Marcia Cross

After graduating from the classical-acting program at Juilliard, this vampy redhead alternated between stage and small-screen parts before hitting it big as a psychotic doctor on the campy '90s prime-time soap Melrose Place. During her tenure, her longtime companion actor Richard Jordan died, but Cross never let her personal pain affect her work. After leaving the series in 1997, the brainy actress slowed down her career pace in order to earn a master's in psychology. In the early '00s, she made a triumphant return to series television, first as a sane doctor on Everwood, then as a perfectionist homemaker on Desperate Housewives, a role that earned Cross her first Emmy nomination, in 2005, and three successive Golden Globe nods.