The Best Actor 1972
by dziwnytenswiat | created - 3 weeks ago | updated - 3 weeks ago | PublicFrom my list: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls027037474/
1. Robert Duvall
Actor | The Apostle
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 ...
1614 points
2. Yves Montand
Actor | Jean de Florette
Yves Montand was born on October 13, 1921 in Monsummano Terme, Tuscany, Italy. He was an actor, known for Jean de Florette (1986), Z (1969) and The Wages of Fear (1953). He was married to Simone Signoret. He died on November 9, 1991 in Senlis, Oise, France.
1572 points
3. Renato Salvatori
Actor | Z
Renato Salvatori was born on March 20, 1933 in Seravezza, Tuscany, Italy. He was an actor, known for Z (1969), Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and The Organizer (1963). He was married to Annie Girardot. He died on March 27, 1988 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.
1494 points
4. Gian Maria Volontè
Actor | Per un pugno di dollari
Born in Milan in 1933, Gian Maria Volontè studied in Rome at the National Dramatic Arts Academy, where he obtained his degree in 1957. He began working in theatre and television, where he was soon noticed as one of the most promising actors of his generation. After several supporting appearances in...
1475 points
5. 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 ...
1446 points
6. Jeff Bridges
Actor | The Big Lebowski
Jeffrey Leon Bridges was born on December 4, 1949 in Los Angeles, California, the son of well-known film and TV star Lloyd Bridges and his long-time wife Dorothy Dean Bridges (née Simpson). He grew up amid the happening Hollywood scene with big brother Beau Bridges. Both boys popped up, without ...
1446 points
7. Stacy Keach
Actor | Escape from L.A.
Stacy Keach has played to grand success a constellation of the classic and contemporary stage's greatest roles, and he is considered a pre-eminent American interpreter of Shakespeare. His SRO run as "King Lear" at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. received the best reviews any ...
1431 points
8. Marlon Brando
Actor | Apocalypse Now
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 ...
856 points
9. Al Pacino
Actor | Serpico
Alfredo James "Al" 'Pacino established himself as a film actor during one of cinema's most vibrant decades, the 1970s, and has become an enduring and iconic figure in the world of American movies.
He was born April 25, 1940 in Manhattan, New York City, to Italian-American parents, Rose (nee Gerardi)...
856 points
10. James Caan
Actor | Thief
A masculine and enigmatic actor whose life and movie career have had more ups and downs than the average rollercoaster and whose selection of roles has arguably derailed him from achieving true superstar status, James Caan is New York-born and bred.
He was born in the Bronx, to Sophie (Falkenstein) ...
856 points
11. John Cazale
Actor | Dog Day Afternoon
John Cazale was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to an Irish-American mother, Cecilia (Holland), and an Italian-American father, John Cazale. Cazale made only five feature films in his career, which fans and critics alike call classics. But before his film debut, in the short The American Way (1962),...
856 points
12. Laurence Olivier
Actor | Sleuth
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 ...
854 points
13. Michael Caine
Actor | The Dark Knight
Michael Caine was born as Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in London, to Ellen (née Burchell), a cook, and Maurice Micklewhite Sr., a fish-market porter. He had a younger brother, Stanley Caine, and an older maternal half-brother named David Burchell. He left school at age 15 and took a series of ...
854 points
14. Ryan O'Neal
Actor | Love Story
Charles Patrick Ryan O'Neal was an American actor and former boxer. He trained as an amateur boxer before beginning his career in acting in 1960. In 1964, he landed the role of Rodney Harrington on the ABC nighttime soap opera Peyton Place. It was an instant hit and boosted O'Neal's career. He ...
838 points
15. Michael York
Actor | Logan's Run
Michael York was born in Fulmer, England, 27 March 1942. He performed on stage with the National Youth Theatre in London's East End and on international tour. Other early acting experience came through the Oxford University Dramatic Society (he graduated from Oxford in1964), the Dundee Repertory, ...
