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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

National Geographic: Stories of Animals, Nature, and CultureThis illustration shows the almost-complete remains of a school for gladiators found at Carnuntum in eastern Austria.ILLUSTRATION COURTESY M. KLEIN/7REASONSGladiator School Discovery Reveals Hard Lives of Ancient WarriorsArchaeologists have mapped an ancient gladiator school, where the famed warriors lived, trained, and fought.BY DAN VERGANO, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICPUBLISHEDFEBRUARY 25, 2014ANCIENT ROME'S GLADIATORS lived and trained in fortress prisons, according to an international team of archaeologists who mapped a school for the famed fighters.Discovered at the site of Carnuntum outside Vienna, Austria, the gladiatorial school, or ludus gladiatorius, is the first one discovered outside the city of Rome. Now hidden beneath a pasture, the gladiator school was entirely mapped with noninvasive earth-sensing technologies. (See "Gladiator Training Camp.")The discovery, reported Tuesday evening by the journal Antiquity, makes clear what sort of lives these famous ancient warriors led during the second century A.D. in the Roman Empire."It was a prison; they were prisoners," says Wolfgang Neubauer, an archaeologist at Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology who led the study team. "They lived in cells, in a fortress with only one gate out."The discovery shows that even outside Rome gladiators were "big business," Neubauer says. At least 80 gladiators, likely more, lived in the large, two-story facility equipped with a practice arena in its central courtyard. The site also included heated floors for winter training, baths, infirmaries, plumbing, and a nearby graveyard.Prisoners of RomeThe gladiators were clearly valued slaves, Neubauer says, kept apart and separate from the town of Carnuntum, which was founded on the Danube River by the Emperor Hadrian in A.D. 124 and later became a Roman stronghold."The find at Carnuntum gives us a vivid impression of what it was like to live and train as a gladiator on the chilly northern border of the Roman Empire," says gladiator expert Kathleen Coleman of Harvard, who was not part of the study team.Although more than 100 gladiator schools were built throughout the Roman Empire, the only known remnants are in Rome, Carnuntum, and Pompeii (which had small, private gladiatorial grounds). Within the 118,400-square-foot (11,000-square-meter) walled compound at the Austrian site, gladiators trained year-round for combat at a nearby public amphitheater."They weren't killed very often, they were too valuable," Neubauer says. "Lots of other people were likely killed at the amphitheater, people not trained to fight. And there was lots of bloodshed. But the combat between gladiators was the point of them performing, not them killing each other."This map of the gladiator school reveals that it was like a fortress or prison.ILLUSTRATION COURTESY ANTIQUITY PUBLICATIONS LTD.Tight QuartersThe gladiators slept in 32-square-foot (3-square-meter) cells, home to one or two people. Those cells were kept separate from a wing holding bigger rooms for their trainers, known as magistri, themselves retired survivors of gladiatorial combat who specialized in teaching one style of weaponry and fighting."The similarities show that gladiators were housed and trained in the provinces in the same way as in the metropolis [of Rome]," Coleman says. The one gate exiting the compound faced a road leading to the town's public amphitheater, reportedly the fourth largest in the empire.The fortress prison also undermines the image of gladiators as traveling from town to town in a circus-like setting, as seen in the movie Gladiator released in 2000. (Another film set in the ancient Roman era, Pompeii, is opening this week.)"They weren't a team," Neubauer says. "Each one was on his own, training to fight, and learning who they would combat at a central post we can see the remains of in our survey."Neubauer expects to continue aboveground mapping efforts at Carnuntum, which is proving to have been a surprisingly large town.Analysis of bones from a gladiator graveyard in Ephesus, Turkey, suggests that gladiators ate a largely vegetarian diet, Neubauer notes. The team hopes to eventually perform a similar analysis on bones from the gladiator graveyard in Carnuntum, in a further attempt to explore the real lives of these ancient warriors.National Geographic: Stories of Animals, Nature, and CultureSmithsonian Magazine | Smithsonian MagazineThe Discovery of a Roman Gladiator School Brings the Famed Fighters Back to LifeLocated in Austria, the archaeological site is providing rich new details about the lives and deaths of the arena combatantsWolfgang Neubauer (at Carnuntum’s center) estimates the population at 50,000.