The Jazz Singer 1952 premiere

1. Peggy Lee

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 ...

2. William Demarest

Actor | Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

A stocky, serious-looking character, Carl William Demarest started off in vaudeville in 1905 along with two older brothers. At one time he also performed in a stage act with his wife Estelle Collette (billed as 'Demarest and Collette') and then moved on to Broadway. He entered movies in 1926 and ...

3. May McAvoy

Actress | The Jazz Singer

Silent-screen star May McAvoy was born in an upscale area of New York City. Her well-to-do family owned and operated a large livery stable situated where the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel now stands. She initially wanted to be a teacher but became intrigued with show business after watching a friend ...

4. 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, 1928 in Mt. Kisco, New York. Her parents split while she was young ...

5. Scott Brady

Actor | Gremlins

He had the manly good looks and rugged appeal to make it to top stardom in Hollywood and succeeded quite well as a sturdy leading man of standard action on film and TV. Born in Brooklyn on September 13, 1924, Irish-American Scott Brady was christened Gerard Kenneth Tierney (called Jerry) by parents...

6. Keefe Brasselle

Actor | The Eddie Cantor Story

Keefe Brasselle was born on February 7, 1923 in Elyria, Ohio, USA. He was an actor and producer, known for The Eddie Cantor Story (1953), A Place in the Sun (1951) and If You Don't Stop It... You'll Go Blind!!! (1975). He was married to Arlene DeMarco and Norma Jean Aldrich. He died on July 7, 1981...

7. Philip Carey

Actor | One Life to Live

Tall, blond and of rugged proportions, handsome actor Philip Carey started out as a standard 1950s film actor in westerns, war stories and crime yarns but didn't achieve full-fledged stardom until well past age 50 when he joined the daytime line-up as ornery Texas tycoon Asa Buchanan on the popular...

8. Marge Champion

Actress | The Party

One of the great dancer and choreographers in both movies and stage, Marge Champion was best known 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 worked as a dance teacher and as a ...

9. Gower Champion

Director | An Evening with Julie Andrews and Harry Belafonte

Gower Champion was born on June 22, 1921 in Geneva, Illinois, USA. He was an actor and director, known for An Evening with Julie Andrews and Harry Belafonte (1969), Lovely to Look At (1952) and Hello, Dolly! (1969). He was married to Karla Most and Marge Champion. He died on August 25, 1980 in New ...

10. Jeff Chandler

Actor | Broken Arrow

Jeff was born in Brooklyn and attended Erasmus High School. After high school, he took a drama course and worked in stock companies for two years. His next role was that of an officer in World War II. After he was discharged from the service, he became busy acting in radio dramas and comedies until...

11. Charles Coburn

Actor | The More the Merrier

A cigar-smoking, monocled, swag-bellied character actor known for his Old South manners and charm. In 1918 he and his first wife formed the Coburn Players and appeared on Broadway in many plays. With her death in 1937, he accepted a Hollywood contract and began making films at the age of sixty.

12. Lou Costello

Actor | Hold That Ghost

Lou Costello was born Louis Francis Cristillo in Paterson, New Jersey, to Helen (Rege) and Sebastiano Cristillo. His father was from Calabria, Italy, and his mother was an American of Italian, French, and Irish ancestry. Raised in Paterson, Costello dropped out of high school and headed west to ...

13. Jeanne Crain

Actress | Pinky

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 ...

14. Broderick Crawford

Actor | All the King's Men

Broderick Crawford is best remembered for two roles: his Oscar-winning turn as Willie Stark in All the King's Men (1949) and as Chief Dan Mathews on the syndicated TV series Highway Patrol (1955). He was also memorable as Judy Holliday's vulgar partner in Born Yesterday (1950), roles both actors ...

15. Joan Crawford

Actress | What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur on March 23, 1906, 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; ...

16. Tony Curtis

Actor | Some Like It Hot

Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz, the eldest of three children of Helen (Klein) and Emanuel Schwartz, Jewish immigrants from Hungary. Curtis himself admits that while he had almost no formal education, he was a student of the "school of hard knocks" and learned from a young age that the only ...

17. 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 ...

18. 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 ...

19. 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...

20. Mildred Dunnock

Actress | The Trouble with Harry

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 ...

