Kelly Maria Ripa was born in 1970 and raised in Berlin, New Jersey. She is the daughter of Esther, a homemaker, and Joseph Ripa, a labor union president and bus driver. She has three-quarters Italian and one-quarter Irish ancestry. During her high school years she was a cheerleader and was encouraged by her drama teacher to pursue acting. She starred in local theater productions and was discovered while performing in The Ugly Duckling during her senior year. She attended Camden County College studying psychology, but dropped out and moved to New York City to pursue an acting career.

Aside from local TV gigs, Ripa’s first national television exposure came in 1986 when she appeared as a regular dancer on Dancin’ On Air, leading into Dance Party USA. Her career goal at the time was to be a newscaster and she often did the cast news reports. Ripa was cast in her first major acting role in 1990 as Hayley Vaughan, a troubled party girl, on All My Children. She concluded her 12-year stint in 2002, but returned for two episodes in 2010 to help celebrate the soap opera’s 40th anniversary.

In Feb 2001, Ripa replaced co-host Kathie Lee Gifford on Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee. The chemistry between Philbin and Ripa (or “Pippa” as he nicknamed her), their banter, interviews, and conversations about their families, personal lives, and New York City attracted a successful, strong, and loyal viewership averaging 6 million viewers daily. In January 2011, Philbin announced that he would be retiring from Live! at the end of the year. Ripa replaced Philbin as the head of the show, which was re-titled Live! with Kelly. Michael Strahan was announced as the new co-host and Live! with Kelly and Michael premiered September 4, 2012. Live! won its first Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show on June 23, 2012. After Strahan left Live! for Good Morning America, Ryan Seacrest took over as the new co-host. 

Ripa ventured into primetime in September 2003 on Hope & Faith, playing Faith Fairfield, an unemployed ex-soap star. The half-hour sitcom, co-starring Faith Ford, Ted McGinley, and Megan Fox, gave ABC its best Friday premiere score since 1996. The show ended in May 2006 with Ripa declaring she “never wanted to work that hard again.”

In 2007, Ripa and her husband Mark Consuelos founded Milojo, the production company, named for their children Michael, Lola, and Joaquin. On October 12, 2015, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce honored Kelly Ripa with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Anthony Russo (born February 3, 1970) and Joseph Russo (born July 18, 1971), collectively known as the Russo Brothers, were born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, the sons of Patricia Gallupoli and attorney and judge Basil Russo. Their paternal and maternal families immigrated from Sicily and Abruzzo, fleeing poverty and settling in Ohio to work in its steel mills. Joe graduated from the University of Iowa and majored in English and writing, while Anthony graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and majored in business before switching to English.

The Russo brothers were graduate students at Case Western Reserve University when they began directing, writing, and producing their first feature, Pieces. They financed the film with student loans and credit cards. After viewing Pieces at the Slamdance Film Festival, Steven Soderbergh approached the duo and offered to produce their next film, along with his producing partner George Clooney. This project was the crime comedy Welcome to Collinwood, starring William H. Macy, Sam Rockwell, and Clooney.

FX network executive Kevin Reilly hired the Russos to direct the pilot for the series Lucky, having liked the pair’s work on Collinwood. Ron Howard was a fan of the pilot, and he had a hand in hiring the brothers to direct the pilot for Fox’s Arrested Development. The brothers won a Primetime Emmy Award for their work on the episode.

In 2006, the Russo brothers returned to film, directing the Owen Wilson comedy You, Me and Dupree. By June 2013, the Russos were in final talks to direct Marvel Studios’ second Captain America movie. In July 2013, the brothers wrapped principal production on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the film was released on April 4, 2014. In January 2014, the brothers signed on to return to direct the third Captain America film, Captain America: Civil War, which was released on May 6, 2016. 

The Russo brothers directed Avengers: Infinity War (2018), which became the first superhero movie to gross over $2 billion at the box office. They are the third directors to make a $2 billion movie after James Cameron’s films Avatar and Titanic and J. J. Abrams’s film Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Its sequel, Avengers: Endgame, was released on April 26, 2019, broke numerous box office records, and became the second superhero movie to gross over $2 billion. They join James Cameron as the only directors to make two $2 billion films. 

The Russos are developing a spy series called Citadel for Amazon Prime, which will star Priyanka Chopra and Richard Madden. In April 2020, it was announced that they would be producing a live-action film adaptation of Disney’s Hercules. By July 2020, the Russos were hired to direct an adaptation of The Gray Man for Netflix, from a screenplay by Joe Russo.

Beverly Heather D’Angelo was born in 1951 in Columbus, Ohio. Her parents were Priscilla and Eugene Constantino “Gene” D’Angelo, a bass player and television station manager at WBNS-TV in Columbus. 

