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Blue-eyed and angelic, with delicate doll-like features and long wavy mermaid blonde hair, actress Heather Graham has often played the bad girl who steals the audience’s heart, her innocent looks in juxtaposition with her onscreen antics helping to make her an unpredictable and especially compelling presence. After debuting with a strong performance as a drunken dream girl in 1988’s silly “License to Drive” (a vehicle for the Coreys—Feldman and Haim), Graham was hired by director Gus Van Sant for his gripping “Drugstore Cowboy” (1989). Her performance as a young and doomed addict won praise and notice for this veteran of small TV parts (e.g., two 1987 episodes of the ABC sitcom “Growing Pains”) as well as a Best Actress nomination from the Independent Spirit Awards. The following year saw Graham take on the recurring role of Annie, an ex-nun who becomes the love interest of Kyle MacLachlan’s Agent Cooper, in David Lynch’s always strange series “Twin Peaks” (ABC). In 1991, she took on a more conventional role as a college student with parental difficulties in the unimpressive 1950s set musical drama “Shout”. She returned to television that year with a starring role alongside Josh Hamilton and Anne Heche, as the young version of Jessica Lange’s character in “O Pioneers!” for CBS. After reprising her role of Annie in the incoherent “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me” (1992) the actress appeared in “Diggstown” (also 1992) and “Six Degrees of Separation” (1993), both roles playing up Graham’s fresh-faced innocence. She went on to bide her time in features like the poorly received “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” and the little-seen independent drama “Desert Winds” (both 1994).

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A curvy brunette with a charming smile and bubbling confidence, Ginnifer Goodwin has established herself as a star-in-the-making in the early 2000’s. With an impressive pedigree of training and education, Goodwin possesses the skills and talent to become the next big thing. And though she has shared screen time with more famous actresses, like Julia Roberts and Kate Bosworth, Goodwin has used her considerable gifts to separate herself enough to capture the attention of both critics and audiences alike.

Goodwin fostered her acting bug in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, where she attended the Lausanne Collegiate School. She went on to earn her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Boston University, while performing in numerous student short films, as well as several college and local stage productions. Goodwin was given the Excellence in Acting: Professional Promise Award by the Bette Davis Foundation and graduated with honors. Soon after leaving BU, Goodwin studied at Stratford-Upon-Avon’s Shakespeare Institute in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company. As a self-described “Shakespeare nerd” who fell in love with “Romeo and Juliet” in the fifth grade, Goodwin must have been thrilled. Following the Shakespeare Institute, the budding thespian earned an Acting Shakespeare Certificate from London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she played Joan of Arc, Ophelia in “Hamlet” and Jessica in “The Merchant of Venice.”

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Meagan Monique Good (born August 8, 1981) is an American actress.

Good was born in Panorama City, California of Puerto Rican, French, East Indian and African American descent. She grew up in Valencia, California, where she lived with her parents and her three siblings, one of whom was adopted. Good resided in a part of California that was mainly Caucasian; The Good family were one of the first families to enter the area, Meagan Good explained in a Sister2Sister magazine interview. As a young girl, she recalls being treated differently while at school especially at the hands of a teacher she considered to be racist. She had a particularly hard time with fitting in, because a hairstyle she wanted to try was not allowed and neither was the use of lip gloss. She even blames this teacher for suffering grades that same year. Good did not, however, pick up on these subtleties until she became older.

Meagan Good does not describe her mother as religious, but rather describes her as a spiritual person who inspired her to become spiritual as well. Good did not attend church as a young girl, but God is a very important to her in life. God means so much to her that even “all of the success the money in the world… is inconsequential if it were not for God.

Because of her role as a child actress, she was home-schooled after a period of time in public school.

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Long the muse of leading Chinese “Fifth Generation” filmmaker Zhang Yimou, Gong Li began her film career when she met the director while in drama school. She and Zhang received considerable international acclaim with their debut, “Red Sorghum” (1987), in which Gong played a meek bride who becomes a powerful woman when she takes over her husband’s winery after his death.

