Dr William A Chapman Elementary School: Fill & Download for Free

To all the teachers I've had I would say, thank you for choosing to have been a teacher and thank you for teaching me. That said, there are a handful that deserve special mention.There was Whitney Schultz in third grade at Emerson Elementary. Miss Schultz, a freshly minted teacher, played the ukulele and was loved by the kids. Never underestimate the power of love to motivate kids to do better. My mother, no mean judge of teaching, approved of her.Now that I think of it, Mom approved of only two teachers from my time in elementary school. Miss Schultz and Chris Franklin.Mr. Franklin, also of recent vintage, was my sixth grade teacher at Lincoln. He had a medium sized fro and a goatee. He looked like a Black Panther, whose headquarters were just down the street.The first day of class, we were frozen to our seats in terror. He let the silence ride for a while and broke it by saying, "It's too quiet in here. Doesn't anybody have a radio?" We took an immediate like to him. He could dance pretty good for being an old person (maybe 25?).In middle school at Willard and then at West Campus... hmm ... No special teachers come to mind. Perhaps this was because I spent most of my time playing hooky and reading in the library. There were a few interesting teachers; Mr. Williams, who taught sex-ed, was known to leave his charges in slack jawed amazement at the things he could, and would, talk about.There was also Miss Prisk, a French teacher. But she lived in the neighborhood and so maybe she doesn't count. Miss. Prisk had an ocelot.The thing was frickin' HUGE. Big, I tell you. Big like a good sized dog. Every Halloween, I think of her and that monster cat she had. Miss Prisk lived in a vine covered house up a dark driveway on a dark street. On Halloween we would go up to her door with some trepidation. Even now, 50 years later, I can still see that cat walking across the red carpet of the foyer, shoulder blades going up and down. It didn't help that our older brothers and sisters filled our heads with outlandish stories of that HUGE FRICKIN CAT eating would be trick or treaters.In high school, Señor Urquides - Spanish, and Mr. Ted Ferenc - journalism and history. It is to the latter that I owe a great debt. I was an indifferent student. No it was worse than that. I barely went to school. Mr Ferenc saw something and engaged me in conversations. The long and short of it was he invited me to join the school newspaper staff. And by doing so, gave me a reason to go to school.Mr. Ferenc was an interesting guy. This was the early 70's and he was out. This was no big deal in Berkeley. We actually lived fairly near each other and he would occasionally give me a ride home. We had good talks during these rides. It isn't often a young man gets to speak to an older, non-relative, man on a continual basis.He would sometimes play the queen for the paper staff. This had us just about peeing in our pants from laughter. And no, he never came on to me. He was a class act. I do not doubt that without him, I would not be writing these words. He help me find a better path.Señor Urquides taught Spanish and French. Unbeknownst to us, he also spoke German. One day the phone rang in class and he started yacking away in quick and obviously fluent German. After his English, Spanish, and French this new guttural soundscrape left us open mouthed.Señor Urquides was the type of teacher I wanted to be; patient and relentless, stern and flexible; a task master with impeccable timing as to when to call it a day. Some days we would go to class and he would say, "Do as you please." Some would study, some would read, some would talk with him. When I think of the word, gentleman, I think of Señor Urquides.In college I had a number of quiet gifted professors. Back in the day: John Searle - philo, Robert Bellah - soc, Reinhard Bendix - pol sci? Czesław Miłosz - some lit class; were just some of the heavy hitters that come to mind. But there were two that really stand out after all these years.The first was Professor Kenneth Stampp in History. Perhaps the greatest lecturer I've ever beheld. His main subject was the US Civil War and Reconstruction. Just his normal Wednesday lecture was amazing. It was not uncommon for the students to break into applause at the end of the hour. That man could bring it.I would be remiss if I failed to mention Dr. Richard M. Eakin. Dr. Eakin taught a survey course in Zoology called Zoo 10. He would dress up as famous people from the history of the field and deliver a lecture. These lectures were not fluff, the things he spoke about were going to be on the test. He would give these grand lectures 3 or 4 times a quarter.Among his characters were Charles Darwin, the father of evolution; Gregor Mendel, the discoverer of inheritance; William Beaumont, who explained the workings of the stomach; and Hans Spemann, a German embryologist and one of Eakin's mentors.William Harvey, on the working of the heart, should also be mentioned.One thing I particularly enjoyed was the way he would pretend to reach for a word in English and say the German or Latin. Someone on the audience would provide the translation.These lectures were always a big event and were packed with students not in the class as well as campus illumaniti. It was impressive to see Nobel laureates cheek and jowl with scruffy undergraduates.This is not to say that Dr. Eakin's regular lectures were boring. He was a fine lecturer at all times. One thing he did, that I had never seen before or since, is have a lecture handout. At the beginning of all his lectures there was a one or two page handout on what he was going to speak about. The handout included all the key points of the lecture and any diagrams. They were very well done and made the task of note taking almost unecessary, even pleasant. This simple device allowed the students to really listen to what was being said. An excellent practice.-as Gregor MendelTo all these teachers I would say thank you for being there.

1.Rowan AtkinsonActor, The Lion KingRowan Sebastian Atkinson was born on 6 January, 1955, in Consett, Co. Durham, UK, to Ella May (Bainbridge) and Eric Atkinson. His father owned a farm, where Rowan grew up with his two older brothers, Rupert and Rodney. He attended Newcastle University and Oxford University where he earned degrees in electrical engineering...“ The man who gave us Mr. Bean holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Newcastle University and a MS in EE from Oxford. ” - Tom-912.Karen AustinActress, Summer RentalMasters Degree from Northwestern University in Dramatic Literature. B. A. in Theatre from Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, Virginia in Theatre and Philosophy. Shakespeare at St. Anne's Oxford, England with 'Hugo Dyson'. Member Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Lead Performance, NUTS. One daughter, Olivia, was born in 1989.“ Karen Austin has appeared in numerous guest roles in television, and is likely best remembered for playing the original court clerk in the great comedy Night Court. In addition to her BA in Theater and Philosophy from Mary Baldwin College and her MA in Theater from Northwestern, she studied Shakespeare in the Bard's homeland (St. Anne's College of Oxford University). ” - Tom-913.Angela BassettActress, Meet the RobinsonsCaptivating, gifted, and sensational, Angela Bassett's presence has been felt in theaters, stages, and television screens throughout the world. Angela Evelyn Bassett was born on August 16, 1958 in New York City, to Betty Jane (Gilbert), a social worker, and Daniel Benjamin Bassett, a preacher's son...“ Angela Bassett has played a number of powerful roles throughout her long career. She holds a BA in African-American studies and a Master of Fine Arts; both from Yale (she met her husband, Courtney B. Vance, who is also on this list, while the pair were working on their Masters). ” - Tom-914.Hugh BeaumontActor, The Blue DahliaBeaumont began his career in show business by perfoming in theatres, nightclubs, and on the radio in 1931. He attended the University of Chattanooga, but left when his position on the football team was changed. He later attended the University of Southern California, and graduated with a Master of Theology degree in 1946...“ The actor who played Ward, patriarch of the Cleaver family on Leave it to Beaver, also wrote and directed on the show. Beaumont attended the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (then a private school called the University of Chattanooga), and later earned a Masters in Theology from the University of Southern California. ” - Tom-915.Mayim BialikActress, The Big Bang TheoryMayim Bialik grew up in San Diego and got her first acting job (Pumpkinhead) when she was just 12 years old. A number of TV roles followed until in 1990 she was cast in Blossom, the role which made her famous. By 1993, while Blossom was still airing, she had already won a deferred place at Harvard and was also accepted by Yale but chose in the end to attend UCLA...“ The girl who used to be best known for playing the title role on Blossom has matured into a woman better known for academic accomplishment (in reality and fiction). She turned down Harvard and Yale to attend nearby UCLA where she earned her BS in neurobiology. She started a PhD program in the same, and completed it (the thesis dealt with Prader-Willi syndrome) after a break where she returned to acting, and is now better known for her role of the geeky and lovable Amy Farrah-Fowler on The Big Bang Theory. ” - Tom-916.Lewis BlackSelf, The Daily Show“ The living embodiment of anger (from his stand up routines to his character in the Oscar-winning Inside Out), Lewis Black holds a BA from the Univeristy of North Carolina in writing plays, and holds an MFA from Yale. ” - Tom-917.Andre BraugherActor, Homicide: Life on the Street“ Braugher graduated from St. Ignatius High School, one of Chicago's best college prep high schools. He earned his BA in theater from Stanford before graduating from the Julliard. ” - Tom-918.Avery BrooksActor, Star Trek: Deep Space NineAvery Franklin Brooks was born on October 2, 1948 in Evansville, Indiana to a musically talented family. His maternal grandfather, Samuel Travis Crawford, was a tenor who graduated from Tougaloo College in Mississippi in 1901. Crawford toured the country singing with the Delta Rhythm Boys in the 1930s...“ There is a reason you haven't seen much of Hawk or Captain Benjamin Sisko, despite his impressive acting abilities. Brooks has spent most of the last 35 years as a professor of theater at Rutgers; the same school from wihch he earned his BA and MFA. ” - Tom-919.Gerard ButlerActor, 300Gerard James Butler was born in Paisley, Scotland, to Margaret and Edward Butler, a bookmaker. His family is of Irish origin. Gerard spent some of his very early childhood in Montreal, Quebec, but was mostly raised, along with his older brother and sister, in his hometown of Paisley. His parents divorced when he was a child...“ While it likely did not help him for his tour-de-force role as King Leonidas in 300, Butler holds a law degree from Glasgow University. It was only after being fired from a law firm that Butler pursued acting as a career. ” - Tom-9110.Kate CapshawActress, Indiana Jones and the Temple of DoomKate Capshaw was born Kathleen Sue Nail in Fort Worth, Texas, to Beverley Sue (Simon), a beautician and travel agent, and Edwin Leon Nail, an airline employee. Capshaw worked as a teacher with an MA in Learning Disabilities. Her desire to be an actress led her to New York where she landed a role on the soap The Edge of Night...“ Capshaw, who played a shrieking actress in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and an astronaut in Spacecamp, is likely best known today for being Steven Spielberg's wife. She has a BA in history education and a Masters in special education, both from the University of Missouri. ” - Tom-9111.Graham ChapmanWriter, Monty Python and the Holy GrailGraham Chapman was born on January 8, 1941 in Leicester, England while a Germain air raid was in progress. Graham's father was a chief police inspector and probably inspired the constables Graham often portrayed later in comedy sketches. Graham studied medicine in college and earned an M.D., but he practiced medicine for only a few years...“ The first of three members of Monty Python on this list, Chapman attended and graduated from Cambridge's Emmanuel College where he earned a medical degree, all the time writing and performing comedy, even managing to negotiate a year off to tour New Zealand with a London review called the Cambridge Circus. ” - Tom-9112.John CleeseActor, A Fish Called WandaJohn Cleese was born on October 27, 1939, in Weston-Super-Mare, England, to Muriel Evelyn (Cross) and Reginald Francis Cleese. He was born into a family of modest means, his father being an insurance salesman; but he was nonetheless sent off to private schools to obtain a good education. Here he was often tormented for his height...“ One of the most respected comic actors in any part of the world, Cleese passed his A-levels in maths, chemistry, and physics, earning him a spot at Cambridge where he earned a law degree. ” - Tom-9113.Bill CosbyWriter, Bill Cosby: HimselfBill Cosby is one of the world's most well-known entertainers and comedians. William Henry Cosby, Jr. was born on July 12, 1937, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Anna Pearl (Hite), a maid, and William Henry Cosby, Sr., a U.S. Navy sailor. After tenth grade, Cosby joined the Navy and completed high school through a correspondence course...“ While his film career was never that great, as a TV actor and stand up comic, The Cos has few equals. He has his share of honorary degrees, but he is one of the few performers to have a bonafide earned doctorate. He has a Doctor of Education degree from UMass for his dissertation: An Integration of the Visual Media Via 'Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids' Into the Elementary School Curriculum as a Teaching Aid and Vehicle to Achieve Increased Learning. ” - Tom-9114.Marcia CrossActress, Desperate HousewivesMarcia Anne Cross was born on March 25, 1962 in Marlborough, Massachusetts. As a child, Marcia always wanted to be an actress, so she set out to have a career in acting. Cross graduated from the Julliard School in New York, a naturally gifted girl. Her career began in 1984, when she joined the cast of the daytime soap opera The Edge of Night...“ Marcia Cross spent about 15 years, starting in the mid-1980s guest starring on soap operas and then prime time featured series. This was all after earning her BFA in acting from the prestigious Julliard. She earned her Masters in Psychology from Antioch University in Los Angeles in 2003 ... just in time for her to sign on as the character Bree on Desperate Housewives, a role that would net an Emmy and 3 Golden Globe nominations for her acting. ” - Tom-9115.David DuchovnyActor, The X-FilesDavid William Duchovny was born on August 7, 1960, in New York City, New York, USA. His father, Amram Ducovny, was a writer and publicist who was from a family of Jewish immigrants (from Ukraine and Poland), and worked for the American Jewish Committee. His mother, Margaret (Miller), was a Scottish-born school teacher...“ Duchovny's acting career started as a break from his academic career; a break he remains on to this day. He earned his BA in English literature from Princeton and his MA in English literature from Yale. He was working on this PhD (ironically, a thesis entitled Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry and Prose) when he opted to take a break. The rest is out there. ” - Tom-9116.Charles S. DuttonActor, Alien³“ Very few actors have had such a tougher road to higher education than Charles S. Dutton. Dutton's introduction to drama was while reading an anthology of African-American playwrights while in solitary confinement on a manslaughter conviction. He earned his GED in prison. His Masters in Drama from Yale came later. ” - Tom-9117.Jodie FosterActress, The Silence of the LambsAlicia Christian Foster was born in Los Angeles on November 19, 1962. She is the daughter of Evelyn Ella "Brandy" (Almond) and Lucius Fisher Foster III, an Air Force lieutenant colonel and later real estate broker. Brandy had filed for divorce in 1959 after having three children with Lucius, but the exes had a brief re-encounter in 1962 which resulted in Alicia's birth...“ Foster was already an international star when she graduated valedictorian of an exclusive college prep academy. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale with a BA in literature. ”- Tom-9118.Jonathan FrakesActor, Star Trek: The Next GenerationJonathan Scott Frakes was born on August 19, 1952 in Bellefonte, in central Pennsylvania. He is the son of Doris J. (Yingling) and Dr. James R. Frakes, a professor. His parents moved with Jonathan and his younger brother Daniel to Bethlehem in eastern Pennsylvania. There, his father taught English at Lehigh University...