Old Time Actresses

101. Dolores Del Río

Dolores del Rio was the one of the first Mexican movie stars with international appeal and who had meteoric career in the 1920s/1930s Hollywood. Del Rio came from an aristocratic family in Durango. In the Mexican revolution of 1916, however, the family lost everything and emigrated to Mexico City, ...

102. Vilma Bánky

Actress | The Son of the Sheik

Vilma Bánky appeared in Hungarian, Austrian and French movies between 1920 and 1925, the year in which Samuel Goldwyn signed her, in Budapest, to a Hollywood contract. In Hollywood she was billed as the "The Hungarian Rhapsody". In the mid and late 1920s she was Goldwyn's biggest money maker, ...

103. Olga Baclanova

Actress | Freaks

Born Olga Vladimirovna Baklanova, one of six children of Vladimir Baklanoff and his wife Alexandra, later billed as the Russian Tigress in her early talking films, was born August 19, 1893. She graduated from the Cherniavsky Institute in Moscow prior to her selection in 1912 at age 19 to apprentice...

104. Mary Philbin

Actress | The Man Who Laughs

Mary Philbin's life should be a lesson to domineering parents. Mary was born on July 16, 1903, in Chicago, Illinois, to John Philbin and his first wife and namesake, Mary. The child was regarded as a little beauty from an early age and her mother was exceedingly proud of her and loved to show her ...

105. Anna May Wong

Actress | The Toll of the Sea

Anna May Wong, the first Chinese-American movie star, was born Wong Liu Tsong on January 3, 1905, in Los Angeles, California, to laundryman Wong Sam Sing and his wife, Lee Gon Toy. A third-generation American, she managed to have a substantial acting career during a deeply racist time when the ...

106. Mary Doran

Actress | Movie Crazy

Mary Doran was a graduate of New York's Columbia University where she excelled in drama classes. Having abandoned initial aspirations of becoming a teacher, the wavy-haired, blonde then attended the respected Ned Wayburn Dancing Academy - like countless other hopeful actresses - to learn tap ...

107. Ruth Chatterton

Actress | Dodsworth

Beginning as a chorus girl at age 14, Ruth Chatterton became a Broadway star with "Daddy Long Legs" in 1914. She appeared in such shows as "Mary Rose" and "Come Out of the Kitchen" before moving to Hollywood in 1925. As her film career faded in the late 1930s, she returned to the stage in revivals,...

108. Anne Shirley

Actress | Murder, My Sweet

They didn't come packaged any sweeter or lovelier than Anne Shirley, a gentle and gracious 1930s teen film actress who didn't quite reach the zenith of front-rank stardom and retired all too soon at age 26. On film as a toddler, she went through a small revolving door of marquee names before ...

109. Jean Arthur

Actress | You Can't Take It with You

This marvelous screen comedienne's best asset was only muffled during her seven years' stint in silent films. That asset? It was, of course, her squeaky, frog-like voice, which silent-era cinema audiences had simply no way of perceiving, much less appreciating. Jean Arthur, born Gladys Georgianna ...

110. Colleen Moore

Actress | So Big

Colleen Moore was born Kathleen Morrison in Port Huron, Michigan. Her father was an irrigation engineer and his job was good enough to provide the family a middle-class environment. She was educated in parochial schools and studied at the famed Detroit Conservatory. Colleen's family moved to ...

111. Lilyan Tashman

Actress | The Matrimonial Bed

Lilyan Tashman was born on October 23, 1896 in Brooklyn, New York to Rose (Cook) from Germany and Morris Tashman from Bialystock, Poland. After toying with stage work, Lilyan made her film debut with Experience (1921), followed the next year by Head Over Heels (1922) (this was at a time when some ...

112. Loretta Young

Actress | The Stranger

Sweet, sweeter, sweetest. No combination of terms better describes the screen persona of lovely Loretta Young. A&E's Biography (1987) has stated that Young "remains a symbol of beauty, serenity, and grace. But behind the glamour and stardom is a woman of substance whose true beauty lies in her ...

113. 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 ...

114. Joanne Woodward

Actress | Rachel, Rachel

Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward was born on February 27, 1930, in Thomasville, Georgia, to Wade Woodward and Elinor Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward in a modest household. Her one older brother, Wade Jr., who was the favorite of her father, eventually became an architect. Elinor Woodward was a ...

