Two Home Alone films (1990, 1992), JFK (1991), Nixon (1995), Sleepers (1996), Seven Years in Tibet (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Angela's Ashes (1999), and a return to familiar territory with Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) recalled his creative diversity of the '70s.

In this millennium, the artist shows no interest in slowing down. His relationships with Spielberg and Lucas continue in A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), the remaining Star Wars prequels (2002, 2005), Minority Report (2002), Catch Me If You Can (2002), and a promised fourth Indiana Jones film. There is a more focused effort on concert works, as well, including a theme for the new Walt Disney Concert Hall and a rumored light opera. But one certain highlight is his musical magic for the world of Harry Potter (2001, 2002, 2004, etc.), which he also arranged into a concert suite geared toward teaching children about the symphony orchestra. His music remains on the whistling lips of people around the globe, in the concert halls, on the promenades, in album collections, sports arenas, and parades, and, this writer hopes, touching some place in ourselves. So keep those ears ready wherever you go, 'cause you will likely hear a bit of John Williams on your way.

James Byron Dean was born February 8, 1931 in Marion, Indiana, to Mildred Marie (Wilson) and Winton A. Dean, a farmer turned dental technician. His mother died when Dean was nine, and he was subsequently raised on a farm by his aunt and uncle in Fairmount, Indiana. After grade school, he moved to New York to pursue his dream of acting. He received rave reviews for his work as the blackmailing Arab boy in the New York production of Gide's "The Immoralist", good enough to earn him a trip to Hollywood. His early film efforts were strictly small roles: a sailor in the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis overly frantic musical comedy Sailor Beware (1952); a GI in Samuel Fuller's moody study of a platoon in the Korean War, Fixed Bayonets! (1951) and a youth in the Piper Laurie-Rock Hudson comedy Has Anybody Seen My Gal (1952).

He had major roles in only three movies. In the Elia Kazan production of John Steinbeck's East of Eden (1955) he played Cal Trask, the bad brother who could not force affection from his stiff-necked father. His true starring role, the one which fixed his image forever in American culture, was that of the brooding red-jacketed teenager Jim Stark in Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause (1955). George Stevens' filming of Edna Ferber's Giant (1956), in which he played the non-conforming cowhand Jett Rink who strikes it rich when he discovers oil, was just coming to a close when Dean, driving his Porsche Spyder race car, collided with another car while on the road near Cholame, California on September 30, 1955. He had received a speeding ticket just two hours before. At age 24, James Dean was killed almost immediately from the impact from a broken neck. His very brief career, violent death and highly publicized funeral transformed him into a cult object of apparently timeless fascination.

Susan May Pratt was born on 8 February 1974 in Lansing, Michigan, USA. She is an actress, known for 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), Drive Me Crazy (1999) and Open Water 2: Adrift (2006). She was previously married to Kenneth Mitchell.

Anna Hutchison was born on 8 February 1986 in New Zealand. Anna is an actor and producer, known for Robert the Bruce (2019), Encounter (2018) and Vengeance: A Love Story (2017). Anna has been married to Mike Gillespie since December 2018. They have two children.

Jim Parrack, born February 8, 1981, is an American actor. He had a starring role as "Hoyt Fortenberry" in the HBO series, True Blood (2008), and appeared in the film, Battle Los Angeles (2011), which was released in March 2011. He starred in the 2014 Broadway production of John Steinbeck's novel, "Of Mice and Men", in which he plays the character "Slim". The play also stared James Franco, Chris O'Dowd and Leighton Meester. Parrack was born in Allen, Texas on February 8, 1981. He attended the co-ed Allen High School for secondary education. In 2001, Parrack moved to Los Angeles, California, where he studied acting at The Stella Adler Academy and then at the Playhouse West.

