The Best Actor 1948
by dziwnytenswiat | created - 1 month ago | updated - 1 month ago | PublicFrom my list: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls027098712/
1. James Stewart
Actor | Vertigo
James Maitland Stewart was born on May 20, 1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, to Elizabeth Ruth (Johnson) and Alexander Maitland Stewart, who owned a hardware store. He was of Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and some English descent. Stewart was educated at a local prep school, Mercersburg Academy, where he ...
2303 points
2. Richard Widmark
Actor | Kiss of Death
Richard Widmark established himself as an icon of American cinema with his debut in the 1947 film noir Kiss of Death (1947), in which he won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination as the killer Tommy Udo. Kiss of Death (1947) and other noir thrillers established Widmark as part of a new ...
2172 points
3. 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 ...
1611 points
4. Montgomery Clift
Actor | From Here to Eternity
Edward Montgomery Clift (nicknamed 'Monty' his entire life) was born on October 17, 1920 in Omaha, Nebraska, just after his twin sister Roberta (1920-2014) and eighteen months after his brother Brooks Clift. He was the son of Ethel "Sunny" Anderson (Fogg; 1888-1988) and William Brooks Clift (1886-...
1565 points
5. Richard Conte
Actor | The Godfather
Richard Conte was born Nicholas Richard Conte on March 24, 1910, in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of an Italian-American barber. He held a variety of jobs before becoming a professional actor, including truck driver, Wall Street clerk and singing waiter at a Connecticut resort. The gig as a ...
1549 points
6. Edward G. Robinson
Actor | Double Indemnity
Emanuel Goldenberg arrived in the United States from Romania 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 ...
1543 points
7. Farley Granger
Actor | Strangers on a Train
Farley Earle Granger was born in 1925 in San Jose, California, to Eva (Hopkins) and Farley Earle Granger, who owned an automobile dealership. Right out of high school, he was brought to the attention of movie producer Samuel Goldwyn, who cast him in a small role in The North Star (1943). He followed...
1542 points
8. 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 his grandparents were immigrants from the north of Ireland. He was a tough street kid who took an early interest in gymnastics. He joined the circus as an acrobat and ...
1512 points
9. Ray Milland
Actor | The Lost Weekend
Ray Milland became one of Paramount's most bankable and durable stars, under contract from 1934 to 1948, yet little in his early life suggested a career as a motion picture actor.
Milland was born Alfred Reginald Jones in the Welsh town of Neath, Glamorgan, to Elizabeth Annie (Truscott) and Alfred ...
1490 points
10. Mark Stevens
Actor | Between Midnight and Dawn
Mark Stevens, a good-looking, second-tier star during the 1940s and 1950s, was born Richard William Stevens in Cleveland, Ohio, on December 13, 1916 (the dates in reference books seem to vary between 1915-20). Of Scottish and English heritage, the freckle-faced boy with the reddish hair had a ...
1458 points
11. Leo Genn
Actor | Quo Vadis
Leo Genn was the son of a successful jewelry merchant Woolfe (William) Genn and his wife Rachel Asserson. He attended the City of London School as a youth and went on to study law at Cambridge. He received his law degree as a qualified barrister (which in English law tradition is a lawyer who is a ...
1456 points
12. Sydney Greenstreet
Actor | The Maltese Falcon
Sydney Greenstreet's father was a leather merchant with eight children. Sydney left home at age 18 to make his fortune as a Ceylon tea planter, but drought forced him out of business and back to England. He managed a brewery and, to escape boredom, took acting lessons. His stage debut was as a ...
1421 points
13. Lamberto Maggiorani
Actor | Ladri di biciclette
Lamberto Maggiorani was born on August 28, 1909 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was an actor, known for Bicycle Thieves (1948), The Last Judgment (1961) and Mamma Roma (1962). He died on April 22, 1983 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.
868 points
14. Ralph Richardson
Actor | Doctor Zhivago
Sir Ralph Richardson was one of the greatest actors of the 20th Century English-language theater, ascending to the height of his profession in the mid-1930s when he became a star in London's West End. He became the first actor of his generation to be knighted. He became Sir Ralph in 1947, and was ...