21. Joan Evans

Actress | Roseanna McCoy

Joan Katherine Eunson was the daughter of playwright/screenwriter Dale Eunson and movie press agent, journalist and writer Katherine Albert. They were friends with Joan Crawford who became her godmother. With such connections in show business, it was always on the cards that teenaged Joan would ...

22. 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)...

23. Greer Garson

Actress | Pride and Prejudice

Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson was born on September 29, 1904 in London, England, to Nancy Sophia (Greer) and George Garson, a commercial clerk. Of Scottish and Ulster-Scots descent, Garson displayed no early interest in becoming an actress. Educated at the University of London intending to become a ...

24. Edmund Gwenn

Actor | Miracle on 34th Street

There are very few character actors from the 1930s, '40s or '50s who rose to the rank of stardom. Only a rare man or woman reached the level of renown and admiration, and had enough audience appeal, to be the first name in a cast's billing, a name that got marquee posting. Charles Coburn comes to ...

25. Sterling Hayden

Actor | Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Born to George & Frances Simonson Walter, and named Sterling Relyea Walter. Father died in 1925. Adopted by stepfather 'James Hayden' renamed Sterling Walter Hayden. Grew up in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., and Maine. Though very poor, attended prep school at ...

26. Celeste Holm

Actress | All About Eve

Celeste Holm was an only child, born into a home where her mother was a painter and her father worked in insurance. She would study acting at the University of Chicago and make her stage debut in 1936. Her Broadway debut came when she was 19 in 'The Time of Your Life'. She appeared in many ...

27. Spike Jones

Soundtrack | Mr. Nobody

Spike Jones was born on December 14, 1911 in Long Beach, California, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for Mr. Nobody (2009), I.Q. (1994) and Fireman Save My Child (1954). He was married to Helen Grayco and Patricia Middleton. He died on May 1, 1965 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California,...

28. Allyn Joslyn

Actor | I Wake Up Screaming

Allyn Joslyn, the son of a Pennsylvania mining engineer, made his stage debut at 17. He was soon appearing regularly in Broadway productions, and headed for Hollywood in 1936, making his debut in They Won't Forget (1937). His nervous, at times dyspeptic demeanor and somewhat aristocratic looks fit ...

29. Howard Keel

Actor | Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Howard Keel was the Errol Flynn and Clark Gable of "golden age" movie musicals back in the 1950s. With a barrel-chested swagger and cocky, confident air, the 6'4" brawny baritone Keel had MGM's loveliest songbirds swooning helplessly for over a decade in what were some of the finest musical films ...

30. 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 ...

31. Dean Martin

Soundtrack | The Dean Martin Show

Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, to Gaetano Alfonso "Guy" Crocetti, an Italian immigrant and barber, and his Ohio-born wife, Angela (Barra) Crocetti. He spoke only Italian until age five. Martin came up the hard way, with such jobs as a boxer ("Kid Crochet"), a steel mill ...

32. Audrey Totter

Actress | The Unsuspected

One is certainly hard-pressed to think of another true "bad girl" representative so closely identifiable with film noir than hard-looking blonde actress Audrey Totter. While she remained a "B"-tier actress for most her career, she was an "A" quality actress and one of filmdom's most intriguing ...

33. Eduard Franz

Actor | The Thing from Another World

Born Eduard Franz Schmidt in Milwaukee, WI, this stern-faced character actor had originally planned to be a commercial artist, but a stint with a local theatrical troupe set him on the road to an acting career. In 1925 he moved to New York City and joined up with a Greenwich Village theatrical ...

34. Jean Hersholt

Actor | Greed

If ever there was a Great Dane in Hollywood it was Jean Hersholt - and one of its great hearts as well. He was from a well-known Danish stage and entertainment family that had toured throughout Europe performing with young Jean as an essential cast member. He graduated from the Copenhagen Art ...

35. Tom Tully

Actor | The Caine Mutiny

While in Vietnam entertaining troops with Bob Hope and others touring with the USO, Thomas Tully contracted a filarial worm, similar to the worm which can lead to elephantiasis. After returning to the U.S. his condition was diagnosed after a blood clot in a major leg vein cut off circulation so ...

36. Joan Weldon

Actress | Them!

A blue-eyed, chestnut-haired beauty, Joan Weldon trained to be a singer, and made her professional debut as a member of the San Francisco Opera Company. While appearing with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Company, she came to the attention of Warner Brothers, who took her out of grand opera and ...