Liam McIntyre is an Australian actor best known for playing the lead role in the Starz television series Spartacus: Vengeance and Spartacus: War of the Damned. McIntyre began his career acting mainly in short films, before performing guest roles in Australia's popular television series Rush and Neighbours. McIntyre made his US television debut guest starring in an episode of the award nominated HBO mini-series The Pacific. After his 2010 diagnosis of Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, original Spartacus lead actor Andy Whitfield took what was intended to be a temporary break from filming the title role for the Starz television series. Whitfield later withdrew from the role entirely when his cancer recurred, prior to his death. He was then replaced by McIntyre, who performed the title role for the remaining two seasons. Production on the second season of Spartacus resumed in the fall of 2011 and the series premiered on 27 January 2012.

William Jackson Harper was born on 8 February 1980 in Dallas, Texas, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Midsommar (2019), The Good Place (2016) and Paterson (2016).

Lana Turner had an acting ability that belied the "Sweater Girl" image MGM thrust upon her, and even many of her directors admitted that they knew she was capable of greatness (check out The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)). Unfortunately, her private life sometimes overshadowed her professional accomplishments.

Lana Turner was born Julia Jean Mildred Francis Turner in Wallace, Idaho. There is some discrepancy as to whether her birth date is February 8, 1920 or 1921. Lana herself said in her autobiography that she was one year younger (1921) than the records showed, but then this was a time where women, especially actresses, tended to "fib" a bit about their age. Most sources agree that 1920 is the correct year of birth. Her parents were Mildred Frances (Cowan) and John Virgil Turner, a miner, both still in their teens when she was born. In 1929, her father was murdered and it was shortly thereafter her mother moved her and the family to California where jobs were "plentiful". Once she matured into a beautiful young woman, she went after something that would last forever: stardom. She wasn't found at a drug store counter, like some would have you believe, but that legend persists. She pounded the pavement as other would-be actors and actresses have done, are doing and will continue to do in search of movie roles.

In 1937, Lana entered the movie world, at 17, with small parts in They Won't Forget (1937), The Great Garrick (1937) and A Star Is Born (1937). These films didn't bring her a lot of notoriety, but it was a start. In 1938 she had another small part in Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938) starring Mickey Rooney. It was this film that made young men's hearts all over America flutter at the sight of this alluring and provocative young woman--known as the "Sweater Girl"--and one look at that film could make you understand why: she was one of the most spectacularly beautiful newcomers to grace the screen in years. By the 1940s Lana was firmly entrenched in the film business. She had good roles in such films as Johnny Eager (1941), Somewhere I'll Find You (1942) and Week-End at the Waldorf (1945). If her career was progressing smoothly, however, her private life was turning into a train wreck, keeping her in the news in a way no one would have wanted.

Without a doubt her private life was a threat to her public career. She was married eight times, twice to Stephen Crane. She also married Ronald Dante, Robert Eaton, Fred May, Lex Barker, Henry Topping and bandleader Artie Shaw. She also battled alcoholism. In yet another scandal, her daughter by Crane, Cheryl Crane, fatally stabbed Lana's boyfriend, gangster Johnny Stompanato, in 1958. It was a case that would have rivaled the O.J. Simpson murder case. Cheryl was acquitted of the murder charge, with the jury finding that she had been protecting her mother from Stompanato, who was savagely beating her, and ruled it justifiable homicide. These and other incidents interfered with Lana's career, but she persevered. The release of Imitation of Life (1959), a remake of a 1934 film (Imitation of Life (1934)), was Lana's comeback vehicle. Her performance as Lora Meredith was flawless as an actress struggling to make it in show business with a young daughter, her housekeeper and the housekeeper's rebellious daughter. The film was a box-office success and proved beyond a doubt that Lana had not lost her edge.

By the 1960s, however, fewer roles were coming her way with the rise of new and younger stars. She still managed to turn in memorable performances in such films as Portrait in Black (1960) and Bachelor in Paradise (1961). By the next decade the roles were coming in at a trickle. Her last appearance in a big-screen production was in Witches' Brew (1980). Her final film work came in the acclaimed TV series Falcon Crest (1981) in which she played Jacqueline Perrault from 1982-1983. After all those years as a sex symbol, nothing had changed--Lana was still as beautiful as ever.

She died on June 25, 1995, in Culver City, California, after a long bout with cancer. She was 74 years old.