831 points
15. Walter Huston
Actor | The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
For many years Walter Huston had two passions: his career as an engineer and his vocation for the stage. In 1909 he dedicated himself to the theatre, and made his debut on Broadway in 1924. In 1929 he journeyed to Hollywood, where his talent and ability made him one of the most respected actors in ...
818 points
16. Tim Holt
Actor | The Magnificent Ambersons
As they say, like father, like son. Cowboy hero Tim Holt avidly followed in the boots of his famous character-actor dad, the granite-jawed Jack Holt (b. Charles John Holt), who appeared in hundreds of silents and talkies (many of them westerns) over the years. The two actually appeared together as ...
818 points
17. Bruce Bennett
Actor | The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Herman Brix was a star shot-putter in the 1928 Olympics. After losing the lead in MGM's Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) due to a shoulder injury, he was contracted by Ashton Dearholt for his independent production of The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935), a serial and the only Tarzan film between the ...
818 points
18. Orson Welles
Actor | Citizen Kane
His father, Richard Head Welles, was a well-to-do inventor, his mother, Beatrice (Ives) Welles, a beautiful concert pianist; Orson Welles was gifted in many arts (magic, piano, painting) as a child. When his mother died in 1924 (when he was nine) he traveled the world with his father. He was ...
816 points
19. Dan O'Herlihy
Actor | RoboCop
Daniel Peter "Dan" O'Herlihy was born on 1 May 1919 at Odessa Cottage, Wexford Town, County Wexford (Ireland) to John Robert O'Herlihy, a civil servant from Cork who later worked in the Department of Industry and Commerce, and Ellen (née Hanton). Dan had at least two siblings, a sister and a ...
816 points
20. 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, ...
816 points
21. 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...
813 points
22. Lew Ayres
Actor | Holiday
Lew Ayres was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and raised in San Diego, California. A college dropout, he was found by a talent scout in the Coconut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles and entered Hollywood as a bit player. He was leading man to Greta Garbo in The Kiss (1929), but it was the role of Paul ...
809 points
23. Charles Bickford
Actor | A Star Is Born
American character actor of gruff voice and appearance who was a fixture in Hollywood pictures from the earliest days of the talkies. The fifth of seven children, he was born in the first minute of 1891. He was a boisterous child, and at nine was tried and acquitted for attempted murder in the ...
809 points
24. Lee J. Cobb
Actor | 12 Angry Men
Lee J. Cobb, one of the premier character actors in American film for three decades in the post-World War II period, was born Leo Jacoby in New York City's Lower East Side on December 8, 1911. The son of a Jewish newspaper editor, young Leo was a child prodigy in music, mastering the violin and the...
803 points
25. Robert Donat
Actor | The 39 Steps
Robert Donat's pleasant voice and somewhat neutral English accent were carefully honed as a boy because he had a stammer and took elocution lessons starting at age 11 to overcome the impediment. It was not too surprising that freedom from such a vocal embarrassment was encouragement to act. His ...
803 points
26. Cedric Hardwicke
Actor | The Ten Commandments
Sir Cedric Hardwicke, one of the great character actors in the first decades of the talking picture, was born in Lye, England on February 19, 1893. Hardwicke attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and made his stage debut in 1912. His career was interrupted by military service in World War I, ...
803 points
27. John Wayne
Actor | True Grit
John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Iowa, to Mary Alberta (Brown) and Clyde Leonard Morrison, a pharmacist. He was of English, Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and Irish ancestry.
Clyde developed a lung condition that required him to move his family from Iowa to the warmer climate of southern ...
799 points
28. Walter Brennan
Actor | The Westerner
In many ways the most successful and familiar character actor of American sound films and the only actor to date to win three Oscars for Best Supporting Actor, Walter Brennan attended college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, studying engineering. While in school he became interested in acting and ...
799 points
29. Lionel Barrymore
Actor | You Can't Take It with You
Famed actor, composer, artist, author and director. His talents extended to the authoring of the novel "Mr. Cartonwine: A Moral Tale" as well as his autobiography. In 1944, he joined ASCAP, and composed "Russian Dances", "Partita", "Ballet Viennois", "The Woodman and the Elves", "Behind the Horizon...
793 points
30. Anton Walbrook
Actor | The Red Shoes
This dark, debonair, dashing and extremely distinguished Austrian actor was christened Adolf Wohlbrück in Vienna, the scion of a family of circus clowns. He broke away easily from generations of tradition as the circus life had no appeal whatsoever to Walbrook.
