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1.
Katharine Hepburn
Actress, Bringing Up Baby
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 devastated at age
14 to find him dead...
2.
Jack Nicholson
Actor, The Shining
Jack Nicholson, an American actor,
producer, screenwriter and director, is a three-time Academy Award
winner and 12-time nominee. Nicholson is also notable for being one of
two actors - the other being Michael Caine - who have received Oscar nods in every decade from 1960s through the 2000s. Nicholson was born on April 22...
3.
Laurence Olivier
Actor, Rebecca
Laurence Olivier could speak William Shakespeare's lines as naturally as if he were "actually thinking them", said English playwright Charles Bennett,
who met Olivier in 1927. Laurence Kerr Olivier was born in Dorking,
Surrey, England, to Agnes Louise (Crookenden) and Gerard Kerr Olivier, a
High Anglican priest. His surname came from a great-great-grandfather
who was of French Huguenot origin...
4.
Meryl Streep
Actress, The Devil Wears Prada
Considered by many critics to be the
greatest living actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy
Award an astonishing 19 times, and has won it three times. Meryl was
born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf
(Wilkinson), a commercial artist, and Harry William Streep...
5.
Humphrey Bogart
Actor, Casablanca
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born in New
York City, New York, to Maud Humphrey, a famed magazine illustrator and
suffragette, and Belmont DeForest Bogart, a moderately wealthy surgeon
(who was secretly addicted to opium). Bogart was educated at Trinity
School, NYC, and was sent to Phillips Academy in Andover...
6.
Audrey Hepburn
Actress, Breakfast at Tiffany's
Audrey Hepburn was born Audrey Kathleen
Ruston on May 4, 1929 in Brussels, Belgium. She was a blue-blood and a
cosmopolitan from birth. Her mother, Ella van Heemstra, was a Dutch
baroness, and her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, was born in
Úzice, Bohemia, of English and Austrian descent, and worked in
business...
7.
Robert De Niro
Actor, Goodfellas
Robert De Niro, thought of as one of the
greatest American actors of all time, was born in New York City, to
artists Virginia (Admiral) and Robert De Niro Sr.
His paternal grandfather was of Italian descent, and his other ancestry
is Irish, Dutch, English, French, and German. He was trained at the
Stella Adler Conservatory and the American Workshop...
8.
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 then she discovered
the stage...
9.
Cary Grant
Actor, North by Northwest
Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody
would like to be Cary Grant", Grant is said to have replied, "So would
I." Cary Grant was born Archibald Alexander Leach in Horfield, Bristol,
England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, who worked in a
factory. His early years in Bristol would have been an ordinary
lower-middle-class childhood...
10.
Marlon Brando
Actor, The Godfather
Marlon Brando is widely considered the greatest movie actor of all time, rivaled only by the more theatrically oriented Laurence Olivier
in terms of esteem. Unlike Olivier, who preferred the stage to the
screen, Brando concentrated his talents on movies after bidding the
Broadway stage adieu in 1949...
11.
James Stewart
Actor, Rear Window
James Maitland Stewart was born on 20 May
1908 in Indiana, Pennsylvania, to Elizabeth Ruth (Johnson) and Alexander
Maitland Stewart, who owned a hardware store. He was of Scottish,
Scots-Irish, and some English, descent. Stewart was educated at a local
prep school, Mercersburg Academy, where he was a keen athlete (football
and track)...
12.
Ingrid Bergman
Actress, Casablanca
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, second only to Katharine Hepburn...
13.
Marilyn Monroe
Soundtrack, Some Like It Hot
Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane
Mortenson on June 1, 1926 in Los Angeles, California. Her mother was a
film-cutter at RKO Studios who, widowed and mentally ill, abandoned her
to sequence of foster homes. She was almost smothered to death at two,
nearly raped at six. At nine, the LA Orphans' Home paid her a nickel a
month for kitchen work while taking back a penny every Sunday for
church...
14.
Al Pacino
Actor, The Godfather
One of the greatest actors in all of film
history, Al Pacino established himself during one of film's greatest
decades, the 1970s, and has become an enduring and iconic figure in the
world of American movies. Pacino was born on April 25, 1940, in the
Bronx, New York, to an Italian-American family. His parents...
15.