835 points
16. Helmut Griem
Actor | Cabaret
Helmut Griem was born on April 6, 1932 in Hamburg, Germany. He was an actor, known for Cabaret (1972), The Damned (1969) and Fabrik der Offiziere (1960). He was married to Helga Koehler. He died on November 19, 2004 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
835 points
17. Joel Grey
Actor | Cabaret
Joel Grey's father, Mickey Katz, created "Borscht Capades" in the early 1950s. Mickey Katz was a musician -- a clarinetist and a saxophone player -- in bands around the east. Mickey was performing, playing in a band in Cleveland, Ohio, which is where Joel Grey was born. Musician and bandleader ...
835 points
18. Donatas Banionis
Actor | Solyaris
Donatas Banionis was a popular Lithuanian actor known for Nobody Wanted to Die (1965), Myortvyy sezon (1968), and Solaris (1972).
He was born Donatas Juozas Banionis on April 28, 1924, in Kaunas, Lithuania. His mother, Blazhaitite-Banionene Ona, was a homemaker. His father, Juozas Banionis, was a ...
831 points
19. Jüri Järvet
Actor | Solyaris
Jüri Järvet (born as Georgi Kuznetsov) was a highly prolific and respected Estonian screen and stage actor. He was born in Tallinn. His mother moved to Moscow in 1920. Jüri stayed to live in family's friend who later gave him into an orphanage. At the age of five he was taken into a family with ...
831 points
20. Max von Sydow
Actor | Flash Gordon
Max von Sydow was born Carl Adolf von Sydow on April 10, 1929 in Lund, Skåne, Sweden, to a middle-class family. He was the son of Baroness Maria Margareta (Rappe), a teacher, and Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, an ethnologist and folklore professor. His surname traces back to his partial German ancestry.
...
818 points
21. Sami Frey
Actor | Bande à part
Sami Frey was born on October 13, 1937 in Paris, France. He is an actor and director, known for Band of Outsiders (1964), En compagnie d'Antonin Artaud (1993) and Black Widow (1987).
809 points
22. Armin Mueller-Stahl
Actor | Eastern Promises
Armin Mueller-Stahl is a German actor with a relatively long film career. He was once nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his role as an abusive father in the biographical drama "Shine" (1996).
In 1930, Mueller-Stahl was born in Tilsit, East Prussia. The town developed ...
786 points
23. Erland Josephson
Actor | Offret
Erland Josephson, the distinguished Swedish actor best known for his appearance in Ingmar Bergman's films, was born in Stockholm, Sweden on June 15, 1923. Josephson's relationship with Bergman, a long-time friend, began in the late 1930s when they first worked together in the theater.
Although he ...
785 points
24. Josef Abrhám
Soundtrack | Valerie a týden divu
Josef Abrhám was born on December 14, 1939 in Zlín, Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia [now Czech Republic]. He was an actor, known for Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970), Leaving (2011) and Beauty in Trouble (2006). He was married to Libuse Safránková. He died on May 16, 2022 in Melnik, Bohemia,...
769 points
25. Petr Cepek
Actor | Lekce Faust
Petr Cepek was born on September 16, 1940 in Prague, Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia [now Czech Republic]. He was an actor, known for Faust (1994), I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen (1970) and The Three Veterans (1984). He was married to Ivana Cepková and Helena Rytírová. He died on September 20, 1994 ...
769 points
26. Alberto Sordi
Actor | Io e Caterina
One of Italy's most captivating and talented cinematic comedy stars, Italian veteran Alberto Sordi was known for satirizing his country's social mores in pungent black comedies, farcical tales and grim drama. He, along with peers Vittorio Gassman, Ugo Tognazzi and Nino Manfredi, arguably represent ...
768 points
27. Joseph Cotten
Actor | The Third Man
Joseph Cheshire Cotten, Jr. was born in Petersburg, Virginia, into a well-to-do Southern family. He was the eldest of three sons born to Sally Whitworth (Willson) and Joseph Cheshire Cotten, Sr., an assistant postmaster.