“ A very busy director (where he earned the nickname "Two Takes Frakes" and still occasional actor, Frakes will always be remembered for his role as "Number One", Commander William Riker along side Patrick Stewart's Captain Piccard onStar Trek: The Next Generation. Frakes, the son of an English professor, started classes at Penn State University during the summer semester after high school, and graduated with a BA in theater arts in 1974. He earned his Masters from Harvard in 1976. ” - Tom-9119.James FrancoActor, 127 HoursKnown for his breakthrough starring role on Freaks and Geeks, James Franco was born in Palo Alto, California on April 19, 1978. His mother, Betsy Franco, is Jewish, and his father, Douglas Eugene "Doug" Franco, was of Portuguese and Swedish descent, and ran a Silicon Valley business. James's mother, a writer, has occasionally acted...“ The Oscar nominee has led an interesting and far from ideal life, but has managed to build a great acting career. After abandoning his studies early in his career, he earned a BA in English with honors from UCLA. He earned his Masters of Fine Arts from Columbia University in writing. He missed hearing his own name announced as an Oscar nominee because he was attending one of his PhD classes at Yale, where he is working on his degree in English. ” - Tom-9120.Paul GiamattiActor, SidewaysPaul Giamatti is an American actor who has worked steadily and prominently for over twenty years, and is best known for leading roles in the films American Splendor, Sideways, andBarney's Version (for which he won a Golden Globe), and supporting roles in the films Cinderella Man, The Illusionist, andSan Andreas...“ We have no doubt that Paul Giamatti earned both of his degrees from Yale; BA in English and a Master of Fine Arts (MFA). We have to wonder if his initial acceptance involved some family pull: his dad, A. Bartlett Giamatti was a Yale professor who later served as president of the University before moving up to Commissioner of Major League Baseball. ”- Tom-9121.Missy GoldActress, Benson“ After spending the late 1970s and early 1980s as a very young actress, Missy Gold looked like she was ready to break out as an actress after playing the first daughter of California on the hit comedy, Benson. It turned out that Benson would be all but her professional acting swan song. Gold attended George Washington University before earning her PhD from the California School of Professional Psychology, and is now a practicing psychologist. ” - Tom-9122.Barry GordonActor, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles“ From 1988-95, Gordon was President of the Screen Actors Guild, a position that joins him to a list that includes James Cagney, Charlton Heston, Ronald Reagan, Patty Duke, and Ed Asner (among others). While a veteran character actor of stage and television, he is likely best remembered for voicing Donatello on the 1980s-90s series "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". Today he teaches at his alma mater, California State where he earned his degree in political science, summa cum laude. He also holds a JD from the law school of Loyola Marymount University. ” - Tom-9123.David Alan GrierActor, In Living ColorDavid Alan Grier was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Aretas Ruth (Dudley), a schoolteacher, and William Henry Grier, a psychiatrist and writer. He trained in Shakespeare at Yale University, where he received an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. Grier began his professional career on Broadway asJackie Robinson in "The First"...“ Funny? You bet! Smart? Yep! One of the non-Wayans stars of the groundbreaking In Living Color, Grier holds a BA from the University of Michigan and a Masters of Fine Arts from Yale. ” - Tom-9124.Dan GrimaldiActor, The Sopranos“ Best known for playing twins Patsy and Philly Parisi on The Sopranos, Grimaldi holds a BS in mathematics from Fordham, an MS in operations research from NYU, and a PhD in data processing from CUNY. When not acting, he lectures on computer science at the college level. ” - Tom-9125.Sheila James KuehlActress, The Many Loves of Dobie GillisBabyboomers remember well the diminutive (4'10"), dark-haired comedienne Sheila James who raised a smile with her portrayals of tomboyish kid sisters and boy-crazy high schoolers on late 50s and early 60s TV. For a while she was a huge hit backed by her characters' plaintive, pony-tailed presences, strategies and sheer persistence to get what they wanted...“ Sheila James was best remembered for playing Zelda Gilroy, the gal with an unrequited crush on the title character of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. She was a state legislator in California after earning her law degree from Harvard. She also served on and off as a law professor and administrator at a few different colleges. ” - Tom-9126.Ken JeongActor, The HangoverKen Jeong has been blending comedy & medicine all of his life. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Korean immigrants Young and Dong-Kuen Jeong, a professor at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. After graduating from Duke University & attaining his MD at the University of North Carolina...“ Known for his roles in the film The Hangover and the television series Community, Jeong earned a BS at Duke University before earning his MD at the University of North Carolina ... with his residency complete, he is one of the only actors in Hollywood who is an honest to goodness medical doctor! ” - Tom-9127.Ron JeremyActor, RoninSince the demise of the legendary John Holmes in March 1988, the short, mustachioed, heavyset Ron Jeremy has assumed the mantle as the number one U.S. male star of adult cinema. However, don't confuse Ron with the similar looking mustachioed 1970/'80s adult film star, Harry Reems, who has long since retired from the adult film industry...“ Before he went on to star in over 2000 adult films, Jeremy earned a bachelors degree in education and a Masters in special education from Queens College. Proof that education is not a barrier to having sex; a lot of it. ” - Tom-9128.Tommy Lee JonesActor, No Country for Old MenTommy Lee Jones was born in San Saba, Texas, the son of Lucille Marie (Scott), a police officer and beauty shop owner, and Clyde C. Jones, who worked on oil fields. Tommy himself worked in underwater construction and on an oil rig. He attended St. Mark's School of Texas, a prestigious prep school for boys in Dallas...“ Jones came from a poor family, and needed scholarships to attend an elite high school in Texas and Harvard, where he was an All-Ivy League offensive tackle, and roommate with future Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore. Jones wrote a thesis on the role of Catholicism in the works of Flannery O'Connor, and graduated cum laude with a BA in English. ” - Tom-9129.Ashley JuddActress, DivergentAmerican actress and political activist Ashley Judd was born Ashley Tyler Ciminella on April 19, 1968, in Granada Hills, California. She grew up in a family of successful performing artists as the daughter of country music singer Naomi Judd and the sister of Wynonna Judd. While she is best known for an ongoing acting career spanning more than two decades...“ Beautiful and original ... and very intelligent, Ashley Judd has had an interesting career and education arc. The daughter and sister of major performers in country-western, Ashley received attention immediately, playing Wesley Crusher's crush in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation before setting off for major films including Heat, A Time to Kill, De-Lovely, and more recently Divergent. She attended over a dozen schools prior to going off to college at the University of Kentucky and eventually graduated with a degree in French. Her substantial humanitarian and public advocacy work eventually led her to earning a Mid-Career Masters in Public Administration from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. ” - Tom-9130.Milt KoganActor, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial“ A versatile character actor, Kogan returned to finish his BS in animal Science from Cornell in 2007 (after a 50 year wait!). He had previously earned a Masters of Public Health in Epidemiology from UCLA. In addition to work in series likeBarney Miller and small roles in films like E.T: The Extra Terrestrial and The Descendants, Kogan has practiced medicine with the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso. He also speaks five languages. ” - Tom-9131.Charlie KorsmoActor, HookCharles R. Korsmo is an Assistant Professor of Law and the U.S. director of the Canada-U.S. Law Institute at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, where he teaches courses in corporate law, corporate finance, and torts. Korsmo's articles have appeared in the William & Mary Law Review and Brooklyn Law Review...“ While his career in acting didn't last long, he is likely best remembered for playing the son of Peter Pan (Banning) in Steven Spielberg's Hook. After his young acting career, Korsmo earned a BS in physics from MIT, and a JD from Yale. He has since become a law professor. ” - Tom-9132.Kris KristoffersonActor, Blade IIKris Kristofferson was born in Brownsville, Texas, to Mary Ann (Ashbrook) and Lars Henry Kristofferson. His paternal grandparents were Swedish, and his father was a United States Air Force general who pushed his son to a military career. Kris was a Golden Gloves boxer and went to Pomona College in California...“ Someday, someone will make a story of Kristofferson's life, and no one will believe it was real! He earned a BA in literature from Pomona College, graduating summa cum laude (and earning membership to Phi Beta Kappa), all the while becoming a big enough collegiate athlete that Sports illustrated included him in their "Faces and Places" section on non-professional athletes. He earned a Rhodes Scholarship that took him to Oxford, where he earned a degree in English literature. He served in the army, later achieving the rank of captain. He was offered a position teaching at West Point, which he turned down to enter show business. ” - Tom-9133.Lisa KudrowActress, P.S. I Love YouHardly the dumb blonde of Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Lisa was born in Encino, California on July 30, 1963. Her mother, Nedra S. (Stern), was a travel agent, and her father, Lee N. Kudrow, was a physician. Her parents are both from Jewish immigrant families (from Belarus, Russia, and Hungary). Lisa was raised in Tarzana and played varsity-level tennis in high school and college...“ One of the ultimate "never judge an actor by the roles they play" performers, Lisa Kudrow is as smart as her famous Phoebe Buffay character was not. Kudrow earned a BS in Biology from Vassar and worked as a research assistant for her father for 8 years (researching headaches) before her brother's friend, Jon Lovitz, convinced her to try comedy. No doubt her ability to fool people explains why she was the first cast member of Friends to earn an Emmy Award. ” - Tom-9134.Hedy LamarrActress, Samson and DelilahHedy Lamarr, the woman many critics and fans alike regard as the most beautiful ever to appear in films, was born Hedwig Eva Kiesler in Vienna, Austria. She was the daughter of Gertrud (Lichtwitz), from Budapest, and Emil Kiesler, a banker from Lviv. Her parents were both from Jewish families. Hedwig had a calm childhood...“ Women in Hollywood's golden era may not have had the educational opportunities that exist today, but Lamarr made her mark anyway. At the height of her career on the silver screen, and as World War II raged on, Lamarr worked with her neighbor to invent and patent a frequency hopping system that used a piano roll to help defend Allied torpeedos from being jammed by Axis ships. This invention was later crucial in the development of cordless telephones and WiFi. ” - Tom-9135.John LithgowActor, InterstellarIf "born to the theater" has meaning in determining a person's life path, then John Lithgow is a prime example of this truth. He was born in Rochester, New York, to Sarah Jane (Price), an actress, and Arthur Washington Lithgow III, who was both a theatrical producer and director. John's father was born in Puerto Plata...“ One of America's most accomplished actors, in addition to his Oscar nominated work on the silver screen and his award winning television work, all ranging from slapstick comedy to deep drama, Lithgow is an accomplished writer and has voice credits which include Yoda in the radio broadcast of the originalStar Wars trilogy in addition to Shrek ... not to mention a Tony Award for his work on the New York stage. Lithgow graduatedmagna cum laude with a BA degree in history and literature from Harvard. He is also a Fulbright Scholarship winner, which he used to attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art ” - Tom-9136.Lucy LiuActress, Kill Bill: Vol. 1Born to immigrants in Queens, New York, Lucy Liu has always tried to balance an interest in her cultural heritage with a desire to move beyond a strictly Asian-American experience. Lucy's mother, Cecilia, a biochemist, is from Beijing, and her father, Tom Liu, a civil engineer, is from Shanghai. Once relegated to "ethnic" parts...“ An actress equally adept in comedy, drama, and action films, Liu attended New York's prestigious Stuyvesant High School before attending NYU for one year. She then transferred to the University of Michigan, where she earned a BS in Asian languages, and can now speak five of them fluently. ” - Tom-9137.Dolph LundgrenActor, The ExpendablesDolph Lundgren was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to Sigrid Birgitta (Tjerneld), a language teacher, and Karl Johan Hugo Lundgren, an engineer and economist for the Swedish government. He lived in Stockholm until the age of 13, when he moved in with his grandparents in Nyland, Ångermanland, Sweden. Despite an early interest in music and the fine arts...“ Perhaps no actor in history has managed to fool more people into thinking that he wasn't that bright. After graduating from the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, he earned a MS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Sydney, and had begun classes at MIT on a Fullbright Scholarship when he left to start acting. He also speaks three languages fluently, with some knowledge of four others. Not bad for a man who is likely to be remembered for saying "I must break you!" ” - Tom-9138.Gates McFaddenActress, Star Trek: The Next Generation“ Jim Henson puppeteer and choreographer, McFadden is best known for her role as Doctor Beverly Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. She graduated cum laude from Brandeis with a BA in theater arts. After TNG, in addition to other projects, she has taught drama at various schools, including USC. ” - Tom-9139.Danica McKellarActress, The Wonder YearsTogether with her younger sister, Crystal McKellar, she began acting at a young age in her mother's dance studio. In 1982 the family moved to Los Angeles and a few years later she appeared in her first commercial. A few guest appearances inThe Twilight Zone was followed by her breakthrough in The Wonder Years...“ After playing Winnie Cooper on "The Wonder Years", McKellar attended UCLA, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in mathematics while co-authoring a paper (Percolation and Gibbs states multiplicity for ferromagnetic Ashkin-Teller models on Z Squared) that proposed the Chayes-McKellar-Winn theorem. She has helped produce a video series teaching yoga, and published a series of books helping young girls to get more involved in math. ” - Tom-9140.Ilan Mitchell-SmithActor, Weird ScienceIlan Mitchell-Smith was born in New York City and began studying ballet at an early age. After his family relocated to Amherst, Massachusetts, he was enrolled in dance classes four days a week and eventually got a scholarship with the School of American Ballet. While at the ballet, he was discovered...“ Ilan Mitchell-Smith acted for less than ten years, and is best remembered for playing Wyatt, opposite Anthony Michael Hall, in the cult classic Weird Science. He earned a BA from the University of California-Davis in Medieval Studies, an MA from Fordham, and a PhD in English from Texas A&M. He is currently a professor of English. ” - Tom-9141.Michael MoriartyActor, Law & OrderAs one of Hollywood's tallest actors standing at 6' 4", he will always be noticed. Michael Moriarty is one of the great character T.V. actors of all time. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1941. Moriarty was to move to London, England, where he built up a name as a great stage actor. It was also...“ One of the original stars of Law & Order, Moriarity earned a degree in theater from Dartmouth before earning a Fulbright Scholarship to attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. ” - Tom-9142.Kunal NayyarActor, The Big Bang TheoryKunal Nayyar is an Indian actor. He moved from India to the US in 1999. He first moved to Portland, Oregon, to study business. He started acting in plays as a way of making new friends. He took acting classes, but he went on to graduate from the University of Portland with a degree in business, as something to fall back on...