D’Angelo worked as an illustrator at Hanna-Barbera Studios and as a singer before pursuing acting. While living for a period in Canada, she was a backup singer for American-born rockabilly singer Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins’ band The Hawks. After going out on their own they became The Band.

D’Angelo began acting in the theatre, appearing on Broadway in 1976 in Rockabye Hamlet, a musical based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. She made her television debut in the first three episodes of the TV mini-series Captains and the Kings in 1976.

After gaining a minor role in Annie Hall in 1977, D’Angelo appeared in a string of hit movies in the late 1970s including Every Which Way But Loose, Hair, and Coal Miner’s Daughter, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Patsy Cline. 

Her biggest break came in 1983 starring with Chevy Chase in National Lampoon’s Vacation in the role of Ellen Griswold. She reprised this role in four Vacation sequels and a short film between 1985 and 2015. In the 1980s she starred in many other major comedy films; in the mid-1990s she acted primarily in independent movies. In 1994 D’Angelo returned to the stage and won a Theatre World Award for her performance in the Off-Broadway play Simpatico.

She received an Emmy Award nomination for her performance as Stella Kowalski in the 1984 TV movie version of A Streetcar Named Desire. From 2005–11 D’Angelo appeared in the HBO series Entourage playing the role of agent Barbara “Babs” Miller. 

Gerald Tommaso DeLouise was born in Queens, New York, the son of Josephine and Michael, both of Italian descent. DeLouise served a tour of duty in the United States Marine Corps from 1957 to 1959. While in the Marine Corps, he won 32 of 34 boxing bouts. He later turned pro and compiled a 17–0 record under three different aliases. 

DeLouise went by his stage name, Burt Young, and made his name playing rough-edged working class Italian-American characters, the best-known example being his signature role as Rocky Balboa’s friend (and future brother-in-law) Paulie in Rocky (1976), for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He is one of four actors (the other three being Sylvester Stallone, Stu Nahan and Tony Burton) who have appeared in all of the first six Rocky films. 

He has played similar roles in Chinatown, Convoy, Back to School, The Pope of Greenwich Village, Once Upon a Time in America, Last Exit to Brooklyn, and Downtown: A Street Tale. Young has also appeared in many television programs, including The Rockford Files, Baretta, Law & Order, Walker, Texas Ranger, and M*A*S*H. 

In 2017, Burt Young returned to the stage as an aged mob boss in The Last Vig, a play written by Dave Varriale. The show ran from January 14 to February 19, 2017, in Los Angeles. 

Young is also a painter; his art has been displayed in galleries throughout the world. As an artist, he has collaborated with the writer Gabriele Tinti, for whom he designed the cover for the poetry collection All Over, as well as contributing the illustrations for the art book A Man.

Young is also a published author whose works include two filmed screenplays and a 400-page historical novel called Endings. Young is a widower and has one daughter and one grandson. He lives in Port Washington, New York.

John Saxon, was born Carmine Orrico in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian Immigrants Antonio Orrico, a dock worker, and Anna Protettore. He started acting in films during the mid-1950s, playing teenage roles. Agent Henry Willson saw Saxon’s picture on the cover of a detective magazine and immediately contacted the boy’s family in Brooklyn. With his parents’ permission, the 17-year-old Orrico contracted with Willson, and he was given the stage name John Saxon. Saxon was proficient in Judo and Shotokan Karate.

Saxon spent 18 months at Universal before the studio first used him in a film. His first significant role was a juvenile delinquent in Running Wild (1955), co-starring Mamie Van Doren. In 1956, Saxon had the lead in a low budget teen film, Rock, Pretty Baby, which became an unexpected success and established Saxon as a teen idol. Saxon quickly reprised his Rock, Pretty Baby role in a sequel, Summer Love (1958). By now he was getting about 3,000 fan letters a week. He then made Teach Me How to Cry with Sandra Dee, which was retitled The Restless Years (1958).

He would go on to appear in more than 200 projects during a span of 60 years. During the 1970s and 1980s, he established himself as a character actor, frequently portraying law enforcement officials in horror films such as Black Christmas (1974), Dario Argento’s Tenebrae (1982), and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

In addition to his roles in horror films, Saxon co-starred with Bruce Lee in the martial arts film Enter the Dragon (1973), and he had supporting roles in the westerns The Appaloosa (1966; for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture), Death of a Gunfighter (1969) and Joe Kidd (1972), as well as the made-for-television thriller Raid on Entebbe (1977). 

Saxon died of pneumonia in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on July 25, 2020, shortly before his 84th birthday.