200 Legendary Old Hollywood Actresses
by PrudenceHill | created - 05 Jan 2012 | updated - 26 Nov 2015 | Public
The greatest actresses of the pre-60's, Hollywood's Golden Age. Here are all the actresses worth mentioning from this era. (The first 25 are ranked after AFI's 25 greatest actresses of all time, the rest are not ranked in order!)
There were some I had to exclude because they did not have a picture here on IMDB and there were also those who begun their career in the fifties but who made it big after 1960.
There were some I had to exclude because they did not have a picture here on IMDB and there were also those who begun their career in the fifties but who made it big after 1960.
1. Katharine Hepburn
Actress | The Lion in Winter
Born May 12, 1907 in Hartford, Connecticut, she was the daughter of a doctor and a suffragette, both of whom always encouraged her to speak her mind, develop it fully, and exercise her body to its full potential. An athletic tomboy as a child, she was also very close to her brother, Tom, and was ...
Academy Award winner: First and only actor two win four Acting Academy Awards within a lifetime. First 1933 and last in 1981.
Notable movies: Bringing Up Baby (1938), The African Queen (1951) , The Philadelphia Story (1940), Morning Glory (1933) (Best Actress in a Leading Role-winner) Post-1960's: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (1967) (Best Actress-win), The Lion in Winter (1968) (Best Actress-win), On Golden Pond (1981) (Best Actress-win)
Notes: Romantically involved with famous actor Spencer Tracy (whom she worked with in nine films) from 1943 to his death in 1967.
One of the winners in the only tie in the best actress cathegory in Oscar history in 1969. She won for her performance in The Lion in Winter (1968), the other winner was Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl (1968).
Often listed as the Greatest Actress of all time.
Notable movies: Bringing Up Baby (1938), The African Queen (1951) , The Philadelphia Story (1940), Morning Glory (1933) (Best Actress in a Leading Role-winner) Post-1960's: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (1967) (Best Actress-win), The Lion in Winter (1968) (Best Actress-win), On Golden Pond (1981) (Best Actress-win)
Notes: Romantically involved with famous actor Spencer Tracy (whom she worked with in nine films) from 1943 to his death in 1967.
One of the winners in the only tie in the best actress cathegory in Oscar history in 1969. She won for her performance in The Lion in Winter (1968), the other winner was Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl (1968).
Often listed as the Greatest Actress of all time.
2. Bette Davis
Actress | All About Eve
Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born April 5, 1908, in Lowell, Massachusetts, to Ruth Augusta (Favor) and Harlow Morrell Davis, a patent attorney. Her parents divorced when she was 10. She and her sister were raised by their mother. Her early interest was dance. To Bette, dancers led a glamorous life, but...
Academy Award winner: Winner of two Best Actress Academy Awards. In 1936 for Dangerous (1935) and in 1939 for Jezebel (1938). Another nine Academy Award nominations.
Notable movies: All About Eve (1950), Now Voyager (1942), The Little Foxes (1941), Jezebel (1939) (Best Actress-win) Post-1960's: Whatever happend to Baby Jane? (1962), Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
Notes: Ranked #15 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.
Nominated for an Academy Award 5 years in a row, in 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1943. She shares the record for most consecutive nominations with Greer Garson.
Sworn enemy of actress and her co-star in Whatever happend to Baby Jane? (1962) Joan Crawford.
Notable movies: All About Eve (1950), Now Voyager (1942), The Little Foxes (1941), Jezebel (1939) (Best Actress-win) Post-1960's: Whatever happend to Baby Jane? (1962), Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
Notes: Ranked #15 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.
Nominated for an Academy Award 5 years in a row, in 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1943. She shares the record for most consecutive nominations with Greer Garson.
Sworn enemy of actress and her co-star in Whatever happend to Baby Jane? (1962) Joan Crawford.
3. Audrey Hepburn
Actress | Breakfast at Tiffany's
Audrey Hepburn was born as Audrey Kathleen Ruston on May 4, 1929 in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium. Her mother, Baroness Ella Van Heemstra, was of a Dutch descent, and her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, was born in Úzice, Bohemia, of English and Austrian ancestry.
After her parents' divorce, ...
After her parents' divorce, ...
Academy Award winner: Best Actress in a Leading role for Roman Holiday (1953). Another 4 Oscar nominations and one Humanitarian Academy Award win 1993.
Notable movies: Sabrina (1954), The Nun (1959), Funny Face (1957), Roman Holiday (1953) (Best Actress-win) Post-1960's: Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), My Fair Lady (1961)
Notes: Born in Belgium
She is one of only nine performers to win an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy and a Grammy Award.
Was named #3 on The American Film Institute's 50 Greatest Screen Legends
Notable movies: Sabrina (1954), The Nun (1959), Funny Face (1957), Roman Holiday (1953) (Best Actress-win) Post-1960's: Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), My Fair Lady (1961)
Notes: Born in Belgium
She is one of only nine performers to win an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy and a Grammy Award.
Was named #3 on The American Film Institute's 50 Greatest Screen Legends
4. Ingrid Bergman
Actress | Notorious
Ingrid Bergman was one of the greatest actresses from Hollywood's lamented Golden Era. Her natural and unpretentious beauty and her immense acting talent made her one of the most celebrated figures in the history of American cinema. Bergman is also one of the most Oscar-awarded actresses, tied with ...
Academy Award Winner: Second actress in Oscar history to win 3 Academy Awards. Best Actress in a Leading Role for Gaslight (1944), Best Actress in a Leading Role for Anastasia (1956) and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Murder on the Orient Express (1974). Another 4 Academy Award nominations.
Notable movies: Casablanca (1942), Spellbound (1945), Notorious! (1946), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) Post-1960’s: Autumn Sonata (1978), Cactus Flower (1969)
Notes: Born in Sweden
In 1960 she became the third performer to win the Triple Crown of Acting: Oscars for Gasljus (1944), Anastasia (1956), Mordet på Orientexpressen (1974), a Tony for "Joan of Lorraine" (1947) and Emmys in 1960 and 1982.
She was ranked #5 in the Premiere's list of "The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time"
Notable movies: Casablanca (1942), Spellbound (1945), Notorious! (1946), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) Post-1960’s: Autumn Sonata (1978), Cactus Flower (1969)
Notes: Born in Sweden
In 1960 she became the third performer to win the Triple Crown of Acting: Oscars for Gasljus (1944), Anastasia (1956), Mordet på Orientexpressen (1974), a Tony for "Joan of Lorraine" (1947) and Emmys in 1960 and 1982.
She was ranked #5 in the Premiere's list of "The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time"
5. Greta Garbo
Actress | Ninotchka
Greta Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson on September 18, 1905, in Stockholm, Sweden, to Anna Lovisa (Johansdotter), who worked at a jam factory, and Karl Alfred Gustafsson, a laborer. She was fourteen when her father died, which left the family destitute. Greta was forced to leave school and ...
Academy Award Nominee: Nominated 4* Academy Awards. Recieved an Honory Academy Award in 1955.
*In 1930 she was nominated for 2 seperate movies; Anna Christie (1930) and Romance (1930).
Notable movies: Ninotchka (1939), Camille (1936), Grand Hotel (1932), Mata Hari (1931) Retired from acting in 1941.
Notes: Born in Sweden
Once voted by The Guinness Book of World Records as the most beautiful woman who ever lived.
Was named #5 Actress on The American Film Institute's 50 Greatest Screen Legends
Notable movies: Ninotchka (1939), Camille (1936), Grand Hotel (1932), Mata Hari (1931) Retired from acting in 1941.
Notes: Born in Sweden
Once voted by The Guinness Book of World Records as the most beautiful woman who ever lived.
Was named #5 Actress on The American Film Institute's 50 Greatest Screen Legends
6. Marilyn Monroe
Actress | Some Like It Hot
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, comedienne, singer, and model. She became one of the world's most enduring iconic figures and is remembered both for her winsome embodiment of the Hollywood sex symbol and her tragic personal and professional struggles within the film industry. Her life and ...
Notable movies: Some Like It Hot (1959), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), How To Get a Millionaire (1953), The Seven Year Itch (1955)
Post-1960’s: Let's Make Love (1960), The Misfits (1961)
Notes: Voted 'Sexiest Woman of the Century' by People Magazine.
Ranked #8 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.
One of many legends to die young. She died of an drug overdose in 1962 at the age of 36.
Notes: Voted 'Sexiest Woman of the Century' by People Magazine.
Ranked #8 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.
One of many legends to die young. She died of an drug overdose in 1962 at the age of 36.
7. Elizabeth Taylor
Actress | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was considered one of the last, if not the last, major star to have come out of the old Hollywood studio system. She was known internationally for her beauty, especially for her violet eyes, with which she captured audiences early on in her youth and kept the world hooked ...
Academy Award Winner: Won 2 Best Actress Academy Awards. In 1961 for BUtterfield 8 (1960) and in 1967 for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Another 3 Academy Award nominations and one Humanitarian Academy Award win in 1993.
Notable movies: Giant (1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), A Place in the Sun (1951), Suddenly Last Summer (1959) Post-1960’s: Cleopatra (1963), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) (Best Actress-win)
Notes: Married 8 times, twice to famous actor and co-star in 11 seperate movies Richard Burton.
Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#16).
Was named a Dame of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on the Millenium New Year's Honours List, December 31, 1999.
Notable movies: Giant (1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), A Place in the Sun (1951), Suddenly Last Summer (1959) Post-1960’s: Cleopatra (1963), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) (Best Actress-win)
Notes: Married 8 times, twice to famous actor and co-star in 11 seperate movies Richard Burton.
Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#16).
Was named a Dame of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on the Millenium New Year's Honours List, December 31, 1999.
8. Judy Garland
Actress | The Wizard of Oz
One of the brightest, most tragic movie stars of Hollywood's Golden Era, Judy Garland was a much-loved character whose warmth and spirit, along with her rich and exuberant voice, kept theatre-goers entertained with an array of delightful musicals.
She was born Frances Ethel Gumm on 10 June 1922 in ...
She was born Frances Ethel Gumm on 10 June 1922 in ...
Academy Award Nominee: Nominated for 2 Academy Awards.*
*In 1955 she lost the Best Actress-Academy Award to Grace Kelly in The Country Girl (1954), reportedly this was the closest Oscar vote up till that time that didn't end in a tie. Many poeple has/had the opinion that Judy should've won over Grace.