Trained by the legendary director Max ...
791 points
31. Hans Söhnker
Actor | Sherlock Holmes und das Halsband des Todes
Hans Söhnker was born on October 11, 1903 in Kiel, Germany. He was an actor, known for Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962), Film Without a Name (1948) and Brand im Ozean (1939). He was married to Ingeborg Knoche-Lücken and Charlotte Berlow. He died on April 20, 1981 in West Berlin, West ...
784 points
32. Erich Ponto
Actor | The Third Man
Erich Ponto was born on December 14, 1884 in Lübeck [now Schleswig-Holstein], Germany. He was an actor and writer, known for The Third Man (1949), Sky Without Stars (1955) and Schneider Wibbel (1939). He was married to Tony Kresse. He died on February 4, 1957 in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, ...
784 points
33. Louis Jourdan
Actor | Gigi
Louis Jourdan was born Louis Robert Gendre in Marseille, France to Yvonne (née Jourdan) and hotel owner Henry Gendre. He was educated in France, Britain, and Turkey. He trained as an actor with René Simon at the École Dramatique. He debuted on screen in 1939, going on to play cultivated, polished, ...
782 points
34. John Lund
Actor | High Society
One of six children born to an immigrant Norwegian glassblower, John Lund had a rather unsettled childhood. He dropped out of school at the age of 14. For a while, he tried his hand at several part-time jobs but never stayed long. He then devised various entrepreneurial ways to generate an income, ...
781 points
35. Oscar Homolka
Actor | The Seven Year Itch
Because of his heavy generically "European" accent and Slavic-sounding surname (not an uncommon one among Czechs or Slovaks), many people assumed Oscar Homolka was Eastern European or Russian. In fact, he was born in Vienna (then Austria-Hungary), the multicultural capital of a large multi-ethnic ...
778 points
36. Charles Laughton
Actor | Witness for the Prosecution
Charles Laughton was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, to Eliza (Conlon) and Robert Laughton, hotel keepers of Irish and English descent, respectively. He was educated at Stonyhurst (a highly esteemed Jesuit college in England) and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (received gold medal). ...
777 points
37. John Dall
Actor | Rope
John Dall was born John Dall Thompson on May 26, 1920, the younger son of Mr. Charles Jenner Thompson and Mrs. Henry (née Worthington) Thompson. He made his Broadway debut in Norman Krasna's comedy, 'Dear Ruth', directed by Moss Hart, in 1944. The show was a hit, running for over a year and a half ...
777 points
38. Barry Fitzgerald
Actor | The Quiet Man
One of Hollywood's finest character actors and most accomplished scene stealers, Barry Fitzgerald was born William Joseph Shields in 1888 in Dublin, Ireland. Educated to enter the banking business, the diminutive Irishman with the irresistible brogue was bitten by the acting bug in the 1920s and ...
773 points
39. Howard Duff
Actor | The Naked City
Tough, virile, wavy-haired and ruggedly handsome with trademark forlorn-looking brows that added an intriguing touch of vulnerability to his hard outer core, actor Howard Duff and his wife-at-the-time, actress Ida Lupino, were one of Hollywood's premiere film couples during the 1950s "Golden Age". ...
773 points
40. 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 ...
767 points
41. Wendell Corey
Actor | Rear Window
Wendell Corey was a hard-working American character actor who appeared in numerous movies and television productions in the 1940s, '50s and '60s. Born on March 20, 1914 in Dracut, Massachusetts, in the northeastern part of the Commonwealth near the New Hampshire border, Corey was the son of a ...
762 points
42. Richard Attenborough
Actor | Jurassic Park
Richard Attenborough, Baron Attenborough of Richmond-upon-Thames, was born in Cambridge, England, the son of Mary (née Clegg), a founding member of the Marriage Guidance Council, and Frederick Levi Attenborough, a scholar and academic administrator who was a don at Emmanuel College and wrote a ...
758 points
43. William Hartnell
Actor | Murder in Reverse?
William Hartnell was born on 8 January 1908, just south of St. Pancras railway station in London. In press materials in the 1940s he claimed that his father was a farmer and later a stockbroker; it turns out that he had actually been born out of wedlock, as his biography "Who's There?" states.