Grace Kelly
Actress, Rear Window
Grace Patricia Kelly was born on November
12, 1929 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to wealthy parents. She was the
daughter of Margaret Katherine (Majer), a phys ed instructor, and John
Brendan Kelly, Sr., a three-time Olympic Gold winner for rowing. Her
uncle was playwright George Kelly. She was of half Irish and half German descent...
16.
Orson Welles
Actor, Citizen Kane
His father was a well-to-do inventor, his
mother a beautiful concert pianist; Orson Welles was gifted in many arts
(magic, piano, painting) as a child. When his mother died (he was
seven) he traveled the world with his father. When his father died (he
was fifteen) he became the ward of Chicago's Dr...
17.
Sidney Poitier
Actor, In the Heat of the Night
A native of Cat Island, The Bahamas
(though born in Miami during a mainland visit by his parents), Poitier
grew up in poverty as the son of farmers Evelyn (Outten) and Reginald
James Poitier, who also drove a cab. He had little formal education and
at the age of 15 was sent to Miami to live with his brother...
18.
Paul Newman
Screen legend, superstar, and the man with
the most famous blue eyes in movie history, Paul Leonard Newman was
born in January 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio, the second son of Theresa
(Fetsko) and Arthur Sigmund Newman. Paul's father was Jewish, the son of
immigrants from Poland and Hungary; he owned a successful sporting
goods store...
19.
Spencer Tracy
Actor, Judgment at Nuremberg
Spencer Tracy was born four years after
his brother Carroll to truck salesman John Edward and Caroline Brown
Tracy. He attended Marquette Academy along with Pat O'Brien
and the two left school to enlist in the Navy at the start of World War
I. He was still at Norfolk Navy Yard in Virginia at the end of the
war...
20.
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 go to work in a
department store...
21.
Alec Guinness
Actor, Star Wars
Alec Guinness de Cuffe was born on April
2, 1914 in Marylebone, London, England, and was raised by his mother,
Agnes Cuffe. While working in advertising, he studied at the Fay Compton Studio of Dramatic Art, debuting on stage in 1934 and played classic theater with the Old Vic from 1936. In 1941...
22.
Charles Chaplin
Writer, Modern Times
Charlie Chaplin, considered to be one of
the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood, lived an
interesting life both in his films and behind the camera. He is most
recognized as an icon of the silent film era, often associated with his
popular "Little Tramp" character; the man with the toothbrush mustache,
bowler hat, bamboo cane, and a funny walk...
23.
Joan Crawford
Actress, Mildred Pierce
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; Crawford worked a variety of
menial jobs...
24.
Henry Fonda
Actor, Once Upon a Time in the West
Henry Jaynes Fonda was born in Grand
Island, Nebraska, to Elma Herberta (Jaynes) and William Brace Fonda, who
worked in advertising and printing. His recent ancestry included Dutch,
English, and Scottish. Fonda started his acting debut with the Omaha
Community Playhouse, a local amateur theater troupe directed by Dorothy
Brando...
25.
Faye Dunaway
Actress, Chinatown
Faye Dunaway was born on a farm in Bascom,
Florida in 1941, the daughter of Grace April (Smith), a housewife, and
John MacDowell Dunaway, Jr., an army officer. After high school she
majored in education at the University of Florida, but switched to
theatre arts and transferred to Boston University, earning her degree in
1962...
26.
Lillian Gish
Actress, The Night of the Hunter
Lillian 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 Lillian and her sister Dorothy were old enough, they
became part of the act...
27.
Gregory Peck
Actor, To Kill a Mockingbird
Eldred Gregory Peck was born in La Jolla,
California, to Bernice Mary (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist
and druggist in San Diego. He had Irish (from his paternal grandmother),
English, and some German, ancestry. His parents divorced when he was
five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his
grandmother...
28.
Vivien Leigh
Actress, Gone with the Wind
Vivian Mary Hartley was born on November
5, 1913, in Darjeeling, India, a strange place for one of the world's
most celebrated actresses to be born. She was to live in this beautiful
country for the next six years. Her parents wanted to go home to England
but because of World War I they opted to stay in India...
29.
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 grew up...
30.