“ Born in the U.K. and raised in India, Nayyar did all of his studying in America. He earned a Bachelors in Business from Portland University and an MFA from Temple before jumping back to England to work briefly with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Then it was (fictitiously) off to CalTech for The Big Bang Theory. ” - Tom-9143.France NuyenActress, Santa Barbara“ Making her film debut in South Pacific, France turned her suffering as an abused child, into something positive. She earned a masters degree in psychology and, between acting roles, worked as a counselor, focusing on abused children, abused women, and women in prison. In 1989, she won the "Women of the Year" from the City of Los Angeles. ” - Tom-9144.Lupita Nyong'oActress, Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force AwakensLupita Amondi Nyong'o was born March 1, 1983 in Mexico City, Mexico, to Kenyan parents, Dorothy and Peter Anyang' Nyong'o. Her father, a senator, was then a visiting lecturer in political science. She was raised in Kenya. At age 16, her parents sent her back to Mexico for seven months to learn Spanish...“ Born in Mexico City to Kenyan parents, Nyong'o's first feature film role was in Twelve Years a Slave, and for that she earned an Oscar. Her third film credit was Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens, so big budget blockbusters seem to agree with her as well. She holds a masters in acting from Yale. ” - Tom-9145.Masi OkaActor, Hawaii Five-0“ Born in Japan, Oka earned his BS in Computer Science from Brown before going off to work for Industrial Light and Magic, helping create the visual effects on films like Mighty Joe Youngand the three Star Wars prequels. He is probably best know today for his acting on the TV series Heroes and re-imaginedHawaii 5-0. ” - Tom-9146.Michael PalinActor, Monty Python and the Holy Grail“ World Class comedian and world traveler, Palin earned a degree in History from Oxford in 1965. In recent years, Palin has taken to producing documentaries in history including the lives of artists and World War I. ” - Tom-9147.Jim ParsonsActor, The Big Bang TheoryHaving grown up in Houston, and its northern suburb of Spring, he made his first stage appearance in a school play at the age of 6. Parsons then went on to study theater at the University of Houston. From there he won a place on a two-year Masters course in classical theater at the University of San Diego/The Old Globe Theater, graduating in 2001...“ A great actor of stage and screens of all sizes, Parsons probably is not quite the pure intellect of his Dr. Sheldon Cooper character from The Big Bang Theory, but that doesn't mean he and Cooper are so different. Like Dr. Cooper, he started off in Texas, with a BA degree from the University of Houston before moving on to southern California to earn his Masters of Fine Arts from the University of San Diego. ” - Tom-9148.Ethan PhillipsActor, Star Trek: VoyagerEthan Phillips was born on February 8, 1955 in Garden City, 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 began his acting career on stage in both Broadway and off-Broadway shows...“ Probably best known for his role as Pete in the series Bensonand as the Talaxian chef, Neelix, in Star Trek: Voyager, Phillips has a wide array of stage work under his belt. He has a BA in English Literature from Boston University and a MFA from Cornell. ” - Tom-9149.Rosamund PikeActress, Gone GirlBorn on January 27, 1979 in London, England, actress Rosamund Mary Elizabeth Pike is the only child of a classical violinist mother, Caroline (Friend), and an opera singer father, Julian Pike. Due to her parents' work, she spent her early childhood traveling around Europe. Pike attended Badminton School in Bristol...“ Not many actresses can switch between the world of video game Doom and the world of Georgian England in Pride and Prejudice with such aplomb. She had to take a day off from her feature film debut Die Another Day to take a final exam ... which helped her earn a degree in English Literature, with honors, from Oxford's Wadham College. ” - Tom-9150.Natalie PortmanActress, V for VendettaNatalie Portman was born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, Israel, to a Jewish family. She is the only child of Avner Hershlag, an Israeli-born doctor, and Shelley Stevens, an American-born artist (from Cincinnati, Ohio), who also acts as Natalie's agent. She left Israel for Washington...“ She was quoted in 2002 as saying "I'd rather be smart than a movie star". She got to be both. As a high school student, she co-authored A Simple Method to Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar; a paper that earned her semifinalist status in the Intel Science Talent Search. She holds a BA in psychology from Harvard. ” - Tom-9151.Jeri RyanActress, Star Trek: VoyagerJeri Ryan was born Jeri Lynn Zimmerman on February 22, 1968 in Munich, West Germany, to Sharon, a social worker, and Gerhard Florian Zimmerman, a Master Sergeant in the U.S. Army. She and her brother Mark grew up on several military bases, including Kansas, Maryland, Georgia and Texas. Finally, at the age of 11...“ Ryan was an army brat, born in Munich while her father was stationed there, and graduated from high school as a National Merit Scholar. She won the Miss Illinois pageant (and the preliminary Miss America swimsuit competition) while attending Northwestern. She graduated with a BA in Theatre. ”- Tom-9152.Faith SalieActress, The TripFaith Salie was the host and executive producer of the National Public Radio show "Fair Game from PRI with Faith Salie". During its 300 episode run, she conducted over 1000 interviews with the likes of President Jimmy Carter, Lorne Michaels, SirAnthony Hopkins, Slash, Elizabeth Edwards, Norah Jones,Oliver Sacks, Tom Brokaw and a family of champion elk callers...“ Best known for her work on NPR (Fair Game from PRI with Faith Salie and Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me), in addition to acting, she has been a writer, an interviewer, and a correspondent. Her Bachelors degree is from Harvard while her MPhil in literature is from Oxford. ” - Tom-9153.Robert SchenkkanWriter, The Quiet American“ While his acting career stretched from 1979 to 1994, and on TV emphasized soap operas and science fiction (his character's head was literally blown off by Captain Picard and Commander Riker in one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation), he had other creative outlets. He graduated with a BA in Drama,magna cum laude from the University of Texas before earning his MFA from Cornell. He later earned Tony and Pulitzer Prizes for writing The Kentucky Cycle. ” - Tom-9154.Brooke ShieldsActress, Suddenly Susan"Want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing". If you have not heard of Brooke Shields before, this tagline from her Calvin Klein Jeans ad had to grab your attention. Not that she has not had a previously noteworthy resume. She was born on May 31, 1965 in New York City and, at age 12...“ One of the first big name American supermodels, Brooke Shields earned her degree in French literature from Princeton in 1987. Her senior thesis was entitled The Initiation: From Innocence to Experience: The Pre-Adolescent/Adolescent Journey in the Films of Louis Malle, 'Pretty Baby' and 'Lacombe Lucien'. Shields had starred in Malle's Pretty Baby at age 11. ” - Tom-9155.Elisabeth ShueActress, Back to the Future Part IIElisabeth Shue was born in Wilmington, Delaware, to Anne Brewster (Wells), who worked for the Chemical Banking Corporation, and James William Shue, a lawyer and real estate developer. She is of German and English ancestry, including descent from Mayflower passengers. Shue's parents divorced while she was in the fourth grade...“ Shue's diverse career started in earnest after she left Harvard, but she went back, and in 2000, earned her degree in Government. ” - Tom-9156.Ron SilverActor, Ali“ After graduating from New York's prestigious Stuyvesant High School, the late actor earned his BA in Spanish and Chinese from SUNY - Buffalo before earning his MA in Chinese History from St. John's. ” - Tom-9157.Mira SorvinoActress, MimicMira Katherine Sorvino was born on September 28, 1967 in Manhattan. She is the daughter of Lorraine Davis, an actress turned drama therapist, and veteran character actor Paul Sorvino. Her father's family were Italian immigrants. The young Sorvino was intelligent, an avid reader and an exceptional scholar...“ Lisa Kudrow's costar in Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion also played a ditzy blonde like Kudrow, and like Kudrow was nothing like the character. Winning an Oscar for playing another ditz in Mighty Aphrodite, few people knew that she had graduated from Harvard, magna cum laude, in East Asian Studies. Her studies included spending time in China, and gaining fluency in Mandarin. ” - Tom-9158.James StewartActor, Rear WindowJames Stewart was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition for The Philadelphia Story (1940) and receiving an Academy Lifetime Achievement award. Stewart was named the third greatest male screen legend of the Golden Age Hollywood by the American Film Institute. He was a major Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract star...“ Decorated soldier ... pilot ... family man... one of the most respected actors in American history ... and he was smart. Stewart always had a thing for flying, and he took that love with him to Princeton where he earned a degree in architecture ... his major work was on airport design. His work earned him a graduate school scholarship, but by then the acting bug had bitten him, and he was focusing elsewhere. ” - Tom-9159.Julia StilesActress, The Bourne UltimatumJulia O'Hara Stiles was born on March 28, 1981 in New York City, the outgoing daughter of a Greenwich Village artist mother, Judith Newcomb Stiles, and an elementary school teacher father, John O'Hara. She is the eldest of three children, and has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Encouraged to take modern dance lessons at an early age...“ Probably best known for her role as Nicky Parsons in theBourne franchise, Stiles' career goes back to the early 90s where an older generation might have remembered her for her appearances on the PBS series Ghostwriter. She has more recently appeared in the critically acclaimed Silver Linings Playbook. In addition to work with Habitat for Humanity and Amnesty International, Stiles has a degree in English Literature from Columbia. ” - Tom-9160.Meryl StreepActress, The Devil Wears PradaConsidered by many critics to be the greatest living actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 19 times, and has won it three times. Meryl was born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf (Wilkinson), a commercial artist, and Harry William Streep...“ In 1975, two years before her break-out role in Julia, Streep completed her MFA at Yale. Her study and student production schedule supposedly got so stressful that she developed ulcers and thought about changing from acting to law. We can all be grateful she gutted it out. ” - Tom-9161.Faran TahirActor, Iron ManFaran Haroon Tahir was born in Los Angeles, California while his parents were studying acting and directing at UCLA Theatre Department. He comes from a theatre family well-known in Pakistan and India. Both his parents are actors, directors and writers in Pakistan. Faran moved to Los Angeles, California in 1980...“ He played a terrorist leader opposite Robert Downey, Jr. inIron Man and the brave captain of the USS Kelvin in Star Trek. His BA is from Cal-Berkley and his graduate degree is from Harvard. ” - Tom-9162.Jeffrey TamborActor, TransparentAn incisive talent when it comes to playing bent, off-the-wall characters, Jeffrey Tambor has been captivating audiences for nearly four decades. Tambor was born and raised in San Francisco, to Eileen (Salzberg) and Michael Bernard Tambor, a flooring contractor. His family is Ashkenazi Jewish (from Hungary and Ukraine)...“ One of America's great character actors, Tambor is best remembered on TV for The Larry Sander's Show, Arrested Development, and his award-winning work in Transparent. He holds a BA in Theater from San Francisco State University and a Masters degree from Wayne State University. ” - Tom-9163.Fred Dalton ThompsonActor, Sinister“ In between his key role in the Watergate investigation, and serving as US Senator from Tennessee (and running for the Republican nomination for president), Thompson had a brief but very successful career in acting (The Hunt for Red October, Die Hard 2, and In the Line of Fire). He earned degrees in philosophy and political science from Memphis State University, and earned a scholarship to attend Vanderbilt University, where he earned his JD. ” - Tom-9164.James Michael TylerActor, FriendsJames Michael Tyler was born in Winona, Mississippi on May 28. The youngest of five children, he was raised by a retired Air Force captain and a homemaker. At age 11, his parents died and he moved to Anderson, South Carolina to live with his sister. Tyler enrolled at Clemson University as a geology major and earned a bachelor of arts degree...“ Known best for his supporting work as Gunther on the showFriends, Tyler has a BS in geology from Clemson and an MFA from the University of Georgia. ” - Tom-9165.Courtney B. VanceActor, Law & Order: Criminal Intent“ Tony Award winner Courtney B. Vance has had a long career of starring, supporting, and guest roles in film and cinema, starting from his earliest roles in Hamburger Hill, and as the sonar operator, Seaman Jones, on the USS Dallas in the acclaimed adaptation of Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October. Vance earned a BA from Harvard before moving on to Yale for his MFA where he met his future wife Angela Bassett (also on this list). ” - Tom-9166.Robert VaughnActor, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.Robert Francis Vaughn was born on November 22, 1932 at Charity Hospital in New York City. The son of show-business parents, his father, Walter, was a radio actor and his mother, Marcella, was a stage actress. Robert came to the public's attention first with his Oscar-nominated role in The Young Philadelphians...“ With a career that includes an uncredited role in The Ten Commandments and Pootie Tang, Robert Vaughn has seen the highs and lows of cinema and television. He earned an MA in Theater from the Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciecnes, and later earned a PhD in Communications from UCLA, publishing his dissertation Only Victims: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting. ” - Tom-9167.Thomas G. WaitesActor, All My Children“ An accomplished actor of stage and screen, and long time member of the Actors Studio, Waites is likely best remembered for two different roles, one in ... And Justice for All, and the radio operator, Windows in John Carpenter's The Thing. Waites has a B.A. in writing from The New School in New York, and an MFA in playwriting from the University of Iowa. ” - Tom-9168.Sigourney WeaverActress, AliensSigourney Weaver was born Susan Alexandra Weaver in Leroy Hospital in New York City. Her father, TV producer Sylvester L. Weaver Jr., originally wanted to name her Flavia, because of his passion for Roman history (he had already named her elder brother Trajan). Her mother, Elizabeth Inglis (née Desiree Mary Lucy Hawkins)...“ Before battling aliens and poachers and the male dominated work place, Weaver earned her BA in English from Stanford, and her MFA from Yale. ” - Tom-9169.Peter WellerActor, RoboCopPeter Frederick Weller was born in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, to Dorothy Jean (Davidson) and Frederick Bradford Weller, a federal judge and career helicopter pilot for the United States Army. He traveled extensively as his father literally flew around the world. Before he was out of his teens, he had attended high schools in Heidelberg...“ Before he became a star (RoboCop, The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the Eighth Dimension), Weller earned a BA in Theater from North Texas State University. After he became a star, he went back to school, earning an MA from Syracuse in Roman and Renaissance Art, and is nearly finished with his PhD in Renaissance Art History from UCLA. When he acted as host for the History Channel's series Engineering an Empire, that wasn't just some actor reading a script ... that was a world class expert talking from the heart! ” - Tom-9170.Henry WinklerActor, The WaterboyHenry Franklin Winkler was born on October 30, 1945, in Manhattan, New York. His parents, Ilse Anna Maria (Hadra) and Harry Irving Winkler, were Jewish immigrants who avoided the German Holocaust, moving to the US in 1939. His father was the president of an international lumber company while his mother worked alongside his father...