37. Dick Wesson

Actor | Calamity Jane

One of the most recognisable character actors of the 1950s, Boston Massachusetts-born Dick Wesson began his career with his older brother, Gene Wesson, in a comedy act that made the rounds of the nightclub circuit. He made his film debut in the sci-fi classic Destination Moon (1950), and spent his ...

38. Frank Lovejoy

Actor | In a Lonely Place

Square-jawed, intense, no-nonsense Frank Lovejoy played a succession of detectives, street cops, reporters, soldiers and such over his career. Born in the Bronx, New York, in 1912, he worked on Wall Street as a teenager, but the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929 cost him his job, and to make ends ...

39. Marjorie Main

Actress | The Egg and I

Her father was a minister, and when she joined a local stock company as a youngster she changed her name to avoid embarrassing her family. She worked in vaudeville and debuted on Broadway in 1916. Her film debut was in A House Divided (1931). She repeated her stage role in Dead End (1937) as Baby ...

40. Virginia Mayo

Actress | White Heat

Virginia Clara Jones was born on November 30, 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of a newspaper reporter and his wife. The family had a rich heritage in the St. Louis area: her great-great-great-grandfather served in the American Revolution and later founded the city of East Saint Louis, ...

41. Allyn Ann McLerie

Actress | Calamity Jane

A talented actress, dancer, and singer with a long history on Broadway and in Hollywood, McLerie retired in 1993.

Born in Canada, she was raised in Brooklyn, where she attended Fort Hamilton High School. She was married to actor George Gaynes for over 60 years, until his death in 2016. They had two ...

42. 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 ...

43. Gene Nelson

Actor | Oklahoma!

Gene Nelson was barely a teen when he saw the Fred Astaire movie Flying Down to Rio (1933), which would change his life. It was then that he decided he would be a dancer. After graduating from high school, Nelson joined the Sonja Henie Ice Show and toured for 3 years before joining the Army in ...

44. George O'Hanlon

Actor | Rocky

George O'Hanlon was born on November 23, 1912 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Rocky (1976), So You Want a Television Set (1953) and So Your Wife Wants to Work (1956). He was married to Nancy Owens, Martha Stewart and Inez Yvonne Witt. He died on ...

45. 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...

46. Paul Picerni

Actor | Airport

As a child Paul Picerni had aspirations to become an attorney until he acted in an eighth-grade play and later learned that the school principal liked his performance and called him "a born actor". He next appeared in little theater productions, then (after World War II Air Force service) on the ...

47. 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 ...

48. Mala Powers

Actress | Cyrano de Bergerac

The daughter of a United Press executive, Mala Powers attended the Max Reinhardt Junior Workshop as a kid and fell in love with acting the first time she set foot on a stage. She made her film debut in Universal's 1942 Tough As They Come (1942) before actress Helene Thimig (Max Reinhardt's wife) ...

49. Will Rogers Jr.

Actor | The Story of Will Rogers

Will Rogers Jr. was elected as a Democratic congressman for Southern California in 1942. Although he served only 17 months in congress, he is best remembered as the American politician who did the most to try and save the Jews of Europe during World War II. Rogers joined the Emergency Committee to ...

50. S.Z. Sakall

Actor | Casablanca

Hungarian-born S.Z. Sakall was a veteran of German, Hungarian and British films when he left Europe because of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement. In Hollywood from shortly after the outbreak of World War II, Sakall began appearing in comedies and musicals, often playing a lovable if ...

51. Randolph Scott

Actor | Roberta

Handsome American leading man who developed into one of Hollywood's greatest and most popular Western stars. Born to George and Lucy Crane Scott during a visit to Virginia, Scott was raised in Charlotte, North Carolina in a wealthy family. After service with the U.S. Army in France in World War I, ...

52. Danny Thomas

Actor | Make Room for Daddy

Known primarily as a TV actor, he starred as a nightclub singer on the popular The Danny Thomas Show (1953).

He also served TV behind the cameras partnering with Sheldon Leonard and Aaron Spelling to create such shows as Dick Van Dyke's show, The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), The Andy Griffith Show (...

53. Alex Gerry

Actor | Funny Face

Alex Gerry was born on October 6, 1904 in Manhattan, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Funny Face (1957), The Bellboy (1960) and Back Street (1961). He was married to Toni Gerry. He died on May 18, 1993 in Ventura County, California, USA.