115. Jennifer Jones

Actress | The Towering Inferno

One of the world's most underrated Academy Award-winning actresses, Jennifer Jones was born Phylis Lee Isley on 2 March 1919 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Flora Mae (Suber) and Phillip Ross Isley, who ran a travelling stage show. As a young aspiring actress, she met and fell for young, handsome, aspiring ...

116. Anne Bancroft

Actress | The Graduate

Anne Bancroft was born on September 17, 1931 in The Bronx, NY, the middle daughter of Michael Italiano (1905-2001), a dress pattern maker, and Mildred DiNapoli (1907-2010), a telephone operator. She made her cinema debut in Don't Bother to Knock (1952) in 1952, and over the next five years appeared...

117. Patricia Neal

Actress | The Day the Earth Stood Still

Patricia Neal, the Oscar and Tony Award-winning actress, was born Patsy Louise Neal in Packard, Kentucky, where her father managed a coal mine and her mother was the daughter of the town doctor. She grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she attended high school. She was first bit by the acting bug...

118. Thelma Ritter

Actress | Rear Window

Thelma Ritter appeared in high school plays and was trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In the 1940s she worked in radio. Her movie career was started with a bit part in the 1946 Miracle on 34th Street (1947). In the movie she played a weary Xmas shopper. Her performance in the short ...

119. 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...

120. Joan Staley

Actress | Cape Fear

Lovely Joan Staley was born Joan McConchie on May 20, 1940 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and started taking violin lessons by the time she was three years old. Living in Los Angeles, her prodigious talent was obvious. She soon joined a baby orchestra in Los Angeles and, within a few years, became a ...

121. Virginia Gregg

Actress | Operation Petticoat

Virginia Gregg was born on March 6, 1916 in Harrisburg, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Operation Petticoat (1959), Police Story (1973) and Emergency! (1972). She was married to Jaime Del Valle. She died on September 15, 1986 in Encino, Los Angeles, California, USA.

122. Jean Seberg

Actress | À bout de souffle

Jean Dorothy Seberg was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, to substitute teacher Dorothy Arline (Benson) and pharmacist Edward Waldemar Seberg. Her father was of Swedish descent and her mother was of English and German ancestry.

One month before her 18th birthday, Jean landed the title role in Otto ...

123. Estelle Parsons

Actress | Bonnie and Clyde

The charming, witty, and immeasurably talented Estelle Parsons was born November 20, 1927 in Lynn, Massachusetts, to Elinor and Eben Parsons. She attended the Oak Grove School for Girls in Maine, and later graduated from Connecticut College in 1949. She worked as a singer with a band before she ...

124. Geraldine Fitzgerald

Actress | Dark Victory

Geraldine Fitzgerald was the only actress to appear as both Laurence Olivier's wife and Rodney Dangerfield's mother-in-law, which surely qualifies her as running the gamut (if not the gauntlet, in the latter case) of A to Z for co-starring with cinema immortals. The Irish lass appeared in many ...

125. Aneta Corsaut

Actress | The Blob

Pretty, auburn-haired actress Aneta Louise Corsaut was born in Hutchinson, Kansas on November 3, 1933. She majored in drama at Northwestern University and studied acting with Lee Strasberg, considered by some to be the father of method acting in America. Aneta dropped out in her junior year to ...

126. Gina Lollobrigida

Actress | Notre-Dame de Paris

Gina Lollobrigida was born on July 4, 1927 in Subiaco, Italy. Destined to be called "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World", Gina possibly had St. Brigid as part of her surname. She was the daughter of a furniture manufacturer, and grew up in the pictorial mountain village. The young Gina did some ...

127. Paula Prentiss

Actress | Where the Boys Are

Discovered by a talent scout at Northwestern University in 1958, Paula Prentiss was signed by Metro Goldwyn Mayer and teamed with Jim Hutton in a string of comedies. She rapidly became one of the best American comediennes of the 1960s. Her funny voice inflections, free acting style and brunette ...

128. Pola Negri

Actress | Bella Donna

Pola Negri was born in Lipno, Poland, and moved to Warsaw as a child. Living in poverty with her mother, a teenage Pola auditioned and was accepted to the Imperial Ballet. Due to an illness that ended her dancing career, she soon switched to the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts and became ...

129. Mabel Normand

Actress | Mickey

Mabel Normand was one of the comedy greats of early film. In an era when women are deemed 'not funny enough' it seems film history has forgotten her contributions. Her films debuted the Keystone Cops, Charlie Chaplin's tramp and the pie in the face gag. She co-starred with both Chaplin and Roscoe "...