Notable movies: The Wizard of Oz (1939), A Star is Born (1954), Meet me in St. Louis (1944), Easter Parade (1948) Post-1960’s: Judgment at Nürnberg (1961), I Could Go on Singing (1963)
Notes: Mother of Liza Minnelli
Was named #8 Actress on The AFI 50 Greatest Screen Legends
Suffered from a severe depression, hallucinations and drug abuse during most of her adult life which eventually led her to accidentally overdosing barbiturate drugs which killed her in 1969 at the age of 47.
Notable movies: The Wizard of Oz (1939), A Star is Born (1954), Meet me in St. Louis (1944), Easter Parade (1948) Post-1960’s: Judgment at Nürnberg (1961), I Could Go on Singing (1963)
Notes: Mother of Liza Minnelli
Was named #8 Actress on The AFI 50 Greatest Screen Legends
Suffered from a severe depression, hallucinations and drug abuse during most of her adult life which eventually led her to accidentally overdosing barbiturate drugs which killed her in 1969 at the age of 47.
9. Marlene Dietrich
Soundtrack | Witness for the Prosecution
Her father was a police lieutenant and imbued in her a military attitude to life. Marlene was known in school for her "bedroom eyes" and her first affairs were at this stage in her life - a professor at the school was terminated. She entered the cabaret scene in 1920s Germany, first as a spectator ...
Academy Award Nominee: Nominated for 1 Academy Award.
Notable movies: Blue Angel (1930), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Marocco (1930) (Best Actress-Nominee), Shanghai Express (1932) Post-1960’s: Judgment at Nürnberg (1961)
Notes: Born in Germany
Was named #9 Actress on The AFI 50 Greatest Screen Legends
First German actress to be Oscar-nominated.
Notable movies: Blue Angel (1930), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Marocco (1930) (Best Actress-Nominee), Shanghai Express (1932) Post-1960’s: Judgment at Nürnberg (1961)
Notes: Born in Germany
Was named #9 Actress on The AFI 50 Greatest Screen Legends
First German actress to be Oscar-nominated.
10. Joan Crawford
Actress | What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur on March 23, 1905, in San Antonio, Texas, to Anna Belle (Johnson) and Thomas E. LeSueur, a laundry laborer. By the time she was born, her parents had separated, and by the time she was a teenager, she'd had three stepfathers. It wasn't an easy life; ...
Academy Award Winner: Won 1 Academy Award. Best Actress in a Leading Role for Mildred Pierce (1945). Another 2 Academy Award nominations.
Notable movies: Mildred Pierce (1945) (Best Actress-win), Grand Hotel (1932), Johnny Guitar (1954), The Women (1939) Post-1960’s: Whatever Happend to Baby Jane? (1962), The Caretakers (1963)
Notes: Joan was dancing in a chorus line in 1925 when she was spotted by MGM and offered a screen test. Joan, who wanted more than anything to continue dancing, turned down the offer at first. But another chorus girl persuaded Joan to try the test, and a few weeks later she was put under contract.
Sworn enemy of actress and her co-star in Whatever happend to Baby Jane? (1962) Bette Davis.
Her popularity grew so quickly after her name was changed to Joan Crawford that two films in which she was still billed as Lucille Le Sueur: Old Clothes (1925) and The Only Thing (1925) were recalled, and the billings were altered.
Notable movies: Mildred Pierce (1945) (Best Actress-win), Grand Hotel (1932), Johnny Guitar (1954), The Women (1939) Post-1960’s: Whatever Happend to Baby Jane? (1962), The Caretakers (1963)
Notes: Joan was dancing in a chorus line in 1925 when she was spotted by MGM and offered a screen test. Joan, who wanted more than anything to continue dancing, turned down the offer at first. But another chorus girl persuaded Joan to try the test, and a few weeks later she was put under contract.
Sworn enemy of actress and her co-star in Whatever happend to Baby Jane? (1962) Bette Davis.
Her popularity grew so quickly after her name was changed to Joan Crawford that two films in which she was still billed as Lucille Le Sueur: Old Clothes (1925) and The Only Thing (1925) were recalled, and the billings were altered.
11. Barbara Stanwyck
Actress | Double Indemnity
Today Barbara Stanwyck is remembered primarily as the matriarch of the family known as the Barkleys on the TV western The Big Valley (1965), wherein she played Victoria, and from the hit drama The Colbys (1985). But she was known to millions of other fans for her movie career, which spanned the ...
Academy Award Nominee: Nominated for 4 Academy Awards. Won a Honory Academy Award in 1982.
Notable movies:Double Indemnity (1944), The Lady Eve (1941), Meet John Doe (1941), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) Post-1960’s:The Big Valley (1965), Thornbirds (1983)
Notes: One of the bunch of Hollywood legends that has never won an Oscar. Examples of others are Greta Garbo, Lillian Gish and Cary Grant.
Her wicked turn as Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity (1944) was ranked #8 on the American Film Institute's "100 Greatest Screen Heroes and Villains" list.
Was listed #11 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years of The Greatest Screen Legends."
Notable movies:Double Indemnity (1944), The Lady Eve (1941), Meet John Doe (1941), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) Post-1960’s:The Big Valley (1965), Thornbirds (1983)
Notes: One of the bunch of Hollywood legends that has never won an Oscar. Examples of others are Greta Garbo, Lillian Gish and Cary Grant.
Her wicked turn as Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity (1944) was ranked #8 on the American Film Institute's "100 Greatest Screen Heroes and Villains" list.
Was listed #11 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years of The Greatest Screen Legends."
12. Claudette Colbert
Actress | It Happened One Night
One of the brightest film stars to grace the screen was born Emilie Claudette Chauchoin on September 13, 1903, in Saint Mandé, France where her father owned a bakery at 57, rue de la République (now Avenue Général de Gaulle). The family moved to the United States when she was three. As Claudette ...
Academy Award Winner: Best Actress in a Leading Role for It Happend one Night (1932). Another 2 Academy Award nominations.
Notable movies: It Happend One Night (1932) (Best Actress-win), The Palm Beach Story (1942), Since You Went Away (1944), Cleopatra (1934) Post-1960’s: Parrish (1961), The Two Mrs. Greenvilles (1987)
Notes: Born in France
Was named #12 Actress on The American Film Institute's 50 Greatest Screen Legends
She was so convinced that she would lose the Oscar competition in 1935 to write-in nominee Bette Davis, that she decided not to attend the awards ceremony. When she, contrary to her belief, won that year for her performance in It Happend One Night (1934) she was summoned from a train station to pick up her Oscar.
Notable movies: It Happend One Night (1932) (Best Actress-win), The Palm Beach Story (1942), Since You Went Away (1944), Cleopatra (1934) Post-1960’s: Parrish (1961), The Two Mrs. Greenvilles (1987)
Notes: Born in France
Was named #12 Actress on The American Film Institute's 50 Greatest Screen Legends
She was so convinced that she would lose the Oscar competition in 1935 to write-in nominee Bette Davis, that she decided not to attend the awards ceremony. When she, contrary to her belief, won that year for her performance in It Happend One Night (1934) she was summoned from a train station to pick up her Oscar.
13. Grace Kelly
Actress | Rear Window
On November 12, 1929, Grace Patricia Kelly was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to wealthy parents. Her girlhood was uneventful for the most part, but one of the things she desired was to become an actress which she had decided on at an early age. After her high school graduation in 1947, Grace ...
14. Ginger Rogers
Actress | The Major and the Minor
Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri on July 16, 1911. Her mother, known as Lelee, went to Independence to have Ginger away from her husband. She had a baby earlier in their marriage and he allowed the doctor to use forceps and the baby died. She was kidnapped ...
15. Mae West
Actress | I'm No Angel
Mae West was born 1892 in Queens, New York, to "Battling Jack" West and Matilda Doelger. She began her career as a child star in vaudeville, and later went on to write her own plays, including "SEX", for which she was arrested. Though her first movie role (at age 40) was a small part in Night After...
16. Vivien Leigh
Actress | A Streetcar Named Desire
If a film were made of the life of Vivien Leigh, it would open in India just before World War I, where a successful British businessman could live like a prince. In the mountains above Calcutta, a little princess is born. Because of the outbreak of World War I, she is six years old the first time ...
17. Lillian Gish
Actress | The Night of the Hunter
Lillian Diana Gish was born on October 14, 1893 in Springfield, Ohio. Her father, James Lee Gish, was an alcoholic who caroused around, was rarely at home and left the family to more or less to fend for themselves. To help make ends meet, Lillian, her sister Dorothy Gish and their mother Mary Gish ...
18. Shirley Temple
Actress | Captain January
Shirley Temple was easily the most popular and famous child star of all time. She got her start in the movies at the age of three and soon progressed to super stardom. Shirley could do it all: act, sing and dance and all at the age of five! Fans loved her as she was bright, bouncy and cheerful in ...
19. Rita Hayworth
Actress | Gilda
Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of dancers. Her father, Eduardo Cansino Reina, was a dancer as was his father before him. He emigrated from Spain in 1913. Rita's American mother, Volga Margaret (Hayworth), who was of mostly ...
20. Lauren Bacall
Actress | To Have and Have Not
Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924, in New York City. She was the daughter of Natalie Weinstein-Bacal, a Romanian Jewish immigrant, and William Perske, who was born in New Jersey, to Polish Jewish parents. Her family was middle-class, with her father working as a ...
21. Sophia Loren
Actress | Una giornata particolare
Sophia Loren was born as Sofia Scicolone at the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome, Italy, on September 20, 1934. Her father, Riccardo Scicolone, was married to another woman and refused to marry her mother, Romilda Villani, despite the fact that she was the mother of his two children (Sophia and ...
22. Jean Harlow
Actress | Bombshell
Harlean Carpenter, who later became Jean Harlow, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 3, 1911. She was the daughter of a successful dentist and his wife. In 1927, at the age of 16, she ran away from home to marry a young businessman named Charles McGrew, who was 23. The couple pulled up ...
23. Carole Lombard
Actress | My Man Godfrey
Carole Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on October 6, 1908. Her parents divorced in 1916 and her mother took the family on a trip out West. While there they decided to settle down in the Los Angeles area. After being spotted playing baseball in the street with the ...