“ Perhaps few actors understand the truths of learning like actor, director, producer, writer, and philanthropist Henry Winkler. He graduated late from high school because he was held back by dyslexia, and this caused a long time strain with his gifted father who couldn't understand why his son did so poorly in school. Winkler earned his BA at Emerson College and his MFA from Yale. ” - Tom-911.Rowan AtkinsonActor, The Lion KingRowan Sebastian Atkinson was born on 6 January, 1955, in Consett, Co. Durham, UK, to Ella May (Bainbridge) and Eric Atkinson. His father owned a farm, where Rowan grew up with his two older brothers, Rupert and Rodney. He attended Newcastle University and Oxford University where he earned degrees in electrical engineering...“ The man who gave us Mr. Bean holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Newcastle University and a MS in EE from Oxford. ” - Tom-912.Karen AustinActress, Summer RentalMasters Degree from Northwestern University in Dramatic Literature. B. A. in Theatre from Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, Virginia in Theatre and Philosophy. Shakespeare at St. Anne's Oxford, England with 'Hugo Dyson'. Member Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Lead Performance, NUTS. One daughter, Olivia, was born in 1989.“ Karen Austin has appeared in numerous guest roles in television, and is likely best remembered for playing the original court clerk in the great comedy Night Court. In addition to her BA in Theater and Philosophy from Mary Baldwin College and her MA in Theater from Northwestern, she studied Shakespeare in the Bard's homeland (St. Anne's College of Oxford University). ” - Tom-913.Angela BassettActress, Meet the RobinsonsCaptivating, gifted, and sensational, Angela Bassett's presence has been felt in theaters, stages, and television screens throughout the world. Angela Evelyn Bassett was born on August 16, 1958 in New York City, to Betty Jane (Gilbert), a social worker, and Daniel Benjamin Bassett, a preacher's son...“ Angela Bassett has played a number of powerful roles throughout her long career. She holds a BA in African-American studies and a Master of Fine Arts; both from Yale (she met her husband, Courtney B. Vance, who is also on this list, while the pair were working on their Masters). ” - Tom-914.Hugh BeaumontActor, The Blue DahliaBeaumont began his career in show business by perfoming in theatres, nightclubs, and on the radio in 1931. He attended the University of Chattanooga, but left when his position on the football team was changed. He later attended the University of Southern California, and graduated with a Master of Theology degree in 1946...“ The actor who played Ward, patriarch of the Cleaver family on Leave it to Beaver, also wrote and directed on the show. Beaumont attended the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (then a private school called the University of Chattanooga), and later earned a Masters in Theology from the University of Southern California. ” - Tom-915.Mayim BialikActress, The Big Bang TheoryMayim Bialik grew up in San Diego and got her first acting job (Pumpkinhead) when she was just 12 years old. A number of TV roles followed until in 1990 she was cast in Blossom, the role which made her famous. By 1993, while Blossom was still airing, she had already won a deferred place at Harvard and was also accepted by Yale but chose in the end to attend UCLA...“ The girl who used to be best known for playing the title role on Blossom has matured into a woman better known for academic accomplishment (in reality and fiction). She turned down Harvard and Yale to attend nearby UCLA where she earned her BS in neurobiology. She started a PhD program in the same, and completed it (the thesis dealt with Prader-Willi syndrome) after a break where she returned to acting, and is now better known for her role of the geeky and lovable Amy Farrah-Fowler on The Big Bang Theory. ” - Tom-916.Lewis BlackSelf, The Daily Show“ The living embodiment of anger (from his stand up routines to his character in the Oscar-winning Inside Out), Lewis Black holds a BA from the Univeristy of North Carolina in writing plays, and holds an MFA from Yale. ” - Tom-917.Andre BraugherActor, Homicide: Life on the Street“ Braugher graduated from St. Ignatius High School, one of Chicago's best college prep high schools. He earned his BA in theater from Stanford before graduating from the Julliard. ” - Tom-918.Avery BrooksActor, Star Trek: Deep Space NineAvery Franklin Brooks was born on October 2, 1948 in Evansville, Indiana to a musically talented family. His maternal grandfather, Samuel Travis Crawford, was a tenor who graduated from Tougaloo College in Mississippi in 1901. Crawford toured the country singing with the Delta Rhythm Boys in the 1930s...“ There is a reason you haven't seen much of Hawk or Captain Benjamin Sisko, despite his impressive acting abilities. Brooks has spent most of the last 35 years as a professor of theater at Rutgers; the same school from wihch he earned his BA and MFA. ” - Tom-919.Gerard ButlerActor, 300Gerard James Butler was born in Paisley, Scotland, to Margaret and Edward Butler, a bookmaker. His family is of Irish origin. Gerard spent some of his very early childhood in Montreal, Quebec, but was mostly raised, along with his older brother and sister, in his hometown of Paisley. His parents divorced when he was a child...“ While it likely did not help him for his tour-de-force role as King Leonidas in 300, Butler holds a law degree from Glasgow University. It was only after being fired from a law firm that Butler pursued acting as a career. ” - Tom-9110.Kate CapshawActress, Indiana Jones and the Temple of DoomKate Capshaw was born Kathleen Sue Nail in Fort Worth, Texas, to Beverley Sue (Simon), a beautician and travel agent, and Edwin Leon Nail, an airline employee. Capshaw worked as a teacher with an MA in Learning Disabilities. Her desire to be an actress led her to New York where she landed a role on the soap The Edge of Night...“ Capshaw, who played a shrieking actress in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and an astronaut in Spacecamp, is likely best known today for being Steven Spielberg's wife. She has a BA in history education and a Masters in special education, both from the University of Missouri. ” - Tom-9111.Graham ChapmanWriter, Monty Python and the Holy GrailGraham Chapman was born on January 8, 1941 in Leicester, England while a Germain air raid was in progress. Graham's father was a chief police inspector and probably inspired the constables Graham often portrayed later in comedy sketches. Graham studied medicine in college and earned an M.D., but he practiced medicine for only a few years...“ The first of three members of Monty Python on this list, Chapman attended and graduated from Cambridge's Emmanuel College where he earned a medical degree, all the time writing and performing comedy, even managing to negotiate a year off to tour New Zealand with a London review called the Cambridge Circus. ” - Tom-9112.John CleeseActor, A Fish Called WandaJohn Cleese was born on October 27, 1939, in Weston-Super-Mare, England, to Muriel Evelyn (Cross) and Reginald Francis Cleese. He was born into a family of modest means, his father being an insurance salesman; but he was nonetheless sent off to private schools to obtain a good education. Here he was often tormented for his height...“ One of the most respected comic actors in any part of the world, Cleese passed his A-levels in maths, chemistry, and physics, earning him a spot at Cambridge where he earned a law degree. ” - Tom-9113.Bill CosbyWriter, Bill Cosby: HimselfBill Cosby is one of the world's most well-known entertainers and comedians. William Henry Cosby, Jr. was born on July 12, 1937, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Anna Pearl (Hite), a maid, and William Henry Cosby, Sr., a U.S. Navy sailor. After tenth grade, Cosby joined the Navy and completed high school through a correspondence course...“ While his film career was never that great, as a TV actor and stand up comic, The Cos has few equals. He has his share of honorary degrees, but he is one of the few performers to have a bonafide earned doctorate. He has a Doctor of Education degree from UMass for his dissertation: An Integration of the Visual Media Via 'Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids' Into the Elementary School Curriculum as a Teaching Aid and Vehicle to Achieve Increased Learning. ” - Tom-9114.Marcia CrossActress, Desperate HousewivesMarcia Anne Cross was born on March 25, 1962 in Marlborough, Massachusetts. As a child, Marcia always wanted to be an actress, so she set out to have a career in acting. Cross graduated from the Julliard School in New York, a naturally gifted girl. Her career began in 1984, when she joined the cast of the daytime soap opera The Edge of Night...“ Marcia Cross spent about 15 years, starting in the mid-1980s guest starring on soap operas and then prime time featured series. This was all after earning her BFA in acting from the prestigious Julliard. She earned her Masters in Psychology from Antioch University in Los Angeles in 2003 ... just in time for her to sign on as the character Bree on Desperate Housewives, a role that would net an Emmy and 3 Golden Globe nominations for her acting. ” - Tom-9115.David DuchovnyActor, The X-FilesDavid William Duchovny was born on August 7, 1960, in New York City, New York, USA. His father, Amram Ducovny, was a writer and publicist who was from a family of Jewish immigrants (from Ukraine and Poland), and worked for the American Jewish Committee. His mother, Margaret (Miller), was a Scottish-born school teacher...“ Duchovny's acting career started as a break from his academic career; a break he remains on to this day. He earned his BA in English literature from Princeton and his MA in English literature from Yale. He was working on this PhD (ironically, a thesis entitled Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry and Prose) when he opted to take a break. The rest is out there. ” - Tom-9116.Charles S. DuttonActor, Alien³“ Very few actors have had such a tougher road to higher education than Charles S. Dutton. Dutton's introduction to drama was while reading an anthology of African-American playwrights while in solitary confinement on a manslaughter conviction. He earned his GED in prison. His Masters in Drama from Yale came later. ” - Tom-9117.Jodie FosterActress, The Silence of the LambsAlicia Christian Foster was born in Los Angeles on November 19, 1962. She is the daughter of Evelyn Ella "Brandy" (Almond) and Lucius Fisher Foster III, an Air Force lieutenant colonel and later real estate broker. Brandy had filed for divorce in 1959 after having three children with Lucius, but the exes had a brief re-encounter in 1962 which resulted in Alicia's birth...“ Foster was already an international star when she graduated valedictorian of an exclusive college prep academy. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale with a BA in literature. ”- Tom-9118.Jonathan FrakesActor, Star Trek: The Next GenerationJonathan Scott Frakes was born on August 19, 1952 in Bellefonte, in central Pennsylvania. He is the son of Doris J. (Yingling) and Dr. James R. Frakes, a professor. His parents moved with Jonathan and his younger brother Daniel to Bethlehem in eastern Pennsylvania. There, his father taught English at Lehigh University...“ A very busy director (where he earned the nickname "Two Takes Frakes" and still occasional actor, Frakes will always be remembered for his role as "Number One", Commander William Riker along side Patrick Stewart's Captain Piccard onStar Trek: The Next Generation. Frakes, the son of an English professor, started classes at Penn State University during the summer semester after high school, and graduated with a BA in theater arts in 1974. He earned his Masters from Harvard in 1976. ” - Tom-9119.James FrancoActor, 127 HoursKnown for his breakthrough starring role on Freaks and Geeks, James Franco was born in Palo Alto, California on April 19, 1978. His mother, Betsy Franco, is Jewish, and his father, Douglas Eugene "Doug" Franco, was of Portuguese and Swedish descent, and ran a Silicon Valley business. James's mother, a writer, has occasionally acted...“ The Oscar nominee has led an interesting and far from ideal life, but has managed to build a great acting career. After abandoning his studies early in his career, he earned a BA in English with honors from UCLA. He earned his Masters of Fine Arts from Columbia University in writing. He missed hearing his own name announced as an Oscar nominee because he was attending one of his PhD classes at Yale, where he is working on his degree in English. ” - Tom-9120.Paul GiamattiActor, SidewaysPaul Giamatti is an American actor who has worked steadily and prominently for over twenty years, and is best known for leading roles in the films American Splendor, Sideways, andBarney's Version (for which he won a Golden Globe), and supporting roles in the films Cinderella Man, The Illusionist, andSan Andreas...“ We have no doubt that Paul Giamatti earned both of his degrees from Yale; BA in English and a Master of Fine Arts (MFA). We have to wonder if his initial acceptance involved some family pull: his dad, A. Bartlett Giamatti was a Yale professor who later served as president of the University before moving up to Commissioner of Major League Baseball. ”- Tom-9121.Missy GoldActress, Benson“ After spending the late 1970s and early 1980s as a very young actress, Missy Gold looked like she was ready to break out as an actress after playing the first daughter of California on the hit comedy, Benson. It turned out that Benson would be all but her professional acting swan song. Gold attended George Washington University before earning her PhD from the California School of Professional Psychology, and is now a practicing psychologist. ” - Tom-9122.Barry GordonActor, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles“ From 1988-95, Gordon was President of the Screen Actors Guild, a position that joins him to a list that includes James Cagney, Charlton Heston, Ronald Reagan, Patty Duke, and Ed Asner (among others). While a veteran character actor of stage and television, he is likely best remembered for voicing Donatello on the 1980s-90s series "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". Today he teaches at his alma mater, California State where he earned his degree in political science, summa cum laude. He also holds a JD from the law school of Loyola Marymount University. ” - Tom-9123.David Alan GrierActor, In Living ColorDavid Alan Grier was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Aretas Ruth (Dudley), a schoolteacher, and William Henry Grier, a psychiatrist and writer. He trained in Shakespeare at Yale University, where he received an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. Grier began his professional career on Broadway asJackie Robinson in "The First"...“ Funny? You bet! Smart? Yep! One of the non-Wayans stars of the groundbreaking In Living Color, Grier holds a BA from the University of Michigan and a Masters of Fine Arts from Yale. ” - Tom-9124.Dan GrimaldiActor, The Sopranos“ Best known for playing twins Patsy and Philly Parisi on The Sopranos, Grimaldi holds a BS in mathematics from Fordham, an MS in operations research from NYU, and a PhD in data processing from CUNY. When not acting, he lectures on computer science at the college level. ” - Tom-9125.Sheila James KuehlActress, The Many Loves of Dobie GillisBabyboomers remember well the diminutive (4'10"), dark-haired comedienne Sheila James who raised a smile with her portrayals of tomboyish kid sisters and boy-crazy high schoolers on late 50s and early 60s TV. For a while she was a huge hit backed by her characters' plaintive, pony-tailed presences, strategies and sheer persistence to get what they wanted...“ Sheila James was best remembered for playing Zelda Gilroy, the gal with an unrequited crush on the title character of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. She was a state legislator in California after earning her law degree from Harvard. She also served on and off as a law professor and administrator at a few different colleges. ” - Tom-9126.Ken JeongActor, The HangoverKen Jeong has been blending comedy & medicine all of his life. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Korean immigrants Young and Dong-Kuen Jeong, a professor at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. After graduating from Duke University & attaining his MD at the University of North Carolina...“ Known for his roles in the film The Hangover and the television series Community, Jeong earned a BS at Duke University before earning his MD at the University of North Carolina ... with his residency complete, he is one of the only actors in Hollywood who is an honest to goodness medical doctor! ” - Tom-9127.Ron JeremyActor, RoninSince the demise of the legendary John Holmes in March 1988, the short, mustachioed, heavyset Ron Jeremy has assumed the mantle as the number one U.S. male star of adult cinema. However, don't confuse Ron with the similar looking mustachioed 1970/'80s adult film star, Harry Reems, who has long since retired from the adult film industry...