Zach Galligan

While the career of this handsome dark-haired actor began as promising, Zach Galligan seemingly has found himself trapped in playing roles in direct-to-video genre fare. The New York native first gained prominence in the mid-1980s as the wide-eyed male lead in Joe Dante's horror comedy "Gremlins" (1984). A more mature Galligan reprised the role in the unnecessary but not unentertaining sequel "Gremlins 2: The New Batch" (1990). In between, he had found a series of small screen roles that displayed his charm and talent, most particularly "Surviving" (ABC, 1985), in which he and fellow up-and-comer Molly Ringwald co-starred as teenaged lovers who carry out a suicide pact. Galligan's best small screen role, however, was as turn-of-the-century prep school prankster "The Prodigious Hickey" (PBS, 1987) and its two sequels, "The Return of Hickey" (PBS, 1988) and "The Beginning of the Firm" (PBS, 1989).