Career: Small parts in TV productions and films during the early 1970s led to him landing his breakthrough role in Dennis Potter's 1978 miniseries Pennies from Heaven. Violent thriller The Long Good Friday followed in 1980, cementing his stardom. Other offerings, including The Cotton Club, Brazil, Mona Lisa and A Prayer for the Dying followed, but he found global fame in 1988's effects-laden Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Subsequent Hollywood movies included Mermaids and Hook, but he also worked in the UK on A Christmas Carol, Made in Dagenham, TwentyFourSeven, Last Orders and The Street. His final film, Snow White and the Huntsman, was released in 2012. He died of pneumonia on April 30, 2014.

Career: While working in Hartford, Falk joined a local theatre group called the Mark Twain Masquers. He also took acting classes at the White Barn Theatre in Westport, Connecticut. In 1956, he moved to New York to pursue an acting career. He made his professional stage debut in an Off-Broadway production of Moliere's Dom Juan - it closed after just one performance. He had better luck with other Broadway roles. After a number of small film parts, Falk was praised for his supporting role in Murder, Inc. (1960), for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. In 1961, he starred in Frank Capra's final film, Pocketful of Miracles and earned his second Academy Award nomination. Falk continued to make films and make guest appearances on TV shows. He is best known as the star of the TV detective series Columbo, which he first played in the 1968 TV movie Prescription: Murder. He went on to play the crumpled detective on and off on TV between 1971 until 2003. Falk died at his Beverly Hills home on June 23, 2011 at the age of 83.

Career: Appeared in 1962's The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner and he became famous for The Servant a year later. He then starred in Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Chase and Isadora. In 1970, he made Performance with Mick Jagger, but then dropped out of showbusiness to do vocational work with Christian missionary sect The Navigators. Apart from religious low-budget movie No Longer Alone, he didn't act again until Country in 1981. Since then, he's appeared in acclaimed productions A Passage to India, Greystoke, The Remains of the Day, Jinnah, Sexy Beast and the remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Career: Ward made his TV debut in a 1990 episode of The Storyteller: Greek Myths. His first film, Lethal Justice, followed a year later, but he didn't become a regular TV presence until the 1995 small-screen adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. He's rarely been out of work since, thanks to roles in The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders, Vanity Fair, Plunkett & Macleane, Warriors, Quills, Anna Karenina and Love in a Cold Climate. Ward has also appeared numerous times on stage, but remains most recognisable for Dr Harry Cunningham in Silent Witness - a part he began playing in 2002.

Career: In 1998, Rhys filmed New Zealand costume drama Greenstone before landing a part in box-office flop Titus. He had better luck a year later when he played a lead role opposite Kathleen Turner in the world premiere of the stage adaptation of The Graduate in the West End. He enjoyed worldwide recognition after being cast in American drama Brothers & Sisters as lawyer Kevin Walker. The show ran for five seasons before coming to an end in 2011. More recently, Rhys has appeared in BBC costume dramas The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Death Comes to Pemberley, and ITV's Daphne Du Maurier adaptation The Scapegoat. In 2013, he began starring opposite Keri Russell in 1980s Cold War drama The Americans.

Career: Cassidy was working in an office when she landed the title role in British film Felicia's Journey (1999) alongside Bob Hoskins. Other roles followed in The Others (2001), Disco Pigs (2001) and two-part BBC miniseries Fingersmith in 2005. In 2009, she played the lead role in American horror miniseries Harper's Island. Her recent credits include playing Katherine Weston in BBC period drama The Paradise.

Career: After a number of minor roles on TV, his big break came in 1983 when he landed the part of Dennis Patterson in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. The hugely popular comedy drama returned for a second series in 1986 and further new episodes were broadcast in 2002 and 2004. Healy has been an ever-present face on British TV since the success of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and he has appeared in a number of shows, including Boys from the Bush, Common As Muck, The Grand, Catterick and Coronation Street. Healy has also had an accomplished stage career. He was a founder member of Live Theatre in Newcastle in the 1970s and he has played everything from Dame Trott in Jack and the Beanstalk to Sir Toby Belch in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. He was nominated for an Olivier Award for his role as the dad in the West End version of Billy Elliot. He played transvestite Les/Lesley in the third series of ITV sitcom Benidorm and became a regular in series four.

Career: Page's first film was 1999's Miss Julie, the same year she made her TV debut as Dora in an adaptation of David Copperfield. She went on to have a regular role in The Cazalets. Page appeared alongside Johnny Depp in From Hell, but it was starring as the girl who steals Martin Freeman's heart in Love Actually that made her a famous face, although she didn't become a household name until tackling one of the lead roles in much-loved sitcom Gavin & Stacey. Other TV work includes appearances in White Van Man, The Syndicate, Gates and the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who.

Career: Hardy made his TV debut in Twelfth Night in 1957 and went on to appear in a series of films and TV shows before the BBC drama All Creatures Great And Small made him a star in 1978. He appeared in another version of Twelfth Night in 1980. Other highlights include Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years, The Far Pavilions, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Sense and Sensibility, Shackleton, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. He played William Whitelaw in Margaret, a 2009 TV film about the life of politician Margaret Thatcher. He died on August 3, 2017 at the age of 91.