54. Merv Griffin

Producer | Jeopardy!

Merv Griffin was a singer and band leader, movie actor, television personality and media mogul who in his time hosting The Merv Griffin Show (1962) was second in fame and influence as a talk show host only to Johnny Carson. Griffin was best known for creating the two most popular game shows in ...

55. Harold Gordon

Actor | East of Eden

Harold Gordon was born on August 9, 1918 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for East of Eden (1955), Viva Zapata! (1952) and Space Patrol (1950). He was married to Inge Jollos. He died on January 19, 1959 in New York City, New York, USA.

56. Harold Rosson

Cinematographer | The Asphalt Jungle

Harold G. "Hal" Rosson, a cinematographer known for his subtle and imaginative lighting, was born in Genaseo, New York, on August 24, 1895, although some sources cite his birthday as April 6, 1895, or in 1889.

Rosson entered the movie industry in 1908 as an actor at the Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn...

57. 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 ...

58. Bob Hope

Actor | The Ghost Breakers

Comedian Bob Hope was born Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, London, England, the fifth of seven sons of Avis (Townes), light opera singer, and William Henry Hope, a stonemason from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. His maternal grandmother was Welsh. Hope moved to Bristol before emigrating with his parents...

59. 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, Kenneth Stuart Baxter, and his wife, Catherine Dorothy (Wright), who herself was the daughter of Frank Lloyd Wright, the world-renowned architect. Anne was a young girl of 11 when her parents moved ...

60. Edgar Bergen

Actor | Fun & Fancy Free

Edgar Bergen was born on February 16, 1903 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Fun and Fancy Free (1947), The Muppet Movie (1979) and Letter of Introduction (1938). He was married to Frances Bergen. He died on September 30, 1978 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

61. Jacques Bergerac

Actor | Gigi

Jacques Bergerac was born on May 26, 1927 in Biarritz, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France. He was an actor, known for Gigi (1958), Missione speciale Lady Chaplin (1966) and Un homme se penche sur son passé (1958). He was married to Dorothy Malone and Ginger Rogers. He died on June 15, 2014 in ...

62. Shirley Booth

Actress | Come Back, Little Sheba

Character actress Shirley Booth could play everything in all facets of show business, whether it was Miss Duffy the Tavern Owner's Man Crazy Daughter on "Duffy's Tavern", the sassy maid on TV's Hazel (1961) or the pathetic woman in Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). For those who only know her through...

63. Charles Brackett

Writer | Sunset Blvd.

Charles Brackett, born in Saratoga Springs, New York, of Scottish ancestry, followed in his attorney-father's footsteps and graduated with a law degree from Harvard University in 1920. He practised law for several years, before commencing work as drama critic for The New Yorker (1925-29), in ...

64. Frank Capra

Director | It's a Wonderful Life

One of seven children, Frank Capra was born on May 18, 1897, in Bisacquino, Sicily. On May 10, 1903, his family left for America aboard the ship Germania, arriving in New York on May 23rd. "There's no ventilation, and it stinks like hell. They're all miserable. It's the most degrading place you ...

65. Edward C. Carfagno

Art_director | Ben-Hur

The distinguished art director and production designer Edward Carfagno had a long career under contract to MGM (1943-1970). During that time, he worked on some of the studio's most prestigious films and established a reputation for creating an authentic and accurate period feel. He frequently ...

66. Rosemary Clooney

Actress | White Christmas

She was the daughter of Andrew and Frances Clooney and grew up in Maysville, Kentucky, where she and her sister Betty Clooney used to sing in her grandfather's mayoral election campaigns, which he won three times. She made her singing debut on Cincinnati radio station WLW in 1941 at 13. On WLW she ...

67. Ronald Colman

Actor | A Double Life

British leading man of primarily American films, one of the great stars of the Golden Age. Raised in Ealing, the son of a successful silk merchant, he attended boarding school in Sussex, where he discovered amateur theatre. He intended to attend Cambridge and become an engineer, but his father's ...

68. Merian C. Cooper

Writer | King Kong

In 1920, Merian C. Cooper was a member of volunteer of the American Kosciuszko Squadron that supported the Polish army in the war with Soviet Russia, where he met best friend and producing partner Ernest B. Schoedsack. On 26 July 1920, his plane was shot down, and he spent nearly nine months in the...