“ Before he went on to star in over 2000 adult films, Jeremy earned a bachelors degree in education and a Masters in special education from Queens College. Proof that education is not a barrier to having sex; a lot of it. ” - Tom-9128.Tommy Lee JonesActor, No Country for Old MenTommy Lee Jones was born in San Saba, Texas, the son of Lucille Marie (Scott), a police officer and beauty shop owner, and Clyde C. Jones, who worked on oil fields. Tommy himself worked in underwater construction and on an oil rig. He attended St. Mark's School of Texas, a prestigious prep school for boys in Dallas...“ Jones came from a poor family, and needed scholarships to attend an elite high school in Texas and Harvard, where he was an All-Ivy League offensive tackle, and roommate with future Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore. Jones wrote a thesis on the role of Catholicism in the works of Flannery O'Connor, and graduated cum laude with a BA in English. ” - Tom-9129.Ashley JuddActress, DivergentAmerican actress and political activist Ashley Judd was born Ashley Tyler Ciminella on April 19, 1968, in Granada Hills, California. She grew up in a family of successful performing artists as the daughter of country music singer Naomi Judd and the sister of Wynonna Judd. While she is best known for an ongoing acting career spanning more than two decades...“ Beautiful and original ... and very intelligent, Ashley Judd has had an interesting career and education arc. The daughter and sister of major performers in country-western, Ashley received attention immediately, playing Wesley Crusher's crush in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation before setting off for major films including Heat, A Time to Kill, De-Lovely, and more recently Divergent. She attended over a dozen schools prior to going off to college at the University of Kentucky and eventually graduated with a degree in French. Her substantial humanitarian and public advocacy work eventually led her to earning a Mid-Career Masters in Public Administration from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. ” - Tom-9130.Milt KoganActor, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial“ A versatile character actor, Kogan returned to finish his BS in animal Science from Cornell in 2007 (after a 50 year wait!). He had previously earned a Masters of Public Health in Epidemiology from UCLA. In addition to work in series likeBarney Miller and small roles in films like E.T: The Extra Terrestrial and The Descendants, Kogan has practiced medicine with the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso. He also speaks five languages. ” - Tom-9131.Charlie KorsmoActor, HookCharles R. Korsmo is an Assistant Professor of Law and the U.S. director of the Canada-U.S. Law Institute at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, where he teaches courses in corporate law, corporate finance, and torts. Korsmo's articles have appeared in the William & Mary Law Review and Brooklyn Law Review...“ While his career in acting didn't last long, he is likely best remembered for playing the son of Peter Pan (Banning) in Steven Spielberg's Hook. After his young acting career, Korsmo earned a BS in physics from MIT, and a JD from Yale. He has since become a law professor. ” - Tom-9132.Kris KristoffersonActor, Blade IIKris Kristofferson was born in Brownsville, Texas, to Mary Ann (Ashbrook) and Lars Henry Kristofferson. His paternal grandparents were Swedish, and his father was a United States Air Force general who pushed his son to a military career. Kris was a Golden Gloves boxer and went to Pomona College in California...“ Someday, someone will make a story of Kristofferson's life, and no one will believe it was real! He earned a BA in literature from Pomona College, graduating summa cum laude (and earning membership to Phi Beta Kappa), all the while becoming a big enough collegiate athlete that Sports illustrated included him in their "Faces and Places" section on non-professional athletes. He earned a Rhodes Scholarship that took him to Oxford, where he earned a degree in English literature. He served in the army, later achieving the rank of captain. He was offered a position teaching at West Point, which he turned down to enter show business. ” - Tom-9133.Lisa KudrowActress, P.S. I Love YouHardly the dumb blonde of Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Lisa was born in Encino, California on July 30, 1963. Her mother, Nedra S. (Stern), was a travel agent, and her father, Lee N. Kudrow, was a physician. Her parents are both from Jewish immigrant families (from Belarus, Russia, and Hungary). Lisa was raised in Tarzana and played varsity-level tennis in high school and college...“ One of the ultimate "never judge an actor by the roles they play" performers, Lisa Kudrow is as smart as her famous Phoebe Buffay character was not. Kudrow earned a BS in Biology from Vassar and worked as a research assistant for her father for 8 years (researching headaches) before her brother's friend, Jon Lovitz, convinced her to try comedy. No doubt her ability to fool people explains why she was the first cast member of Friends to earn an Emmy Award. ” - Tom-9134.Hedy LamarrActress, Samson and DelilahHedy Lamarr, the woman many critics and fans alike regard as the most beautiful ever to appear in films, was born Hedwig Eva Kiesler in Vienna, Austria. She was the daughter of Gertrud (Lichtwitz), from Budapest, and Emil Kiesler, a banker from Lviv. Her parents were both from Jewish families. Hedwig had a calm childhood...“ Women in Hollywood's golden era may not have had the educational opportunities that exist today, but Lamarr made her mark anyway. At the height of her career on the silver screen, and as World War II raged on, Lamarr worked with her neighbor to invent and patent a frequency hopping system that used a piano roll to help defend Allied torpeedos from being jammed by Axis ships. This invention was later crucial in the development of cordless telephones and WiFi. ” - Tom-9135.John LithgowActor, InterstellarIf "born to the theater" has meaning in determining a person's life path, then John Lithgow is a prime example of this truth. He was born in Rochester, New York, to Sarah Jane (Price), an actress, and Arthur Washington Lithgow III, who was both a theatrical producer and director. John's father was born in Puerto Plata...“ One of America's most accomplished actors, in addition to his Oscar nominated work on the silver screen and his award winning television work, all ranging from slapstick comedy to deep drama, Lithgow is an accomplished writer and has voice credits which include Yoda in the radio broadcast of the originalStar Wars trilogy in addition to Shrek ... not to mention a Tony Award for his work on the New York stage. Lithgow graduatedmagna cum laude with a BA degree in history and literature from Harvard. He is also a Fulbright Scholarship winner, which he used to attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art ” - Tom-9136.Lucy LiuActress, Kill Bill: Vol. 1Born to immigrants in Queens, New York, Lucy Liu has always tried to balance an interest in her cultural heritage with a desire to move beyond a strictly Asian-American experience. Lucy's mother, Cecilia, a biochemist, is from Beijing, and her father, Tom Liu, a civil engineer, is from Shanghai. Once relegated to "ethnic" parts...“ An actress equally adept in comedy, drama, and action films, Liu attended New York's prestigious Stuyvesant High School before attending NYU for one year. She then transferred to the University of Michigan, where she earned a BS in Asian languages, and can now speak five of them fluently. ” - Tom-9137.Dolph LundgrenActor, The ExpendablesDolph Lundgren was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to Sigrid Birgitta (Tjerneld), a language teacher, and Karl Johan Hugo Lundgren, an engineer and economist for the Swedish government. He lived in Stockholm until the age of 13, when he moved in with his grandparents in Nyland, Ångermanland, Sweden. Despite an early interest in music and the fine arts...“ Perhaps no actor in history has managed to fool more people into thinking that he wasn't that bright. After graduating from the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, he earned a MS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Sydney, and had begun classes at MIT on a Fullbright Scholarship when he left to start acting. He also speaks three languages fluently, with some knowledge of four others. Not bad for a man who is likely to be remembered for saying "I must break you!" ” - Tom-9138.Gates McFaddenActress, Star Trek: The Next Generation“ Jim Henson puppeteer and choreographer, McFadden is best known for her role as Doctor Beverly Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. She graduated cum laude from Brandeis with a BA in theater arts. After TNG, in addition to other projects, she has taught drama at various schools, including USC. ” - Tom-9139.Danica McKellarActress, The Wonder YearsTogether with her younger sister, Crystal McKellar, she began acting at a young age in her mother's dance studio. In 1982 the family moved to Los Angeles and a few years later she appeared in her first commercial. A few guest appearances inThe Twilight Zone was followed by her breakthrough in The Wonder Years...“ After playing Winnie Cooper on "The Wonder Years", McKellar attended UCLA, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in mathematics while co-authoring a paper (Percolation and Gibbs states multiplicity for ferromagnetic Ashkin-Teller models on Z Squared) that proposed the Chayes-McKellar-Winn theorem. She has helped produce a video series teaching yoga, and published a series of books helping young girls to get more involved in math. ” - Tom-9140.Ilan Mitchell-SmithActor, Weird ScienceIlan Mitchell-Smith was born in New York City and began studying ballet at an early age. After his family relocated to Amherst, Massachusetts, he was enrolled in dance classes four days a week and eventually got a scholarship with the School of American Ballet. While at the ballet, he was discovered...“ Ilan Mitchell-Smith acted for less than ten years, and is best remembered for playing Wyatt, opposite Anthony Michael Hall, in the cult classic Weird Science. He earned a BA from the University of California-Davis in Medieval Studies, an MA from Fordham, and a PhD in English from Texas A&M. He is currently a professor of English. ” - Tom-9141.Michael MoriartyActor, Law & OrderAs one of Hollywood's tallest actors standing at 6' 4", he will always be noticed. Michael Moriarty is one of the great character T.V. actors of all time. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1941. Moriarty was to move to London, England, where he built up a name as a great stage actor. It was also...“ One of the original stars of Law & Order, Moriarity earned a degree in theater from Dartmouth before earning a Fulbright Scholarship to attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. ” - Tom-9142.Kunal NayyarActor, The Big Bang TheoryKunal Nayyar is an Indian actor. He moved from India to the US in 1999. He first moved to Portland, Oregon, to study business. He started acting in plays as a way of making new friends. He took acting classes, but he went on to graduate from the University of Portland with a degree in business, as something to fall back on...“ Born in the U.K. and raised in India, Nayyar did all of his studying in America. He earned a Bachelors in Business from Portland University and an MFA from Temple before jumping back to England to work briefly with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Then it was (fictitiously) off to CalTech for The Big Bang Theory. ” - Tom-9143.France NuyenActress, Santa Barbara“ Making her film debut in South Pacific, France turned her suffering as an abused child, into something positive. She earned a masters degree in psychology and, between acting roles, worked as a counselor, focusing on abused children, abused women, and women in prison. In 1989, she won the "Women of the Year" from the City of Los Angeles. ” - Tom-9144.Lupita Nyong'oActress, Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force AwakensLupita Amondi Nyong'o was born March 1, 1983 in Mexico City, Mexico, to Kenyan parents, Dorothy and Peter Anyang' Nyong'o. Her father, a senator, was then a visiting lecturer in political science. She was raised in Kenya. At age 16, her parents sent her back to Mexico for seven months to learn Spanish...“ Born in Mexico City to Kenyan parents, Nyong'o's first feature film role was in Twelve Years a Slave, and for that she earned an Oscar. Her third film credit was Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens, so big budget blockbusters seem to agree with her as well. She holds a masters in acting from Yale. ” - Tom-9145.Masi OkaActor, Hawaii Five-0“ Born in Japan, Oka earned his BS in Computer Science from Brown before going off to work for Industrial Light and Magic, helping create the visual effects on films like Mighty Joe Youngand the three Star Wars prequels. He is probably best know today for his acting on the TV series Heroes and re-imaginedHawaii 5-0. ” - Tom-9146.Michael PalinActor, Monty Python and the Holy Grail“ World Class comedian and world traveler, Palin earned a degree in History from Oxford in 1965. In recent years, Palin has taken to producing documentaries in history including the lives of artists and World War I. ” - Tom-9147.Jim ParsonsActor, The Big Bang TheoryHaving grown up in Houston, and its northern suburb of Spring, he made his first stage appearance in a school play at the age of 6. Parsons then went on to study theater at the University of Houston. From there he won a place on a two-year Masters course in classical theater at the University of San Diego/The Old Globe Theater, graduating in 2001...“ A great actor of stage and screens of all sizes, Parsons probably is not quite the pure intellect of his Dr. Sheldon Cooper character from The Big Bang Theory, but that doesn't mean he and Cooper are so different. Like Dr. Cooper, he started off in Texas, with a BA degree from the University of Houston before moving on to southern California to earn his Masters of Fine Arts from the University of San Diego. ” - Tom-9148.Ethan PhillipsActor, Star Trek: VoyagerEthan Phillips was born on February 8, 1955 in Garden City, 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 began his acting career on stage in both Broadway and off-Broadway shows...“ Probably best known for his role as Pete in the series Bensonand as the Talaxian chef, Neelix, in Star Trek: Voyager, Phillips has a wide array of stage work under his belt. He has a BA in English Literature from Boston University and a MFA from Cornell. ” - Tom-9149.Rosamund PikeActress, Gone GirlBorn on January 27, 1979 in London, England, actress Rosamund Mary Elizabeth Pike is the only child of a classical violinist mother, Caroline (Friend), and an opera singer father, Julian Pike. Due to her parents' work, she spent her early childhood traveling around Europe. Pike attended Badminton School in Bristol...“ Not many actresses can switch between the world of video game Doom and the world of Georgian England in Pride and Prejudice with such aplomb. She had to take a day off from her feature film debut Die Another Day to take a final exam ... which helped her earn a degree in English Literature, with honors, from Oxford's Wadham College. ” - Tom-9150.Natalie PortmanActress, V for VendettaNatalie Portman was born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, Israel, to a Jewish family. She is the only child of Avner Hershlag, an Israeli-born doctor, and Shelley Stevens, an American-born artist (from Cincinnati, Ohio), who also acts as Natalie's agent. She left Israel for Washington...“ She was quoted in 2002 as saying "I'd rather be smart than a movie star". She got to be both. As a high school student, she co-authored A Simple Method to Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar; a paper that earned her semifinalist status in the Intel Science Talent Search. She holds a BA in psychology from Harvard. ” - Tom-9151.Jeri RyanActress, Star Trek: VoyagerJeri Ryan was born Jeri Lynn Zimmerman on February 22, 1968 in Munich, West Germany, to Sharon, a social worker, and Gerhard Florian Zimmerman, a Master Sergeant in the U.S. Army. She and her brother Mark grew up on several military bases, including Kansas, Maryland, Georgia and Texas. Finally, at the age of 11...“ Ryan was an army brat, born in Munich while her father was stationed there, and graduated from high school as a National Merit Scholar. She won the Miss Illinois pageant (and the preliminary Miss America swimsuit competition) while attending Northwestern. She graduated with a BA in Theatre. ”- Tom-9152.Faith SalieActress, The TripFaith Salie was the host and executive producer of the National Public Radio show "Fair Game from PRI with Faith Salie". During its 300 episode run, she conducted over 1000 interviews with the likes of President Jimmy Carter, Lorne Michaels, SirAnthony Hopkins, Slash, Elizabeth Edwards, Norah Jones,Oliver Sacks, Tom Brokaw and a family of champion elk callers...