(Reiner Riedler / Anzenberger Agency)By Franz Lidz; Photographs by Luca LocatelliWolfgang Neubauer (at Carnuntum’s center) estimates the population at 50,000.(Reiner Riedler / Anzenberger Agency)SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE | SUBSCRIBEJULY 2016Wolfgang Neubauer stands in the grassy clearing and watches a drone soar low over distant stands of birch and white poplar, the leaves still speckled with overnight rain. Vast fields of wheat roll away north and south under a huge dome of sky. “I’m interested in what lies hidden beneath this landscape,” says the Austrian archaeologist. “I hunt for structures now invisible to the human eye.”On the edge of the meadow, two boys stand a long way apart, arms clenched by their sides, punting a soccer ball very slowly and carefully from one to the other. Neubauer studies them keenly. A professor at the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science, he’s an authority on the first games played on this ersatz pitch, a blood sport popular a couple of millennia ago. “You see a field,” he tells a visitor from the United States. “I see a gladiator school.”Way back in A.D. 6, during the expansion of the Roman Empire along the Danube and into present-day Germany, the future emperor Tiberius reached this spot and established a winter encampment. Carnuntum, as the camp would be called, flourished under the protection of the legions and became a center of the amber trade. The army and townspeople lived apart, but in symbiotic amity. “In the civilian city, large public buildings like temples, a forum and thermal baths were built,” says Neubauer. “The town had paved roads and an extensive sewage system.”During its second-century prime, Carnuntum was a key Roman capital of a province that spanned the landmass of what is now Austria and much of the Balkans. The frontier town boasted a burgeoning population and a gladiator school whose size and scale was said to rival the Ludus Magnus, the great training center immediately to the east of the Colosseum in Rome. Toward the end of the glory days of the Roman realm, the emperor Marcus Aurelius held sway from Carnuntum and made war on Germanic tribes known as the Marcomanni. There, too, his 11-year-old son, Commodus, likely first witnessed the gladiatorial contests that would become his ruling passion.After a series of barbarian invasions, Carnuntum was completely abandoned early in the fifth century A.D. Eventually, the buildings collapsed, too, and merged into the landscape. Though archaeologists have been digging and theorizing at the 1,600-acre site on and off since the 1850s, only remnants survive—a bath complex, a palace, a temple of Diana, the foundations of two amphitheaters (one capable of holding 13,000 spectators) and a monumental arch known as the Heidentor (Heathens’ Gate) that looms in battered splendor at the edge of town.Stretching for nearly three miles between the modern-day villages of Petronell-Carnuntum and Bad Deutsch-Altenburg, Carnuntum is one of the largest preserved archaeological parks of its kind in Europe. For the last two decades Neubauer has quarterbacked a series of excavations at the site with noninvasive techniques. Using remote-sensing and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to peer through layers of earth, the researchers have located and identified the forum; the garrison of the governor’s guard; an extensive network of shops and meeting halls; and, in 2011, the storied gladiator school—the most complete ludus found outside Rome and Pompeii.“Never before had archaeologists made such important discoveries without excavation,” says Neubauer, who is also director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (LBI ArchPro). His work is the subject of a new Smithsonian Channel documentary, Lost City of Gladiators. With the aid of three-dimensional computer modeling, his team has reimagined what the ludus looked like.The subterranean surveys and a limited traditional dig, Neubauer says, have revealed a transfixing, mysterious underworld— the ludus is teeming with unseen buildings, graves, armaments and other relics. “Our understanding of the schools has been totally reshaped,” he says. “Until now, we knew very little about them because we never looked inside.”The discoveries—slow, careful, uncinematic—are not the stuff Hollywood movies are made of. Digital archaeology isn’t drama, but a gradual accretion of detail. By systematically mapping the terrain, Neubauer’s researchers have provided a more detailed and vivid picture of the lives (and deaths) of the gladiators than was ever before available—and deepened our understanding of the terrifying power of Imperial