24. Mary Pickford
Actress | Coquette
Mary Pickford was born Gladys Louise Smith in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Elsie Charlotte (Hennessy) and John Charles Smith. She was of English and Irish descent. Pickford began in the theater at age seven. Then known as "Baby Gladys Smith", she toured with her family in a number of theater ...
25. Ava Gardner
Actress | The Night of the Iguana
Ava Lavina Gardner was born on December 24, 1922 in Grabtown, North Carolina, to Mary Elizabeth (née Baker) and Jonas Bailey Gardner. Born on a tobacco farm, where she got her lifelong love of earthy language and going barefoot, Ava grew up in the rural South. At age 18, her picture in the window ...
26. Myrna Loy
Actress | The Best Years of Our Lives
Myrna Loy was born Myrna Adele Williams on August 2, 1905 in Helena, Montana, to Adelle Mae (Johnson) and David Franklin Williams. Her paternal grandparents were Welsh, and her mother was of Scottish and Swedish descent. Myrna was raised in Helena and nearby Radersburg. Her father, a rancher, was ...
27. Merle Oberon
Actress | Wuthering Heights
Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson was born in India on February 19, 1911. She was educated in that country until the age of 17, when she left for London. Merle began her career in British films with mostly forgettable roles or bit parts. She appeared in an uncredited role in Alf's Button (1930), a ...
28. Greer Garson
Actress | Mrs. Miniver
Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson was born on September 29, 1904 in London, England, to Nancy Sophia (Greer) and George Garson, a commercial clerk. She was of Scottish and Ulster-Scots descent. Her childhood was a normal if not non-descript life. Greer showed no early signs of interest in becoming an ...
29. Olivia de Havilland
Actress | The Heiress
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born July 1, 1916, in Tokyo, Japan, to British parents Lilian Augusta (Ruse), a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, an English professor and patent attorney. Her sister, Joan, later to become famous as Joan Fontaine, was born the following year. Her ...
30. Deborah Kerr
Actress | The King and I
Deborah Kerr was born on 30 September 1921 in Helensburgh, Scotland, the daughter of Captain Arthur Kerr-Trimmer. She was educated at Northumberland House, Clifton, Bristol. She first performed at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London. She subsequently performed with the Oxford Repertory ...
31. Hedy Lamarr
Actress | Samson and Delilah
Hedy Lamarr, the woman many critics and fans alike regard as the most beautiful ever to appear in films, was born Hedwig Eva Kiesler in Vienna, Austria. She was the daughter of Gertrud (Lichtwitz), from Budapest, and Emil Kiesler, a banker from Lember (now known as Lviv). Her parents were both from...
32. Jane Russell
Actress | Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell was born on June 21, 1921 in Bemidji, Minnesota. Her father was a United States Army lieutenant and her mother had been a student of drama and an actress with a traveling troupe. Once Mr. Russell was mustered out of the service, the family took up residence in ...
33. Joan Fontaine
Actress | Rebecca
Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland on October 22, 1917, in Tokyo, Japan, in what was known as the International Settlement. Her father was a British patent attorney with a lucrative practice in Japan, but due to Joan and older sister Olivia de Havilland's recurring ailments the family moved to ...
34. Clara Bow
Actress | Wings
Clara Gordon Bow, destined to become "The It Girl", was born on July 29, 1905 in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in poverty and violence. Her often absentee and brutish father could not or did not provide and her schizophrenic mother tried to slit Clara's throat when the girl spoke of becoming ...
35. Gene Tierney
Actress | Laura
With prominent cheekbones, luminous skin and the most crystalline green eyes of her day, Gene Tierney's striking good looks helped propel her to stardom. Her best known role is the enigmatic murder victim in Laura (1944). She was also Oscar-nominated for Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Her acting ...
36. Irene Dunne
Actress | The Awful Truth
Irene Marie Dunne was born on December 20, 1898, in Louisville, Kentucky. She was the daughter of Joseph Dunne, who inspected steamships, and Adelaide Henry, a musician who prompted Irene in the arts. Her first production was in Louisville when she appeared in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the age...
37. Lucille Ball
Actress | I Love Lucy
The woman who will always be remembered as the crazy, accident-prone, lovable Lucy Ricardo was born Lucille Desiree Ball on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. Her father died before she was four, and her mother worked several jobs, so she and her younger brother were raised by their ...
38. Norma Shearer
Actress | The Divorcee
She won a beauty contest at age fourteen. In 1920 her mother, Edith Shearer, took Norma and her sister Athole Shearer (Mrs. Howard Hawks) to New York. Ziegfeld rejected her for his "Follies," but she got work as an extra in several movies. She spent much money on eye doctor's services trying to ...
39. Tallulah Bankhead
Actress | Lifeboat
Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was born on January 31, 1902 in Huntsville, Alabama. Her father was a mover and shaker in the Democratic Party who served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from June 4, 1936, to September 16, 1940. Tallulah had been interested in acting and, at age ...
40. Joan Blondell
Actress | Grease
With blonde hair, big blue eyes and a big smile, Joan was usually cast as the wisecracking working girl who was the lead's best friend. Born into vaudeville to a comic named Eddie, Joan was on the stage when she was three years old. For years, she toured the circuit with her parents and joined a ...
41. Rosalind Russell
Actress | His Girl Friday
The middle of seven children, she was named, not for the heroine of "As You Like It" but for the S.S. Rosalind on which her parents had sailed, at the suggestion of her father, a successful lawyer.
After receiving a Catholic school education, she went to the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New ...
After receiving a Catholic school education, she went to the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New ...
42. Louise Brooks
Actress | Die Büchse der Pandora
Mary Louise Brooks, also known by her childhood name of Brooksie, was born in the midwestern town of Cherryvale, Kansas, on November 14, 1906. She began dancing at an early age with the Denishawn Dancers (which was how she left Kansas and went to New York) and then with George White's Scandals ...
43. Lana Turner
Actress | Peyton Place
Lana Turner had an acting ability that belied the "Sweater Girl" image MGM thrust upon her, and even many of her directors admitted that they knew she was capable of greatness (check out The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)). Unfortunately, her private life sometimes overshadowed her professional ...
44. Debbie Reynolds
Actress | Singin' in the Rain
Debbie Reynolds was born Mary Frances Reynolds in El Paso, Texas, the second child of Maxine N. (Harmon) and Raymond Francis Reynolds, a carpenter for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Her film career began at MGM after she won a beauty contest at age 16 impersonating Betty Hutton. Reynolds wasn't a ...
45. Janet Gaynor
Actress | A Star Is Born
Janet Gaynor was born Laura Gainor on October 6, 1906, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a child, she & her parents moved to San Francisco, California, where she graduated from high school in 1923. She then moved to Los Angeles where she enrolled in a secretarial school. She got a job at a shoe ...
46. Luise Rainer
Actress | The Great Ziegfeld
Luise Rainer, the first thespian to win back-to-back Oscars, was born on January 12, 1910 in Dusseldorf, Germany, into a prosperous Jewish family. Her parents were Emilie (Königsberger) and Heinrich Rainer, a businessman. She took to the stage, and plied her craft on the boards in Germany. As a ...
47. Marion Davies
Actress | Going Hollywood
Marion Cecelia Douras was born in the borough of Brooklyn, New York on January 3, 1897. She had been bitten by the show biz bug early as she watched her sisters perform in local stage productions. She wanted to do the same. As Marion got older, she tried out for various school plays and did fairly ...
48. Donna Reed
Actress | It's a Wonderful Life
Donna Reed was born in the midwestern town of Denison, Iowa, on January 27, 1921, as Donna Belle Mullenger. A small town - a population of less than 3,000 people - Denison was located by the Boyer River, and was the county seat of Crawford County. Donna grew up as a farm girl, much like many young ...
49. Susan Hayward
Actress | With a Song in My Heart
Susan Hayward was born Edythe Marrener in Brooklyn, New York, on June 30, 1917. Her father was a transportation worker, and Susan lived a fairly comfortable life as a child, but the precocious little redhead had no idea of the life that awaited her. She attended public school in Brooklyn, where she...
50. Mary Astor
Actress | The Maltese Falcon
Mary Astor was born, Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke, on May 3, 1906 in Quincy, Illinois to a German immigrant father, Otto Ludwig Langhanke, and an American mother from Illinois, Helen Marie Vasconcellos, of Portuguese and Irish ancestry. Her parents were very ambitious for her as they recognized ...
51. Jennifer Jones
Actress | The Towering Inferno
One of the world's most underrated Academy Award-winning actresses, Jennifer Jones was born Phylis Lee Isley on 2 March 1919 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Flora Mae (Suber) and Phillip Ross Isley, who ran a travelling stage show. As a young aspiring actress, she met and fell for young, handsome, aspiring ...
52. Natalie Wood
Actress | Rebel Without a Cause
Natalie Wood was born on July 20, 1938 in San Francisco, California as Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko. Her parents, Maria Zudilov and Nikolai Zakharenko, were Russian-born émigrés who spoke barely comprehensible English; they changed the family name to Gurdin after becoming US citizens. When she was...
53. Veronica Lake
Actress | Sullivan's Travels
Veronica Lake was born as Constance Frances Marie Ockleman on November 14, 1922, in Brooklyn, New York. She was the daughter of Constance Charlotta (Trimble) and Harry Eugene Ockelman, who worked for an oil company as a ship employee. Her father was of half German and half Irish descent, and her ...
54. Ethel Barrymore
Actress | None But the Lonely Heart
Ethel Barrymore was the second of three children seemingly destined for the actor's life of their parents Maurice and Georgiana. Maurice Barrymore had emigrated from England in 1875, and after graduating from Cambridge in law had shocked his family by becoming an actor. Georgiana Drew of ...
55. Maureen O'Hara
Actress | The Quiet Man
In America, the early performing arts accomplishments of young Maureen FitzSimons (who we know as Maureen O'Hara) would definitely have put her in the child prodigy category. However, for a child of Irish heritage surrounded by gifted parents and family, these were very natural traits. Maureen made...
56. Kim Novak
Actress | Vertigo
Kim Novak was born in Chicago, Illinois on February 13, 1933 with the birth name of Marilyn Pauline Novak. She was the daughter of Joseph Novak, a former teacher turned transit clerk and his wife, Blanche Kral Novak, also a former teacher. Throughout elementary and high school, Kim did not get ...
57. Helen Hayes
Actress | Airport
Known as "The First lady of the American Theater", Helen Hayes had a legendary career on stage and in films and television that spanned over eighty years. Hayes was born in Washington, D.C., to Catherine Estelle "Essie" Hayes, an actress who worked in touring companies, and Francis van Arnum Brown,...
58. Gloria Swanson
Actress | Sunset Blvd.
Gloria Swanson went to public schools in Chicago; Key West, Florida; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her film debut was as an extra in The Fable of Elvira and Farina and the Meal Ticket (1915). From the following year on, she had leading roles in pictures for Keystone, then a year with Triangle, and, in...
59. Patricia Neal
Actress | Hud
Patricia Neal, the Oscar and Tony Award-winning actress, was born Patsy Louise Neal in Packard, Kentucky, where her father managed a coal mine and her mother was the daughter of the town doctor. She grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she attended high school. She was first bit by the acting bug...
60. Jane Wyman
Actress | Falcon Crest
Jane Wyman was born Sarah Jane Mayfield on January 5, 1917, in St. Joseph, Missouri (she was also known later as Sarah Jane Fulks). When she was only eight years old, and after her parents filed for divorce, she lost her father prematurely. After graduating high school she attempted, with the help ...
61. Brigitte Bardot
Actress | Le mépris
Brigitte Bardot was born on September 28, 1934 in Paris, France. Her father had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance, and she proved to be very adept at it. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was ...
62. Jean Arthur
Actress | Shane
This marvelous screen comedienne's best asset was only muffled during her seven years' stint in silent films. That asset? It was, of course, her squeaky, frog-like voice, which silent-era cinema audiences had simply no way of perceiving, much less appreciating. Jean Arthur, born Gladys Georgianna ...
63. Anita Page
Actress | The Broadway Melody
Beautiful Anita Page was one of the most famous and popular leading ladies during the last years of the silent screen and the first years of the talkie era. She was best known for starring in The Broadway Melody (1929), the first sound film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Her leading men...
64. Olive Thomas
Actress | Beatrice Fairfax
Oliva R. Duffy was born on October 20, 1894, in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, the eldest of three children, with two younger brothers. Olive or Ollie, as she was known to family and friends, did not have much of a childhood. Life in industrial Pittsburgh was depressing and grim with its smoky factories ...
65. Loretta Young
Actress | The Farmer's Daughter
Sweet, sweeter, sweetest. No combination of terms better describes the screen persona of lovely Loretta Young. A&E's Biography (1987) has stated that Young "remains a symbol of beauty, serenity, and grace. But behind the glamour and stardom is a woman of substance whose true beauty lies in her ...
66. Joan Bennett
Actress | Suspiria
Joan Geraldine Bennett was born on February 27, 1910, in Palisades, New Jersey. Her parents were both successful stage actors, especially her father, Richard Bennett, and often toured the country for weeks at a time. In fact, Joan came from a long line of actors, dating back to the 18th century. ...
67. Dorothy Dandridge
Actress | Carmen Jones
Dorothy Jean Dandridge was born on November 9, 1922 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Ruby Dandridge (née Ruby Jean Butler), an entertainer, and Cyril H. Dandridge, a cabinet maker and minister. Under the prodding of her mother, Dorothy and her sister Vivian Dandridge began performing publicly, usually in ...
68. Miriam Hopkins
Actress | The Heiress
Born into wealth in Savannah,Georgia on October 18, 1902, Ellen Miriam Hopkins was able to attend the finest educational institutions including Goddard Seminary in Plainfield, Vermont and Syracuse University in New York State. Studying dance in New York , she received her first taste of show ...
69. Shelley Winters
Actress | The Poseidon Adventure
Shelley Winters was born Shirley Schrift of very humble beginnings on August 18, 1920 (some sources list 1922) in East St. Louis, Illinois. Her mother, Rose Winter, was born in Missouri, to Austrian Jewish parents, and her father, Jonas Schrift, was an Austrian Jewish immigrant. She had one sibling...
70. Jean Simmons
Actress | Guys and Dolls
Demure British beauty Jean Simmons was born January 31, 1929 in Crouch End, London. As a 14-year-old dance student, she was plucked from her school to play Margaret Lockwood's precocious sister in Give Us the Moon (1944), and she went on to make a name for herself in such major British productions ...
71. Frances Farmer
Actress | Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake
Born in Seattle, Frances Farmer studied drama at the University of Washington, Seattle. In 1935, she went to Hollywood where she secured a seven-year contract with Paramount. In 1943, she was wrongfully declared mentally incompetent and committed by her parents to a series of asylums and public ...
72. Cyd Charisse
Actress | Silk Stockings
Cyd Charisse was born Tula Ellice Finklea on March 8, 1921 in Amarillo, Texas. Born to be a dancer, she spent her early childhood taking ballet lessons and joined the Ballet Russe at age 13. In 1939, she married Nico Charisse, her former dance teacher. In 1943, she appeared in her first film, ...
73. Maureen O'Sullivan
Actress | Hannah and Her Sisters
Maureen Paula O'Sullivan was born on May 17, 1911 in County Roscommon, Ireland, to Evangeline "Mary Eva" Lovatt (Frazer) and Charles Joseph O'Sullivan, an officer in the Connaught Rangers. She was of Irish, English, and Scottish descent. The future mother of Mia Farrow was educated in private ...
74. Janet Leigh
Actress | Psycho
Janet Leigh was the only child of a couple who often moved from town to town. Living in apartments, Janet was a bright child who skipped several grades and finished high school when she was 15. A lonely child, she would spend much of her time at movie theaters. She was a student, studying music and...
75. Fay Wray
Actress | King Kong
Canadian-born Fay Wray was brought up in Los Angeles and entered films at an early age. She was barely in her teens when she started working as an extra. She began her career as a heroine in westerns at Universal during the silent era. In 1926 the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers ...
76. Pola Negri
Actress | Die Bergkatze
Pola Negri was born in Lipno, Poland, and moved to Warsaw as a child. Living in poverty with her mother, a teenage Pola auditioned and was accepted to the Imperial Ballet. Due to an illness that ended her dancing career, she soon switched to the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts and became ...
77. Mae Marsh
Mae Marsh's father was an auditor for the railroad who died when she was four. Her family moved to San Francisco, where her stepfather was killed in the 1906 earthquake. Her great-aunt then took Mae and her sister to Los Angeles. With her show business background, Mae's aunt took them to the ...
78. Geraldine Fitzgerald
Actress | Wuthering Heights
Geraldine Fitzgerald was the only actress to appear as both Laurence Olivier's wife and Rodney Dangerfield's mother-in-law, which surely qualifies her as running the gamut (if not the gauntlet, in the latter case) of A to Z for co-starring with cinema immortals. The Irish lass appeared in many ...
79. Teresa Wright
Actress | Shadow of a Doubt
A natural and lovely talent who was discovered for films by Samuel Goldwyn, the always likable Teresa Wright distinguished herself early on in high-caliber, Oscar-worthy form -- the only performer ever to be nominated for Oscars for her first three films. Always true to herself, she was able to ...
80. Anne Baxter
Actress | All About Eve
Anne Baxter was born in Michigan City, Indiana, on May 7, 1923. She was the daughter of a salesman and his wife, Catherine, who herself was the daughter of Frank Lloyd Wright, the world-renowned architect. Anne was a young girl of 11 when her parents moved to New York City, which at that time was ...
81. Eva Marie Saint
Actress | On the Waterfront
Actress and producer Eva Marie Saint was born on July 4, 1924 on Newark, New Jersey. She is known for starring in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954), for which she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and Alfred Hitchcock's Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959). Her film ...
82. Gina Lollobrigida
Actress | Notre-Dame de Paris
Gina Lollobrigida was born on July 4, 1927 in Subiaco, Italy. Destined to be called "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World", Gina possibly had St. Brigid as part of her surname. She was the daughter of a furniture manufacturer, and grew up in the pictorial mountain village. The young Gina did some ...
83. Ann Rutherford
Actress | Gone with the Wind
Ann Rutherford was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The daughter of a former Metropolitan Opera singer, John Rutherford, and her actress mother, Lillian Mansfield, was destined for show business. Not long after her birth, her family moved to California, where she made her stage debut in...
84. Agnes Moorehead
Actress | Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte
Of Irish/English ancestry, Agnes was born near Boston, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister (her mother was a mezzo-soprano) who encouraged her to perform in church pageants. Aged three, she sang 'The Lord is my Shepherd' on a public stage and seven years later joined the St. Louis Municipal ...
85. Elsa Lanchester
Actress | Witness for the Prosecution
Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was born into an unconventional a family at the turn of the 20th century. Her parents, James "Shamus" Sullivan and Edith "Biddy" Lanchester, were socialists - very active members of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) in a rather broad sense and did not believe in the ...
86. Judy Holliday
Actress | Born Yesterday
Judy Holliday was born Judith Tuvim in New York City on June 21, 1921. Her mother, a piano teacher, was attending a play when she went into labor and made it to the hospital just in time. Judy was an only child. By the age of four, her mother had her enrolled in ballet school which fostered a ...
87. June Allyson
Actress | Executive Suite
American leading lady whose sweet smile and sunny disposition made her the prototypical girl-next-door of American movies of the 1940s. Raised in semi-poverty in Bronx neighborhoods by her divorced mother, Allyson (nee Ella Geisman) was injured in a fall at age eight and spent four years confined ...
88. Linda Darnell
Actress | No Way Out
Linda Darnell, one of five children of a postal clerk, grew up fast. At 11, she was modeling clothes, giving her age as 16. At 13, she was appearing on the stage with little theater groups. Her mother encouraged her to audition when Hollywood talent scouts came to Dallas. She went to California and...
89. Gloria Grahame
Actress | The Bad and the Beautiful
Gloria Hallward, an acting pupil of her mother (stage actress and teacher Jean Grahame), acted professionally while still in high school. In 1944 Louis B. Mayer saw her on Broadway and gave her an MGM contract under the name Gloria Grahame. Her debut in the title role of Blonde Fever (1944) was ...
90. Dorothy Lamour
Actress | Road to Bali
In addition to being Miss New Orleans in 1931, Dorothy Lamour worked as a Chicago elevator operator; band vocalist for her first husband, band leader Herbie Kaye; and radio performer. In 1936 she donned her soon-to-be-famous sarong for her debut at Paramount, The Jungle Princess (1936), and ...
91. Betty Hutton
Actress | Annie Get Your Gun
Betty Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg on February 26, 1921, in Battle Creek, Michigan. Two years later, Betty's father decided that the family way of life wasn't for him, so he left (he committed suicide 16 years later). Having to fend for themselves, Mrs. Thornburg moved the family to ...
92. Judith Anderson
Actress | Rebecca
Dame Judith Anderson was born Frances Margaret Anderson on February 10, 1897 in Adelaide, South Australia. She began her acting career in Australia before moving to New York in 1918. There she established herself as one of the greatest theatrical actresses and was a major star on Broadway ...
93. Hattie McDaniel
Actress | Gone with the Wind
After working as early as the 1910s as a band vocalist, Hattie McDaniel debuted as a maid in The Golden West (1932). Her maid-mammy characters became steadily more assertive, showing up first in Judge Priest (1934) and becoming pronounced in Alice Adams (1935). In this one, directed by George ...
94. Dorothy Malone
Actress | Written on the Wind
The blonde, sultry, dreamy-eyed beauty of Dorothy Malone, who was born in Chicago, Illinois, took some time before it made an impact with American film-going audiences. But once she did, she played it for all it was worth in her one chance Academy Award-winning "bad girl" performance, a role quite ...
95. Mercedes McCambridge
Actress | Giant
Mercedes McCambridge is a highly-talented radio performer who won a best supporting Actress Oscar for her film debut.
Mercedes McCambridge was born in Joliet, Illinois, to Marie (Mahaffry) and John Patrick McCambridge, a farmer. She was of mostly Irish (with a small amount of English and German) ...
Mercedes McCambridge was born in Joliet, Illinois, to Marie (Mahaffry) and John Patrick McCambridge, a farmer. She was of mostly Irish (with a small amount of English and German) ...
96. Ann Sothern
Actress | The Whales of August
Ann Sothern's film career started as an extra in 1927. Originally a redhead, she began to bleach her hair blonde for comedy roles. After working at MGM and on Broadway, Ann was signed by Columbia Pictures for Let's Fall in Love (1933). The next year she would work with Eddie Cantor in his hit Kid ...
97. Jeanne Crain
Actress | State Fair
Jeanne Crain was born in Barstow, California, on May 25, 1925. The daughter of a high school English teacher and his wife, Jeanne was moved to Los Angeles not long after her birth after her father got another teaching position in that city. While in junior high school, Jeanne played the lead in a ...
98. Mabel Normand
Actress | Mickey
Mabel Normand was one of the comedy greats of early film. In an era when women are deemed 'not funny enough' it seems film history has forgotten her contributions. Her films debuted the Keystone Cops, Charlie Chaplin's tramp and the pie in the face gag. She co-starred with both Chaplin and Roscoe "...
99. Theda Bara
Actress | A Fool There Was
Theda Bara was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, as Theodosia Goodman, on July 29, 1885. She was the daughter of a local tailor and his wife. As a teenager Theda was interested in the theatrical arts and once she finished high school, she dyed her blond hair black and went in pursuit of her dream. By 1908 ...
100. Norma Talmadge
Actress | Smilin' Through
Norma Talmadge was born on May 26, 1895, in Jersey City, New Jersey. The daughter of an unemployed alcoholic and his wife, Norma did not have the idyllic childhood that most of us yearn for. Her father left the family on Christmas Day and his wife and three daughters had to fend for themselves. Her...
There were some I had to exclude because they did not have a picture here on IMDB and there were also those who begun their career in the fifties but who made it big after 1960.
101. Billie Burke
Actress | The Wizard of Oz
Billie Burke was born Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke on August 7, 1885 in Washington, D.C. Her father was a circus clown, and as a child she toured the United States and Europe with the circus (before motion pictures and after the stage, circuses were the biggest form of entertainment in the...
102. Paulette Goddard
Actress | Modern Times
Paulette Goddard was a child model who debuted in "The Ziegfeld Follies" at the age of 13. She gained fame with the show as the girl on the crescent moon, and was married to a wealthy man by the time she was 16. After her divorce she went to Hollywood in 1931, where she appeared in small roles in ...
103. Doris Day
Soundtrack | Pillow Talk
One of America's most prolific actresses was born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Alma Sophia (Welz), a housewife, and William Joseph Kappelhoff, a music teacher and choir master. Her grandparents were all German immigrants. She had two brothers, Richard, who ...
104. Betty Grable
Actress | How to Marry a Millionaire
Elizabeth Ruth Grable was born on December 18, 1916 in St. Louis, Missouri, to Lillian Rose (Hofmann) and John Charles Grable, a stockbroker. She had German, English, Irish, and Dutch ancestry. Her mother was a stubborn and materialistic woman determined to make her daughter a star. Elizabeth, who ...
105. Jayne Mansfield
Actress | The Girl Can't Help It
One of the leading sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s, film actress Jayne Mansfield was born Vera Jayne Palmer on April 19, 1933 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, the only child of Vera J. (nee Palmer; later Peers) and Herbert W. Palmer. Her parents were well-to-do, with her father a successful attorney ...
106. Alla Nazimova
Actress | Eye for Eye
The grand, highly flamboyant Russian star Alla Nazimova of Hollywood silent films lived an equally grand, flamboyant life off-camera, though her legendary status has not held up as firmly as that of a Rudolph Valentino today.
Alla Nazimova was born Miriam Edez Adelaida Leventon in 1879, in Yalta, ...
Alla Nazimova was born Miriam Edez Adelaida Leventon in 1879, in Yalta, ...
107. Jane Darwell
Actress | The Grapes of Wrath
Missouri-born Jane Darwell was born Patti Woodard, the daughter of William Robert Woodard, president of the Louisville Southern Railroad, and Ellen (Booth) Woodard, in Palmyra, Missouri, where she grew up on a ranch . She nursed ambitions to be an opera singer, but put it off because of her ...
108. Yvonne De Carlo
Actress | The Ten Commandments
Yvonne De Carlo was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton on September 1, 1922 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She was three when her father abandoned the family. Her mother turned to waitressing in a restaurant to make ends meet--a rough beginning for an actress who would, one day, be one of ...
109. Dorothy Gish
Actress | Gretchen the Greenhorn
Dorothy Gish was born into a broken family where her restless father James Lee Gish was frequently absent. Mary Robinson McConnell a.k.a. Mary Gish, her mother, had entered into acting to make money to support the family. As soon as Dorothy and her sister Lillian Gish were old enough, they became ...
110. Gloria DeHaven
Actress | Two Girls and a Sailor
Gloria Mildred DeHaven was born on July 23, 1925 in Los Angeles, California, to vaudeville headliners Carter and Flora DeHaven. Her parents made sure their daughter would be educated at the very best private schools. They also indulged her ambition to be in show business by packing her off to the ...
111. Thelma Ritter
Actress | All About Eve
Thelma Ritter appeared in high school plays and was trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In the 1940s she worked in radio. Her movie career was started with a bit part in the 1946 Miracle on 34th Street (1947). In the movie she played a weary Xmas shopper. Her performance in the short ...
112. Lee Remick
Actress | Anatomy of a Murder
Lee Remick was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, to Gertrude Margaret (Waldo), an actress, and Francis Edwin Remick, a department store owner. She had Irish and English ancestry. Remick was educated at Barnard College, studied dance and worked on stage and TV, before making her film debut as a sexy ...
113. Deanna Durbin
Soundtrack | Mad About Music
The girl who one day would be known as "Winnipeg's Sweetheart" was born at Grace Hospital on December 4, 1921, as Edna Mae Durbin. In her early childhood there were no obvious signs that one day she would be a bigger box office attraction than Shirley Temple. Renamed Deanna Durbin for show business...
114. Rhonda Fleming
Actress | Out of the Past
A native-born Californian, Rhonda Fleming attended Beverly Hills public and private schools. Her father was Harold Cheverton Louis (1896-1951). Her mother, Effie Olivia Graham (1891-1985), was a famous model and actress in New York. She has a son (Kent Lane), two granddaughters (Kimberly and Kelly)...
115. Kay Francis
Actress | Trouble in Paradise
Kay Francis is possibly the biggest of the 'forgotten stars' from Hollywood's Golden Era, yet, for a while in the 1930s, she ranked as one of the most popular actresses, tagged the 'Queen of Warner Brothers', by 1935 earning a yearly salary of $115,000 (compared to Bette Davis with $18,000). The ...
116. Corinne Griffith
Actress | The Divine Lady
Corinne Griffith was a popular star of the silent movies. She started her film career at Vitagraph in 1916 and later moved to First National, where she became one of that studio's biggest stars. At the height of her popularity she was known as the "Orchid Lady of the Screen." Black Oxen (1923) was ...
117. Priscilla Lane
Actress | Arsenic and Old Lace
Priscilla Lane attended the Eagin School of Dramatic Arts in New York before she began touring with her sisters in the Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians Dance Band. She was a popular singer with her sisters and, after 5 years, she was signed to a Hollywood contract with Warner Brothers in 1937. ...
118. Joan Leslie
Actress | Yankee Doodle Dandy
She was born of Irish ancestry as Joan Agnes Theresa Brodel, the daughter of an accountant and a pianist. She was educated at Catholic schools in Toronto, Montreal and Detroit. There were three sisters, her older siblings being Mary and Betty. Together, they made up a successful vaudeville act, the...
119. Ida Lupino
Actress | High Sierra
Ida was born in London to a show business family. In 1933, her mother brought Ida with her to an audition and Ida got the part her mother wanted. The picture was Her First Affaire (1932). Ida, a bleached blonde, came to Hollywood in 1934 and played small and insignificant parts. Peter Ibbetson (...
120. Jane Powell
Actress | A Date with Judy
Jane Powell was singing and dancing at an early age. She sang on the radio and performed in theaters before her screen debut in 1944. Through the 1940s and 1950s, she had a successful career in movie musicals. However, in 1957, her career in films ended, as she had outgrown her innocent ...
121. Gale Sondergaard
Actress | The Mark of Zorro
Sly, manipulative, dangerously cunning and sinister were the key words that best described the roles that Gale Sondergaard played in motion pictures, making her one of the most talented character actresses ever seen on the screen. She was educated at the University of Minnesota and later married ...
122. Colleen Moore
Actress | Lilac Time
Colleen Moore was born Kathleen Morrison in Port Huron, Michigan. Her father was an irrigation engineer and his job was good enough to provide the family a middle-class environment. She was educated in parochial schools and studied at the famed Detroit Conservatory. Colleen's family moved to ...
123. Zasu Pitts
Actress | It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
Classic comedienne Zasu Pitts, of the timid, forlorn blue eyes and trademark woebegone vocal pattern and fidgety hands, was born to Rulandus and Nellie (Shay) Pitts, the third of four children on January 3, 1894. Her aged New York-native father, who lost a leg back in the Civil War era, had settled...
124. Marie Prevost
Actress | The Racket
Popular star in Hollywood for two decades through 1936, Marie Prevost began as a Mack Sennett "Bathing Beauty" in 1917, later starring in dozens of light comedies. But not long into the sound era, she encountered problems with her burgeoning weight, to the jeopardy of her career. Her self-remedy ...
125. Ann Sheridan
Actress | Kings Row
Ann Sheridan won the "Search for Beauty" contest which carried with it a Paramount screen test. Signed to a contract at 18, she was put into a number of small roles under her real name of Clara Lou Sheridan. As she got better, her name was changed to Ann. In 1936, after two dozen films, she went to...
126. Simone Simon
Actress | Cat People
Diminutive, fiery-tempered Simone Simon was born in France, but spent much of her early childhood in Madagascar, where her father managed a graphite mine. Her schooling was somewhat unsettled, her family moving from city to city (Berlin, Budapest, Turin) before finally establishing themselves in ...
127. Margaret Sullavan
Actress | The Shop Around the Corner
Born in Norfolk, Virginia to wealthy stockbroker Cornelius Hancock Sullavan and heiress Garland Council Sullavan, Margaret Brooke overcame a muscle weakness in her childhood to go on to become a rebellious teenager at posh private schools. She went on to perform with the University Players at ...
128. Claire Trevor
Actress | Key Largo
Claire Trevor was born Claire Wemlinger in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, New York, the only child of Fifth Avenue merchant-tailor Noel Wemlinger, an immigrant Frenchman from Paris who lost his business during the Depression, and his Belfast-born wife, Benjamina, known as "Betty". Young ...
129. Lupe Velez
Actress | The Girl from Mexico
Lupe Velez was born on July 18, 1908, in San Luis de Potosi, Mexico, as Maria Guadalupe Villalobos Velez. She was sent to Texas at the age of 13 to live in a convent. She later admitted that she wasn't much of a student because she was so rambunctious. She had planned to become a champion ...
130. Constance Talmadge
She was blonde; star sister Norma Talmadge was brunette. She was buoyant and a comedienne; Norma was introspective and a tragedienne. Nicknamed "Dutch" by her stage mother Peg as she looked like a cherubic Little Dutch Boy, silver screen star Constance Talmadge was one of silent pictures' most ...
131. Esther Williams
Actress | Neptune's Daughter
Esther Jane Williams was born on August 8, 1921 in Inglewood, California. Her youth was spent as a teenage swimming champion and she won three United States National championships. She eventually was spotted by a MGM talent scout while working in a Los Angeles department store. She made her film ...
132. Anna May Wong
Actress | Piccadilly
Anna May Wong, the first Chinese-American movie star, was born Wong Liu Tsong on January 3, 1905, in Los Angeles, California, to laundryman Wong Sam Sing and his wife, Lee Gon Toy. A third-generation American, she managed to have a substantial acting career during a deeply racist time when the ...
133. Hedda Hopper
Actress | Sunset Blvd.
Her father was a butcher. In 1913 she met and married matinée idol DeWolf Hopper Sr. and in 1915 they moved to Hollywood, where both began active film careers. He became a star with Triangle Company, she began in vamp parts and turned to supporting roles. After her divorce she appeared in dozens of...
134. Mary Philbin
Actress | The Man Who Laughs
Mary Philbin's life should be a lesson to domineering parents. Mary was born on July 16, 1903, in Chicago, Illinois, to John Philbin and his first wife and namesake, Mary. The child was regarded as a little beauty from an early age and her mother was exceedingly proud of her and loved to show her ...
135. Eve Arden
Actress | Our Miss Brooks
Eve Arden was born Eunice Mary Quedens in Mill Valley, California (near San Francisco), and was interested in show business from an early age. At 16, she made her stage debut after quitting school to joined a stock company. After appearing in minor roles in two films under her real name, Eunice ...
136. Betty Compson
Actress | Street Girl
A mining engineer's daughter, blond, blue-eyed Betty Compson began in show business playing violin in a Salt Lake City vaudeville establishment for $15 a week. Following that, she went on tour, accompanied by her mother, with an act called 'the Vagabond Violinist'. Aged eighteen, she appeared on ...
137. Ruth Chatterton
Actress | Dodsworth
Beginning as a chorus girl at age 14, Ruth Chatterton became a Broadway star with "Daddy Long Legs" in 1914. She appeared in such shows as "Mary Rose" and "Come Out of the Kitchen" before moving to Hollywood in 1925. As her film career faded in the late 1930s, she returned to the stage in revivals,...
138. Nancy Carroll
Actress | There Goes My Heart
Nancy Carroll made her film debut in 1927 after several years on the musical stage and later and Broadway. She became very popular upon the advent of sound because of her musical background. This red-haired, cupid-bow-mouthed star entertained movie audiences during the 1930s mouthed star gained a ...
139. Marie Dressler
Actress | Min and Bill
Once you saw her, you would not forget her. Despite her age and weight, she became one of the top box office draws of the sound era. She was 14 when she joined a theater group and she went on to work on stage and in light opera. By 1892, she was on Broadway and she later became a star comedienne on...
140. Wendy Hiller
Actress | Murder on the Orient Express
Wendy Hiller, daughter of Frank and Marie Hiller, was born on 15th August 1912 in Bramhall, near Stockport, Cheshire, England. She was educated at Winceby House School, Bexhill then moved on to Manchester Repertory Theatre. She appeared on stage in Sir John Barry's tour of Evensong, then as Sally ...
141. Anne Shirley
Actress | Murder, My Sweet
They didn't come packaged any sweeter or lovelier than Anne Shirley, a gentle and gracious 1930s teen film actress who didn't quite reach the zenith of front-rank stardom and retired all too soon at age 26. On film as a toddler, she went through a small revolving door of marquee names before ...
142. Ethel Waters
Actress | Cabin in the Sky
The child of a teenage rape victim, Ethel Waters grew up in the slums of Philadelphia and neighboring cities, seldom living anywhere for more than a few weeks at a time. "No one raised me, " she recollected, "I just ran wild." She excelled not only at looking after herself, but also at singing and ...
143. Dolores del Rio
Actress | Las abandonadas
Dolores del Rio was the one of the first Mexican movie stars with international appeal and who had meteoric career in the 1920s/1930s Hollywood. Del Rio came from an aristocratic family in Durango. In the Mexican revolution of 1916, however, the family lost everything and emigrated to Mexico City, ...
144. Carmen Miranda
Actress | The Gang's All Here
Carmen Miranda was born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha on February 9, 1909, near Porto, Portugal, in the town of Marco de Canavezes. Not long after her birth her family moved to Brazil, where her father was involved in the produce business. The family settled in the then-capital city of Rio de ...
145. Lena Horne
Soundtrack | Cabin in the Sky
Lena Calhoun Horne was born June 30, 1917, in Brooklyn, New York. In her biography she stated that, on the day she was born, her father was in the midst of a card game trying to get money to pay the hospital costs. Her parents divorced while she was still a toddler. Her mother left later in order ...
146. Alice Faye
Soundtrack | Hello Frisco, Hello
As A&E's Biography put it, "She rose from the mean streets of New York's Hell's Kitchen to become the most famous singing actress in the world. When the pressures of fame became too much, she had the courage to leave Hollywood on her own terms". Alice Faye was born Alice Jeanne Leppert in NYC on ...
147. Constance Bennett
Actress | Topper
Independent, outspoken Constance Bennett, the first of the Bennett sisters to enter films, appeared in New York-produced silents before a chance meeting with Samuel Goldwyn led to her Hollywood debut in Cytherea (1924). She abandoned a burgeoning career in silents for marriage to Philip Plant in ...
148. Eleanor Powell
Soundtrack | Born to Dance
Eleanor Powell was born in 1912 in Springfield, Massachussetts, and got her professional start in Atlantic City clubs, from where she moved into in revue in New York at the Ritz Grill and Casino de Paris at the age of sixteen. She started her career on Broadway in 1929, where her machine-gun foot ...
149. Jeanette MacDonald
Soundtrack | Cairo
She was the third daughter of Daniel and Anne MacDonald, younger sister to Blossom (MGM's character actress Marie Blake), whom she followed to New York and a chorus job in 1920. She was busy in a string of musical productions. In 1928 Paramount tested and rejected her, but a year later Ernst ...
150. Sylvia Sidney
Actress | Beetlejuice
Sylvia Sidney was born in New York City, in the Bronx borough, on August 8, 1910 with the birth name of Sophia Kosow. Her father was Russian born and her mother was born in Romania. They divorced not long after her birth. Her mother subsequently remarried and Sylvia was adopted by her stepfather, ...
151. Kathryn Grayson
Actress | Kiss Me Kate
Kathryn Grayson was born Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick in Winston-Salem, NC, on February 9, 1922. This pretty, petite brunette with a heart-shaped face was discovered by MGM talent scouts while singing on the radio. The studio quickly signed her to a contract, and she was given acting lessons ...
152. Ann Miller
Actress | Mulholland Dr.
Ann Miller was born Johnnie Lucille Ann Collier on April 12, 1923 in Chireno, Texas. She lived there until she was nine, when her mother left her philandering father and moved with Ann to Los Angeles, California. Even at that young age, she had to support her mother, who was hearing-impaired and ...
153. Leslie Caron
Actress | Gigi
Born in the suburbs of Paris, France, Leslie Caron is an actress and dancer. Gene Kelly got her into the movies for the film An American in Paris (1951). Got a world-wide reputation for her roles in Lili (1953) and Gigi (1958). Most recently Caron has appeared in British TV series The Durrells (...
154. Jane Withers
Actress | Giant
During the early times of the Depression when life was more famine than feast, child stars became the blue plate special of the day, served up by Hollywood to help nourish a nation besieged with troubles. Following 20th Century-Fox monumental success with Shirley Temple in the early 1930s, every ...
155. Lizabeth Scott
Actress | Too Late for Tears
Lizabeth Scott was born Emma Matzo on September 29, 1922 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the oldest of six children of Mary (Pennock) and John Matzo, who were Slovak immigrants. Scott attended Marywood Seminary and the Alvienne School of the Theatre in New York City, where she adopted the stage name of ...
156. Maria Montez
Actress | Cobra Woman
In a world weary of war and dispirited by the ravages of the Great Depression, Hollywood at the turn of the 1940's concocted a wildly popular, effective lot of escapist fare (though often cheaply made) to regale the sick at heart worldwide. Universal Pictures, more often than not, led in producing ...
157. Ann Blyth
Actress | Mildred Pierce
The dark, petulant beauty of this petite American film and musical star worked to her advantage, especially in her early dramatic career. Anne Marie Blythe was born of Irish stock to Harry and Annie (nee Lynch) Blythe on August 16, 1927 in Mt. Kisco, New York. Her parents split while she was young ...
158. Nancy Olson
Actress | Sunset Blvd.
Milwaukee-born Nancy Ann Olson was the daughter of Henry, a physician, and Evelyn Olson, and educated at the University of Wisconsin. Discovered on stage after transferring to California's UCLA, the pretty, peaches-and-cream blonde was quickly signed by Paramount Studios in 1948 and almost ...
159. Lee Grant
Actress | In the Heat of the Night
Academy Award-winner Lee Grant was born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal on October 31, 1925 in Manhattan, New York City, to Witia (Haskell), a teacher and actress, and Abraham Rosenthal, an educator and realtor. Her father was of Romanian Jewish descent, and her mother was a Russian Jewish immigrant. Lee ...
160. Julie Harris
Actress | The Haunting
One of the finest classical and contemporary leading ladies ever to grace the 20th century American stage, five-time Tony Award winner Julie Harris was rather remote and reserved on camera, finding her true glow in front of the theatre lights. The freckled, red-haired actress not only was nominated...
161. Jan Sterling
Actress | Ace in the Hole
One of Hollywood's more talented and watchable stars on screen was sullen, strikingly stick-thin 50s actress Jan Sterling who didn't quite reach the top echelon of stardom but certainly ensured audiences of a real good time with her sexy pout and flashy style in soaps, film noir and saucy comedy.
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162. Anna Magnani
Actress | Roma città aperta
Anna Magnani was born in Rome, Italy (not in Egypt, as some biographies claim), on March 7, 1908. She was the illegitimate child of Marina Magnani and an unknown father, often said to be from Alexandria, Egypt, but whom Anna herself claimed was from the Calabria region of Italy although she never ...
163. Jo Van Fleet
Actress | East of Eden
Jo Van Fleet was born on December 29, 1915 in Oakland, California. She established herself as a notable dramatic actress on Broadway over several years, winning a Tony Award in 1954 for her skill in a difficult role, playing an unsympathetic, even abusive character, in Horton Foote's "The Trip to ...
164. Peggy Lee
Actress | Lady and the Tramp
Peggy Lee was Born Norma Dolores Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, on May 26, 1920. At age four her mother died. Peggy's father, a railroad station agent, remarried but later left home, leaving Peggy's care entrusted to a stepmother who physically abused her. Peggy later memorialized this in the ...
165. Mildred Dunnock
Actress | Baby Doll
Petite American character actress who was celebrated for her definitive portrayal of long-suffering Linda Loman in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman", a part she played opposite Lee J. Cobb at the Morosco Theatre for 742 consecutive performances between 1949 and 1950. Mildred recreated her role ...
166. Gertrude Lawrence
Actress | Lord Camber's Ladies
Gertrude Lawrence was born on July 4, 1898 in London, England as Gertrude Alexandria Dagmar Lawrence-Klasen. She was an actress, known for Lord Camber's Ladies (1932), Rembrandt (1936) and The Glass Menagerie (1950). She was married to Richard Aldrich and Francis Gordon-Howley. She died on ...
167. Carole Landis
Actress | I Wake Up Screaming
Carole Landis was born on New Year's Day in 1919 in Fairchild, Wisconsin, as Frances Lillian Mary Ridste. Her father, a railroad mechanic, was of Norwegian descent and her mother was Polish. Her father walked out, leaving Carole, her mother and an older brother and sister to fend for themselves.
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168. Jane Greer
Actress | Out of the Past
As a baby, she was winning beauty contests; as a teenager, with good looks and an attractive contralto voice, she was singing with big bands (most notably Enric Madriguera's orchestra in Latin Club Del Rio in Washington, D.C.. She met Rudy Vallee, her first husband, on the radio where she also ...
169. Diana Dors
Actress | The Long Haul
Diana Dors was born Diana Mary Fluck on October 23, 1931 in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. She and her mother both nearly died from the traumatic birth. Because of the trauma, her mother lavished on Diana anything and everything she wanted--clothes, toys and dance lessons were the order of the day. ...
170. Dorothy Gibson
Actress | Saved from the Titanic
Dorothy Winnifred Brown was born at the home of her parents, Pauline Caroline Boesen Brown and John Brown on May 17, 1889 at 320 Willow Avenue in Hoboken, New Jersey. John Brown died while she was an infant and Leonard Gibson became her stepfather four years later. She had two siblings but both ...
171. Anita Louise
Actress | The Little Princess
An actress from the age of 6, Anita appeared with Walter Hampden in the Broadway production of Peter Ibbetson. As a juvenile actor, Anita used the name Louise Fremault and made her film debut at 9 in the film The Sixth Commandment (1924). She continued to make films as a child actor, and in 1929, ...
172. Olga Baclanova
Actress | Freaks
Born Olga Vladimirovna Baklanova, one of six children of Vladimir Baklanoff and his wife Alexandra, later billed as the Russian Tigress in her early talking films, was born August 19, 1893. She graduated from the Cherniavsky Institute in Moscow prior to her selection in 1912 at age 19 to apprentice...
173. Barbara La Marr
Actress | The Three Musketeers
Reatha Watson (Barbara La Marr) is possibly most famous as supposedly being one of the first drug-related deaths in Hollywood, but while she had a serious drinking problem she in fact died of tuberculosis with complications of nephritis. She is notable for other reasons, among them her successes as...
174. Zsa Zsa Gabor
Undoubtedly the woman who had come to epitomize what we recognize today as "celebrity", Zsa Zsa Gabor, is better known for her many marriages, personal appearances, her "dahlink" catchphrase, her actions, life gossip, and quotations on men, rather than her film career.
Zsa Zsa Gabor was born Sári ...
Zsa Zsa Gabor was born Sári ...
175. Vilma Bánky
Actress | The Eagle
Vilma Bánky appeared in Hungarian, Austrian and French movies between 1920 and 1925, the year in which Samuel Goldwyn signed her, in Budapest, to a Hollywood contract. In Hollywood she was billed as the "The Hungarian Rhapsody". In the mid and late 1920s she was Goldwyn's biggest money maker, ...
176. Mae Murray
Actress | Peacock Alley
Dubbed "The Girl with the Bee Stung Lips", silent-era screen star Mae Murray began her career on stage partnered with ballroom dancing extraordinaire Vernon Castle in the 1906 Broadway show "About Town." Born the daughter of émigrés, she began studying dance at a young age. Two years later she ...
177. Lya De Putti
Actress | Manon Lescaut
The daughter of a Hungarian baron and countess, Lya De Putti went on to perform classical ballet in Berlin, Germany, after a brief stint in Hungarian vaudeville. She later made several films at the German UFA studios, most notably Vaudeville (1925), before going to Hollywood in 1926. While in ...
178. Billie Dove
Actress | The Black Pirate
In her silent heyday, this ravishing and highly photogenic star, known for her voluptuous femininity on the silent screen, rivaled that of Mary Pickford, Marion Davies and Clara Bow in popularity. She retired after only a few years into the talking picture era, however, and is not as ...
179. Florence Lawrence
Actress | Not Like Other Girls
Florence Lawrence was the first film player whose name was used to promote her films and the studio (Independent Moving Pictures Company [IMP]) for which she worked. Before her, actors and actresses worked anonymously, partly out of fear that stage managers would refuse to hire them if they were ...
180. Bebe Daniels
Actress | The Maltese Falcon
Bebe Daniels already had toured as an actor by the age of four in a stage production of "Richard III". She had her first leading role at the age of seven and started her film career shortly after this in movies for Imperial, Pathe and others. At 14 she was already a film veteran, and was enlisted ...
181. Geraldine Farrar
Actress | Carmen
Famed singer and author Geraldine Farrar was educated in public schools and then became a music student of Mrs. J.H. Long, Trabadello, Emma Thursby, Lilli Lehman and Graziani. Her 1901 debut was at the Royal Opera House in Berlin, in the role of Marguerite in "Faust". From 1906-22 she was a member ...
182. Mary Miles Minter
Actress | Anne of Green Gables
Little Mary Miles Minter was a child star who was dominated by her mother. At the age of 5 she first appeared on the stage in the play "Cameo Kirby". From that time on she worked steadily without a single vacation. Her greatest stage success was in "The Littlest Rebel", with William Farnum and ...
183. Laura La Plante
Actress | The Cat and the Canary
Laura La Plante was 15 years old when she entered films as a Christie Comedy Bathing Beauty. By 1921, she had played a number of roles including a Tom Mix Western called The Big Town Round-Up (1921) for Fox and The Old Swimmin' Hole (1921) for First National. Laura, now 17, next signed with ...
184. Nita Naldi
Actress | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Nonna Dooley, the future silent screen star, began her career as a showgirl in a Shubert revue in the Winter Garden, later went on to the famed Ziegfeld Follies.
After a successful career on the stage with the Follies, Nita decided to try her hand with films in Hollywood. Her rise to fame was very ...
After a successful career on the stage with the Follies, Nita decided to try her hand with films in Hollywood. Her rise to fame was very ...
185. Betty Blythe
Actress | She
Brunette, buxom matinee idol Betty Blythe capitalised on the 'roaring 20's' infatuation with exotic screen sirens to achieve a brief period of stardom. She was notoriously one of the first actresses to ever appear nude (or in various stages of undress) on screen. It wasn't that Betty couldn't act, ...
186. Viola Dana
Actress | Two Sisters
Viola Dana (real name Virginia Flugrath) was born in Brooklyn, NY, on June 26, 1897. She was the middle sister of three sisters (the other two were Edna Flugrath and Shirley Mason). She made her film debut in 1914 in Molly the Drummer Boy (1914). The following year she received top billing playing ...
187. Dorothy Sebastian
Actress | Ship of Wanted Men
The daughter of a clergyman and a mother, who was an accomplished painter of portraits and landscapes, Stella Dorothy Sabiston spent her formative years in her home state of Alabama. She had three siblings, all of whom died relatively young. She attended the University of Alabama, but always ...
188. Evelyn Brent
Actress | The Silver Horde
Petite, sultry leading lady of the 1920's and 30's, who was born and schooled in Tampa, Florida, until the age of ten when she lost her mother. She moved to New York with her dad and started modelling while still in her teens. Her original intention was to go into the teaching profession. Instead, ...
189. Pearl White
Actress | The Perils of Pauline
Born on her father's farm in Green Ridge, Missouri, the youngest of five children. Moved with her family to Springfield, Missouri, where she grew up. Joined the Diemer Theatre Company during her second year of high school, and went on the road with a touring stock company at age 18, in 1907. Signed...
190. Annette Kellerman
Actress | Venus of the South Seas
Annette Kellerman was born on July 6, 1887 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia as Annette Marie Sarah Kellerman. She is known for her work on Venus of the South Seas (1924), Jephtah's Daughter: A Biblical Tragedy (1909) and A Daughter of the Gods (1916). She was married to James R. Sullivan. She ...
191. Dorothy Mackaill
Actress | Bulldog Drummond at Bay
Dorothy Mackaill was 11 when her parents separated; she then lived with her father. A rebellious teenager, Dorothy -- who had long wanted a career in the theater -- ran away to London and finally persuaded her father to pay for her board and lessons. Her first job was in the chorus; she then ...
192. Eleanor Parker
Actress | The Sound of Music
Eleanor Jean Parker was born on June 26, 1922, in Cedarville, Ohio, the last of three children born to a mathematics teacher and his wife. Eleanor caught the acting bug early and began performing in school plays. She was was so serious about becoming a thespian that she attended the Rice Summer ...
193. Mary Nash
Actress | The Philadelphia Story
When her Hollywood career began in 1934, Mary Nash was already a veteran performer, having appeared in vaudeville and on Broadway. Following a brief appearance as a dancer in 1904, she joined Ethel Barrymore in a 1905 off- Broadway production, 'Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire'. This was followed by 'Captain ...
194. Mary Anderson
Actress | Lifeboat
Mary Anderson was born on April 3, 1918 in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. She was an actress, known for Lifeboat (1944), Gone with the Wind (1939) and Henry and Dizzy (1942). She was married to Leon Shamroy and Leonard Marion Behrens. She died on April 6, 2014 in Burbank, California, USA.
195. Anna Lee
Actress | The Sound of Music
The daughter of a clergyman, Anna Lee was born Joan Boniface Winnifrith and encouraged to pursue an acting career by her father. After training at London's Royal Albert Hall, she took to the boards and later began appearing in English films, first as an extra, then working her way up to featured ...
196. Ellen Corby
Actress | The Waltons
Ellen Corby was born Ellen Hansen on June 3, 1911, in Racine, Wisconsin. She began her career as a bit player in the film Speed Limited (1935) in 1940. Ellen would not be seen on the big screen again until 1945 in Cornered (1945). In 1946, she appeared in 14 films, although mostly in small, minor ...
197. Evelyn Keyes
Actress | The Seven Year Itch
No shrinking violet this one, but despite her talent, vivacity and sheer drive, lovely and alluring blonde Evelyn Keyes would remain for the most part typed as a "B" girl on the silver screen. In spite of her ripe contributions to such superior pictures as Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), The Jolson ...
198. Gladys Cooper
Actress | My Fair Lady
Gladys Cooper was the daughter of journalist William Frederick Cooper and his wife Mabel Barnett. As a child she was very striking and was used as a photographic model beginning at six years old. She wanted to become an actress and started on that road in 1905 after being discovered by Seymour ...
199. May Whitty
Actress | Night Must Fall
Born Mary Whitty on June 19, 1865 to a Liverpool newspaper editor and his wife, she became known as May Whitty to the world.
She first stepped on the London stage in 1882. She worked as an understudy at the St. James Theatre, and then, began playing leading roles when she joined a traveling stock ...
She first stepped on the London stage in 1882. She worked as an understudy at the St. James Theatre, and then, began playing leading roles when she joined a traveling stock ...
200. Barbara Rush
Actress | It Came from Outer Space
The epitome of poise, charm, style and grace, beautiful brunette Barbara Rush was born in Denver, Colorado in 1927 and enrolled at the University of California before working with the University Players and taking acting classes at the Pasadena Playhouse. It didn't take long for talent scouts to ...
201. Vera Miles
Actress | The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Born in Boise City, Oklahoma, Vera Miles attended school in Pratt, Kansas and Wichita, Kansas. The patrician beauty of Miss Miles won her the title of "Miss Kansas" in 1948, leading soon to small roles in Hollywood films and television series. Fame came to the forthright, spirited Miles when she ...
202. Arlene Dahl
Actress | Journey to the Center of the Earth
Elegance and femininity are fitting descriptions for Arlene Dahl. She is considered to be one of the most beautiful actresses to have graced the screen during the postwar period. Audiences were captivated by her breathtaking beauty and the way she used to it to her advantage, progressing from ...
203. Jean Seberg
Actress | À bout de souffle
Jean Dorothy Seberg was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, to Dorothy Arline (Benson), a substitute teacher, and Edward Waldemar Seberg, a pharmacist. Her father was of Swedish descent and her mother was of English and German ancestry.
One month before her eighteenth birthday, Jean landed the title role in ...
One month before her eighteenth birthday, Jean landed the title role in ...
204. Carolyn Jones
Actress | Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Carolyn Jones was born April 28, 1930, in Amarillo, Texas. Her mother was Jeannette and her sister was Bette (Moriarty). She was an imaginative child, much like her mother. In 1934, her father abandoned the family and her mother moved them in with her parents, also in Amarillo. As a child Carolyn ...
205. Anna Q. Nilsson
Actress | Sunset Blvd.
Anna Quirentia Nilsson, popularly known as "Anna Q", who was born on March 30th, 1888, in Ystad, Sweden, emigrated to the United States in 1905. The 5'7" Nilsson used her blonde beauty to become a famous model for well-known fashion photographers and fine artists. In 1907 she was chosen the most ...
206. Natacha Rambova
Actress | When Love Grows Cold
Primarily famous as the wife of screen idol Rudolph Valentino, Natacha Rambova was also a talented dancer and an innovative set designer, bringing the Art Deco style to Hollywood for the first time. At the age of 17 she became a protégé and lover of Russian ballet Svengali Theodore Kosloff, a ...
207. Josephine Baker
Actress | Zouzou
Josephine Baker was born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, MO, in 1906 to Carrie McDonald, a laundress, and Eddie Carson, a musician. Her early life hinted at her future career. She first danced for the public on the streets of St. Louis for nickels and dimes. Later she became a chorus girl on...
208. Lyda Borelli
Actress | Malombra
Lyda Borelli was born on March 22, 1884 in Rivarolo Ligure, Genoa, Liguria, Italy. She was an actress, known for Malombra (1917), Madame Guillotine (1916) and Satan's Rhapsody (1917). She was married to Vittorio Cini di Monselice. She died on June 1, 1959 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.
209. Ruth Gordon
Actress | Rosemary's Baby
When Ruth Gordon convinced her father, a sea captain, to let her pursue acting she came to New York and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She acted in a few silents made at Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 1915. She made her Broadway debut in "Peter Pan" as Nibs the same year. The next 20 ...
210. Mary Boland
Actress | The Women
Lively, buxom character actress Mary Boland made a name for herself playing vacuous or pixillated motherly types during the 1930's. One of her most memorable performances was as the addle-brained Mrs. Rimplegar of Three Cornered Moon (1933), who gives away her family fortune to a swindler because ...
211. Virginia Weidler
Actress | The Philadelphia Story
Delightful child/juvenile actress Virginia Weidler (her friends called her "Ginny") had that knowing gleam in her eye that usually spelled trouble in one form or another for anyone at arm's reach. She was born in Eagle Rock, California in 1926, one of the six children of former Wagnerian opera ...
212. Ruth Hussey
Actress | The Philadelphia Story
A graduate of the University of Michigan School of Drama, Ruth Hussey's first show-business job was as a fashion commentator on a local radio station. She journeyed to New York City, where she was signed as a model by the world-famous Powers agency. She obtained some stage roles with touring ...
213. Mady Christians
Actress | Heidi
Mady Christians was born in Vienna, Austria. Destined to be in films in both Germany and the US, she started out as a stage actress but soon found new challenges in the world of cinema. Her first film was at the age of 24 when she appeared in Audrey (1916). She remained in German films for the next...
214. Harriet Nelson
Actress | The Falcon Strikes Back
Harriet Nelson will always have a secure place alongside Barbara Billingsley and Jane Wyatt in the "TV's Golden Age Mom Hall of Fame." For fourteen years, she, husband Ozzie Nelson, and their two boys, David Nelson and Ricky Nelson, were the quintessential role models of the '50s ideal nuclear ...
215. Elisabeth Bergner
Actress | Paris Calling
Elisabeth Bergner was the daughter of the merchant Emil Ettel and his wife Anna Rosa Wagner. She grew up in Vienna, and she made her theatre debut in Innsbruck in 1915. In 1916 she obtained a contract in Zürich, where she played Ophelia next to the famous Alexander Moissi, who fell in love with her...
216. Leila Hyams
Actress | Freaks
Leila Hyams was one of the top leading ladies of the early talkie pre-code years. She was a likable, pleasing actress with a charming presence. She had much spark, personality and charisma, and a touch of down-to-earthiness and naturalness that won over movie fans; they could relate to her. A ...
217. Marge Champion
Actress | The Party
One of the great dancer and choreographers in both movies and stage, Marge Champion is best known today as the former wife of Gower Champion, when they worked together as a highly successfully dancing team in the MGM musical years. After retiring from movies, Champion now works as a dance teacher ...
218. Lina Basquette
Actress | Hello Trouble
Journalist Adela Rogers St. Johns once dubbed Lina Basquette "The Screen Tragedy Girl." In retrospect, Lina's private life bore a similar description. While six of her eight marriages ended up "I Don'ts" (she was widowed twice), she would also have to contend with a flurry of legal confrontations, ...
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