At ...
758 points
44. Fred Astaire
Actor | The Towering Inferno
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. ...
758 points
45. Peter Lawford
Actor | The Longest Day
Born in London, England and son of a British World War I hero, Lawford had spent most of his childhood in Paris, France and began his acting career at a very young age. His parents were not married when their son was born. As a result of the scandal, The Lawfords fled to America.
As a young child, ...
758 points
46. Spencer Tracy
Actor | Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Spencer Tracy was the second son born on April 5, 1900, to truck salesman John Edward and Caroline Brown Tracy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While attending Marquette Academy, he and classmate Pat O'Brien quit school to enlist in the Navy at the start of World War I. Tracy was still at Norfolk Navy Yard...
753 points
47. Van Johnson
Actor | The Caine Mutiny
Van Johnson was the fresh-faced, well-mannered nice guy on screen you always wanted your daughter to marry! This fair, freckled and invariably friendly-looking MGM song-and-dance star of the 40s emerged a box office favorite (1944-1946) and second only to heartthrob Frank Sinatra during what gossip...
753 points
48. Robert Newton
Actor | Around the World in Eighty Days
Robert Newton was one of the great character actors -- and great characters -- of the British cinema, best remembered today for playing Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1950) and its sequel in 1954. His portrayal of Long John Silver and of Blackbeard, the Pirate (1952) created a persona that ...
753 points
49. Alec Guinness
Actor | Star Wars
Alec Guinness was an English actor. He is known for his six collaborations with David Lean: Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946), Fagin in Oliver Twist (1948), Col. Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor), Prince Faisal in Lawrence...
753 points
50. 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 Alec Leach on January 18, 1904 in Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, who worked in a factory. His early years in ...
748 points
51. 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...
748 points
52. Reginald Denny
Actor | Rebecca
Sometime in the early 1930s, Denny was between scenes on a movie set when he met a neighborhood boy who was trying to fly a bulky gas-powered model plane. When he tried to help by making an adjustment on the machine, Denny succeeded only in wrecking it. But this launched his infatuation with model ...
748 points
53. Paul Meurisse
Actor | Les diaboliques
Paul Meurisse was the son of a bank manager and it first looked as if he would follow in his father's footsteps when he became a solicitor's clerk in Aix-en-Provence. But his passion was elsewhere and he soon did the splits appearing as a chorus boy in music-hall revues. Leaving Aix for Paris, with...
748 points
54. Rex Harrison
Actor | My Fair Lady
Rex Harrison was born Reginald Carey Harrison in Huyton, Lancashire, England, to Edith Mary (Carey) and William Reginald Harrison, a cotton broker. He changed his name to Rex as a young boy, knowing it was the Latin word for "King". Starting out on his theater career at age 18, his first job at the ...
748 points
55. John Garfield
Actor | Four Daughters
John Garfield was born Jacob Julius Garfinkle on the Lower East Side of New York City, to Hannah Basia (Margolis) and David Garfinkle, who were Jewish immigrants from Zhytomyr (now in Ukraine). Jules was raised by his father, a clothes presser and part-time cantor, after his mother's death in 1920,...
747 points
56. Thomas Gomez
Actor | Key Largo
After graduating from high school in 1923, Thomas Sabino Gomez answered a help wanted ad, which resulted in his joining the Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne theater group. Prior to that time he had not considered acting as a career. He continued working as an actor with the Lunts, traveling across ...
747 points
57. Victor Mature
Actor | The Robe
American leading man Victor John Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Clara P. (Ackley) and Marcellus George Mature, a cutler and knife sharpener. His father, born Marcello Gelindo Maturi in Pinzolo, Trentino, was Italian, and his mother was of Swiss-German and German descent. Mature worked ...
746 points
58. Fred Clark
Actor | Sunset Blvd.
This popular, baggy-eyed, bald-domed, big lug of a character actor had few peers when called upon to display that special "slow burn" style of comedy few others perfected. But perfect he did -- on stage, film and TV. In fact, he pretty much cornered the market during the 50s and 60s as the dour, ...
746 points
59. Bernard Blier
Actor | Quai des Orfèvres
Bernard Blier was born on January 11, 1916 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was an actor, known for Jenny Lamour (1947), The Organizer (1963) and Speriamo che sia femmina (1986). He was married to Annette Martin and Gisèle Brunet. He died on March 29, 1989 in Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine, France.
