Bette Midler

The Hawaii-born entertainer (1945-) made her film debut, appropriately enough, as an extra in the lavish 1966 drama Hawaii (based on the eponymous James Michener novel).

She made a career working off-Broadway and, later, playing Tzeitel in the Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof during the late '60s, but her cult stardom began in earnest with her residency at New York's Continental Bathhouse. Here, accompanied by a then-little-known pianist named Barry Manilow, she built an audience among the city's camp-crazy gay community, and with the success of her first Manilow-produced album, The Divine Miss M (1973), she conquered the larger entertainment world, appearing in such films as The Rose (1979) and Beaches (1988) while maintaining a successful recording career.

While often criticized for excessive schmaltziness, she earned hipster brownie points with her gorgeous cover of Tom Waits's ballad "Martha," and her appearance on the pivotal "Simpsons" episode, "Krusty Gets Kancelled."

Linda Carter

This cult actress (1951-) and cigar smoker remains famous for her iconic portrayal of comics heroine Wonder Woman in the late 1970s television program of the same name. At the time of the show's initial auditions, Carter was a beauty pageant winner and had sung with a number of Arizona-area rock groups, as well as appearing with Bob Hope's USO show, but not yet well-known as an actress.

But her childhood as a reader of Wonder Woman comics had prepared her to take the character seriously - as seriously as you can take a character who flies an invisible plane and deflects bullets with her bracelets - and her performance remains one of the best-loved incarnations of a comic book hero committed to film.

Despite her close identification with this role, she has maintained a successful career over three decades, appearing recently in Super Troopers (2001), The Dukes of Hazzard (2005), and - ironically - in Sky High (2005) as the head of a school for superheroes. She also played Mama Morton in the West End London production of Chicago. In an industry that often marginalizes Latina and Latino actors, the Mexican-American Carter is an example of hard-won success.

Jodie Foster

One of the few major child actresses to successfully re-conquer the film world as an adult, Jodie Foster (1962-) has left her mark on the American movie industry as a director and producer as well as star. Though she made her film debut in the innocuous Disney TV drama Menace on the Mountain (1970), and continued to appear in such family entertainments as Freaky Friday (1976) and Candleshoe (1977), Foster distinguished herself early on as a young actress willing to tackle tough, demanding roles, playing a child prostitute in Martin Scorsese's disturbing cult film Taxi Driver (1976) and starring also in the pedophilia-themed thriller The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976).

As an adult, she won critical acclaim for riveting performances in The Accused (1988) and Silence of the Lambs (1991), for both of which she won an Oscar. She turned to producing and directing during this period. The Yale graduate and cigar smoker continues to appear in and develop successful film projects.

Lt. Kara "Starbuck" Thrace

Played by Katee Sackhoff (1980-), this woman warrior is the heart and soul of the popular and innovative TV sci-fi drama "Battlestar Galactica" (2003-). With its gritty, handheld-camera approach and post-9/11 themes of survival and morality after a devastating attack, the program has consistently earned critical acclaim as one of the best-written and most interesting on television, and no character is more central to its appeal than Starbuck, the tough, mouthy, heroic, and constantly cigar-chomping fighter pilot who helps humanity survive despite battling her personal demons.

Her mere presence on US TV, in Sackhoff's nuanced, sympathetic performance, also battles any number of misogynistic stereotypes about women's capacity for personal strength and endurance.