Leslie Easterbrook

As a consistent member of the "Police Academy" franchise, you'd never realize that statuesque bombshell Leslie Easterbrook was an accomplished trumpet player, a skill she picked up for a role she landed towards the end of the series run of "Laverne & Shirley." Easterbrook was adopted and raised by her new family in the Nebraska countryside. An accomplished vocalist who honed her craft with help from her musical professor father, she broke through on film and in television when she started landing gigs in 1980-as a nurse in the Sidney Lumet comedic motion picture "Just Tell Me What You Want" and in a guest appearance on the sitcom "Me and Maxx."

That same year Easterbrook was cast as Rhonda Lee, Laverne and Shirley's buxom, trumpet-playing neighbor who lived next to them when the show's setting was transferred to California. By the time of the show's 1983 cancellation, Easterbrook landed on her professional feet; the following year she started playing hard-nosed Sergeant Debbie Callahan in "Police Academy." She stayed with the series up through its sixth sequel, 1994's "Police Academy: Mission to Moscow," while her character's promotions wound up with the rank of Captain. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, she appeared on episodes of "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper," "Matlock," and "Diagnosis Murder." Rob Zombie replaced Karen Black with her as Mother Firefly in 2005's "The Devil's Rejects" and cast her in his 2007 remake of "Halloween."