Rome.Neubauer is 52—a bit thickening around the middle, a bit graying at the temples. A rumpled figure with hair parted down the middle and eyebrows like small hedges, he’s a pioneer in remote sensing and geophysical prospection—noninvasive techniques that make it possible to identify structures and anomalies underground without disturbing a site. “Most of the Middle European archaeological heritage is under a massive threat of destruction,” he says. “That threat has been dramatically accelerated by intensive farming and industrial transformation of landscapes.”One of the challenges of traditional excavation is that archaeologists can focus only on isolated sections and that once they start poking around, the site is demolished and the possibility of further study eliminated. “Even when excavation is conducted with care, it’s still destruction,” says Neubauer. “The geophysical prospection we use at LBI ArchPro covers large expanses and leaves what is buried intact.”Neubauer grew up at a time when an archaeologist’s toolkit consisted of a spade, a shovel and a toothbrush. (“No, I never used a divining rod,” he says.) He was born in the Swiss market town of Altstätten, near the border of Austria. Hiking in the Rhine Valley piqued young Wolfgang’s interest in Bronze Age peoples and their cultures. At the precocious age of 15, he went on his first dig.Wolfgang drew early inspiration from the village of Hallstatt, a ribbon of land squeezed between a lake and mountains, where, in 1734, the Man in the Salt—a preserved body—was found. “Hallstatt was one of the earliest European settlements,” he says. “Its salt mine has been continuously worked since 1000 B.C.”Because space is at a premium in Hallstatt, for centuries the crammed cemetery gained new ground by burying and then exhuming bodies. The graves were reused, says Neubauer, and disinterred skulls cleaned and exposed to the sun until they were bleached white. “Then they were arranged in a Beinhaus, or bone house,” he reports. Inside that little ossuary—piled with the neatly stacked remains of generations of Hallstatters—are more than 1,200 skulls, many gaily painted with the names of the former owners and the dates on which they died. Neubauer delights in the motifs that adorn them: roses, oak and laurel leaves, trailing ivy and sometimes snakes.His unusual mixture of meticulous organization and free-ranging imagination proved invaluable at the University of Vienna and the Vienna University of Technology, where he dabbled in archaeology, archaeo­metry, mathematics and computer science. By age 21, Neubauer was developing his own prospection methods in Hallstatt. He spent a year and a half excavating the tunnels in the salt mine. Over the last three decades Neubauer has been field director of more than 200 geophysical surveys.LBI ArchPro was launched in 2010 to conduct large-scale landscape archaeology projects in Europe. At Stonehenge, the most comprehensive underground analysis yet undertaken of the Neolithic site found evidence of 17 previously unknown wooden or stone shrines and dozens of massive prehistoric pits, some of which seem to form astronomic alignments (Smithsonian, September 2014). “Stonehenge is more or less at the bottom of a really big national arena,” Neubauer says. “Along the horizon, dozens of burial mounds look down at the stones.”He got involved with Carnuntum in the late 1990s through the University of Vienna’s Institute for Archaeological Science. “The park is unique in that, unlike almost every other Roman site, it’s mainly countryside that has never been built over,” he says. Indeed, by the 19th century the ruins were still so well conserved that Carnuntum was called “Pompeii at the gates of Vienna.” Despite subsequent looting by treasure hunters and deep plowing for vineyards, Neubauer says, the land is “ideal for exploration.”Aerial photography identified intriguing forms in a field outside the ancient civilian town, west of the municipal amphitheater that had been built in the first half of the second century and excavated from 1923 to 1930. Anomalies in the field (soil, vegetation) suggested structures below. In 2000, a magnetic survey found traces of the foundations of a large building complex, replete with an aqueduct. Based on the magnetometer’s 2-D images, the site was then scanned using a novel multi-antenna GPR developed by Neubauer’s university team.Only a few remnants of the ancient city of Carnumtum remain, including the foundations of two amphitheaters. Pictured is the civilian amphitheater. (Reiner Riedler / Anzenberger Agency)Only a few remnants of the ancient city of Carnumtum remain, including the foundations of two amphitheaters. Pictured is the civilian amphitheater. (Reiner Riedler / Anzenberger Agency)Archaeologist Geert Verhoeven uses drones to survey the site of an amphitheater.