33 living legends
by vinsond21 | created - 30 Dec 2010 | updated - 14 Oct 2022 | Public1. Jerry Lewis
Actor | The Nutty Professor
Jerry Lewis (born March 16, 1926 - August 20, 2017) was an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team ...
2. Stan Lee
Producer | Spider-Man: Homecoming
Stan Lee was an American comic-book writer, editor, and publisher, who was executive vice president and publisher of Marvel Comics.
Stan was born in New York City, to Celia (Solomon) and Jack Lieber, a dress cutter. His parents were Romanian Jewish immigrants. Lee co-created Spider-Man, the Hulk, ...
3. Stephen Sondheim
Soundtrack | Dick Tracy
He did his pre college training at George School, Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, then was in a class of 50 at Williams College majoring in music as an undergraduate distinguishing himself by writing a book, lyrics and music for two college shows based on the adaption of 'Beggar on Horseback'....
4. 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 ...
5. Twiggy
Actress | The Boy Friend
Twiggy is a top model of the late 1960s, who made skinny an "inny," along with other famous skinny models such as Jean Shrimpton ("The Shrimp"), Veruschka von Lehndorff, and Penelope Tree ("The Tree"). She was born Leslie Hornby on September 19, 1949, in Twickenham, Middlesex, England, one of three...
6. Olivia de Havilland
Actress | Gone with the Wind
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on 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 ...
7. Kirk Douglas
Actor | The Final Countdown
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 on December 9, 1916 in Amsterdam, New York. ...
8. Betty White
Actress | The Proposal
Betty White was born in Oak Park, Illinois, to Christine Tess (Cachikis), a homemaker, and Horace Logan White, a lighting company executive for the Crouse-Hinds Electric Company. She was of Danish, Greek, English, and Welsh descent.
Although she was best known as the devious Sue Ann Nivens on the ...
9. Doris Day
Soundtrack | Love Me or Leave Me
One of America's most loved actresses was born Doris Mary 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 died ...
10. Angela Lansbury
Actress | The Manchurian Candidate
Angela Lansbury was born in 1925 into a prominent family of the upper middle class living in the Regent's Park neighborhood of London. Her father was socialist politician Edgar Isaac Lansbury (1887-1935), a member of both the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Labour Party. Edgar ...
11. Mel Brooks
Actor | Spaceballs
Mel Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky on June 28, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. He served in WWII, and afterwards got a job playing the drums at nightclubs in the Catskills. Brooks eventually started a comedy act and also worked in radio and as Master Entertainer at Grossinger's Resort before going to ...
12. Liza Minnelli
Soundtrack | Cabaret
Liza Minnelli was born on March 12, 1946, the daughter of Judy Garland and movie director Vincente Minnelli. She was practically raised at MGM studios while her parents worked long hours there and she made her film debut at fourteen months of age in the movie In the Good Old Summertime (1949). Her ...
13. Warren Beatty
Actor | Reds
Since starring in his first film, Splendor in the Grass (1961), Warren Beatty has been said to have demonstrated a greater longevity in movies than any actor of his generation. Few people have taken so many responsibilities for all phases of the production of films as producer, director, writer, ...
14. Arnold Schwarzenegger
Actor | Terminator 2: Judgment Day
With an almost unpronounceable surname and a thick Austrian accent, who would have ever believed that a brash, quick talking bodybuilder from a small European village would become one of Hollywood's biggest stars, marry into the prestigious Kennedy family, amass a fortune via shrewd investments and...
15. Vanessa Redgrave
Actress | Coriolanus
On January 30, 1937, renowned theatre actor Michael Redgrave was performing in a production of Hamlet in London. During the curtain call, the show's lead, Laurence Olivier, announced to the audience: "tonight a great actress was born". This was in reference to his co-star's newborn daughter, ...
16. Jane Fonda
Actress | Klute
Born in New York City to legendary screen star Henry Fonda and Ontario-born New York socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw, Jane Seymour Fonda was destined early to an uncommon and influential life in the limelight. Although she initially showed little inclination to follow her father's trade, she was ...
17. Mia Farrow
Actress | Rosemary's Baby
Mia Farrow is the daughter of the director John Farrow and the actress and Tarzan-girl Maureen O'Sullivan. She debuted at the movies in 1959 in very small roles. She was noticed for the first time in the film Rosemary's Baby (1968) by Roman Polanski. She showed her talent also on TV and at the ...
