Stephen Arnold Douglas (23 April 1813 – 3 June 1861) was an American politician from Illinois. He was a U.S. Representative, a U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee for President in the 1860 election, losing to Republican Abraham Lincoln. Douglas had previously defeated Lincoln in a Senate contest, noted for the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. He was nicknamed the "Little Giant" because though short in physical stature, he was a forceful and even dominant figure in politics.

Douglas was well known as a resourceful party leader, and an adroit, ready, skillful tactician in debate and passage of legislation. He was a leading proponent of democracy, and believed in the principle of popular sovereignty: that the majority of citizens should decide contentious issues such as slavery and territorial expansion. As chairman of the Committee on Territories, Douglas dominated the Senate in the 1850s. He was largely responsible for the Compromise of 1850 that apparently settled slavery issues. However, in 1854 he reopened the slavery question with the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which opened some previously prohibited territories to slavery under popular sovereignty. Opposition to this led to the formation of the Republican Party.

Freddie James Prinze, Jr. (born March 8, 1976) is an American actor. He rose to fame during the late 1990s and early 2000s, after starring in several Hollywood films aimed at teenage audiences, I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and its sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), as well as She's All That (1999), Summer Catch (2001), Scooby-Doo (2002) Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), and Delgo (2008). Prinze has also had acting roles in television shows, including Friends, Freddie and 24. He is married to actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, and currently works for WWE as a producer and director.

Prinze was born in Los Angeles, California and he is the only child of Kathy Elaine Cochran (née Barber), a real estate agent, and Freddie Prinze, an actor and comedian who died in 1977. Prinze's father was of Puerto Rican and Hungarian descent, while his mother is of English, Irish, and Native American ancestry. Prinze grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and was raised Roman Catholic also embracing his Puerto Rican heritage. where he learned about Spanish and Puerto Rican culture from his paternal grandmother. He speaks fluent Spanish and Italian. He showed an interest in acting from an early age. After graduating in 1994, Prinze moved to Los Angeles to audition for television roles.

Freddie Prinze (born Frederick Karl Pruetzel; June 22, 1954 – January 29, 1977) was an American actor and stand-up comedian. Prinze was the star of 1970s sitcom Chico and the Man. He is the father of actor Freddie Prinze, Jr.

Prinze was born Frederick Karl Pruetzel at St. Clair's Hospital in New York City, son of Edward Karl Pruetzel and his wife Maria Graniela Pruetzel. His mother was Puerto Rican, and his father was a Hungarian immigrant who had arrived in the U.S. in 1934. Prinze identified himself as Puerto Rican, and for comedic purposes called himself a "Hungarican."

Prinze was raised in a very mixed neighborhood in Washington Heights, New York City. He began his education at a private Lutheran school, in a religious compromise by his parents (his mother took him to Catholic Mass on Sundays). When Prinze was a small child, his mother enrolled him in ballet classes to deal with a weight problem. Without telling his parents, Prinze successfully auditioned for the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts, where he was introduced to drama and continued ballet—and where he discovered his gift for comedy while entertaining crowds in the boys restroom. He dropped out of school in his senior year to become a stand-up comedian.

Matthew Raymond "Matt" Dillon (born February 18, 1964) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor and film director. He began acting in the late 1970s, gaining fame as a teenage idol during the 1980s.

Matthew Raymond Dillon was born in New Rochelle, New York, to second-generation Irish American parents Mary Ellen, a homemaker, and Paul Dillon, a portrait painter and sales manager for Union Camp, a packing material manufacturer. He was raised in a close-knit Irish Roman Catholic family as the second of six children. Dillon's paternal grandmother was the sister of comic strip artist Alex Raymond. Dillon has one sister and four brothers, one of whom, Kevin Dillon, is also an actor, and appears on the hit TV series Entourage which has earned him several Emmy nominations in the supporting actor comedy category. Dillon grew up in Mamaroneck, New York, and before dropping out in junior year, he attended Mamaroneck High School.^{[citation needed]}

In 1978, Jane Bernstein and a friend were helping director Jonathan Kaplan cast the violent teen drama Over the Edge when they found Dillon cutting class at Hommocks Middle School in Larchmont. Dillon auditioned for a role and made his debut in the film. The film received a regional, limited theatrical release in May 1979, and grossed only slightly over $200,000. Dillon's performance was well-received, which led to his casting in two films released the following year; the teenage sex comedy Little Darlings, in which Kristy McNichol's character loses her virginity to a boy from the camp across the lake, played by Dillon, and the more serious teen dramedy My Bodyguard, where he played a high-school bully opposite Chris Makepeace. The films, released in March and July 1980, respectively, were box office successes and raised Dillon's profile among teenage audiences.

Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman (born January 30, 1930) is a retired American actor and novelist.

Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde. His major subsequent films include The French Connection (1971), in which he played Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle; The Poseidon Adventure (1972); The Conversation (1974); Superman (1978), in which he played arch-villain Lex Luthor; Hoosiers (1986); Mississippi Burning (1987); Unforgiven (1992); The Firm (1993); Crimson Tide (1995); Get Shorty (1995); The Birdcage (1996); Enemy of the State (1998); and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001).

Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, the son of Lyda (née Gray) and Eugene Ezra Hackman. He has a brother, Richard. His family moved frequently, finally settling in Danville, Illinois, where they lived in the house of his English-born maternal grandmother, Beatrice. Hackman's father operated the printing press for the Commercial-News, a local paper. Hackman's parents divorced in 1943 and his father subsequently left the family.