(Reiner Riedler / AnzenbergerEncompassing 1,600 acres, the Carnuntum Archaeological Park is the largest park of its kind in Europe. Attractions include this reconstructed urban villa. (Reiner Riedler / Anzenberger Agency)Carnuntum was founded by the Romans in A.D. 6 as a military camp. Sepulchral steles greet visitors to the park. (Reiner Riedler / Anzenberger Agency)In Carnuntum’s recreated gladiator ring, visitors try their hand at ancient combat.(Reiner Riedler / Anzenberger Agency)Gladiator re-enactors clash in the recreated ring. (Reiner Riedler / Anzenberger Agency)Ground radar has been evolving for decades. Like its predecessors, Neubauer’s “geo-radar” sent pulses of electromagnetic waves through the earth that generated details about depth, shape and location. Unlike them, the high-resolution device covered about ten times as much surface area in the same amount of time, enabling researchers to speed up the search process significantly.The resulting 3-D images laid bare a sprawling forum. “We had discovered the main building of the city quarter of Carnuntum’s military camp,” says Neubauer. A computer analysis revealed foundations, roads and sewers, even walls, stairs and floors, as well as a cityscape whose landmarks included shops, baths, a basilica, the tribunal, and a curia, the center of local government.“The amount of detail was incredible,” Neubauer recalls. “You could see inscriptions, you could see the bases of statues in the great courtyard and the pillars inside rooms, and you could see whether floors were wood or stone—and if there had been central heating.” Three-dimensional virtual modeling allowed the team to reconstruct what the forum—all 99,458 square feet of it—might have looked like.In the spring of 2011, another search of the Carnuntum underground was attempted by a team of archaeologists, geophysicists, soil scientists and techies from the latest iteration of Neubauer’s organization, LBI ArchPro, with its international partners. Enhancements to sensors had increased their speed, resolution and capabilities. Strides had been made in electromagnetic induction (EMI), a method by which magnetic fields are transmitted into soil to measure its electrical conductivity and magnetic susceptibility. At Carnuntum, the soundings told researchers whether the earth underneath had ever been heated, revealing the location of, say, bricks made by firing clay.Neubauer had been intrigued by aerial shots of the amphitheater just beyond the walls of the civilian city. On the eastern side of the arena was the outline of buildings he now reckons were a kind of outdoor shopping mall. This plaza featured a bakery, shops, a food court, bars—pretty much everything except a J. Crew and a Chipotle.To the west of the amphitheater, amid groves of birches, oaks and white poplar, was a “white spot” that looked suspicious to Neubauer. Close inspection revealed traces of a closed quadrangle of edifices. “The contours were typical of a gladiator school,” Neubauer says.The layout spanned 30,000 square feet and conformed to a marble fragment showing the Ludus Magnus, found in 1562 on one of the ancient slabs incised with Rome’s city plan. Fortunately for Neubauer’s team, the Romans tended to construct new settlements in Rome’s image. “Roman society built complex and very recognizable cityscapes with the global goal to realize outstanding symbolic and visual models of civitas and urbanitas,” says Maurizio Forte, a Duke University classics professor who has written widely on digital archaeology. “Civitas concerns the Roman view of ‘citizenship’ and ways to export worldwide the Roman civilization, society and culture. Urbanitas is how a city can fit the pattern of the Roman central power.”From the empire’s rise in 27 B.C. until its fall in A.D. 476, the Romans erected 100 or so gladiator schools, all of which were intensely stylized and most of which have been destroyed or built over. Radar scans showed that, like the Ludus Magnus, the Carnuntum complex had two levels of colonnaded galleries that enclosed a courtyard. The central feature inside the courtyard was a free-standing circular structure, which the researchers interpreted as a training arena that would have been surrounded by wooden spectator stands set on stone foundations. Within the arena was a walled ring that may have held wild beasts. Galleries along the southern and western wings not designated as infirmaries, armories or administrative offices would have been set aside for barracks. Neubauer figures that about 75 gladiators could have lodged at the school. “Uncomfortably,” he says. The tiny (32-square-foot) sleeping cells were barely big enough to hold a man and his dreams, much less a bunkmate.Neubauer