The West Wing

Allison Brooks Janney is an American actress, best known for her role as C.J. Cregg on the television series The West Wing. Janney was born in Dayton, Ohio, the daughter of Macy Brooks , a former actress and homemaker, and Jervis Spencer Janney, Jr., a real estate developer and jazz musician. She... has an older brother, Jay, and a younger brother, Hal. She attended The Miami Valley School in Dayton, where she was named a distinguished alumna in 2004, and the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. She then attended Kenyon College. At Kenyon, Janney studied under another Kenyon alum, Paul Newman. She went on to study drama at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. She attended The Neighborhood Playhouse the same years as actor Dylan McDermott. Janney's first roles on television were as comedic foils on soap operas: she first played Vi Kaminski for a short time on As the World Turns, following up with a two-year stint as one of the Spaulding maids, Ginger on Guiding Light.
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Richard Schiff is an American actor. He is best known for playing Toby Ziegler on the NBC television drama The West Wing, a role for which he received an Emmy Award. Schiff made his directorial debut with The West Wing, directing an episode entitled "Talking Points." Schiff was born in Bethesda,... Maryland, the second of three sons of Charlotte, a television and publishing executive, and Edward Schiff, a real estate lawyer. His parents divorced when he was 12. His father was a second generation Austrian and his mother was French. He dropped out of high school, but later obtained an equivalency diploma. In 1973, he studied briefly at The City College of New York but did not graduate. He moved to Colorado where he found employment cutting firewood. Returning to New York in 1975, he began to study acting at CCNY and was accepted into their Theater program. Schiff initially studied directing. He directed several off-Broadway plays, including Antigone in 1983 with a just-graduated Angela Bassett. In the mid-1980s Schiff decided to try his hand at acting and landed several TV roles.
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John Spencer was an American film and television actor. He was most widely known for playing White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry on the NBC political drama series The West Wing, which earned him an Emmy Award in 2002. Spencer was born as John Speshock, Jr. in New York City, and raised in... Totowa, New Jersey. He was the son of blue-collar parents Mildred , a waitress, and John Speshock, Sr., a truck driver. Spencer was of Irish and Rusyn / Ukrainian descent. With his enrollment at the Professional Children's School in Manhattan in 1963, Spencer found himself sharing classes with such fellow students as Liza Minnelli and violinist Pinchas Zukerman. He attended Fairleigh Dickinson University, but did not complete a degree. Spencer often referred to himself as a "dyed-in-the-wool liberal" and described Franklin Delano Roosevelt as one of his heroes. Spencer began his television career on The Patty Duke Show, and eventually began appearing in supporting roles in feature films commencing with 1983's WarGames.
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Bradley Whitford is an American film and television actor. He is best known for his roles as Deputy White House Chief of Staff Josh Lyman on the NBC television drama The West Wing, as Danny Tripp on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, as Dan Stark in the Fox police buddy-comedy The Good Guys, as... Timothy Carter, a character who was believed to be Red John in the CBS series The Mentalist, and as antagonist Eric Gordon in the film Billy Madison. Whitford has been nominated for three consecutive Emmy Awards from 2001–2003 for "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series" for his role on The West Wing, winning the award in 2001. This role has also garnered him three consecutive Golden Globe Award nominations for "Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role". Whitford was born in Madison, Wisconsin and graduated from Madison East High School. He majored in English and Theater at Wesleyan University, where his roommate was the younger brother of future castmate Richard Schiff. He went on to receive a fine arts degree from Juilliard. Whitford first appeared on television in 1985 in an episode of The Equalizer. His film debut was in the 1986 film Doorman.
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Stockard Channing is an American stage, film and television actress. She is known for her portrayal of First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series The West Wing; for playing Betty Rizzo in the film Grease; and for her role as Ouisa Kittredge in the play Six Degrees of Separation and its... later film version. Channing was born in New York City, the daughter of Mary Alice , who came from a large Brooklyn-based Irish Catholic family, and Lester Napier Stockard , who was in the shipping business. She grew up on the Upper East Side. She is an alumna of The Madeira School, a Virginia boarding school for girls, after starting out at The Chapin School in New York City. She studied history and literature at Radcliffe College, and graduated in 1965. Channing started her acting career with the experimental Theatre Company of Boston and eventually performed in the group's Off Broadway production of Adaptation/Next. She performed in a revival of Arsenic and Old Lace directed by Theodore Mann as part of the Circle in the Square at Ford's Theatre program in 1970.
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Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo , better known as Alan Alda, is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and author. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he is best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series M*A*S*H. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the State... University of New York at Stony Brook School of Journalism and a member of the advisory board of The Center for Communicating Science. In 1996, Alda was ranked #41 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time. Alda was born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo in The Bronx, New York City. His father, Robert Alda , was an actor and singer, and his mother, Joan Browne, was a former showgirl. Alda is of Italian and Irish descent. His adopted surname, "Alda," is a portmanteau of ALphonso and D'Abruzzo. When Alda was seven years old, he contracted Poliomyelitis. To combat the disease, his parents administered a painful treatment regimen developed by Sister Elizabeth Kenny that consisted of applying hot woolen blankets to his limbs and stretching his muscles. Alda attended Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, New York.
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Robert Hepler "Rob" Lowe is an American actor. Lowe came to prominence after appearing in films such as The Outsiders, Oxford Blues, About Last Night, St. Elmo's Fire, and Wayne's World. On television, Lowe is known for his role as Sam Seaborn on The West Wing and his role as Senator Robert... McCallister on Brothers & Sisters. He is currently a main cast member of Parks and Recreation, playing the role of Chris Traeger. Early in his career Lowe gained notoriety as a life-in-the-fast-lane playboy, ending up in the spotlight for various personal indiscretions and tabloid scandals, including one of the first "sex tape" scandals to hit Hollywood. Lowe was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, the son of Barbara Lynn , a teacher, and Charles Davis Lowe, a trial lawyer. His parents divorced when Lowe was young. He has a brother, actor Chad Lowe, and two half brothers. Because of a virus during infancy, he is deaf in his right ear . Lowe was baptized into the Episcopal church.
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Ramón Antonio Gerard Estévez , better known by his stage name Martin Sheen, is an American film actor best known for his performances in the films Badlands , Apocalypse Now and Wall Street , and in the television series The West Wing from 1999 to 2006. He is considered one of the best... actors never to be nominated for an Academy Award despite his acclaimed performances. In film he has won the Best Actor award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival for his performance as Kit Carruthers in Badlands. His portrayal of Capt. Willard in Apocalypse Now earned a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor. Sheen has worked with a wide variety of film directors, such as Richard Attenborough, Francis Ford Coppola, Terrence Malick, David Cronenberg, Mike Nichols, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone. He has had a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame since 1989. In television he has won both a Golden Globe and two Screen Actors Guild awards for playing the lead role of President Bartlet in The West Wing, and an Emmy for guest acting in the sitcom Murphy Brown.
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