A gregarious actor with a smile that lights up the screen, Cuba Gooding, Jr. experienced the highs and lows of show business growing up as the son of his famous singer father. As he explained to the Los Angeles Times on January 5, 1997: "We lived in a big house and had chauffeurs, we'd go backstage at the concerts and then in the fifth grade . . . bang! Rock bottom." When his parents divorced, he moved with his mother, brother and sister out of the limelight and began facing financial hardships, which included stretches of being evicted and living in a car, as well as time on the welfare rolls. While the family was staying in a cheap motel in suburban Orange County, Gooding befriended future personal assistant Shawn Suttles and production company partner Derek Broes, and the three perfected their breakdancing moves, christening themselves the Majestic Vision Breakdancers.

 Well-known for his trademark rapid-fire wisecracks, actor-comedian Chris Tucker broke into movies in the mid-1990s, following a successful career in stand-up. After his scene-stealing turn in director F. Gary Gray’s 1995 cult comedy hit “Friday,” Tucker took on the role of his career as Jackie Chan’s comic foil and partner in the action-comedy, “Rush Hour” (1998). Thanks to the worldwide success of “Rush Hour,” Tucker became the fastest actor ever to make Hollywood’s elite “$20 Million Club” – a princely sum he received for appearing in the 2001 sequel. Despite wracking up a prolific flurry of credits at the start of his career, Tucker’s output slowed to a trickle by the early 2000s, limiting his film roles strictly to the “Rush Hour” franchise.