deduced that other rooms—more spacious and perhaps with tiled floors—were living quarters for high-ranking gladiators, instructors or the school’s owner (lanista). A sunken cell, not far from the main entrance, seems to have been a brig for unruly fighters. The cramped chamber had no access to daylight and a ceiling so low that standing was impossible.The school’s northern wing, the bathhouse, was centrally heated. During cold European winters—temperatures could fall to minus-13 degrees—the building was warmed by funneling heat from a wood-burning furnace through gaps in the floor and walls and then out roof openings. Archaeologists detected a chamber that they believe may have been a training room: they were able to see a hollow space, or hypocaust, under the floor, where heat was conducted to warm the paving stones underfoot. The bathhouse, with its thermal pools, was fitted with plumbing that conveyed hot and cold water. Looking at the bath complex, Neubauer says, “confirmed for the first time that gladiators could recover from harsh, demanding training in a fully equipped Roman bath.”Envisioning CarnuntumArchaeologists’ high-tech tools, including drone overflights and geo-radar imaging, have produced a detailed virtual reconstruction of the 30,000-square-foot gladiator academy. Hover over the red icons below to discover its areas and structures. (By 5W Infographics. Research by Nona Yates) Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher-king who, despite the border battles raging during his administration, was inclined toward peace. The third book of his Meditations—philosophical conversations with himself in Greek—may have been written in Carnuntum’s main amphitheater, where circuses featured savage treatment of criminals. One could envision the emperor attending these brutal entertainments and turning aside to jot down his lofty thoughts. Generally, though, he was not a big fan of the mutual butchery of gladiators.Nowadays, Marcus Aurelius is remembered less for his philosophizing than for being smothered by young Commodus at the start of the swords-and-sandals epic Gladiator. In reality, he succumbed to a devastating plague—most likely smallpox—that wiped out as many as ten million people across the empire. The film hewed closer to received history in its depiction of Commodus, an antisocial Darwinist whose idea of culture was to slaughter giraffes and elephants and take up crescent-headed arrows to shoot the heads off ostriches. True, he actually wasn’t stabbed to death in the ring by a hunky gladiator, but his demise was no less theatrical: Commodus’ dissolute reign was cut short in A.D. 192 when, after several botched assassination attempts, he was strangled in the bath by his personal trainer, a wrestler named Narcissus.Commodus was a gladiator manqué who may have acquired his taste for the sport during a period in his youth (A.D. 171 to 173), some of which was misspent in Carnuntum. During the latest round of excavations, Neubauer concluded that the popularity of gladiating there necessitated two amphitheaters. “Nearly every other Roman outpost had a single arena,” he says. “In Carnuntum, one belonged to the military camp and served the legionnaires. The other, next to the school, belonged to the civil city and satisfied the desires of ordinary citizens.”The gladiator era was a time of strict law and order, when a family outing consisted of scrambling for a seat in the bleachers to watch people be sliced apart. “The circuses were a brutal, disgusting activity,” says LBI ArchPro senior researcher Christian Gugl (“No relation to the search engine”). “But I suppose spectators enjoyed the blood, cruelty and violence for a lot of the same reasons we now tune in to ‘Game of Thrones.’”Rome’s throne games gave the public a chance, regularly taken, to vent its anonymous derision when crops failed or emperors fell out of favor. Inside the ring, civilization confronted intractable nature. In Marcus Aurelius: A Life, biographer Frank McLynn proposed that the beastly spectacles “symbolized the triumph of order over chaos, culture over biology....Ultimately, gladiatorial games played the key consolatory role of all religion, since Rome triumphing over the barbarians could be read as an allegory of the triumph of immortality over death.”Neubauer likens the school in Carnuntum to a penitentiary. Under the Republic (509 B.C. to 27 B.C.), the “students” tended to be convicted criminals, prisoners of war or slaves bought solely for the purpose of gladiatorial combat by the lanista, who trained them to fight and then rented them out for shows—if they had the right qualities. Their ranks also included free men who volunteered as gladiators. Under the Empire (27 B.C. to A.D. 476), gladiators, while still made up of social outcasts, also included not only free men, but noblemen and even women who willingly risked their legal and social standing by taking part in the sport.A modern-day gladiator in Rome readies for a staged battle in historic regalia.