130. Betty Compson

Actress | Street Girl

A mining engineer's daughter, blond, blue-eyed Betty Compson began in show business playing the violin in a Salt Lake City vaudeville establishment for $15 a week. Following that, she went on tour, accompanied by her mother, with an act called 'The Vagabond Violinist'. Aged eighteen, she appeared ...

131. Ruth Clifford

Actress | The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln

American actress, originally of leading roles, whose career lasted from silent days into the television era. A native of Rhode Island, she attended St. Mary's Seminary in Narragansett, Rhode Island, then, following her mother's death in 1911, came to Los Angeles as a teenager to live with her ...

132. Alla Nazimova

Actress | Salomé

The grand, highly flamboyant Russian star Alla Nazimova of Hollywood silent films lived an equally grand, flamboyant life off-camera, though her legendary status has not held up as firmly as that of a Rudolph Valentino today.

Alla Nazimova was born Miriam Edez Adelaida Leventon in 1879, in Yalta, ...

133. Esther Williams

Actress | Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Esther Jane Williams was born on August 8, 1921 in Inglewood, California. Her youth was spent as a teenage swimming champion and she won three United States National championships. She eventually was spotted by a MGM talent scout while working in a Los Angeles department store. She made her film ...

134. Jeanette MacDonald

Soundtrack | Cairo

She was the third daughter of Daniel and Anne MacDonald, younger sister to Blossom (MGM's character actress Marie Blake), whom she followed to New York and a chorus job in 1920. She was busy in a string of musical productions. In 1928 Paramount tested and rejected her, but a year later Ernst ...

135. Mae Murray

Actress | The Merry Widow

Dubbed "The Girl with the Bee Stung Lips" and "The Gardenia of the Screen," silent screen star Mae Murray was born in New York City as Marie Adrienne Koenig on May 10, 1885. The middle of three children born to French and German émigrés, she began studying dance at a young age.

Mae's professional ...

136. Constance Bennett

Actress | Topper

Independent, outspoken Constance Bennett, the first of the Bennett sisters to enter films, appeared in New York-produced silents before a chance meeting with Samuel Goldwyn led to her Hollywood debut in Cytherea (1924). She abandoned a burgeoning career in silents for marriage to Philip Plant in ...

137. Nancy Carroll

Actress | The Kiss Before the Mirror

Nancy Carroll was born Ann Veronica Lahiff on November 19, 1903 in New York City. Nancy was the youngest of seven children. At the age of sixteen she dropped out of high school to work as a stenographer. Then she began performing in local talent competitions. She was a gifted dancer and appeared in...

138. Beulah Bondi

Actress | It's a Wonderful Life

Character actress Beulah Bondi was a favorite of directors and audiences and is one of the reasons so many films from the 1930s and 1940s remain so enjoyable, as she was an integral part of many of the ensemble casts (a hallmark of the studio system) of major and/or great films, including The Trail...

139. Judith Anderson

Actress | Rebecca

Dame Judith Anderson was born Frances Margaret Anderson on February 10, 1897 in Adelaide, South Australia. She began her acting career in Australia before moving to New York in 1918. There she established herself as one of the greatest theatrical actresses and was a major star on Broadway ...

140. Luise Rainer

Actress | The Great Ziegfeld

Luise Rainer, the first thespian to win back-to-back Oscars, was born on January 12, 1910 in Dusseldorf, Germany, into a prosperous Jewish family. Her parents were Emilie (Königsberger) and Heinrich Rainer, a businessman. She took to the stage, and plied her craft on the boards in Germany. As a ...

141. Shirley Temple

Actress | The Little Colonel

Shirley Temple was easily the most popular and famous child star of all time. She got her start in the movies at the age of three and soon progressed to super stardom. Shirley could do it all: act, sing and dance and all at the age of five! Fans loved her as she was bright, bouncy and cheerful in ...

142. Rosalind Russell

Actress | Auntie Mame

The middle of seven children, she was named, not for the heroine of "As You Like It" but for the S.S. Rosalind on which her parents had sailed, at the suggestion of her father, a successful lawyer.

After receiving a Catholic school education, she went to the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New ...