Cecily Strong was born on 8 February 1984 in Springfield, Illinois, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Saturday Night Live (1975), Schmigadoon! (2021) and The Boss (2016).

Creed Bratton's talent for acting and music began at a young age. Born in Los Angeles, he grew up in the small town of Coarsegold near Yosemite, California. He attended the College of the Sequoias and Sacramento State College as a drama major. He began playing the guitar professionally as a teenager followed by a whirlwind travel experience throughout Europe in his twenties with the band The Young Californians.

As a member of the popular rock group The Grass Roots in the 1960s, Bratton appeared on numerous television shows, as well as in the Doris Day movie, "With Six You Get Egg Roll." He parted ways with the band in 1970, but continued his passion and has released six solo albums up to the present day.

While honing his acting career, Bratton also worked in front of the camera and behind the scenes as prop man, boom man, composer and grip. His film credits as an actor include "Terri", "Mask" and "Heart like a Wheel." On television, he has appeared on hit shows such as "The Bernie Mac Show", "Eight Is Enough" and "Quincy." He was cast in "The Office" doing a parody of his life as a former rock star. During his years on the series, he also appeared in several short and independent films which were accepted in numerous festivals. He still performs in clubs as a solo performer.

Bratton resides in Los Angeles.

Ethan Phillips was born on February 8, 1955 in Long Island, New York as the only boy of six children. He graduated from Boston University with a degree in English Literature and received a Masters Degree in Fine Arts from Cornell University. He has acted on stage, screen, and television for over four decades.

Henry Czerny was born on 8 February 1959 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is an actor, known for Mission: Impossible (1996), Clear and Present Danger (1994) and The Pink Panther (2006). He has been married to Claudine Cassidy since 11 August 2001. They have one child.

Without a doubt Gary Coleman was THE child TV star of the late 1970s and early 1980s. A refreshingly confident little tyke with sparkling dark, saucer-like eyes and an ingratiating, take-on-anyone burst of personality, the boy charmed the pants right off of TV viewers the minute he was glimpsed in national commercials. Amazed by how mature he came across, Gary was in truth older than he looked, which was brought upon by a congenital kidney condition. Sadly, the pint-sized phenomena outgrew his chubby-cheeked welcome and found the course of his grown-up Hollywood career brutally rough and patchy. The fragile condition of his health coupled with this lack of adult career acceptance, sparked an aggressively defensive behavior mechanism in his adult years and led to great personal unhappiness, chronic legal/financial hassles and early death.

He was born Gary Wayne Coleman on February 8, 1968, to a homeless woman, and was adopted by a fork-lift operator and his nurse practitioner wife from a Chicago hospital when he was just a few days old. Raised in Zion, Illinois, it was discovered that little Gary had severe health issues before the age of 2. Born with one atrophied kidney and an endangering weak second one, he had two kidney transplants by the time he reached age 16 and the effects of his dialysis medication permanently stunted his growth (to 4'8").

A highly precocious comedy cut-up on-camera, Gary proved a natural in local Chicago commercials. As his commercials spread nationwide, audiences began wondering just who this diminutive dynamo was. Norman Lear's talent scout spotted him in a Chicago bank commercial (he was 9 at the time) and decided to reveal to the world who the little guy was. Brought in to brighten up such Lear sitcoms as "The Jeffersons" and "Good Times" (the latter as a friend of little Janet Jackson's character), NBC quickly recognized the boy's comedy prowess and handed the 10-year-old his own prime-time sitcom playground to mug in.

While Diff'rent Strokes (1978)'s underlying approach was to preach racial and social tolerance (it revolved around two lower-class African-American brothers from Harlem who are taken in and adopted by a wealthy, debonair Park Avenue white man after their housekeeper mother dies), the show's powers-that-be smartly deduced that it was the wisecracking gifts of young Coleman, who played the youngest brother, Arnold Jackson, that gave the show its spark. Deemed "NBC's Littlest Big Man," Gary's sly, pouting-lipped delivery of, "What'chu talkin' about, Willis?" soon became a popular American catchphrase.