“ Best known for her work on NPR (Fair Game from PRI with Faith Salie and Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me), in addition to acting, she has been a writer, an interviewer, and a correspondent. Her Bachelors degree is from Harvard while her MPhil in literature is from Oxford. ” - Tom-9153.Robert SchenkkanWriter, The Quiet American“ While his acting career stretched from 1979 to 1994, and on TV emphasized soap operas and science fiction (his character's head was literally blown off by Captain Picard and Commander Riker in one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation), he had other creative outlets. He graduated with a BA in Drama,magna cum laude from the University of Texas before earning his MFA from Cornell. He later earned Tony and Pulitzer Prizes for writing The Kentucky Cycle. ” - Tom-9154.Brooke ShieldsActress, Suddenly Susan"Want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing". If you have not heard of Brooke Shields before, this tagline from her Calvin Klein Jeans ad had to grab your attention. Not that she has not had a previously noteworthy resume. She was born on May 31, 1965 in New York City and, at age 12...“ One of the first big name American supermodels, Brooke Shields earned her degree in French literature from Princeton in 1987. Her senior thesis was entitled The Initiation: From Innocence to Experience: The Pre-Adolescent/Adolescent Journey in the Films of Louis Malle, 'Pretty Baby' and 'Lacombe Lucien'. Shields had starred in Malle's Pretty Baby at age 11. ” - Tom-9155.Elisabeth ShueActress, Back to the Future Part IIElisabeth Shue was born in Wilmington, Delaware, to Anne Brewster (Wells), who worked for the Chemical Banking Corporation, and James William Shue, a lawyer and real estate developer. She is of German and English ancestry, including descent from Mayflower passengers. Shue's parents divorced while she was in the fourth grade...“ Shue's diverse career started in earnest after she left Harvard, but she went back, and in 2000, earned her degree in Government. ” - Tom-9156.Ron SilverActor, Ali“ After graduating from New York's prestigious Stuyvesant High School, the late actor earned his BA in Spanish and Chinese from SUNY - Buffalo before earning his MA in Chinese History from St. John's. ” - Tom-9157.Mira SorvinoActress, MimicMira Katherine Sorvino was born on September 28, 1967 in Manhattan. She is the daughter of Lorraine Davis, an actress turned drama therapist, and veteran character actor Paul Sorvino. Her father's family were Italian immigrants. The young Sorvino was intelligent, an avid reader and an exceptional scholar...“ Lisa Kudrow's costar in Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion also played a ditzy blonde like Kudrow, and like Kudrow was nothing like the character. Winning an Oscar for playing another ditz in Mighty Aphrodite, few people knew that she had graduated from Harvard, magna cum laude, in East Asian Studies. Her studies included spending time in China, and gaining fluency in Mandarin. ” - Tom-9158.James StewartActor, Rear WindowJames Stewart was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition for The Philadelphia Story (1940) and receiving an Academy Lifetime Achievement award. Stewart was named the third greatest male screen legend of the Golden Age Hollywood by the American Film Institute. He was a major Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract star...“ Decorated soldier ... pilot ... family man... one of the most respected actors in American history ... and he was smart. Stewart always had a thing for flying, and he took that love with him to Princeton where he earned a degree in architecture ... his major work was on airport design. His work earned him a graduate school scholarship, but by then the acting bug had bitten him, and he was focusing elsewhere. ” - Tom-9159.Julia StilesActress, The Bourne UltimatumJulia O'Hara Stiles was born on March 28, 1981 in New York City, the outgoing daughter of a Greenwich Village artist mother, Judith Newcomb Stiles, and an elementary school teacher father, John O'Hara. She is the eldest of three children, and has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Encouraged to take modern dance lessons at an early age...“ Probably best known for her role as Nicky Parsons in theBourne franchise, Stiles' career goes back to the early 90s where an older generation might have remembered her for her appearances on the PBS series Ghostwriter. She has more recently appeared in the critically acclaimed Silver Linings Playbook. In addition to work with Habitat for Humanity and Amnesty International, Stiles has a degree in English Literature from Columbia. ” - Tom-9160.Meryl StreepActress, The Devil Wears PradaConsidered by many critics to be the greatest living actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 19 times, and has won it three times. Meryl was born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf (Wilkinson), a commercial artist, and Harry William Streep...“ In 1975, two years before her break-out role in Julia, Streep completed her MFA at Yale. Her study and student production schedule supposedly got so stressful that she developed ulcers and thought about changing from acting to law. We can all be grateful she gutted it out. ” - Tom-9161.Faran TahirActor, Iron ManFaran Haroon Tahir was born in Los Angeles, California while his parents were studying acting and directing at UCLA Theatre Department. He comes from a theatre family well-known in Pakistan and India. Both his parents are actors, directors and writers in Pakistan. Faran moved to Los Angeles, California in 1980...“ He played a terrorist leader opposite Robert Downey, Jr. inIron Man and the brave captain of the USS Kelvin in Star Trek. His BA is from Cal-Berkley and his graduate degree is from Harvard. ” - Tom-9162.Jeffrey TamborActor, TransparentAn incisive talent when it comes to playing bent, off-the-wall characters, Jeffrey Tambor has been captivating audiences for nearly four decades. Tambor was born and raised in San Francisco, to Eileen (Salzberg) and Michael Bernard Tambor, a flooring contractor. His family is Ashkenazi Jewish (from Hungary and Ukraine)...“ One of America's great character actors, Tambor is best remembered on TV for The Larry Sander's Show, Arrested Development, and his award-winning work in Transparent. He holds a BA in Theater from San Francisco State University and a Masters degree from Wayne State University. ” - Tom-9163.Fred Dalton ThompsonActor, Sinister“ In between his key role in the Watergate investigation, and serving as US Senator from Tennessee (and running for the Republican nomination for president), Thompson had a brief but very successful career in acting (The Hunt for Red October, Die Hard 2, and In the Line of Fire). He earned degrees in philosophy and political science from Memphis State University, and earned a scholarship to attend Vanderbilt University, where he earned his JD. ” - Tom-9164.James Michael TylerActor, FriendsJames Michael Tyler was born in Winona, Mississippi on May 28. The youngest of five children, he was raised by a retired Air Force captain and a homemaker. At age 11, his parents died and he moved to Anderson, South Carolina to live with his sister. Tyler enrolled at Clemson University as a geology major and earned a bachelor of arts degree...“ Known best for his supporting work as Gunther on the showFriends, Tyler has a BS in geology from Clemson and an MFA from the University of Georgia. ” - Tom-9165.Courtney B. VanceActor, Law & Order: Criminal Intent“ Tony Award winner Courtney B. Vance has had a long career of starring, supporting, and guest roles in film and cinema, starting from his earliest roles in Hamburger Hill, and as the sonar operator, Seaman Jones, on the USS Dallas in the acclaimed adaptation of Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October. Vance earned a BA from Harvard before moving on to Yale for his MFA where he met his future wife Angela Bassett (also on this list). ” - Tom-9166.Robert VaughnActor, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.Robert Francis Vaughn was born on November 22, 1932 at Charity Hospital in New York City. The son of show-business parents, his father, Walter, was a radio actor and his mother, Marcella, was a stage actress. Robert came to the public's attention first with his Oscar-nominated role in The Young Philadelphians...“ With a career that includes an uncredited role in The Ten Commandments and Pootie Tang, Robert Vaughn has seen the highs and lows of cinema and television. He earned an MA in Theater from the Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciecnes, and later earned a PhD in Communications from UCLA, publishing his dissertation Only Victims: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting. ” - Tom-9167.Thomas G. WaitesActor, All My Children“ An accomplished actor of stage and screen, and long time member of the Actors Studio, Waites is likely best remembered for two different roles, one in ... And Justice for All, and the radio operator, Windows in John Carpenter's The Thing. Waites has a B.A. in writing from The New School in New York, and an MFA in playwriting from the University of Iowa. ” - Tom-9168.Sigourney WeaverActress, AliensSigourney Weaver was born Susan Alexandra Weaver in Leroy Hospital in New York City. Her father, TV producer Sylvester L. Weaver Jr., originally wanted to name her Flavia, because of his passion for Roman history (he had already named her elder brother Trajan). Her mother, Elizabeth Inglis (née Desiree Mary Lucy Hawkins)...“ Before battling aliens and poachers and the male dominated work place, Weaver earned her BA in English from Stanford, and her MFA from Yale. ” - Tom-9169.Peter WellerActor, RoboCopPeter Frederick Weller was born in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, to Dorothy Jean (Davidson) and Frederick Bradford Weller, a federal judge and career helicopter pilot for the United States Army. He traveled extensively as his father literally flew around the world. Before he was out of his teens, he had attended high schools in Heidelberg...“ Before he became a star (RoboCop, The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the Eighth Dimension), Weller earned a BA in Theater from North Texas State University. After he became a star, he went back to school, earning an MA from Syracuse in Roman and Renaissance Art, and is nearly finished with his PhD in Renaissance Art History from UCLA. When he acted as host for the History Channel's series Engineering an Empire, that wasn't just some actor reading a script ... that was a world class expert talking from the heart! ” - Tom-9170.Henry WinklerActor, The WaterboyHenry Franklin Winkler was born on October 30, 1945, in Manhattan, New York. His parents, Ilse Anna Maria (Hadra) and Harry Irving Winkler, were Jewish immigrants who avoided the German Holocaust, moving to the US in 1939. His father was the president of an international lumber company while his mother worked alongside his father...“ Perhaps few actors understand the truths of learning like actor, director, producer, writer, and philanthropist Henry Winkler. He graduated late from high school because he was held back by dyslexia, and this caused a long time strain with his gifted father who couldn't understand why his son did so poorly in school. Winkler earned his BA at Emerson College and his MFA from Yale. ” - Tom-91

Q. What are some of the best Movies for every medical student?A2A:The Doctor (1991)Gross Anatomy (film)TN’s Answer to “What are some good movies to give you an idea of medical school?”The Doctor (1991)Plot SummaryJack McKee is a doctor with it all: he's successful, he's rich, extremely self centred and he has no problems.... until he is diagnosed with throat cancer. Now that he has seen medicine, hospitals, and doctors from a patient's perspective, he realises that there is more to being a doctor than surgery and prescriptions, and more to life than serving only his own needs.- Written by Murray Chapman <[email protected]>After spending his life, his career, as a physician who treated patients with less than the respect than they deserved. He becomes a patient himself and suddenly understands what it is like to be treated like he treated so many human beings who's feelings and emotions surrounding their illnesses he never stopped to consider. Karma has come to visit and he is not prepared. He assumed that because he was a physician, that he would be treated differently than the average patient. That he would have special privileges and accommodations afforded to him due to his station he so wrongly assumed he had. Every doctor should have to see this movie as part of their humanities training, perhaps then they would be less likely to lose their empathy along the way.- Written by Lorraine Allison Traylor ParamedicTHE DOCTORTHE DOCTOR (1991)CastWilliam Hurt as JackChristine Lahti as AnneElizabeth Perkins as JuneMandy Patinkin as MurrayAdam Arkin as EliWendy Crewson as Dr. AbbottRoger EbertJuly 24, 1991Anyone who has ever been through the medical system - even with the very best of treatment - will identify with this film. “The Doctor” tells the story of an aloof, self-centered heart surgeon who treats his patients like names on a list. Then he gets sick himself, and doesn't like it one bit when he's treated like a mere patient.“It may interest you to know that I happen to be a resident surgeon on the staff of this hospital!” he barks at a nurse who wants him to fill out some forms just like the ones he has already filled out. He still has to fill out the forms.The role is played in a detailed, observant way by William Hurt, who is able to make this egocentric surgeon into a convincing human being. In the wrong hands, this material could have been simply a cautionary tale, but Hurt and his director, Randa Haines, who also collaborated on “Children of a Lesser God,” make it into the story of a specific, flawed, fascinating human being.As the movie opens, Hurt plays rock 'n' roll into his operating theater while literally holding the hearts of his patients in his hands. He leads a comfortable life in Marin County, Calif., with his wife (Christine Lahti) and two sons, but is not very close to his family. (In one revealing scene, he's standing in the living room when a son races in. “Say hello to your father,” Lahti says, and the kid automatically picks up the phone.) In his lectures to the interns at the hospital, Hurt warns that personal feelings have nothing to do with the science of medicine. Then he discovers otherwise.His problem starts as a small, nagging cough. He ignores it until one day he coughs up blood. He goes to an eye, ear, nose and throat expert (played with cold precision by Wendy Crewson), and discovers that there is a tumor in his throat. It is malignant. He needs radiation therapy. If it doesn't work, he may need surgery. In that case, it's impossible to predict how his vocal cords will respond. He could lose the power of speech.This is devastating news, which he receives with disbelief. How could a master of medicine like himself become its victim? As his treatment progresses, he doesn't like how his own hospital treats him, as he wastes time in waiting rooms, tangles with the bureaucracy and is repelled by Crewson's frigid bedside manner. For the first time, he grows close to a patient, June (Elizabeth Perkins), who has a brain tumor. They meet daily while they're having their treatments.The broad outlines of the story progress more or less as expected. Threatened with his own mortality, he turns to June not for romantic reasons but as a fellow traveler in the same path. Their scenes together are handled with quiet tact and gentleness. Although his wife desperately tries to break through to him, she can't reach him (“I've spent so much time pushing her away, I don't know how to let her get close,” he confesses). He continues to work at his own practice and finds that for the first time he actually, personally, cares about his patients.In structure, “The Doctor” is similar to the current “Regarding Henry.” Both movies are about successful professional men who are monsters until a devastating event forces them to reshape their personalities. The difference is that Hurt, Haines and writer Robert Caswell are able to find the details, the intonations and shadings of voice and tone that make their doctor into a plausible, convincing person. In “Regarding Henry,” I could always hear the hum of the plot mechanism, right offstage.I imagine audiences will relate strongly to “The Doctor,” because most people have had experiences similar to those in the movie. I personally have been blessed with what I consider particularly expert and caring medical attention, and I have no complaints. But I have a memory.A few years ago I was struck low by food poisoning and checked into the hospital as sick as a whipped dog. Wearing one of those hospital gowns designed to remove the last vestige of dignity from the patient, I was taken by wheelchair to get some tests and was parked by an elevator. I lacked even the strength to lift my head.Sure enough, half the people who went by recognized me from TV. But they didn't talk to me. They talked about me. “Look, there's the guy on TV! Jeez, he looks terrible!” In “The Doctor,” there's a scene where the Hurt character is being wheeled toward surgery, and some doctors hold a technical conversation practically across his cart. He lifts his head, contributes some expert advice, and then, when they look at him in surprise, says, “Yes! There's a person here!” I felt like cheering.