One of China’s leading young stars of the 1980s and 90s, Gong has appeared in films by other directors (“The Empress Dowager” 1988, directed by Li Hanxiang; “The Terra Cotta Warrior”, in which she acted opposite Zhang) but it is in Zhang’s films that she is best known internationally. Slender and demure-looking but possessing a naturalistic verve and strength onscreen, Gong Li embodies a new generation of Chinese women, brought up amid ancient tradition but reaching toward feminist values. In the title role of “Ju Dou” (1990), she played a married woman whose torrid affair with her husband’s nephew brings about tragic consequences, while in “Raise the Red Lantern” (1991) her character also causes trouble as the newest addition to a man’s bevy of wives. Gong Li ventured into comedy with another eponymous heroine in “The Story of Qiu Ju” (1992) as a woman farmer determined to avenge an injustice done to her husband. In 1993, Gong Li starred in a film by another Fifth Generation stalwart, Chen Kaige, “Farewell to My Concubine” which shared the Palme d’Or at Cannes for best picture.

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Versatile stand-up comedienne and performance artist Whoopi Goldberg gained the attention of Hollywood with her eponymous 1984 Broadway show of character sketches, directed by Mike Nichols. Her trademark dreadlocks, gravelly voice and blunt, hip yet compassionate style made her unconventional star material to be sure, and the ups and downs of her career clearly represent the attempts of producers to smooth over what they consider to be her “rough edges.” She made an auspicious feature debut with an atypically subdued but very moving performance in Steven Spielberg’s controversial “The Color Purple” (1985), but subsequently her energetic presence was underutilized in a series of mostly uninspired vehicles (e.g., “Burglar” and “Fatal Beauty”, both 1987) prior to her Oscar-winning portrayal of a fake psychic medium in the 1990 boxoffice hit “Ghost”.

Things were not all bad for this unique actress during the second half of the 80s before “Ghost”, with “Jumping Jack Flash” (1986) and “Clara’s Heart” (1988) having their fair share of ardent admirers. Goldberg became a seemingly ubiquitous presence on TV, racking up over 80 appearances in specials (most notably HBO’s “Comic Relief” and its follow-ups), several memorable guest spots (including a 1986 Emmy-nominated turn on ABC’s “Moonlighting”), in addition to a stint co-starring with Jean Stapleton on “Bagdad Cafe” (1990-91), a short-lived CBS comedy series based on the 1987 feature film of the same name. Goldberg played a likable if rather modest recurring role as Guinan, the enigmatic alien bartender, on the hit syndicated series “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1988-94), reprising the role in the feature “Star Trek: Generations” (1994), and also produced several specials for cable and syndication.

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Summer Glau (born July 24, 1981) is an American dancer and actress, best known for her role as River Tam in the short-lived science fiction series Firefly and follow-up movie Serenity.

Glau, a native of San Antonio, Texas, was classically trained as a ballerina and also studied tango and flamenco. A professional dancer since age 12, Glau relocated to Los Angeles in 2002. She appeared in a few television commercials, but Glau’s first television credit was a guest role as a ballerina on the 2002 episode “Waiting in the Wings” (episode 3×13) of the television series Angel. There she caught the eye of producer Joss Whedon, who later cast her in Firefly.

Glau appears on the episode “Love Conquers Al” (1×06) of the TV series Cold Case. She has a small role in the film Sleepover, in which she plays a high school senior named Shelly. She appears in the CSI episode “What’s Eating Gilbert Grissom?”. She plays Tess Doerner, a paranoid schizophrenic returnee in the second season premiere of The 4400 (episode “Wake-Up Call”), and has stated that she will return to shoot a couple of more episodes for season three.

Glau stars in the science fiction film, Mammoth, which was filmed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA, and Bucharest, Romania.

Glau was voted Best Actress of 2005 by readers of SFX magazine for her portrayal of River Tam in Serenity.

Summer has won a 2006 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress in Serenity.

Summer has been cast in a new TV movie on ABC Family called The Initiation of Sarah.

On 22 April 2006, Summer stated at an Australian convention that she was aware of the ’secret’ of the character Shepherd Book from the series Firefly. This has encouraged further speculation of a possible sequel to Serenity.

Givens gave up medical studies to pursue acting at the urging of mentor Bill Cosby. This stunning Black actor appeared in supporting roles in several features including “Fort Apache” The Bronx” (1981) and made guest appearances on the daytime soap operas “The Guiding Light” and “Loving” before starring as Darlene on the long-running TV series, “Head of the Class” (ABC, 1986-91). She was featured in the TV movies “Beverly Hills Madam” (1986), “The Women of Brewster Place”, and “The Penthouse” (both 1989) playing the female lead, a femme fatale con artist, in Bill Duke’s “A Rage in Harlem” (1991). Givens returned to series TV in the short-lived CBS drama “Courthouse” (1995) and then co-starred as a lawyer in the UPN sitcom “Sparks” (1996-98). After giving birth to her son William, she returned before the cameras as the host of the syndicated “Forgive and Forget”, hired to replace Mother Love (the first host) in the hopes of reaching a larger demographic. The strategy backfired, however, and the show was not renewed.