69. Donald Crisp

Actor | How Green Was My Valley

White-haired London-born character actor, a familiar face in Hollywood for more than five decades. He was born George William Crisp, the youngest of ten siblings, to working class parents James Crisp and his wife Elizabeth (nee Christy). Despite his humble beginnings, Donald was educated at Oxford ...

70. Billy Daniels

Soundtrack | Dirty Grandpa

Billy Daniels toiled obscurely for years before becoming a star in 1950. He began singing in his native Jacksonville, Florida, then moved to Harlem in 1932 and became a dishwasher, and later a singing waiter, as Dickie Wells' restaurant-club. He toured with the Erskine Hawkins band circa 1935-36, ...

71. 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 ...

72. 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 ...

73. Cecil B. DeMille

Producer | The Ten Commandments

His parents Henry C. DeMille and Beatrice DeMille were playwrights. His father died when he was 12, and his mother supported the family by opening a school for girls and a theatrical company. Too young to enlist in the Spanish-American War, Cecil followed his brother William C. de Mille to the New ...

74. Katherine DeMille

Actress | Black Gold

A dark, exotic beauty, Katherine DeMille was a fascinating screen presence in the 1930s and 1940s. She was born in Canada to a Scottish schoolteacher, Edward Gabriel Lester, and his Italian-Swiss wife, Cecile Bianca Bertha (Colani) Lester. Her father was killed in France during World War I, and her...

75. Adolph Deutsch

Music_department | Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

London-born piano child prodigy Adolph Deutsch trained at the Royal Academy of Music from the age of eight and composed his first piece, a waltz for piano, entitled "La Charmeuse", two years later. He moved to the U.S. in 1910 and got his first job working for a publishing house, during which time ...

76. Walt Disney

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Flora Disney (née Call) and Elias Disney, a Canadian-born farmer and businessperson. He had Irish, German, and English ancestry. Walt moved with his parents to Kansas City at age seven, where he spent the majority of ...

77. Bobby Driscoll

Actor | Peter Pan

Bobby Driscoll was a natural-born actor. Discovered by chance at the age of five-and-a-half in a barber shop in Altadena, CA. and then convincing in anything he ever undertook on the movie screen and on television throughout his career spanning 17 years (1943-1960). Includes such notable movie ...

78. José Ferrer

Actor | The Caine Mutiny

José Ferrer was a Puerto Rican actor and film director. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for playing the title character in Cyrano de Bergerac (1950). Ferrer was the first Puerto Rican actor to win an Academy Award, and also the first Hispanic actor to win an Academy Award.

In 1912, Ferrer was...

79. Joan Fontaine

Actress | Suspicion

Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland on October 22, 1917, in Tokyo, Japan, in what was known as the International Settlement, to British parents, Lilian Augusta (Ruse), a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, an English professor and patent attorney. Her paternal grandfather's family was ...

80. Eva Gabor

Actress | Green Acres

Eva Gabor was born on February 11, 1919 in Budapest, Hungary, to Jolie Gabor (née Janka Tilleman) and Vilmos Gabor (born Farkas Miklós Grün), a soldier. Her older siblings were Magda Gabor, an actress, and Zsa Zsa Gabor, an actress and socialite. Her parents were both from Jewish families. She went...

81. Zsa Zsa Gabor

Actress | A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

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, gossip, and quotations on men, rather than her film career.

Zsa Zsa was born as Sári Gabor on ...

82. 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 ...

83. Mitzi Gaynor

Actress | South Pacific

It is perhaps ironic that the film for which this performer is best remembered was also her musical swansong and one of her very last motion picture appearances. That was, of course, South Pacific (1958), with Mitzi Gaynor famously cast as feisty Ensign Nellie Forbush, warbling "I'm Gonna Wash That...

84. Harry Gerstad

Editorial_department | High Noon

American film editor who occasionally directed, but won Oscars in his primary field. The son of Harry W. Gerstad, silent film cinematographer, Harry Donald Gerstad grew up in Hollywood. In his late teenage years he got work as a laboratory assistant at Hal Roach Studios, then Warner Bros., and ...

85. Cedric Gibbons

Art_director | Gaslight

After graduating from New York's Art Students League he worked for his architect father, then started film work at Edison Studios in 1915 assisting Hugo Ballin. In 1918 he moved to Goldwyn as art director and, in 1924, began his 32 year stint as supervising art director for some 1500 MGM films, ...

86. Gloria Grahame

Actress | In a Lonely Place

Gloria Grahame 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)...

87. Stewart Granger

Actor | King Solomon's Mines

Stewart Granger was born James Lablache Stewart in London, the great grandson of the opera singer Luigi Lablache. He attended Epsom College but left after deciding not to pursue a medical degree. He decided to try acting and attended Webber-Douglas School of Dramatic Art, London. By 1935, he made ...

88. Edith Head

Costume_department | Sabrina

Edith Head was born on October 28, 1897 in San Bernardino, California, USA. She was a costume designer and actress, known for Sabrina (1954), All About Eve (1950) and Roman Holiday (1953). She was married to Wiard Ihnen and Charles Head. She died on October 24, 1981 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

89. Winton C. Hoch

Cinematographer | The Quiet Man

Winton C. Hoch was born on July 31, 1905 in Storm Lake, Iowa, USA. He was a cinematographer, known for The Quiet Man (1952), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964) and The Searchers (1956). He died on March 20, 1979 in Santa Monica, California, USA.

90. Kim Hunter

Actress | A Streetcar Named Desire

Her father, Donald Cole, was a consulting engineer, and died in 1926 when Kim was only three years old. Her mother, Grace Lind, once performed as a concert pianist. She had one brother who was eight years older than she, and she was educated at Miami Beach High.

According to an in-depth article on ...

91. Dean Jagger

Actor | White Christmas

Dean Jagger was born in Lima, Ohio, on November 7, 1903. He dropped out of high school twice before finally graduating from Wabash College. Working first as a school teacher, he soon became interested in acting and enrolled at Chicago's "Lyceum Art Conservatory". Mr. Jagger made his first movie and...

92. Boris Karloff

Actor | Bride of Frankenstein

Along with fellow actors Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price, Boris Karloff is recognized as one of the true icons of horror cinema, and the actor most closely identified with the general public's perception of the "monster" from the classic Mary Shelley book, "Frankenstein". William Henry ...

93. Piper Laurie

Actress | The Hustler

Piper Laurie was a three-time Oscar nominee, nominated by BAFTA as well as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for best performance by an actress in 'The Hustler' with Paul Newman.

Laurie was born Rosetta Jacobs in Detroit, Michigan, to Charlotte Sadie (Alperin) and Alfred Jacobs, a ...

94. 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...

95. Harold Lloyd

Actor | Safety Last!

Born in Burchard, Nebraska, USA to Elizabeth Fraser and J. Darcie 'Foxy' Lloyd who fought constantly and soon divorced (at the time a rare event), Harold Clayton Lloyd was nominally educated in Denver and San Diego high schools and received his stage training at the School of Dramatic Art (San ...

96. Fredric March

Actor | Inherit the Wind

Fredric March began a career in banking but in 1920 found himself cast as an extra in films being produced in New York. He starred on the Broadway stage first in 1926 and would return there between screen appearances later on. He won plaudits (and an Academy Award nomination) for his send-up of ...

97. Marilyn Maxwell

Actress | 3 Men in White

The less famous, but still undeniably talented, of the "Marilyn" sex symbols of the 1940s/'50s was born Marvel Marilyn Maxwell in Clarinda, Iowa on August 3, 1920 (she later began using her middle name professionally at the suggestion of Louis B. Mayer). As a teenager, she worked as an usher at the...

98. Mercedes McCambridge

Actress | Giant

Mercedes McCambridge was 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) ...

99. Victor McLaglen

Actor | The Quiet Man

Rambunctious British leading man (contrary to popular belief, he was of Scottish ancestry, not Irish) and later character actor primarily in American films, Victor McLaglen was a vital presence in a number of great motion pictures, especially those of director John Ford. McLaglen (pronounced ...

100. Johnny Mercer

Soundtrack | Breakfast at Tiffany's

Johnny Mercer started his career as singer and songwriter for Paul Whiteman. He started writing songs for Hollywood in 1935, where he also had a few small parts in musicals. Among his famous songs is the inoffical anthem of Hollywood, "Hooray For Hollywood" that he wrote for the movie "Hollywood ...