‘The Doctor’ (PG-13)By Hal HinsonWashington Post Staff WriterAugust 02, 1991The rap on doctors is that they are aloof, inhuman, weird. The central character in Randa Haines's "The Doctor" is just such a case. Jack, a gifted surgeon who's played brilliantly by William Hurt, is a get-in-and-get-out-quick guy. A surgeon's job, he tells his residents, is to cut, not to care. Emotion, in fact, can get in the way when a patient's life hangs by a thread and what is needed is brisk, reflex execution. Technique, that's what it comes down to. Do your "feeling" on your own time.Jack isn't a monster, though he may seem like one at first, when he's singing in the operating room and cracking wise over some poor guy's trisected aorta. He specializes in gallows humor (of the sort we saw a lot of in "M*A*S*H") and, standing over a patient who's tried to commit suicide, he feels entitled to make cruel fun of him; he did, after all, save the boy's life. This first part of the film is actually the best section for the star. Hurt is the most modulated of actors, and he shows us here how Jack's cool, sterile manner is a proud skill learned through practice, a true mark of his professionalism. He believes what he tells his residents; it has never occurred to him to believe any differently. He thinks it will make them better doctors.Then Jack gets sick, and his whole way of thinking is turned upside down. His troubles begin with a little cough, which is soon diagnosed as a cancerous tumor on his larynx. All of a sudden, Jack is on the other end of the stethoscope, being treated by a stone-faced throat specialist in the same curt, dry-ice manner that he used with his own patients -- and he doesn't like it one bit. Nor does he like the hours of waiting, the bureaucracy and the endless pages of official forms. He's a doctor, after all; he shouldn't have to go through the same red tape that the other patients have to deal with. Initially he's outraged and tries to pull rank, which gains him nothing except the disdain of the other patients, most of whom have illnesses far more serious than his own.One of these patients, June (Elizabeth Perkins), is the key to Jack's emotional awakening. Through June, who has an inoperable brain tumor, Jack is given a window on just how hideously unresponsive the medical establishment can be. With her as his guide, he learns not only how to better cope with his own illness but how to become a more enlightened physician.Haines, who is working here with a script Robert Caswell adapted from Ed Rosenbaum's autobiographical book, wants her movie to be a damning indictment of the medical profession. Unfortunately, the mechanics of the film are too elementary for it to hit very hard on that level. Early on, she works hard to show how sterile the hospital is, with its sleek, geometric design, how humiliating and dehumanizing its procedures are, and how much it operates like a factory doing assembly line duty, with doctors working so hard to keep pace with their overhead -- the malpractice insurance, in particular -- that "patient-friendly" health care is a virtual impossibility.But for anyone who's spent time in a hospital, these observations are hardly revelatory. Doctors, like lawyers, make very easy targets; it's like shooting fish in a bedpan. If Haines had unlocked some of the profession's darker closets, the movie might be more noteworthy; as it is, it functions more as a maudlin weeper than an expose.If it weren't for Hurt, the picture might be completely negligible. His performance is densely layered and detailed. Hurt's mechanics are anything but crude. In a film where the character's dramatic journey is so obvious, he seems always to be working in the subtext, searching for the ambiguities and hidden corners in his subject's emotions and cutting against the main thrust of his scenes. At times his work is so quiet here that we feel as if he's communicating with us by telepathy. It's a mesmerizing performance.It's also, in its own understated way, a quite powerful performance, but it might have been even stronger if Haines had provided a more resonant context. There are times when the picture takes us down to the bottom of our fears about disease and death, particularly in the scenes with Perkins, who always manages to calibrate her optimism with a barely submerged outrage. But instead of challenging the audience and staying at the dark bottom, Haines reaches for easy uplift. She keeps blunting the force of her own material. With a little more courage, she might have gotten more out of her audience than tears.MOVIE REVIEW NYTReview/Film; William Hurt as Doctor Whose Spirit Heals When He Falls IllBy JANET MASLINPublished: July 24, 1991William Hurt has an exceptionally wide range on the confidence scale, an ability to move from utter self-assurance to quiet terror that such superiority might crumble. He shows this off to exceptionally good effect in "The Doctor," the story of a once-impervious physician who makes a critical 90-degree shift. Dr. Jack MacKee, a prominent heart surgeon, is first seen presiding over an operating room team with the brash, cowboy arrogance of a seasoned expert. The film follows the events that leave Jack lying helpless in the same setting, about to experience a taste of his own medicine."The Doctor," which greatly resembles the current "Regarding Henry" in its tale of a rich, cavalier professional who is made to face his own frailty, has a more realistic outlook and a more riveting figure in its central role. Mr. Hurt, making the most of his sleek good looks and stately bearing in the film's early scenes, presents Jack MacKee as a charming, cocksure doctor who specializes not only in difficult surgical procedures but also in careful, deceptively breezy intimidation.Colleagues and patients alike are thrown off-balance by Jack's mixture of false casualness, crisp professionalism and cutting wit. The film makes it clear that Jack, having spent his entire career perfecting this bedside manner, has lost track of his inner thoughts, and learned to concentrate solely on getting the job done. "Caring's all about time," he tells someone, when discussing whether work like this ought to engage the emotions. "When you've got 30 seconds before some guy bleeds out, I'd rather cut more and care less.""The Doctor," written by Robert Caswell (from a book by Ed Rosenbaum, M.D.) and directed by Randa Haines, opens with a quick succession of scenes that encapsulate Jack's professional life. He teases, jokes and plays rock-and-roll oldies in the operating room, setting a mood that is quickly broken when Ms. Haines offers a shot of the patient's battered face. He tells a patient who is dismayed by a new scar that she looks like a magazine centerfold, staples and all. He laughs with his wife, Anne (Christine Lahti), about an emergency call, which arrives via the car phone in his Mercedes. And he also finds after a party that he is coughing blood onto the shirt of his tuxedo.At this, the supreme security of Mr. Hurt's beautifully precise characterization begins to fall apart. He is utterly nonplussed at the prospect of submitting to tests by a female doctor (Wendy Crewson) whose manner is every bit as briskly detached as his own. He blanches at this doctor's examination, and later rails at the hospital procedures that force him to cool his heels waiting for further treatment. He has, he finally complains to a hospital worker, been a surgeon here for 11 years. "Then you should know all about filling out forms," this worker drily replies."The Doctor," which is much more colorful than its weak title would suggest, takes a chillingly clinical view of the medical procedures to which Jack is subjected, once he has been found to have throat cancer. And the fear that Mr. Hurt registers in these hospital scenes is in its quiet way more affecting than the rest of the story. In addition to following the course of his sickness, the film watches Jack as he recognizes the error of his ways, re-examines his profession, owns up to the emptiness of his marriage and finds inspiration in the courage of a beautiful young woman who has a brain tumor (Elizabeth Perkins), and who suddenly becomes the only person to whom he truly feels close.As she did in "Children of a Lesser God," Ms. Haines shows a talent for tugging at the heartstrings in unexpected ways, but her film's slowly emerging sentimental side endangers the crisp authenticity of its beginning. And the screenplay's eventual insistence on a conventional end to an otherwise unconventional story is damaging, too. So is the fact that no character here, except for Mr. Hurt's Jack, is fully formed. Even Ms. Perkins, very affecting as the fiercely independent young woman who helps Jack to locate his humanity, is given no more of a past than she has a future.The film's best scenes, those in the hospital, deftly capture the give-and-take of doctors striving to balance seriousness and dark humor. Mandy Patinkin is especially good as the friend who is Jack's partner "until we get it right," as one of them jokes. And Adam Arkin is memorable as a younger colleague who shows his mettle when Jack is in distress. Zakes Mokae, as a radiologist, presides knowingly over the episodes that most powerfully alter Jack's character. And Ms. Crewson is especially interesting for the ambiguity of a medical manner that initially suggests cool competence, and later reveals to Jack everything he himself has done wrong.Ms. Lahti, though often present, has a generic lonely-wife role and no real way to broaden it, just as Charlie Korsmo, as the MacKees' son, has almost nothing to do. The film's ultimate concessions to the sanctity of family life strain credulity in a way that its clear, compelling depictions of illness do not.The visual backdrop for "The Doctor" contributes greatly to the film's unnerving effectiveness. The costumes, especially Mr. Hurt's, evolve tellingly from high-income armor to an air of less artificiality and greater warmth. And the production design, by Ken Adam, turns the hospital into a sleek, controlled environment in which medicine appears to have triumphed over nature. "The Doctor" is a powerful reminder that it has not."The Doctor" is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It includes mild profanity and operating room scenes. The DoctorDirected by Randa Haines; written by Robert Caswell; director of photography, John Seale; edited by Bruce Green and Lisa Fruchtman; music by Michael Convertino; production designer, Ken Adam; produced by Laura Ziskin; released by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Running time: 123 minutes. This film is rated PG-13. Jack . . . William Hurt Anne . . . Christine Lahti June . . . Elizabeth Perkins Murray . . . Mandy Patinkin Eli . . . Adam ArkinGross Anatomy (film) - Wikipedia)Directed by Thom EberhardtWritten by Ron Nyswaner Mark SpraggStarringMatthew ModineDaphne ZunigaChristine LahtiOctober 20, 1989Gross Anatomy is a 1989 American drama film directed by Thom Eberhardt and starring Matthew Modine, Daphne Zuniga, and Christine Lahti. It was released by Touchstone Pictures.Stars:Matthew Modine, Daphne Zuniga, Christine Lahti |See full cast & crew »PlotJoe Slovak is a brilliant first-year med student whose nonconformist approach to life is tested when he enrolls in gross anatomy, the toughest course in med school. His schoolfriends include Kim, a pregnant woman, Miles, a buttoned-down blue-blood, Laurie, an ambitious student determined to make it and David, an overanalyzer who is also his roommate. Joe's freewheeling, independent style creates funny moments in the classroom, but puts him at odds with the demanding department head, Dr. Woodruff, who questions whether her easygoing "class rebel" has what it takes to be a doctor. Meanwhile, Joe falls in love with his lab partner Laurie, who won't let anything, especially romance, interfere with her plans. And while Joe's never done anything by the book, he proves he does have what it takes to succeed — without changing his ways. However, Joe's ways and the ways of medicine come to a header when he is ordered to do an extra credit assignment by Dr. Woodruff of a complex diagnosis. Joe correctly diagnoses it as a serious, difficult-to-treat chronic illness and learns the patient is Dr. Woodruff herself.CastMatthew Modine as Joe SlovakDaphne Zuniga as Laurie RorbachChristine Lahti as Dr. Rachel WoodruffTodd Field as David SchreinerJohn Scott Clough as Miles ReedAlice Carter as Kim McCauleyRobert Desiderio as Dr. BanksZakes Mokae as Dr. BanumbraRyan Cash as Frankie SlovakReceptionGross Anatomy was released domestically on October 20, 1989, earning $2,830,387 in 853 theaters during its opening weekend. After its theatrical run, the film brought in a total of $11,604,598 at the domestic box office.[1]Upon its initial release, the film received mixed to positive critical response. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a three-star review stating, "Most of the major events in the movie can be anticipated, but they are played with a genuine grace."[2]Janet Maslin of The New York Times also gave the film a positive review, describing the film as "mostly funny and engaging."[3]ReferencesJump up^ "Gross Anatomy (1989)". IMDB. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved January 25, 2013.Jump up^ Ebert, Roger (October 20, 1989). "Gross Anatomy". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved January 25, 2013.Jump up^ Maslin, Janet (October 20, 1989). "Med School Madness In 'Gross Anatomy'". The New York Times. Retrieved January 25, 2013.Gross Anatomy (1989)GROSS ANATOMY ReviewsGROSS ANATOMY (1989)Roger EbertOctober 20, 1989"Gross Anatomy" contains scenes of laughter and scenes of romance, but the scenes that I identified with the most involved performance anxiety. This is a film that follows a group of students through their first year of medical school, and they seem to be taking an examination every 10 minutes. The university atmosphere is reproduced with relentless accuracy, right down to the most subtle intonations in the voices of the professors setting the exams and asking the questions.And all of the dialogue has the ring of truth.Watching the film, I began to ask myself what I was feeling. I was absorbed by the story, I cared about the characters and yet I felt a growing unease, which I finally identified: The movie was reawakening fears that I thought I had buried years ago, those fears that the final exam was being held tomorrow and I'd never studied for the course and I was going to fail miserably and humiliate myself and disappoint my family and flunk out of school and get drafted and die.Because the movie gets that right, almost everything else in the plot seems to fall naturally into place. This is not a movie about medical school, or medicine, so much as it's a movie about being under relentless pressure. Early in their first semester, the students figure out that they have to master about 3,500 pages of material a week, and attend lectures and anatomy laboratory, and somehow find time to eat and sleep. We can taste their exhaustion as they get up at 5 in the morning and march like zombies through one unrelenting day after another. Their lives are a race between total exhaustion and fear of failure.There is one student, however, who seems unaffected by the pressure. He's Joe Slovak (Matthew Modine), a bright, cocky kid with a chip on his shoulder, who claims he doesn't care much about his future patients or anything else except making a lot of money. The only thing he takes serious is his love for his lab partner (Daphne Zuniga), and she's almost too busy to have time for him.Most of the classroom scenes take place in the anatomy laboratory, where the students dissect corpses with the most minute attention to detail, under the guidance of two doctors, played by Zakes Mokae and Christine Lahti. He is a serene African who advises the students not to revise their exam papers, "because your first instincts are almost always right," and she is a stern, unforgiving administrator whose idea of an orientation lecture is to remind the students that medicine is the profession with the highest rates of alcoholism, drug addiction, divorce and suicide.Slovak gets under her skin because he refuses to even pretend as if he cares. He's bright, he gets good grades, but he has an attitude about everything. He's sarcastic and he insists on always getting the last word. He cares about the other members on his lab team (including not only Zuniga but also Todd Field as a worried loser, John Scott Clough as a compulsive perfectionist and Alice Carter as an Asian woman determined to finish the year despite an unexpected pregnancy).But