Jo (as he was known) and his brothers Whit and Sam spent their summers at their...
768 points
28. Chishû Ryû
Actor | Tôkyô monogatari
What an amazing career! Few can boast a longer one (64 years of activity). Few have been able to have to relate to three generations. And it is pretty sure that no one can compare with him in terms of faithfulness to a director: Chishu Ryu indeed appeared in no fewer than fifty-two out of ...
763 points
29. Olgierd Lukaszewicz
Actor | Seksmisja
Olgierd Lukaszewicz was born on September 7, 1946 in Chorzów, Slaskie, Poland. He is an actor and writer, known for Sexmission (1984), A Cat with a Dog (2018) and General Nil (2009). He has been married to Grazyna Marzec since March 13, 1968. They have one child.
763 points
30. Jan Englert
Actor | Lalka
Jan Englert was born on May 11, 1943 in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland. He is an actor and director, known for Lalka (1978), Kiler (1997) and Television Theater (1953). He has been married to Beata Scibakówna since 1998. They have one child. He was previously married to Barbara Soltysik.
763 points
31. Franciszek Pieczka
Actor | Blizna
Franciszek Pieczka was born on January 18, 1928 in Godów, Slaskie, Poland. He was an actor, known for The Scar (1976), Zywot Mateusza (1968) and Jancio Wodnik (1993). He was married to Henryka. He died on September 23, 2022 in Poland.
763 points
32. Paul Winfield
Actor | Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Signifying intelligence, eloquence, versatility and quiet intensity, one of the more important, critically acclaimed black actors to gain a Hollywood foothold in the 1970s was Paul Winfield. He was born in 1939 in Dallas, Texas, where he lived in his early years before moving with his family to Los...
763 points
33. O.E. Hasse
Actor | I Confess
O.E. Hasse was born on July 11, 1903 in Obersitzko, Prussia, Germany [now Obrzycko, Wielkopolskie, Poland]. He was an actor and writer, known for I Confess (1953), Deadly Decision (1954) and The Adventures of Arsène Lupin (1957). He died on September 11, 1978 in West Berlin, West Germany.
763 points
34. Jack Lemmon
Actor | The Apartment
Jack Lemmon was born in Newton, Massachusetts, to Mildred Lankford 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 ...
762 points
35. Jon Finch
Actor | Frenzy
Dark, mustachioed and broodingly handsome in an Oliver Reed placid manner, Jon Finch was born in Caterham, Surrey, England, on March 2, 1942, the son of a merchant banker. Educated at Caterham School, his first stage role was in elementary school at age 13 playing a Roman noblewoman(!) After ...
759 points
36. Barry Foster
Actor | Frenzy
John Barry Foster's acting career began and ended on the stage. At the age of 20 he won a scholarship to the Central School of Speech and Drama where he befriended future playwright Harold Pinter. After two years training, Barry went on tour with Andrew McMaster and fellow actors Patrick Magee and ...
759 points
37. Jon Voight
Actor | Midnight Cowboy
Jon Voight is an American actor of German and Slovak descent. He has won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his role as paraplegic Vietnam War veteran Luke Martin in the war film "Coming Home" (1978). He has also been nominated for the same award other two times. He was first ...
749 points
38. Burt Reynolds
Actor | Boogie Nights
Enduring, strong-featured, and genial star of US cinema, Burt Reynolds started off in T.V. westerns in the 1960s and then carved his name into 1970s/1980s popular culture, as a sex symbol (posing nearly naked for "Cosmopolitan" magazine), and on-screen as both a rugged action figure and then as a ...
749 points
39. Ned Beatty
Actor | Network
Stocky, genial-looking supporting actor Ned Beatty was once hailed by Daily Variety as the "busiest actor in Hollywood."
Ned Thomas Beatty was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Margaret (Fortney) and Charles William Beatty. He grew up fishing and working on farms. His hometown of St. Matthews, ...