143. Paulette Goddard

Actress | The Ghost Breakers

Paulette Goddard was a child model who debuted in "The Ziegfeld Follies" at the age of 13. She gained fame with the show as the girl on the crescent moon, and was married to a wealthy man, Edgar James, by the time she was 17. After her divorce she went to Hollywood in 1931, where she appeared in ...

144. Gypsy Rose Lee

Actress | Belle of the Yukon

Born Rose Louise Hovick in Seattle, Washington, in 1911, but called Louise from early childhood, Gypsy Rose Lee was the daughter of a mild-mannered businessman and a restless, fiery young woman named Rose, who was determined to get out of Seattle and make a life for herself and her daughter in show...

145. Maureen O'Sullivan

Actress | The Thin Man

Of Irish, English, and Scottish descent, Maureen Paula O'Sullivan was born on May 17, 1911 in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland. Her father was Charles Joseph O'Sullivan, an officer in the Connaught Rangers, and his wife, the former Mary Fraser (or Frazer). She was educated at Catholic schools in ...

146. Ruth Hussey

Actress | The Philadelphia Story

A graduate of the University of Michigan School of Drama, Ruth Hussey's first show-business job was as a fashion commentator on a local radio station. She journeyed to New York City, where she was signed as a model by the world-famous Powers agency. She obtained some stage roles with touring ...

147. Maria Montez

Actress | Arabian Nights

In a world weary of war and dispirited by the ravages of the Great Depression, Hollywood at the turn of the 1940s concocted a wildly popular, effective lot of escapist fare (though often cheaply made) to regale the sick at heart worldwide. Universal Pictures, more often than not, led in producing ...

148. Hedy Lamarr

Actress | Samson and Delilah

Hedy Lamarr, the woman many critics and fans alike regard as the most beautiful ever to appear in films, was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria. She was the daughter of Gertrud (Lichtwitz), from Budapest, and Emil Kiesler, a banker from Lemberg (now known as Lviv). Her parents were ...

149. Frances Farmer

Actress | Flowing Gold

Born in Seattle, Frances Farmer studied drama at the University of Washington, Seattle. In 1935, she went to Hollywood where she secured a seven-year contract with Paramount. In 1943, she was wrongfully declared mentally incompetent and committed by her parents to a series of asylums and public ...

150. Priscilla Lane

Actress | Arsenic and Old Lace

Priscilla Lane attended the Eagin School of Dramatic Arts in New York before she began touring with her sisters in the Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians Dance Band. She was a popular singer with her sisters and, after 5 years, she was signed to a Hollywood contract with Warner Brothers in 1937. ...

151. Brenda Marshall

Actress | The Sea Hawk

This alluring hazel-eyed 1940s leading lady was born Ardis Ankerson on the Philippine island of Negros, one of two siblings. Her father was Otto Peter Ankerson who held an important position as overseer of a large sugar plantation. Following the premature death of her mother in 1925, Ardis and her ...

152. Ellen Drew

Actress | Christmas in July

Missouri-born Ellen Drew was born Esther Loretta Ray in 1914, the daughter of an Irish-born barber. After her parents separated when she was 15 years old, she worked various jobs (accountant, salesgirl) to support her mother and younger brother. At one time she worked at Marshall Field's Department...

153. 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 ...

154. Irene Papas

Actress | The Guns of Navarone

Irene Papas was born on September 3, 1929 in Chilimodion, Corinth, Greece. She was an actress and director, known for The Guns of Navarone (1961), The Message (1976) and Electra (1962). She was married to José Kohn and Alkis Papas. She died on September 14, 2022 in Chiliomodion, Corinthia, Greece.

155. 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 ...

156. Alice Faye

Soundtrack | Hello Frisco, Hello

As A&E's Biography put it, "She rose from the mean streets of New York's Hell's Kitchen to become the most famous singing actress in the world. When the pressures of fame became too much, she had the courage to leave Hollywood on her own terms". Alice Faye was born Alice Jeanne Leppert in NYC on ...

157. Jane Withers

Actress | Giant

During the early times of the Depression when life was more famine than feast, child stars became the blue plate special of the day, served up by Hollywood to help nourish a nation besieged with troubles. Following 20th Century-Fox monumental success with Shirley Temple in the early 1930s, every ...