741 points
60. Marcel Dalio
Actor | Sabrina
Sunday, November the 20th is the anniversary of Marcel Dalio's death in 1983. It was the end of a serendipitous life. You know him. He was a citizen of the world. Born Israel Moshe Blauschild, in Paris, in 1900, he became a much sought-after character actor. His lovely animated face with its great ...
741 points
61. Gregory Peck
Actor | To Kill a Mockingbird
Eldred Gregory Peck was born on April 5, 1916 in La Jolla, California, to Bernice Mae (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...
739 points
62. Bud Abbott
Actor | Hold That Ghost
Long acknowledged as one of the best "straight men" in the business, Bud Abbott was born William Alexander Abbott in Reading, Pennsylvania to Rae (Fisher) and Harry Abbott, who had both worked for the Barnum and Bailey Circus. When Bud was three his family moved to Asbury Park, New Jersey, which he...
737 points
63. 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 ...
737 points
64. Lon Chaney Jr.
Actor | The Wolf Man
American character actor whose career was influenced (and often overshadowed) by that of his father, silent film star Lon Chaney. The younger Chaney was born while his parents were on a theatrical tour, and he joined them onstage for the first time at the age of six months. However, as a young man,...
737 points
65. Bela Lugosi
Actor | Dracula
Bela Lugosi was born Béla Ferenc Dezsö Blaskó on October 20, 1882, Lugos, Hungary, Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania), to Paula de Vojnich and István Blaskó, a banker. He was the youngest of four children. During WWI, he volunteered and was commissioned as an infantry lieutenant, and was wounded ...
737 points
66. Dick Powell
Actor | Murder, My Sweet
Few actors ever managed a complete image transition as thoroughly as did Dick Powell: in his case, from the boyish, wavy-haired crooner in musicals to rugged crime fighters in film noirs. Powell grew up in the town of Little Rock, Arkansas, one of three brothers (one of them, Howard, ended up as ...
734 points
67. Raymond Burr
Actor | Rear Window
Born Raymond William Stacy Burr on May 21, 1917 in New Westminster, British Columbia, he spent most of his early life traveling. As a youngster, his father moved his family to China, where the elder Burr worked as a trade agent. When the family returned to Canada, Raymond's parents separated. He ...
734 points
68. Takashi Shimura
Actor | Shichinin no 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 ...
733 points
69. Toshirô Mifune
Actor | Yôjinbô
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 ...
733 points
70. John Mills
Actor | Great Expectations
Sir John Mills, one of the most popular and beloved English actors, was born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills on February 22, 1908, at the Watts Naval Training College in North Elmham, Norfolk, England. The young Mills grew up in Felixstowe, Suffolk, where his father was a mathematics teacher and his ...
725 points
71. Cornel Wilde
Actor | The Greatest Show on Earth
Cornel Wilde was born Kornel Lajos Weisz on October 13, 1912 in Prievidza, Hungary (now part of Slovakia) to a Jewish family. In 1920, he immigrated to New York City with his parents, Rayna (Vid) and Vojtech Béla Weisz, and elder sister, Edith. His family Anglicized their names. Kornel took the ...
725 points
72. 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 ...
723 points
73. Edmond O'Brien
Actor | The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Oscar-winner Edmond O'Brien was one of the most respected character actors in American cinema, from his heyday of the mid-1940s through the late 1960s. Born on September 10, 1915, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, O'Brien learned the craft of performance as a magician, reportedly tutored by...
723 points
74. Eddie Albert
Actor | Roman Holiday
A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Eddie Albert was a circus trapeze flier before becoming a stage and radio actor. He made his film debut in 1938 and has worked steadily since, often cast as the friendly, good-natured buddy of the hero but occasionally being cast as a villain; one of his ...
723 points
75. Roland Young
Actor | Topper
Fondly remembered for his many deceptively meek, erudite characters played on film -- think Cosmo Topper, of the screwball classic Topper (1937) -- this short (5'6"), balding, highly distinguished actor was born in London, England on November 11,1887, to an architect and his wife. Young was ...
