Michael Paré

Biography: An American leading man with hooded eyes and curled lip, Pare worked as a sous-chef at Cafe Europa on New York's Upper West Side after training at the New York Culinary Institute. While there he was spotted by a modeling agent and soon began to model. Later he spent two years studying acting with Uta Hagen and Marvin Nelson, and was hired to play the lead in a TV series, "The Greatest American Hero." The series fell through (though it was later produced without him), but he managed to get the lead in a TV movie, Crazy Times, which led to the role of the rock icon Eddie in the film Eddie and the Cruisers (1983). Filmmaker Walter Hill spotted him in that part and cast him in Hill's next film, Streets of Fire (1984). After that film did very poorly at the box office, his career faltered and he made a string of silly B-movies. He has yet to break back into major films.