(Luca Locatelli / INSTITUTE)A modern-day gladiator in Rome readies for a staged battle in historic regalia.(Luca Locatelli / INSTITUTE)A re-enactor with the Latin name Macrino is a Signifer, a standard bearer that carried a signum of the Roman legions. (Luca Locatelli / INSTITUTE)The Gruppo Storico Romano was founded 15 years ago and today has about 200 members. Right, a re-enactor dressed for battle. (Luca Locatelli / INSTITUTE)Ariel-a Pizzati, 39 and a real estate consultant, assumes the character of a gladiator type called a Provocator. (Luca Locatelli / INSTITUTE)It’s doubtful that many fighters-in-training were killed at Carnuntum’s school. The gladiators represented a substantial investment for the lanista, who trained, housed and fed combatants, and then leased them out. Contrary to Hollywood mythmaking, slaying half the participants in any given match wouldn’t have been cost-effective. Ancient fight records suggest that while amateurs almost always died in the ring or were so badly maimed that waiting executioners finished them off with one merciful blow, around 90 percent of trained gladiators survived their fights.The mock arena at the heart of the Carnuntum school was ringed by tiers of wooden seats and the terrace of the chief lanista. (A replica was recently built on the site of the original, an exercise in reconstruction archaeology deliberately limited to the use of tools and raw materials known to have existed during the Empire years.) In 2011, GPR detected the hole in the middle of the practice ring that secured a palus, the wooden post that recruits hacked at hour after hour. Until now it had been assumed that the palus was a thick log. But LBI ArchPro’s most recent survey indicated that the cavity at Carnuntum was only a few inches thick. “A thin post would not have been meant just for strength and stamina,” Neubauer argues. “Precision and technical finesse were equally important. To injure or kill an opponent, a gladiator had to land very accurate blows.”Every fighter was a specialist with his own particular equipment. The murmillo was outfitted with a narrow sword, a tall, oblong shield and a crested helmet. He was often pitted against a thraex, who protected himself with sheathing covering the legs to the groin and broad-rimmed headgear, and brandished a small shield and a small, curved sword, or sica. The retiarius tried to snare his opponent in a net and spear his legs with a trident. In 2014, a traditional dig in Carnuntum’s ludus turned up a metal plate that probably came from the scale armor of a scissor, a type of gladiator sometimes paired with a retiarius. What distinguished the scissor was the hollow steel tube into which his forearm and fist fitted. The tube was capped: At the business end was a crescent-shaped blade meant to cut through the retiarius’ net in the event of entanglement.One of the most surprising new finds was a chicken bone unearthed from where the grandstand would have been. Surprising, because in 2014 Austrian forensic anthropologists Fabian Kanz and Karl Grossschmidt established that gladiators were almost entirely vegetarians. They conducted tests on bones uncovered at a mass gladiator graveyard in Ephesus, Turkey, showing that the fighters’ diets consisted of barley and beans; the standard beverage was a concoction of vinegar and ash—the precursor of sports drinks. Neubauer’s educated guess: “The chicken bone corroborates that private displays were staged in the training arena, and rich spectators were provided with food during the fights.”Outside the ludus walls, segregated from Carnuntum’s civilian cemetery, Team Neubauer turned up a burial field crammed with gravestones, sarcophagi and elaborate tombs. Neubauer is convinced that a gold-plated brooch unearthed during the chicken-bone dig belonged to a politician or prosperous merchant. “Or a celebrity,” he allows. “For instance, a famous gladiator who had died in the arena.” The man fascinated by the Hallstatt charnel house may have located a gladiator necropolis.Top gladiators were folk heroes with nicknames, fan clubs and adoring groupies. The story goes that Annia Galeria Faustina, the wife of Marcus Aurelius, was smitten with a gladiator she saw on parade and took him as a lover. Soothsayers advised the cuckolded emperor that he should have the gladiator killed, and that Faustina should bathe in his blood and immediately lie down with her husband. If the never reliable Scriptores Historiae Augustae is to be believed, Commodus’ obsession with gladiators stemmed from