Dustin Hoffman
Actor, Kramer vs. Kramer
Dustin Lee Hoffman was born in Los
Angeles, California, to Lillian (Gold) and Harry Hoffman, who was a
furniture salesman and prop supervisor for Columbia Pictures. He was
raised in a Jewish family (from Ukraine, Russia-Poland, and Romania).
Hoffman graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1955, and went to
Santa Monica City College...
31.
Tom Hanks
Actor, The Da Vinci Code
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord,
California, to Janet Marylyn (Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos
Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook. His father had English, and some
German, ancestry, while his mother's family, originally surnamed
"Fraga", was entirely Portuguese. Tom grew up in what he has called a
"fractured" family...
32.
Elizabeth Taylor
Actress, Giant
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 on with since...
33.
Anthony Hopkins
Actor, Hannibal
Anthony Hopkins was born on December 31,
1937, in Margam, Wales, to Muriel Anne (Yeats) and Richard Arthur
Hopkins, a baker. His parents were both of half Welsh and half English
descent. Influenced by Richard Burton,
he decided to study at College of Music and Drama and graduated in
1957. In 1965, he moved to London and joined the National Theatre...
34.
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, wherein she played Victoria, and from the hit drama The Colbys. But she was known to millions of other fans for her movie career, which spanned the period from 1927 until 1964...
35.
Olivia de Havilland
Actress, The Adventures of Robin Hood
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 surname comes from her paternal grandfather...
36.
Yul Brynner
Actor, The Magnificent Seven
Exotic leading man of American films,
famed as much for his completely bald head as for his performances, Yul
Brynner masked much of his life in mystery and outright lies designed to
tease people he considered gullible. It was not until the publication
of the books "Yul: The Man Who Would Be King" and...
37.
James Cagney
Actor, White Heat
One of Hollywood's preeminent male stars of all time (eclipsed, perhaps, only by "King" Clark Gable and arguably by Gary Cooper or Spencer Tracy),
and the cinema's quintessential "tough guy", James Cagney was also an
accomplished--if rather stiff--hoofer and easily played light comedy.
James Francis Cagney was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New
York City...
38.
Jack Lemmon
Actor, The Apartment
Jack Lemmon was born in Newton,
Massachusetts, to Mildred Burgess LaRue (Noel) and John Uhler Lemmon,
Jr., the president of a doughnut company. His ancestry included Irish
(from his paternal grandmother) and English. Jack attended Ward
Elementary near his Newton, MA home. At age 9 he was sent to Rivers
Country Day School...
39.
Denzel Washington
Actor, American Gangster
Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. was born on
December 28, 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York. He is the middle of three
children of a beautician mother, Lennis (Lowe), from Georgia, and a
Pentecostal minister father, Denzel Washington, Sr., from Virginia.
After graduating from high school, Denzel enrolled at Fordham
University...
40.
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 California in the hopes of improving their health...
41.
Sophia Loren
Actress, Two Women
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 her younger sister Maria Scicolone)...
42.
Peter Sellers
Often credited as the greatest comedian of
all time, Peter Sellers was born to a well-off English acting family in
1925. His mother and father worked in an acting company run by his
grandmother. As a child, Sellers was spoiled, as his parents' first
child had died at birth. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force and served
during World War II...
43.
Judy Garland
Soundtrack, 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
Minnesota...
44.
Kate Winslet
Actress, Titanic
Ask Kate Winslet what she likes about any
of her characters, and the word "ballsy" is bound to pop up at least
once. The British actress has made a point of eschewing straightforward
pretty-girl parts in favor of more devilish damsels; as a result, she's
built an eclectic resume; that runs the gamut from Shakespearean tragedy
to modern-day mysticism and erotica...
45.
Gary Cooper
Actor, High Noon
Born to Alice Cooper
and Charles Cooper (not in film business). Gary attended school at
Dunstable school England, Helena Montana and Iowa College, Grinnell,
Iowa. His first stage experience was during high school and college.
Afterwards, he worked as an extra for one year before getting a part in a
two reeler by Hans Tissler (an independent producer)...
46.
Edward G. Robinson
Actor, Double Indemnity
Edward G. Robinson arrived in the United
States at age ten, and his family moved into New York's Lower East Side.
He took up acting while attending City College, abandoning plans to
become a rabbi or lawyer. The American Academy of Dramatic Arts awarded
him a scholarship, and he began work in stock...
47.
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 then as a cabaret
singer...
48.
Charles Laughton
Actor, Spartacus
Charles Laughton was born in Scarborough,
North Riding of Yorkshire, England, to Eliza (Conlon) and Robert
Laughton, hotel keepers of Irish and English descent. He was educated at
Stonyhurst, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (received gold medal). His
first appearance on stage was in 1926. Laughton formed own film
company...
49.
Mae West
Soundtrack, I'm No Angel
Mary Jane West was born in Brooklyn, New
York, on August 17, 1893, to parents involved in prizefighting and
vaudeville. Mae herself worked on the stage and in vaudeville from the
time she was five years old. She never was academically inclined because
she was too busy performing. She studied dance as a child...
50.
Diane Keaton
Actress, The Godfather: Part II
Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall in Los
Angeles, California, to Dorothy Deanne (Keaton), an amateur
photographer, and John Newton Ignatius "Jack" Hall, a civil engineer and
real estate broker. Her ancestry includes Irish, English, German, and
Scottish. Keaton studied Drama at Santa Ana College before dropping out
to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York...
51.
William Holden
Actor, The Bridge on the River Kwai
William Holden was born William Franklin
Beedle, Jr. in O'Fallon, Illinois, to Mary Blanche (Ball), a
schoolteacher, and William Franklin Beedle, Sr., an industrial chemist.
He came from a wealthy family (the Beedles) that moved to Pasadena,
California, when he was three. In 1937, while studying chemistry at
Pasadena Junior College...
52.
Daniel Day-Lewis
Actor, There Will Be Blood
Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is the only
person in film history to win the Oscar award for Best Actor three
times. Born in London, England, he is the second child of Cecil
Day-Lewis (A.K.A. Nicholas Blake) (Poet Laureate of England) and his second wife, Jill Balcon. His maternal grandfather was Sir Michael Balcon...
53.
Jodie Foster
Actress, The Silence of the Lambs
Alicia Christian Foster was born in Los
Angeles on November 19, 1962. She is the daughter of Evelyn Ella
"Brandy" (Almond) and Lucius Fisher Foster III, an Air Force lieutenant
colonel and later real estate broker. Her parents divorced three years
before she was born, and she was conceived when her mother was visiting
her father for child support...
54.
Julia Roberts
Actress, Notting Hill
Julia Fiona Roberts never dreamed she
would become the most popular actress in America. She was born in
Smyrna, Georgia, to Betty Lou (Bredemus) and Walter Grady Roberts,
one-time actors and playwrights, and is of English, Irish, Scottish,
Welsh, German, and Swedish descent. As a child, due to her love of
animals...
55.
Lauren Bacall
Actress, The Big Sleep
Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske
on September 16, 1924, in New York City. She is 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 salesman and her mother as a
secretary...
56.
Fred Astaire
Soundtrack, Top Hat
Fred Astaire was born in Omaha, Nebraska,
to Johanna (Geilus) and Fritz Austerlitz, a brewer. Fred entered show
business at age 5. He was successful both in vaudeville and on Broadway
in partnership with his sister, Adele Astaire. After Adele retired to marry in 1932, Astaire headed to Hollywood. Signed to RKO...
57.
John Wayne
Actor, The Searchers
John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison
in Iowa, to Mary Alberta (Brown) and Clyde Leonard Morrison, a
pharmacist. He was of English, Scots-Irish, and Irish ancestry. Clyde
developed a lung condition that required him to move his family from
Iowa to the warmer climate of southern California, where they tried
ranching in the Mojave Desert...
58.
Rita Hayworth
Actress, Gilda
Spanish dancer Eduardo Cansino's
daughter Margarita studied dancing beginning in her girlhood. At age
12, the mature-looking Rita joined Eduardo's stage act, in which she was
spotted three years later by Fox studio head Winfield R. Sheehan, leading to her first studio contract and film debut at age 16 in Dante's Inferno...
59.
Toshirô Mifune
Actor, Seven Samurai
Toshiro Mifune achieved more worldwide
fame than any other Japanese actor of his century. He was born in
Tsingtao, China, to Japanese parents and grew up in Dalian. He did not
set foot in Japan until he was 21. His father was an importer and a
commercial photographer, and young Toshiro worked in his father's studio
for a time after graduating from Dalian Middle School...