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As a juvenile actress, Gish gave a fine performance as a young girl caught between bomb testings and family feuds in the 1986 “sleeper” hit, “Desert Bloom”. She then played Julia Roberts’ sister in “Mystic Pizza” (1988) before taking time to earn a BA from Duke University. When she returned to Hollywood, she was a young leading lady with a porcelain complexion and winning smile.

Gish made “Desert Bloom” when she was 13, and, while still a teen, she portrayed the high school girl whom Jon Cryer, on the run from mobsters, romances in “Hiding Out” (1987). Since returning to films, Gish played the first wife of the young “Wyatt Earp” (1994), Julie Nixon in Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” (1995) and was in the ensemble casts of “Beautiful Girls” and “The Last Supper” (both 1996). In the former, she was Timothy Hutton’s girlfriend, a high-powered Manhattan attorney, while in the latter she was an idealistic left-wing student who joins others in killing right-wingers.

Her TV debut was in the 1986 ABC TV-movie “Hero in the Family”. Gish had her first lead in “When He’s Not a Stranger” (CBS, 1989) as a college freshman victimized by acquaintance rape and a college administration that wishes to make the incident disappear. In “Silent Cries” (NBC, 1993), she delivered a gritty portrayal of a young woman interned by the Japanese during World War II, while in the miniseries “Scarlett” (CBS, 1994) she was Anne Hampton, the wife Rhett Butler takes after his divorce from Scarlett O’Hara in the sequel to “Gone With the Wind”. Gish made her TV series debut in the 1995 CBS effort “Courthouse” as a young lawyer assigned to the sex crimes unit despite her discomfort with the area. Six years later, she joined the cast of Fox’s long-running “The X-Files” playing Agent Reyes.

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This sensitive, delicately pretty leading actor, mostly on TV, came to fame as a girl playing Laura Ingalls on the NBC period drama series, “Little House on the Prairie” (1974-82), based on the stories by the adult Ingalls. Gilbert has made few feature film appearances, but kept busy on the small screen, for a time recreating famous suffering teenager film roles in TV-movies like “The Miracle Worker” (1979), “The Diary of Anne Frank” (1980) and “Splendor in the Grass” (1981). She remained very prolific and gradually managed the transition to adult roles in TV-movies including “Choices” (1986), “Forbidden Nights” (1990) and “A Family of Strangers” (1993). Gilbert also occasionally tried TV series again, but “Little House: A New Beginning” (1982-83), “Stand By Your Man” (1992) and “Sweet Justice” (1994) didn’t catch on. In 1995, she married actor Bruce Boxleitner.

Gilbert continued to star in a regular slate of TV movies of varying distinction throughout the late 1990s and 2000s, but in those years was perhaps best known for a behind-the-scenes roll, elected in 2001 as president of the Screen Actors Guild. Gilbert was a highly visible and occasionally controversial leader for the thespian’s union, presiding over several bitterly fought negotiations than frequently prompted divisions and personal animosity within SAG’s ranks–Nevertheless, she was eleceted to a second term in a viciously contended election in 2003. By 2005, however, she had her fill of fighting political battles and chose not to run for a third term, claiming that she felt she could no longer bear the tensions within the union and that the damaged relations between herself and fellow officials could never be healed.

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You’ve got to have something when you co-star in one of the most laughable, disastrous feature films of all times yet come bouncing out of it with a career. This is precisely what happened to auburn-haired, pouty-lipped, smoky-eyed Gina Gershon, who uttered some embarrassing screen dialogue as Cristal Connors, the strip dancing queen in “Showgirls” (1995). Immediately after, while everyone else from above the line was ducking for cover, she went and filmed “Bound” (1996), playing an ex-con lesbian who teams with a mob moll (Jennifer Tilly) to steal millions from the hoods.