158. Nella Walker

Actress | Sabrina

Nella Walker was born on March 6, 1886 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Sabrina (1954), Two Sisters from Boston (1946) and Three Smart Girls (1936). She was married to Wilbur Mack. She died on March 22, 1971 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

159. Gloria Stuart

Actress | Titanic

Gloria Stuart was born on a dining room table on 4th Street in Santa Monica, California on July 4, 1910. Her early roles as a performing artist were in plays she produced in her home as a young girl. She was the star of her senior class play at Santa Monica High School in 1927. Attending the ...

160. Mary Nash

Actress | The Philadelphia Story

When her Hollywood career began in 1934, Mary Nash was already a veteran performer, having appeared in vaudeville and on Broadway. Following a brief appearance as a dancer in 1904, she joined Ethel Barrymore in a 1905 off- Broadway production, 'Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire'. This was followed by 'Captain ...

161. Joan Davis

Actress | Hold That Ghost

Widely popular comedienne appeared in some movies and on radio in the 40s and on early television. She starred in the popular television series, I Married Joan (1952), with Jim Backus as her husband and her real-life daughter, Beverly Wills as her sister.

Joan died of a sudden heart attack in 1961. ...

162. Anita Louise

Actress | The Little Princess

An actress from the age of 6, Anita appeared with Walter Hampden in the Broadway production of Peter Ibbetson. As a juvenile actor, Anita used the name Louise Fremault and made her film debut at 9 in the film The Sixth Commandment (1924). She continued to make films as a child actor, and in 1929, ...

163. Spring Byington

Actress | You Can't Take It with You

The possessor of one of Hollywood's gentlest faces and warmest voices, and about as sweet as Tupelo honey both on-and-off camera, character actress Spring Byington was seldom called upon to play callous or unsympathetic (she did once play a half-crazed housekeeper in Dragonwyck (1946)). Although ...

164. Gale Sondergaard

Actress | The Mark of Zorro

Sly, manipulative, dangerously cunning and sinister were the key words that best described the roles that Gale Sondergaard played in motion pictures, making her one of the most talented character actresses ever seen on the screen. She was educated at the University of Minnesota and later married ...

165. Gloria Holden

Actress | Dracula's Daughter

Hollywood leading lady in B-movies, and supporting actress in big budget films. Although remembered for her portrayal of "Mme. Zola" in The Life of Emile Zola (1937), she is most memorable for her chilling-yet-beauteous performance as Dracula's Daughter (1936). She had another memorable role in ...

166. Florence Lawrence

Actress | Not Like Other Girls

Florence Lawrence was the first film player whose name was used to promote her films and the studio (Independent Moving Pictures Company [IMP]) for which she worked. Before her, actors and actresses worked anonymously, partly out of fear that stage managers would refuse to hire them if they were ...

167. Kathryn Grayson

Actress | Kiss Me Kate

Kathryn Grayson was born Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick in Winston-Salem, NC, on February 9, 1922. This pretty, petite brunette with a heart-shaped face was discovered by MGM talent scouts while singing on the radio. The studio quickly signed her to a contract, and she was given acting lessons ...

168. Ann Miller

Actress | Mulholland Dr.

Ann Miller was born Johnnie Lucille Ann Collier on April 12, 1923 in Chireno, Texas. She lived there until she was nine, when her mother left her philandering father and moved with Ann to Los Angeles, California. Even at that young age, she had to support her mother, who was hearing-impaired and ...

169. Eve Arden

Actress | Our Miss Brooks

Eve Arden was born Eunice Mary Quedens in Mill Valley, California (near San Francisco), and was interested in show business from an early age. At 16, she made her stage debut after quitting school to join a stock company. After appearing in minor roles in two films under her real name, Eunice ...

170. 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...

171. Leslie Caron

Actress | Gigi

French ballet dancer Leslie Caron was discovered by the legendary MGM star Gene Kelly during his search for a co-star in one of the finest musicals ever filmed, the Oscar-winning An American in Paris (1951), which was inspired by and based on the music of George Gershwin. Leslie's gamine looks and ...

172. Mary Astor

Actress | The Maltese Falcon

Mary Astor was born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke on May 3, 1906 in Quincy, Illinois to Helen Marie Vasconcellos, an American of Portuguese and Irish ancestry from Illinois, and Otto Ludwig Langhanke, a German immigrant. Mary's parents were very ambitious for her and wanted something better for her...

173. Sally Blane

Actress | Forbidden Company

Although this lovely, light brown-haired leading lady would wind up better known as one of Loretta Young's two elder acting sisters, Sally Blane nevertheless enjoyed a lively albeit modest "B" film career during the late 1920s and 1930s. The resemblance to her "A"-level sister was very strong -- ...

174. Kathleen Hughes

Actress | Revenge

Hollywood born and bred Kathleen Hughes posed for one of the most iconic publicity stills in show biz history. It depicts her wide-eyed, screaming and throwing up her hands in terror. This image has since been used on countless occasions and for diverse purposes ranging from birthday cards to the ...

175. Gloria DeHaven

Actress | The Thin Man Goes Home

Gloria Mildred DeHaven was born on July 23, 1925 in Los Angeles to vaudeville headliners Carter and Flora DeHaven. Her parents made sure their daughter would be educated at the very best private schools. They also indulged her ambition to be in show business by packing her off to the Mar-Ken ...

176. Barbara Lawrence

Actress | Unfaithfully Yours

Her career may have only lasted a dozen years, and the number of films slightly more than twenty, but Barbara appeared in some interesting productions. As a young girl, she was a model. While completing her studies at UCLA, she co-starred in half a dozen movies for 20th Century Fox. Lawrence ...

177. Mae Clarke

Actress | Frankenstein

Vivacious, blonde Mae Clarke was exposed to cinema from an early age, her father being an organist in a motion picture cinema. Growing up in Atlantic City, New Jersey, she learned how to dance. At the tender age of 13 she was already performing in nightclubs and amateur theatricals. In 1924, she ...

178. Ann Doran

Actress | Rebel Without a Cause

Ann Doran appeared in over 500 motion pictures and 1000 television shows, by one count. Starting at the age of four, she appeared in hundreds of silent films under assumed names so her father's family wouldn't find out. Rarely a featured player (although Charles Starrett's Rio Grande (1938) is a ...

179. Julie London

Actress | Emergency!

Julie London recorded 32 albums during her career. Forced to give up band singing when her true age was discovered, she was primarily a torch singer. Her vocal range was described by "sultry" and "low-keyed". Her own favorite singers were Barbra Streisand and Roberta Flack.

She was known in some ...

180. Claire Kelly

Actress | Party Girl

Claire Kelly was born on March 15, 1934 in San Francisco, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Party Girl (1958), The Loved One (1965) and The Badlanders (1958). She was married to Robert Edward Murphy, John Dutton, Robert Kenaston, Perry Lopez and George DeWitt. She died on July 1, 1998 ...

181. Luana Patten

Actress | Fun & Fancy Free

One of the first two contract players for Walt Disney Studios, she made her debut in Song of the South (1946) as a poor white child fascinated by the stories told by Uncle Remus. She made several more films as a child star, then left film for 8 years. She returned as an ingénue in Rock, Pretty Baby!...

182. Leslie Brooks

Actress | The Man Who Dared

Leslie Brooks was born on July 13, 1922 in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. She was an actress, known for The Man Who Dared (1946), Cigarette Girl (1947) and It's Great to Be Young (1946). She was married to Russ Vincent and Donald Anthony Shay. She died on July 1, 2011 in Sherman Oaks, California, USA.

183. Julie Bishop

Actress | Northern Pursuit

Colorado-born leading lady Julie Bishop, who also acted under her birth name of Jacqueline Wells and the stage name Diane Duval, started off as a silent movie child actress, working with such legends as Clara Bow and Mary Pickford.

The daughter of a wealthy banker and oilman, she was raised in Texas ...

184. Constance Collier

Actress | Rope

In a career that covered six decades, Constance Collier evolved into one of Broadway and London's finest tragediennes during the first half of the 1900s. While the regal, dark-featured beauty who bore classic Romanesque features enjoyed a transcontinental career like a number of her contemporaries,...

185. Dixie Dunbar

Actress | Girls' Dormitory

She was a vivacious, kewpie doll-like dancer/entertainer of 1930s Broadway and Hollywood musicals. Dixie Dunbar was born Christine Elizabeth Dunbar in Montgomery, Alabama on January 18, 1918, and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. Nicknamed "Tootsie" by her mother, she took dancing lessons at an early age...

186. Evelyn Selbie

Actress | The Silver Treasure

Evelyn Selbie was born on July 6, 1871 in Ohio, USA. She was an actress, known for The Silver Treasure (1926), Dangerous Paradise (1930) and The Prisoner's Story (1912). She died on December 7, 1950 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.