the fact that the murdered gladiator was his real dad.Following in the (rumored) tradition of the emperors Caligula, Hadrian and Lucius Verus—and to the contempt of the patrician elite—Commodus often competed in the arena. He once awarded himself a fee of a million sestertii (brass coins) for a performance, straining the Roman treasury.According to Frank McLynn, Commodus performed “to enhance his claim to be able to conquer death, already implicit in his self-deification as the god Hercules.” Wrapped in lion skins and shouldering a club, the mad ruler would galumph around the ring à la Fred Flintstone. At one point, citizens who had lost a foot through accident or disease were tethered for Commodus to flog to death while he pretended they were giants. He chose for his opponents members of the audience who were given only wooden swords. Not surprisingly, he always won.Enduring his wrath was only marginally less injurious to health than standing in the path of an oncoming chariot. On pain of death, knights and senators were compelled to watch Commodus do battle and to chant hymns to him. It’s a safe bet that if Commodus had enrolled in Carnuntum’s gladiator school, he would have graduated summa cum laude.LBI ArchPro is housed in a nondescript building in a nondescript part of Vienna, 25 miles west of Carnuntum. Next to the parking lot is a shed that opens like Aladdin’s cave. Among the treasures are drones, a prop plane and what appears to be the love child of a lawn mower and a lunar rover. Rigged onto the back of the quad bikes (motorized quadricycles) is a battery of instruments—lasers, GPR, magnetometers, electromagnetic induction sensors.LBI ArchPro goes over one of the amphitheaters at Carnuntum with a motorized ground-penetrating radar array. (Reiner Riedler / Anzenberger Agency)Many of these gadgets are designed to be dragged across a field like futuristic farm equipment. “These devices allow us to identify structures several yards below ground,” says Gugl, the researcher. “The way the latest radar arrays can slice through soil is kind of Star Treky, though it lacks that Hollywood clarity.”No terrain seems inaccessible to Neubauer’s explorers. Your eyes linger on a rubber raft suspended from the ceiling. You imagine the Indiana Jones-like possibilities. You ask, “Is the raft used for plumbing the depths of the Nile?”“No, no, no,” Gugl protests. “We’re just letting some guy store it here.”He leads you on a tour of the offices. On the first floor, the common room is painted some institutional shade unknown to any spectrum. There’s an air of scruffiness in the occupants—jeans, T-shirts, running shoes; young researchers chat near a floor-to-ceiling photo of Carnuntum’s topography or gaze at animated video presentations, which track the development of the town in two and three dimensions.On a desktop monitor, a specialist in virtual archaeology, Juan Torrejón Valdelomar, and computer scientist Joachim Brandtner boot up a 3-D animation of LBI ArchPro’s surprising new discovery at Carnuntum—the real purpose of the Heidentor. Built in the fourth century during the reign of Emperor Constantius II, the solitary relic was originally 66 feet high, comprising four pillars and a cross vault. During the Middle Ages, it was thought to be a pagan giant’s tomb. Ancient sources indicate that Constantius II had it erected in tribute to his military triumphs.But a radar scan of the area provides evidence that the Heidentor was surrounded by bivouacs of legionnaires, soldiers massed by the tens of thousands. Like a time-lapse cartoon of a flower unfolding, the LBI ArchPro graphic shows Roman campsites slowly shooting up around the memorial. “This monumental arch,” says Neubauer, “towered above the soldiers, always reminding them of their allegiance to Rome.”Now that LBI ArchPro has digitally leveled the playing field, what’s next at Carnuntum? “Primarily, we hope to find building structures that we can clearly interpret and date,” says archaeologist Eduard Pollhammer. “We don’t expect chariots, wild animal cages or remains inside the school.”Within another walled compound that adjoins the ludus is an extended open campus that may contain all of the above. Years ago a dig inside a Carnuntum amphitheater turned up the carcasses of bears and lions.The ongoing reconstructions have convinced Neubauer that his team has solved some of the city’s enduring mysteries. At the least, they show how the march of technology is increasingly rewriting history. It’s been said the farther backward you look, the farther forward you are likely to see. In Book VII of his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius put it another way: “Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too ,”Smithsonian.com: Shop, Read, Watch and Travel: