1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year that started on a Friday. In the Gregorian calendar, it was the 1,993rd year of Anno Domini, or of the Common Era; the 993rd year of the 2nd millennium; the 93rd year of the 20th century; and the 4th of the 1990s.

William Edward "Billy" Crystal (born March 14, 1948) is an American actor, writer, producer, comedian, and film director. He gained prominence in the 1970s for playing Jodie Dallas on the ABC sitcom Soap and became a Hollywood film star during the late 1980s and 1990s, appearing in the critical and box office successes When Harry Met Sally... and City Slickers. He has hosted the Academy Awards nine times, including the 84th Academy Awards in 2012.

Crystal was born in the Doctor's Hospital in Manhattan and raised on Long Island in Long Beach, the son of Helen (née Gabler), a housewife, and Jack Crystal, a record company executive and jazz producer who also owned and operated the Commodore Record store. His babysitter was occasionally Billie Holiday. His uncle was musician and songwriter Milt Gabler, and his brother, Richard "Rip" Crystal, is a television producer. Crystal grew up in a Jewish family that he has described as "large" and "loving".

After graduation from Long Beach High School, Crystal attended Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia on a baseball scholarship, having learned the game from his father, who pitched for St. John's University. Crystal never played a game at Marshall because the program was suspended during his freshman year, and because he was too busy being the Editor in Chief of The BG News from 1969–70. He did not return to Marshall as a sophomore, staying back in New York with his future wife. He instead attended Nassau Community College and later New York University, where he graduated in 1970 with a BFA from its Tisch School of the Arts.

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Often referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contribution to music, dance, and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971.

In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for his songs, including those of "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller", were credited with transforming the medium into an art form and a promotional tool, and the popularity of these videos helped to bring the relatively new television channel MTV to fame. Videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream" made him a staple on MTV in the 1990s. Through stage performances and music videos, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive musical sound and vocal style influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary R&B, pop and rock artists.

Jean-Philippe Smet better known by his stage name Johnny Hallyday (born 15 June 1943, Cité Malesherbes, Paris, France) is a French singer and actor. An icon in the French-speaking world since the beginning of his career, he was considered by some to have been the French Elvis Presley. He was married for 15 years to popular Bulgarian-French singer Sylvie Vartan. They formed the golden couple of the sixties and seventies in Europe. Johnny has completed 100 tours, had 18 platinum albums, and sold more than 110 million records. Hallyday announced his retirement from performing on 3 December 2007, saying that he will retire in 2009, after a farewell tour. Hallyday, though, announced in March 2012 that he would perform in Los Angeles on April 24 and in New York City on October 7.

Hallyday's father, Léon Smet (1908–1989), was Belgian, his mother Huguette Clerc (1920–2007) was French. Hallyday took his stage name from his aunt Desta's husband and dance partner Lee Hallyday, a pseudonym for Lee Ketcham, an expatriate Oklahoman, performer and MC at the Cafe de Paris when Johnny began his singing career. Johnny was raised by Desta and Lee from a very young age, with Lee being his first manager.

Dolph Lundgren (born Hans Lundgren; 3 November 1957) is a Swedish actor, director, and martial artist. He belongs to a generation of film actors who epitomise the movie action hero stereotype including Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme.

A graduate in chemical engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and the University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia in 1982, Lundgren holds a rank of 3rd dan black belt in Kyokushin Karate and was European champion in 1980 and 1981. While in Sydney, he became a bodyguard for Jamaican singer Grace Jones and began a relationship with her. They moved together to New York City, where after a short stint as a model and bouncer at the Manhattan nightclub 'The Limelight', Jones got him a small debut role in the James Bond film A View to a Kill as a KGB henchman.