187. Gladys Cooper

Actress | My Fair Lady

Gladys Cooper was the daughter of journalist William Frederick Cooper and his wife Mabel Barnett. As a child she was very striking and was used as a photographic model beginning at six years old. She wanted to become an actress and started on that road in 1905 after being discovered by Seymour ...

188. Deanna Durbin

Actress | It Started with Eve

The girl who one day would be known as "Winnipeg's Sweetheart" was born at Grace Hospital on December 4, 1921, as Edna Mae Durbin. In her early childhood there were no obvious signs that one day she would be a bigger box office attraction than Shirley Temple. Renamed Deanna Durbin for show business...

189. Margaret Lockwood

Actress | The Lady Vanishes

Karachi-born Margaret Lockwood, daughter of a British colonial railway clerk, was educated in London and studied to be an actress at the Italia Conti Drama School. Her first moment on stage came at the age of 12, when she played a fairy in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in 1928. She had a bit part in ...

190. Marion Davies

Actress | Little Old New York

Marion Davies was one of the great comedic actresses of the silent era and into the 1930s.

Marion Cecelia Douras was born in the borough of Brooklyn, New York on January 3, 1897, the daughter of Rose (Reilly) and Bernard J. Douras, a lawyer and judge. Her parents were both of Irish descent. Marion ...

191. Martita Hunt

Actress | Great Expectations

Popular British character actress known for her rich cluster of queens, dowagers, shrews and evildoers, Martita Hunt was born on a ranch in Argentina to British parents, but moved with her family to England at age 10 for her formal education. On stage at age 21 with the Liverpool Repertory Theatre,...

192. Virginia Cherrill

Actress | City Lights

Actress in US and UK films of the early 1930s. Born on a farm, Cherrill was discovered by Charles Chaplin while sitting beside him at a boxing match in Los Angeles; he introduced himself at intermission and hired her for her debut in City Lights (1931). She met husband Cary Grant at the premiere of ...

193. Fay Compton

Actress | The Haunting

Fay Compton was born on September 18, 1894 in West Kensington, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Haunting (1963), Othello (1951) and Laughter in Paradise (1951). She was married to Ralph Michael, Leon Quartermaine, Lauri de Frece and Harry Gabriel Pelissier. She died on ...

194. Florence Desmond

Actress | Some Girls Do

Florence Desmond was born on May 31, 1905 in Islington, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Some Girls Do (1969), Three Came Home (1950) and Gay Love (1934). She was married to Charles Hughesdon and Tom Campbell Black. She died on January 16, 1993 in Guildford, Surrey, England, UK.

195. Evelyn Laye

Actress | The Luck of the Navy

London-born Evelyn Laye, daughter of actor parents, was already treading the boards at the age of two. Her father managed the Palace Theatre in Brighton and this was where Evelyn first made a name for herself. A seasoned stage performer by the age of fifteen, she graduated to the London West End ...

196. Valerie Hobson

Actress | Bride of Frankenstein

Elegant, quintessentially British Valerie Hobson was the daughter of a British army officer. She studied dancing at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and appeared onstage for the first time at age 16, but she contracted a case of scarlet fever and decided to give up dancing for acting. She ...

197. Leila Hyams

Actress | Freaks

Leila Hyams was one of the top leading ladies of the early talkie pre-code years. She was a likable, pleasing actress with a charming presence. She had much spark, personality and charisma, and a touch of down-to-earthiness and naturalness that won over movie fans; they could relate to her. A ...

198. Elisabeth Bergner

Actress | The Rise of Catherine the Great

Elisabeth Bergner was the daughter of the merchant Emil Ettel and his wife Anna Rosa Wagner. She grew up in Vienna, and she made her theatre debut in Innsbruck in 1915. In 1916 she obtained a contract in Zürich, where she played Ophelia next to the famous Alexander Moissi, who fell in love with her...

199. Mady Christians

Actress | Heidi

Mady Christians was born in Vienna, Austria. Destined to be in films in both Germany and the US, she started out as a stage actress but soon found new challenges in the world of cinema. Her first film was at the age of 24 when she appeared in Audrey (1916). She remained in German films for the next...

200. Mary Boland

Actress | The Women

Lively, buxom character actress Mary Boland made a name for herself playing vacuous or pixilated motherly types during the 1930s. One of her most memorable performances was as the addle-brained Mrs. Rimplegar of Three Cornered Moon (1933), who gives away her family fortune to a swindler because he ...