Legendary comics such as Bob Hope and Lucille Ball absolutely gushed about the little boy's comedy genius and Gary soon became a hit on the talk show circuit, trading clever banter with the likes of Johnny Carson among others. The boy was also outfitted with a series of lightweight TV-movie showcases which included The Kid from Left Field (1979), Scout's Honor (1980), The Kid with the Broken Halo (1982), The Kid with the 200 I.Q. (1983), The Fantastic World of D.C. Collins (1984) and Playing with Fire (1985). All of them wisely centered around Gary's adorable persona. Modest film comedies also came his way with On the Right Track (1981) and Jimmy the Kid (1982). Topping it all off, the Hanna-Barbera-produced series The Gary Coleman Show (1982) produced an animated version of the child star. Little Gary would make close to $18 million during his nearly decade-long TV reign.

Like many others in his shoes, however, the aging Coleman felt trapped and pigeonholed by his stifling juvenile image and begged to get out from under it. The 18-year-old was truly thankful when the series ended in 1986. Coleman found, however, that a very fickle public was not as receptive to seeing him grow up. Like fellow TV star Emmanuel Lewis, Coleman began aging in appearance but remained trapped in the body of a young boy and the contrast proved too strange for audiences. As a result, Hollywood had little resources as to what to do with Gary Coleman the man. It wasn't long before Coleman was reduced to making weird guest appearances and small parts in even smaller films.

This crash course in reality triggered an increasingly erratic and aggressive behavior in Gary Coleman as he became increasingly angry and bitter about his lack of work when he was so used to be on top of everything. The subsequent tragedies suffered by all three young stars from the "Diff'rent Strokes" show, in fact, was sold out as a jinx package known as the "Diff'rent Strokes curse". While distaff co-star Dana Plato fell heavily into drug addiction, petty crime and pornography before taking her own life in 1999, Todd Bridges, who played Coleman's older brother, battled major cocaine abuse and was later charged (but acquitted of) attempted murder in the late 1980s.

In addition to his life-long health issues, Gary's adult problems came in the form of scattered financial and legal entanglements, as well as scrapes with the law. He was once arrested in 1999 for punching a persistent female autograph fan, in which he was fined and ordered to take anger-management classes. This became tabloid fodder for late night comics who joked that he must have landed "several good uppercuts." He also had many disorderly conduct and reckless driving charges brought up against him at various times. He would admit that the tally of his life problems led to more than a few feigned suicide attempts. In 1989, Coleman successfully sued his adopted parents and business manager after they allegedly pilfered his youthful fortune for their own self interest totaling $3.8 million in losses, and he won $1,280,000. Despite the large settlement, all of the money was soon spent on taxes, legal fees, as well as his increasingly high medical bills for his continuing dialysis treatments. As a result by 1999 (with no steady acting work) Coleman had to declare bankruptcy, finding work outside the Hollywood industry as a security guard. For self-preservation, he went the reality-show route and became the object of self-mocking cameos to help bring in some cash. As a gag, he ran for California's 2003 governorship during its recall election.

In 2007, he married the much younger actress Shannon Price, whom he met on the set of the low budget film Church Ball (2006), but the quickly marriage dissolved quickly into domestic squabbles that put him in front of the court system yet again on domestic abuse charges. He later moved and settled in Utah.

In early 2009, Coleman managed to star in his very last film, the crude independent comedy Midgets vs. Mascots (2009) filmed in Dallas, Texas before the end came. Following heart surgery complicated by pneumonia in the fall of 2009, he suffered a heart seizure in February 2010 while performing on a Hollywood set. The 42-year-old actor died of a brain hemorrhage on May 28, 2010, after suffering an epidural haematoma from a fall at home. A sad end to a very bright and talented, but very troubled and bitter, child star who, at his peak, brought such joy to TV audiences.

Ralf Little was born on 8 February 1980 in Bury, Greater Manchester, England, UK. He is an actor and producer, known for The Royle Family (1998), 24 Hour Party People (2002) and Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps (2001).