18. Woody Allen
Writer | Annie Hall
Woody Allen was born on November 30, 1935, as Allen Konigsberg, in The Bronx, NY, the son of Martin Konigsberg and Nettie Konigsberg. He has one younger sister, Letty Aronson. As a young boy, he became intrigued with magic tricks and playing the clarinet, two hobbies that he continues today.
Allen ...
19. Sophia Loren
Actress | La ciociara
Sophia Loren was born as Sofia Scicolone at the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome on September 20, 1934. Her father Riccardo 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 ...
20. Burt Bacharach
Soundtrack | Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Burt Bacharach was a well known and multi award winning singer and song writer.
Over 1,000 different artists have recorded Bacharach's songs. From 1961 to 1972, most of Bacharach and David's hits were written specifically for and performed by Dionne Warwick, but earlier associations (from 1957 to ...
21. Carol Burnett
Soundtrack | The Carol Burnett Show
The entertainment world has enjoyed a six-decade love affair with comedienne/singer Carol Burnett. A peerless sketch performer and delightful, self-effacing personality who rightfully succeeded Lucille Ball as the carrot-topped "Queen of Television Comedy," it was Burnett's traumatic childhood that...
22. Robert Redford
Actor | The Natural
Born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, to Charles Robert Redford, an accountant for Standard Oil, and Martha Redford, Charles Robert Redford, Jr. was a scrappy kid who stole hubcaps in high school and lost his college baseball scholarship at the University of Colorado because of ...
23. Bob Dylan
Soundtrack | Renaldo and Clara
Robert Allen Zimmerman was born 24 May 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota; his father Abe worked for the Standard Oil Co. Six years later the family moved to Hibbing, often the coldest place in the US, where he taught himself piano and guitar and formed several high school rock bands. In 1959 he entered the...
24. Dolly Parton
Soundtrack | The Porter Wagoner Show
Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on January 19, 1946 in Pittman Center, Tennessee and raised in Sevierville, Tennessee to Avie Lee Parton, a housewife & Robert Lee Parton, a tobacco farmer. At 12, she was appearing on Knoxville TV and at 13, she was already recording on a small label and appearing at ...
25. Barbara Walters
Producer | The Barbara Walters Special
Barbara Walters was born on September 25, 1929 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. She was a producer and writer, known for The Barbara Walters Summer Special (1976), The View (1997) and 20/20 (1978). She was married to Merv Adelson, Lee Guber and Robert Henry Katz. She died on December 30, 2022 in ...
26. Alain Delon
Actor | Le Samouraï
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon was born in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, France, to Édith (Arnold) and Fabien Delon. His father was of French and Corsican Italian descent, and his mother was of French and German ancestry. His parents divorced early on, and Delon had a stormy childhood, being ...
27. Ralph Lauren
Costume_department | Annie Hall
Ralph Lauren was born on October 14, 1939 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and director, known for Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979) and The Wild Party (1975). He has been married to Ricky Lauren since December 20, 1964. They have three children.
28. Pat Boone
Soundtrack | Journey to the Center of the Earth
Actor, singer, author and songwriter ("Exodus") Pat Boone was educated at David Lipscombe College, North Texas State College and Columbia University (from which he received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1958). His career in entertainment began when he emceed a teenage talent show on radio and ...
29. Paul Williams
Soundtrack | Phantom of the Paradise
Known for timeless classics such as "We've Only Just Begun," "Rainy Days and Mondays," "Evergreen," "Just an Old Fashioned Love Song," and "Rainbow Connection," Paul Williams is responsible for what will remain part of our popular culture for many years to come. His music has been recorded by some ...
30. Cher
Actress | Moonstruck
The beat goes on ... and on ... and as strong as ever for this superstar entertainer who has well surpassed the half-century mark while improbably transforming herself from an artificial, glossy "flashionplate" singer into a serious, Oscar-worthy, dramatic actress ... and back again! With more ups ...
31. Barbra Streisand
Actress | Yentl
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,...
32. Daniel Radcliffe
Actor | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Daniel Jacob Radcliffe was born on July 23, 1989 in Fulham, London, England, to casting agent Marcia Gresham (née Jacobson) and literary agent Alan Radcliffe. His father is from a Northern Irish Protestant background, while his mother was born in South Africa, to a Jewish family (from Lithuania, ...
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