60.
Clark Gable
Actor, It Happened One Night
William Clark Gable was born on February
1, 1901 in Cadiz, Ohio, to Adeline (Hershelman) and William Henry Gable,
an oil-well driller. He was of German, Irish, and Swiss-German descent.
When he was seven months old, his mother died, and his father sent him
to live with his maternal aunt and uncle in Pennsylvania...
61.
Shirley Temple
Actress, The Little Princess
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 her...
62.
Buster Keaton
Actor, The General
When, at six months, he tumbled down a flight of stairs unharmed, he was given the name "Buster" by Harry Houdini who, along with W.C. Fields, Bill Robinson ("Bojangles"), Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson shared headlines with "The Three Keatons": Buster, his father Joe Keaton and mother Myra Keaton...
63.
Judi Dench
Actress, Skyfall
Judi Dench was born in York, England, to
Eleanora Olive (Jones), who was from Dublin, Ireland, and Reginald
Arthur Dench, a doctor from Dorset, England. She attended Mount School
in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She has
performed with Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre...
64.
Deborah Kerr
Actress, The King and I
Born Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer in Scotland
in 1921, she was the daughter of a soldier who had been gassed in World
War I. A shy, insecure child, she found an outlet for expressing her
feelings in acting. Her aunt, a radio star, got her some stage work when
she was a teenager, and she came to the attention of British film
producer Gabriel Pascal...
65.
Maureen O'Hara
Actress, Miracle on 34th Street
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 her entrance into
this caring haven on August 17...
66.
Michael Caine
Actor, The Dark Knight
Michael Caine was born Maurice Joseph
Micklewhite in London, to Ellen Frances Marie (Burchell), a charlady,
and Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, a fish-market porter. He left school at
15 and took a series of working-class jobs before joining the British
army and serving in Korea during the Korean War, where he saw combat...
67.
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.
From the following year on, she had leading roles in pictures for
Keystone, then a year with Triangle, and, in 1919, a contract with Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille transformed her from a typical Mack Sennett comedienne into a lively...
68.
Kirk Douglas
Actor, Spartacus
Cleft-chinned, steely-eyed and virile star
of international cinema who rose from being "the ragman's son" (the
name of his best-selling 1988 autobiography) to become a bona fide
superstar, Kirk Douglas, also known as Issur Danielovitch Demsky, was
born in Amsterdam, New York, in 1916. His parents, Bryna (Sanglel) and
Herschel Danielovitch...
70.
Susan Sarandon
Actress, Thelma & Louise
Susan Sarandon was born in New York City,
New York, to Lenora Marie (Criscione) and Phillip Leslie Tomalin, a
television producer and advertising executive. She is of Italian
(mother) and English, Irish, Welsh, and German (father) descent. Soon
after the 1968 Democratic convention, there was a casting call for a
film with several roles for the kind of young people who had disrupted
the convention...
71.
Gene Hackman
Actor, Unforgiven
Gene Hackman was born in San Bernardino,
California, the son of Lydia (née Gray) and Eugene Ezra Hackman, who
operated a newspaper printing press. He is of Pennsylvania Dutch
(German), English, and Scottish ancestry, partly by way of Canada, where
his mother was born. Gene grew up in a broken home, which he left at
the age of 16 for a hitch with the US Marines...
72.
Natalie Wood
Actress, West Side Story
Natalie Wood was born on July 20, 1938, in
San Francisco, California, as Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko. Her
parents, Maria Stepanovna (Zudilova) and Nikolai Stepanovich Zakharenko,
were Russian-born émigrés, of Ukrainian and Russian descent, who spoke
barely comprehensible English; they changed the family name to Gurdin
after becoming US citizens...
73.
Jean Arthur
Actress, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
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 Greene in upstate New
York...
74.
Morgan Freeman
Actor, The Shawshank Redemption
With an authoritative voice and calm
demeanor, this ever popular American actor has grown into one of the
most respected figures in modern US cinema. Morgan was born in June 1937
in Memphis, Tennessee, to Mayme Edna (Revere), a teacher, and Morgan
Porterfield Freeman, a barber. The young Freeman attended...
75.
Peter O'Toole
Actor, Lawrence of Arabia
A leading man of prodigious talents, Peter
O'Toole was raised in Leeds, England, the son of Constance Jane Eliot
(Ferguson), a Scottish nurse, and Patrick Joseph O'Toole, an Irish
bookie. As a boy, he decided to become a journalist, beginning as a
newspaper copy boy. Although he succeeded in becoming a reporter...
76.
Ben Kingsley
Actor, Schindler's List
Ben Kingsley was born in Scarborough,
Yorkshire, England. His father, Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, is of Gujrati
Indian descent, and his mother Anna Lyna Mary, was English. Ben began to
act in stage plays during the 1960s. He soon became a successful stage
actor, and also began to have roles in films and TV...
77.
Susan Hayward
Actress, I Want to Live!
The youngest of three children, Edythe
Marrenner was born in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York. Her
father and mother, who were of Irish and Swedish descent respectively,
endowed her with the milky complexion and ruby mane that would become
her trademark. She grew up in poverty in the shadow of her older sister
Florence who was her mother's favorite...
78.
Setsuko Hara
Actress, Tokyo Story
Setsuko Hara became one of Japan's
best-loved stars over her 30-year film career. Her signature character
type, variations on a daughter devoted to her parents and home, inspired
the nickname that stayed with her until retirement: the Eternal Virgin.
To some extent, reality mirrored her roles in these films...
79.
Robert Mitchum
Actor, The Night of the Hunter
Robert Mitchum was an underrated American
leading man of enormous ability, who sublimated his talents beneath an
air of disinterest. He was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Ann
Harriet (Gunderson), a Norwegian immigrant, and James Thomas Mitchum, a
shipyard/railroad worker. His father died in a train accident when he
was two...
80.
Burt Lancaster
Actor, From Here to Eternity
Burt Lancaster, one of five children, was
born in Manhattan, to Elizabeth (Roberts) and James Henry Lancaster, a
postal worker. All of his grandparents were immigrants from Northern
Ireland. He was a tough street kid who took an early interest in
gymnastics. He joined the circus as an acrobat and worked there until he
was injured...
81.
Robert Redford
Actor, The Sting
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. was born on
August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, to Martha (Hart), from
Texas, and Charles Robert Redford, an accountant for Standard Oil, who
was originally from Connecticut. He is of English, Irish, and Scottish
ancestry. Robert's mother died in 1955, the year after he graduated from
high school...
82.
George C. Scott
George C. Scott was an immensely talented
actor, a star of screen, stage and television. He was born in 1927 in
Wise, Virginia, to Helena Agnes (Slemp) and George Dewey Scott. At the
age of eight, his mother died, and his father, an executive at Buick,
raised him. In 1945 he joined the US Marines and spent four years with
them...
83.
Jane Fonda
Actress, Nine to Five
Jane Seymour Fonda was born in New York City to legendary screen star Henry Fonda and New York socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw. She is the sister of actor Peter Fonda and the aunt of actress Bridget Fonda.
Her ancestry includes Dutch, English, Scottish, and distant French and
Italian. Fonda was destined early to an uncommon and influential life in
the limelight...
84.
Ellen Burstyn
Actress, Interstellar
Ellen Burstyn was born in Detroit,
Michigan, to Correine Marie (Hamel) and John Austin Gillooly. She is of
mostly Irish, German, and French-Canadian descent. Ellen worked a number
of jobs before she became an actress. At 14, she was a short-order cook
at a lunch counter. After graduating from Detroit's Cass Technical High
School...
85.
Charlton Heston
Actor, Ben-Hur
With features chiseled in stone, and
renowned for playing a long list of historical figures, particularly in
Biblical epics, the tall, well built and ruggedly handsome Charlton
Heston was one of Hollywood's greatest leading men and remained active
in front of movie cameras for over sixty years. Heston was born John
Charles Carter on October 4th 1924 in Evanston...
86.
Max von Sydow
Actor, Minority Report
Max von Sydow was born on April 10, 1929
in a middle-class family in Lund, Sweden. He is the son of Maria
Margareta (Rappe) and Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, an ethnologist and
folklore professor. His surname originates from distant German ancestry.
When he was in high school, he and a few fellow students...
87.