749 points
40. José Luis López Vázquez
Actor | Atraco a las tres
Spanish actor. He started his career in theatre in 1939, when he was only 17, with the support of the director Modesto Higueras and the painter José Caballero. His first works were as actor, set decorator and costume designer in non-commercial amateur theatre plays, basically at the 'Teatro de las ...
744 points
41. Peter O'Toole
Actor | Lawrence of Arabia
A leading man of prodigious talents, Peter O'Toole was born and raised in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, the son of Constance Jane Eliot (Ferguson), a Scottish nurse, and Patrick Joseph O'Toole, an Irish metal plater, football player and racecourse bookmaker. Upon leaving school, he decided to become a...
740 points
42. Steve McQueen
Actor | The Great Escape
He was the ultra-cool male film star of the 1960s, and rose from a troubled youth spent in reform schools to being the world's most popular actor. Over 40 years after his untimely death from mesothelioma in 1980, Steve McQueen is still considered hip and cool, and he endures as an icon of popular ...
733 points
43. 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 ...
731 points
44. Giancarlo Giannini
Actor | Quantum of Solace
Giancarlo Giannini is an Oscar-nominated Italian actor, director and multilingual dubber who made an international reputation for his leading roles in Italian films as well as for his mastery of a variety of languages and dialects.
He was born August 1, 1942, in La Spezia, Italy. For 10 years he ...
731 points
45. 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 ...
725 points
46. Fernando Rey
Actor | Tristana
Fernando Rey, the great Spanish movie actor primarily known in the United States for his role as "Frog One" in The French Connection (1971) and its sequel, was born Fernando Casado D'Arambillet on September 20 1917, in A Coruña, Galicia, Spain, the son of Colonel Casado Veiga. Originally, the young...
721 points
47. Paul Frankeur
Actor | Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie
Paul Frankeur was born on June 29, 1905 in Paris, France. He was an actor, known for The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), The Phantom of Liberty (1974) and Children of Paradise (1945). He died on October 27, 1974 in Nevers, Nièvre, France.
721 points
48. Jean-Pierre Cassel
Actor | Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie
He made his movie debut at the invitation of Gene Kelly, who cast Cassel in the 1956 Paris-filmed seriocomedy The Happy Road (1957). At least, that's what the press releases claimed; actually, the tall, elastic-faced Cassel had been plugging away in films on a minor basis since 1950. Shortly after, ...
721 points
49. Michel Piccoli
Actor | Le mépris
This suave, elegant character star was a ubiquitous presence in French cinema for nearly seven decades. His distinguished career extended to both stage and screen and his versatility was such that he could take on just about any persona (in his own words: "I do not put on an act... I slip away ...
721 points
50. Andrzej Lapicki
Actor | Lalka
Andrzej Lapicki was born on November 11, 1924 in Riga, Latvia. He was an actor and director, known for Lalka (1968), Zbrodnia lorda Artura Savile'a (1968) and Television Theater (1953). He was married to Kamila Mscichowska and Zofia Chrzaszczewska. He died on July 21, 2012 in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, ...
718 points
51. Gustaw Holoubek
Actor | Lawa. Opowiesc o 'Dziadach' Adama Mickiewicza
Gustaw Holoubek was born on April 21, 1923. He was a Polish actor, director, member of the Polish Sejm, and a senator. Holoubek participated in the September Campaign and was a prisoner of war during the Nazi German Occupation of Poland. His father was a Czech immigrant who settled in Poland after ...
718 points
52. Topol
Actor | Fiddler on the Roof
Topol was born on September 9, 1935 in Tel Aviv, Palestine [now Israel]. He was an actor and producer, known for Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Flash Gordon (1980) and For Your Eyes Only (1981). He was married to Galia Topol. He died on March 8, 2023 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
717 points
53. Anthony Quinn
Actor | Alexis Zorbas
Anthony Quinn was born Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (some sources indicate Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca) on April 21, 1915, in Chihuahua, Mexico, to Manuela (Oaxaca) and Francisco Quinn, who became an assistant cameraman at a Los Angeles (CA) film studio. His paternal grandfather was Irish, ...