Gershon first won notice within the theater world as a co-founder of Naked Angels, a company of actors (including Rob Morrow, Sarah Jessica Parker) and writers (like Frank Pugliese, Jon Robin Baitz). Around the same time, she made her feature film debut with a small role in “Pretty in Pink” (1986) and her TV-movie debut in “Stark: The Mirror Image” (CBS, 1986). It took another two years before Gershon won a film role that anyone really noticed, playing a socialite who seduces Tom Cruise in “Cocktail”. That same year, she had a solid co-starring role opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Red Heat”, in which she played an ex-hooker. She continued to appear in small roles including one in John Sayles’ “City of Hope” (1991) and as a nasty development executive in Robert Altman’s “The Player” (1992). Before landing “Showgirls”, Gershon had her widest exposure in the 1992 CBS miniseries “Sinatra”, in which she was the singer’s first wife and mother of his children.

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A beautiful Australian import who went from competitive roller-skating champion to model to actress, Melissa George was relatively unknown in the United States through the 1990s, though in her native country and the United Kingdom, she was such a superstar that her 2000 wedding in Bali was invaded by helicopters carrying tabloid photographers. Discovered at age sixteen and cast on the popular nighttime soap “Home and Away” (aired on Australia’s Channel Seven), George quickly became a fan favorite through her portrayal of runaway Angel. Starring on the show from early 1993 through August 1996, Angel went from disheveled new girl in town to the center of the series, charming and lovable with just the right measure of trauma. The character’s journey took her from being discovered as a teen single mother to becoming half of the series young power couple to losing her mate to having his child and finally, to being swept away by a dashing young millionaire, her happy ending exit from Summer Bay.

Possessing an alluring fresh-faced beauty, the usually blonde George seemed to have her whole career ahead of her upon her “Home and Away” departure. She spent her initial time out of the TV series grind taking on projects in different fields, including her sleepwear line An Angel at My Bedside and her teen-aimed health and fitness video “Mind, Body & Soul”. Baring her enviable shape in Australian Playboy in 1997 was a seemingly controversial move than didn’t have much of a detrimental effect on her fan base, but rather kept her in the public’s mind. A recurring role that year on the US-Australian co-production “Roar” (Fox) marked her introduction to American audiences, starring opposite fellow Aussie up and comer Heath Ledger in the medieval-set adventure. The long dark hair with blunt bangs and revealing costumes she sported for the series likened the young actress to the similarly-themed “Xena, Warrior Princess”, though “Roar” failed to make the leap to a second season. The following year, George made her feature film debut with a small but pivotal role in the thriller “Dark City”, her mostly unclothed role memorable to the limited audience that caught the film. She was next featured in “The Limey” (1999), co-starring with Peter Fonda as a doomed young woman whose ex-con father (Terrence Stamp) goes on a mission to avenge her death.

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A petite, soulful-eyed, young actress who went from playing the daughter Erica Kane bore after a rape on ABC’s “All My Children” to being “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (The WB, 1997-2001; UPN, 2001- ), Sarah Michelle Gellar earned a Daytime Emmy Award (for “All My Children”) before she was old enough to legally order the celebratory champagne. Acting from age four, she made her professional debut as Valerie Harper’s daughter in the 1983 CBS TV-movie “An Invasion of Privacy”. The next year, the brunette could be seen in a small role in the big screen “Over the Brooklyn Bridge”, which starred Elliot Gould. Billed as Sarah Gellar, she also appeared in the feature “High Stakes” (1989). In the early 90s, she was in the pre-Broadway production of Neil Simon’s “Jake’s Woman” and played supported Matthew Broderick (then Eric Stoltz) in the Off-Broadway production of Horton Foote’s “The Widow Claire”.

Her TV career also began in earnest in the 90s. Gellar played the young Jacqueline Bouvier in the NBC miniseries “A Woman Named Jackie” in 1991, and was one of the adolescents in a small wealthy suburb on the short-lived syndicated soap opera “Swan’s Crossing” (1992). For two years (1993-1995), she played the role of the scheming Kendall Hart on ABC’s “All My Children”. Her character was supposed to be the child born to Erica Kane (Susan Lucci) after a teen-age rape who arrived in town determined to make Erica pay dearly for having given her up for adoption at birth. Gellar was twice-nominated for an Emmy and shortly after winning in 1995, it was announced she would be leaving the show. Rumors swirled about the young actress and her relationship with the veteran Lucci. (Gellar was quoted by TV GUIDE as saying “We didn’t have a perfect working relationship.”)

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