he doesn't care about sucking up to faculty members, or playing campus politics.Most of the major events in the movie can be anticipated, but they are played with a genuine grace. I especially admired the scene where Zuniga finally tells Modine, "All right, you've got me," and the one in which Lahti finally levels with her best student about her real hopes and fears. There is not much in this movie that hasn't been seen before, especially on TV medical shows, but the level of the direction, by Thom Eberhardt, gives the material more weight and importance, and the actors make their characters into particular people whose decisions begin to seem important to us.User ReviewsInteresting Caricature of Medical School8 November 2004 | by heinlen (America) – See all my reviewsHaving been through the first two years of medical school (including, of course, Gross Anatomy) it is obvious to me that whomever wrote the original material for this movie had some understanding of the precise pressures an fears that medical students suffer. Many people say that "medical school is difficult" and it is, but that idea gives you very little understanding of what really goes on that makes it difficult. Many movies get basic ideas essentially wrong - take "Flatliners" where the characters do hospital rounds routinely, although they are still just conducting Gross Anatomy classes (albeit in a dankly lit dungeon environment).In Gross Anatomy, the basic characters you seen in Med School are there. David Schreiner, the guy who burns out, represents all the people who got in off the wait list and barely eek by, all the time hating the rest of the people who find it easier. Miles Reed is your typical "Gunner" who gets by not only by obsessing over every detail of class, but by incessant campus climbing. Kim McCauley is the lovable girl who seems oblivious and ambulant to her own performance (and will likely become the best doctor of the bunch). Laurie is the girl who "always wanted to be a doctor" and has a single-minded ambition to put nothing between her and her school work, much to the detriment of her social life. Joe Slovak is probably the least realistic character - there aren't too many happy go lucky people for whom medical school is so easy. You see jovial people around who never seem to get behind, but at the same time always participate in extra curriculars, but not with Joe's laid back, devil may care attitude, and certainly not his contempt for patients.Many of the classroom and test scenes are sort of over-hyped - think about how many times they professors say, "People this IS Gross Anatomy". However, at the same time, there is always an importance placed on the seriousness of the school environment that hints at what the experience is really about.I enjoy the movie because it does almost seem like an inside job in the medical field poking fun at many of the people and practices we see on the way to medical licenser and is only thinly wrapped with the hint of a storyline.Probably the best around as medical student movies go.Underrated character flick nobody ever talks aboutAuthor: g-man-22from L.A.4 June 1999Not a great film, I suppose, but "Gross Anatomy" has enough that's entertaining, engaging and memorable about it to recommend the film to fans of character drama. "ER" and "Chicago Hope" may well have set the standard for medical dramas, but this look at some first-year med students and their quest to achieve the impossible (become a practicing surgeon or specialist) has long since been forgotten in the trash-bin of seemingly negatable Disney flicks. Released at the turn of the 80's, when Disney was rampantly putting out what seemed like a movie a week, it features a sterling performance by the eternally underrated Matthew Modine as Joe Slovak, an endlessly appealing character despite his tendency to annoy everyone else in the film. Slovak is a wonderful creation on the part of the writers, first seen in a highly memorable pre-credits sequence in which each of the post-grad medical schools asks him questions that eventually reveal the 'real Joe'. Or at least the Joe Slovak he wishes to project. Christine Lahti, who would of course go on to fame and acclaim in "Chicago Hope", practiced her medical chops here as a sickly professor bent on pressuring her students to achieve perfection, even if they themselves aren't often willing to reach for it. The rest of the cast (Daphne Zuniga and the always-great Todd Fields) have done work elsewhere that's gotten more attention, but it's doubtful they've ever been as effective as they are here. By no means is this a classic, but a sharply-observed film that despite a layer of Disney-esque schmaltz manages to touch, entertain and invigorate.Engrossing.Author: Pepper Annefrom Orlando, Florida2 July 2004Gross Anatomy was released one year prior to another med student saga entitled Vital Signs. While the movies are similar in many respects, especially in creating a formulaic arrangement of characters, Gross Anatomy is much more of a comedy/drama while Vital Signs is pretty much a straight drama.The story of Gross Anatomy concerns five first-year med students who's grueling academic schedule and various experiences with getting their feet wet forces them to consider whether they're really ready for the committment or are they just wasting their time. This is particularly true of main character Joe Slovak (Matthew Modine), as apparent from the introduction of him sitting in various admissions interviews trying to answer questions the way he thinks would please the representatives. Joe's a bright guy, and a pretty gifted med student, if only he'd apply himself. And that's pretty much the whole ponit of the movie. What is Joe Slovak's goal here?The one to impress that on him the most is a pretty tight-fisted, but well-meaning professor played by Christine Lahti. Her character is not simply there to turn out med students who know the human anatomy, but who also have compassion towards their patients and realize that there is really much more to the whole field than just memorizing terms or grades on exams. Joe Slovak has yet to learn that.The movie is pretty funny, despite being a somewhat sad story towards the end (and you'll probably guess why early on). But, it is a pretty entertaining film, and often a funny one at that. It's also interesting to take a look at the day in the life of a med student, particularly if those are your perspective plans. I'm not sure that this (and Vital Signs, which deals with 3rd year med students) is an exaggerated perspective of medical school like say, The Paper Chase (which deals with first year law students). Then again, they're two different ball games. 80s fans are sure to enjoy it. Daphne Zugian is always funny to see as the girl who tries too hard to pretend that she doesn't care or isn't effected by certain things (see The Sure Thing), but later, has to break down and admit it. She's pretty funny here, as well as the rest of the supporting cast, to make it quite an engrossing little movie. Aces!Works Inspite of ShortcomingsAuthor: tfrizzellfrom United States20 July 2002A first-year med student (Matthew Modine) is obsessed with becoming a doctor, but jokes his way through everything else in his life in this under-rated little flick that works due to a clever screenplay and good performances from the major players in the cast. The film goes for funny and outlandish situations, but has undertones of drama early and then the drama takes center stage by the film's final act. Christine Lahti shines as the one professor who locks horns with Modine. Above-average and enjoyable overall.Interesting Caricature of Medical SchoolAuthor: heinlenfrom America8 November 2004Having been through the first two years of medical school (including, of course, Gross Anatomy) it is obvious to me that whomever wrote the original material for this movie had some understanding of the precise pressures an fears that medical students suffer. Many people say that "medical school is difficult" and it is, but that idea gives you very little understanding of what really goes on that makes it difficult. Many movies get basic ideas essentially wrong - take "Flatliners" where the characters do hospital rounds routinely, although they are still just conducting Gross Anatomy classes (albeit in a dankly lit dungeon environment).In Gross Anatomy, the basic characters you seen in Med School are there. David Schreiner, the guy who burns out, represents all the people who got in off the wait list and barely eek by, all the time hating the rest of the people who find it easier. Miles Reed is your typical "Gunner" who gets by not only by obsessing over every detail of class, but by incessant campus climbing. Kim McCauley is the lovable girl who seems oblivious and ambulant to her own performance (and will likely become the best doctor of the bunch). Laurie is the girl who "always wanted to be a doctor" and has a single-minded ambition to put nothing between her and her school work, much to the detriment of her social life. Joe Slovak is probably the least realistic character - there aren't too many happy go lucky people for whom medical school is so easy. You see jovial people around who never seem to get behind, but at the same time always participate in extra curriculars, but not with Joe's laid back, devil may care attitude, and certainly not his contempt for patients.Many of the classroom and test scenes are sort of over-hyped - think about how many times they professors say, "People this IS Gross Anatomy". However, at the same time, there is always an importance placed on the seriousness of the school environment that hints at what the experience is really about.I enjoy the movie because it does almost seem like an inside job in the medical field poking fun at many of the people and practices we see on the way to medical licenser and is only thinly wrapped with the hint of a storyline.Dissection of The First Year of Medical SchoolAuthor: lord woodburry ([email protected])from The Society NY14 May 2006This is a genteel romantic comedy about the first year of medical school from the perspective of Laurie Rorbach (Daphne Zuniga). There's no hold barred from day one onward: This is a total commitment.Enter Joe Slovak (Matthew Modine. He's the wise guy from a lower class background but he's got a system for beating the odds and getting by with a minimum of effort. His natural intelligence pulls him through most test of wills, but that chip on the shoulder attitude leaves him with utter contempt for the concept that something greater than educating a medical mechanic is at work. A wise instructor Dr. Rachel Woodruff (Christine Lahti) is out to teach Slovak a powerful lesson.The lab partner make up an excellent supporting cast. The washout student who is bright willing though unable, the Joe-College type who has pretensions and ambitions as thinly veiled as Slovak's sarcasm, and the female student whose husband wants to keep her barefoot and pregnant give a good cross-section of young adulthood which is of course still in a "becoming" stage.I was surprised to see that this delightful film did not get higher ratings.not to be confused with the "Anatomy" horror moviesAuthor: disdressed12from Canada23 May 2007i liked this http://movie.it's about first year medical students and what they go Through It focuses specifically on a small group of five in PARTICULAR.IT's a drama more than anything.it the first half of the movie is pretty light in tone,but the second half is much more serious in tone.in fact,there are two heartbreaking scenes in the second half, which got me pretty emotional.but that's just me.this is a very much a character and story driven movie and it succeeds,in my mind,at least mostly.the acting is pretty good.Matthew Modine, Daphne Zuniga and Christine are the main actors.all are likable characters,in their own way. .overall, well written,well acted movie.not great, but pretty good.for me,"Gross Anatomy" is an 7/10Romantic comedy and character study nicely rolled into a dramaAuthor: napierslogsfrom Ontario, Canada22 November 2010"Gross Anatomy" is a romantic comedy and med school student learns about life and himself character study, nicely rolled into a drama. I first saw it as a young teen in the early 90s, and it stuck with me as a dramatic romantic comedy but more so as a med school examination that really spoke to me.Almost twenty years later, I am much more film literate, and while I still like it, I can see it's not as good as it could have been, or as I remember it. It's really not much of a character study, as Matthew Modine's Joe is your typical smart slacker who gets by on his looks, charm and natural intelligence - which is almost enough for med school. I wish they showed me more of his struggles in school and less of his romantic efforts to win over Laurie (Daphne Zuniga). The romantic comedy angle is so formulaic and predictable, that the comedy fell flat. On the other hand, the interpretation of med school seemed more realistic and not as enticing as most shows and movies make it out to be."Gross Anatomy" is probably more intriguing to a younger audience, with its immature characters and predictable romance. But these characters are appealing, especially Modine as we follow him on his journey through first year med school. I was not as emotionally invested as I first was years ago, but I still enjoyed this as a cute film.A nice dissection of year one in the life of a medical studentAuthor: Amy Adlerfrom Toledo, Ohio3 July 2007Joe Slovak (Matthew Modine) is the son of an east coast fisherman. Bright as a button, however, Joe wants to become a doctor and he gains acceptance into a medical school. Once there, his easy going style is at odds with those around him. Beautiful Laurie (Daphne Zuniga) is the privileged daughter of a wealthy doctor and wastes no time in telling Joe that her schedule has no room for casual dating. Then, too, Joe's anal roommate, David (Todd Field) is so uptight he has flossing on his daily schedule and his lab partner, Miles, has a silk shirt on every day. In addition to all of this, the school boasts a no-nonsense instructor (Christine Lahti) that uses ridicule as a teaching tool, if she so desires. Will Joe be able to sail the difficult waters of a first year medical student, without compromising his basic style and principles? This is a fine look at the first year in the life of a medical student. The workload is excruciating, to say the least, and even those who are smart and dedicated can fall between the cracks, failing examinations and more. All of the actors playing these roles are terrific, with Modine a delight as the atypical medical student and Zuniga very lovely as the determined but thoughtful doctor to be. Then, too, Lahti is wonderful as the much-despised instructor who uses her sharp tongue to weed out those who don't have what it takes to become competent doctors. You will like the costumes, sets, and look of this film very much, too. If you are contemplating a future as a doctor, you must get this film soon, as it will give you a taste of the intensity your life will take on for the next few years. But, even if you just love films about the medical profession or those that boast a nice little love story, this one is for you.Teacher AssistantAuthor: grege83from United States6 October 2009I am the guy(the teacher assistant) pointing at the diagram on the chalkboard(for about 3 seconds) in the movie.(no kidding)The movie itself is largely entertaining, though predictable. It is obvious the guy will get the girl in the end, though what he has to go through to get her makes it interesting.If I were interested in going to medical school, seeing this movie might make me think twice about it.Still, it illustrates the same tired theme of many other movies. This being, "You gotta really want it, more than anything else, if you're gonna get through it successfully."Daphne Zuniga is enchanting in her role and Matthew Modine is annoying in his. I almost hoped he wouldn't end up with her. It reminded me a bit of his role in "Full Metal Jacket." Maybe they should have called him "Joker" in this movie,too.Overall,a pleasant, if inconsequential, movie.medical school dramaAuthor: SnoopyStyle1 February 2016Joe Slovak (Matthew Modine) gets into Chandler University's College of Medicine. He's a smart irreverent student from a fishing community. His roommate David Schreiner (Todd Field) is neat and high-strung. His Gross Human Anatomy class is taught by Dr. Rachel Woodruff (Christine Lahti) who thinks he doesn't try hard enough. He changes group to be close to Laurie Rorbach (Daphne Zuniga). The group includes the self-important Miles Reed and Kim McCauley with a family.This is 'The Paper Chase' of medical school. Everything in the story is telegraphed. The story is pretty well done. The acting is solid. There are some lighter rom-com moments but this is a generally serious drama. The major problem seems to be that there is an expectation of a wacky comedy with heart. There is no wacky comedy in this. There is a sprinkling of lighter moments in a pretty solid school drama.