723 points
76. Dennis O'Keefe
Actor | Brewster's Millions
Tall, cheerful, outdoorsy leading man of Hollywood B movies who started in show business as an infant accompanying his vaudevillian parents ("Flanagan and Edwards, the Rollicking Twosome") on the stage. In his teens, Dennis started to write film scripts while attending college. He then tried to ...
717 points
77. John Ireland
Actor | All the King's Men
Born in Canada, John Ireland was raised in New York. Performing as a swimmer in a water carnival, he moved into the legitimate theater, often appearing in minor roles in Broadway plays. His first big break in pictures came in 1945 when he appeared as Windy the introspective letter-writing G.I. in ...
717 points
78. Zachary Scott
Actor | Mildred Pierce
American leading man of suave or sinister roles. A collateral relative of George Washington and William Barclay 'Bat' Masterson, Scott was the son of a wealthy surgeon. Intending to follow his father into medicine, Scott studied at the University of Texas, but found he preferred the theater. He ...
715 points
79. Louis Hayward
Actor | And Then There Were None
From his birthplace in South Africa, Louis Charles Hayward was brought to England and was educated there and on the Continent. He spent a short time managing a London nightclub, displayed some acting talent and decided on acting, and was quickly tapped by playwright Noël Coward, who became his ...
715 points
80. Robert Ryan
Actor | The Wild Bunch
Distinguished U.S. actor and longtime civil rights campaigner Robert Bushnell Ryan was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Mable Arbutus (Bushnell), a secretary, and Timothy Aloysius Ryan, whose wealthy family owned a real estate firm. His father was of Irish ancestry, and his mother was of English and ...
715 points
81. Paul Lukas
Actor | Watch on the Rhine
Oscar-winning actor Paul Lukas was born in Hungary and graduated from the School for Dramatic Arts. In 1916 he went to Kosice (Kassa) to be an actor; in 1918 he became an actor specializing in comedy. For ten years he was the most popular character player and romantic lead of the company. In 1918 ...
715 points
82. Gene Kelly
Soundtrack | Singin' in the Rain
Eugene Curran Kelly was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the third son of Harriet Catherine (Curran) and James Patrick Joseph Kelly, a phonograph salesman. His father was of Irish descent and his mother was of Irish and German ancestry.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the largest and most powerful studio in...
713 points
83. Van Heflin
Actor | Shane
Craggy-faced, dependable star character actor Van Heflin never quite made the Hollywood "A" list, but made up for what he lacked in appearance with hard work, charisma and solid acting performances. He was born Emmett Evan Heflin in Oklahoma in December 1908, the son of Fanny Bleecker (Shippey) and...
713 points
84. Dane Clark
Actor | Destination Tokyo
Dane Clark was born Bernard Elliot Zanville in Brooklyn, New York City, to Rose (Korostoff) and Samuel Zanville, who were Russian Jewish immigrants. He graduated from Cornell University and St. John's Law School (Brooklyn). When he had trouble finding work in the mid-1930s he tried boxing, baseball,...
713 points
85. Gert Fröbe
Actor | Goldfinger
Tall, portly built German born actor (and talented violinist) who notched up over 100 film appearances, predominantly in German-language productions. He will forever be remembered by Western audiences as the bombastic megalomaniac "Auric Goldfinger" trying to kill Sean Connery and irradiate the ...
711 points
86. 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 ...
711 points
87. John Laurie
Actor | The 39 Steps
John Laurie was a Scotsman who would play many character roles in his long career - a lot of Scotsmen to be sure - but an enthusiastic and skilled actor in nearly 120 screen roles. He was the son of a mill worker, and studied for a career in architecture which he indeed began. But with World War I ...
711 points
88. Esmond Knight
Actor | Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
A stage actor from 1925, Esmond made his first film appearance in 77 Park Lane (1931) for Michael Powell for whom he eventually made 11 films.
Esmond served in the Royal Navy during WWII and lost one eye and was almost totally blinded in the other during an engagement against The Bismarck. This ...
711 points
89. Lloyd Nolan
Actor | Hannah and Her Sisters
It would no doubt be a real shock to most people to discover that the rich baritone Bronx-like accent of great veteran character actor Lloyd Nolan was a product of the San Francisco streets--not the urban jungle of New York City. Nolan was born in the City by the Bay, and his father, James Nolan, ...
708 points
Tell Your Friends