716 points
54. Yaphet Kotto
Actor | Alien
Physically imposing, intense Yaphet Kotto was one of the few actors of his generation to succeed in breaking racial stereotypes in Hollywood. He was born in Harlem, New York, the son of Gladys, a nurse and army officer, and Abraham Kotto, a businessman-turned-construction worker. His father was a ...
716 points
55. Anthony Franciosa
Actor | Tenebre
Franciosa was born Anthony Papaleo on October 25, 1928, in New York City. The son of a construction worker and seamstress who divorced when he was a year old, he seldom saw his father after this and never man really got to know the other. After graduating high school, during a visit to a YMCA to ...
716 points
56. Billy Dee Williams
Actor | Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
Billy Dee Williams was born William December Williams on April 6, 1937 in New York City. Billy Dee has notched up an impressive array of film and television appearances over the past 50+ years. He is easily best known to international film audiences as the roguish Lando Calrissian in the last two ...
712 points
57. Richard Pryor
Actor | Superman III
Highly influential, and always controversial, African-American actor/comedian who was equally well known for his colorful language during his live comedy shows, as for his fast paced life, multiple marriages and battles with drug addiction. He has been acknowledged by many modern comic artist's as ...
712 points
58. Gene Hackman
Actor | The French Connection
Eugene Allen Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, the son of Anna Lyda Elizabeth (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. After ...
708 points
59. Ernest Borgnine
Actor | Marty
Ernest Borgnine was born Ermes Effron Borgnino on January 24, 1917 in Hamden, Connecticut. His parents were Anna (Boselli), who had emigrated from Carpi (MO), Italy, and Camillo Borgnino, who had emigrated from Ottiglio (AL), Italy. As an only child, Ernest enjoyed most sports, especially boxing, ...
708 points
60. Red Buttons
Actor | Pete's Dragon
Although Red Buttons is best known as a stand-up comic, he is also a successful songwriter, an Academy Award-winning actor (and has been nominated for two Golden Globe awards) and an accomplished singer. Born Aaron Chwatt in New York City's Lower East Side, Buttons (who got his name from a uniform ...
708 points
61. Roddy McDowall
Actor | Fright Night
Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall was born in Herne Hill, London, to Winifriede Lucinda (Corcoran), an Irish-born aspiring actress, and Thomas Andrew McDowall, a merchant seaman of Scottish descent. Roddy was enrolled in elocution courses at age five and by ten had appeared in his first film, ...
708 points
62. Peter Boyle
Actor | Everybody Loves Raymond
A bold, blunt instrument of hatred and violence at the onset of his film career, Peter Boyle recoiled from that repugnant, politically incorrect "working class" image to eventually play gruff, gentler bears and even comedy monsters in a career that lasted four decades.
He was born on October 18, ...
708 points
63. Melvyn Douglas
Actor | Being There
Two-time Oscar-winner Melvyn Douglas was one of America's finest actors, and would enjoy cinema immortality if for no other reason than his being the man who made Greta Garbo laugh in Ernst Lubitsch's classic comedy Ninotchka (1939), but he was much, much more.
Melvyn Douglas was born Melvyn Edouard...
708 points
64. Leszek Teleszynski
Actor | Teatr Telewizji
Leszek Teleszynski was born on May 21, 1947 in Kraków, Malopolskie, Poland. He is an actor, known for Television Theater (1953), The Devil (1972) and The Third Part of the Night (1971).
706 points
65. Wojciech Pszoniak
Actor | Danton
Wojciech Pszoniak was born on May 2, 1942 in Lwów, Lwowskie, Poland [now Lviv, Ukraine]. He was an actor and director, known for Danton (1983), The Promised Land (1975) and Korczak (1990). He was married to Barbara. He died on October 19, 2020 in Warsaw, Poland.
706 points
66. George C. Scott
Actor | Patton
George C. Scott was an immensely talented actor, a star of the big screen, stage and television. He was born on October 18, 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 ...
703 points
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