Barbra Streisand
Soundtrack, A Star Is Born
Barbra Streisand is an American singer,
actress, director and producer and one of the most successful
personalities in show business. She is the only person ever to receive
all of the following: Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, Cable
Ace, National Endowment for the Arts, and Peabody awards,...
88.
Kevin Spacey
Actor, American Beauty
As enigmatic as he is talented, Kevin
Spacey has always kept the details of his private life closely guarded.
As he explained in a 1998 interview with the London Evening Standard,
"the less you know about me, the easier it is to convince you that I am
that character on screen. It allows an audience to come into a movie
theatre and believe I am that person"...
89.
Clint Eastwood
Actor, Million Dollar Baby
Perhaps the icon of macho movie stars,
Clint Eastwood has become a standard in international cinema. He was
born in 1930 in San Francisco, to Margaret Ruth (Runner), a factory
worker, and Clinton Eastwood, Sr., a steelworker. Eastwood briefly
attended Los Angeles City College but dropped out to pursue acting...
90.
Ava Gardner
Actress, The Killers
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 of her brother-in- law's New
York photo studio brought her to the attention of MGM...
91.
Robert Duvall
Actor, The Godfather: Part II
Veteran actor and director Robert Selden
Duvall was born on January 5, 1931, in San Diego, CA, to Mildred
Virginia (Hart), an amateur actress, and William Howard Duvall, a career
military officer who later became an admiral. Duvall majored in drama
at Principia College (Elsah, IL), then served a two-year hitch in the
army after graduating in 1953...
92.
Sean Connery
Actor, Dr. No
Thomas Sean Connery was born on August 25,
1930 in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. His mother, Euphamia McBain
(Maclean), was a cleaning lady, and his father, Joseph Connery, was a
factory worker and truck driver. He also has a brother named Neil Connery, who works as a plasterer in Edinburgh. He is of Irish and Scottish descent...
93.
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 young
actress...
94.
Richard Burton
Probably more frequently remembered for
his turbulent personal life and multiple marriages, Richard Burton was
nonetheless one of the great British actors of the post-WWII period.
Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins in Pontrhydyfen, Wales, to Edith
Maude (Thomas) and Richard Walter Jenkins, a coal miner...
95.
Nicole Kidman
Actress, Moulin Rouge!
Elegant redhead Nicole Kidman, known as
one of Hollywood's top Australian imports, was actually born in
Honolulu, Hawaii. Kidman is the daughter of Australian parents, Janelle
Ann (Glenny), a nursing instructor, and Antony David Kidman, a
biochemist and clinical psychologist. She is of English, Irish...
96.
Cate Blanchett
Actress, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Cate Blanchett was born on May 14, 1969 in
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, to June (Gamble), an Australian teacher
and property developer, and Robert DeWitt Blanchett, Jr., an American
advertising executive, originally from Texas. She has an older brother
and a younger sister. When she was ten years old...
97.
Geoffrey Rush
Geoffrey Rush was born on July 6, 1951, in
Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, to Merle (Bischof), a department
store sales assistant, and Roy Baden Rush, an accountant for the Royal
Australian Air Force. His mother was of German descent and his father
had English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. He was raised in Brisbane,
Queensland, after his parents split up...
98.
Angelina Jolie
Actress, Maleficent
Angelina Jolie is an Oscar-winning actress
who became popular after playing the title role in the "Lara Croft"
blockbuster movies, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Wanted, Salt and Maleficent. Off-screen, Jolie has become prominently involved in international charity projects, especially those involving refugees...
99.
Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Twisleton Wykeham Fiennes was born
on December 22, 1962 in Suffolk, England, to Jennifer Anne Mary Alleyne
(Lash), a novelist, and Mark Fiennes, a photographer. He is the eldest
of six children. Four of his siblings are also in the arts: Martha Fiennes, a director; Magnus Fiennes, a musician; Sophie, a producer; and Joseph Fiennes, an actor. He is of English, Irish, and Scottish origin...
100.
Takashi Shimura
Actor, Seven Samurai
Japanese character actor Takashi Shimura
was one of the finest film actors of the 20th century and a leading
member of the "stock company" of master director Akira Kurosawa.
A native of southern Japan, Shimura was a descendant of the samurai
warrior class. Following university training, he founded a theatre
company...
company.
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