Movie Stars of the 1940's that are LIVING - as of AUGUST 2021 **UPDATED**

1. Ann Blyth

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 ...

2. 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 ...

3. Margaret O'Brien

Actress | Meet Me in St. Louis

Born Angela Maxine O'Brien on January 15, 1937 in San Diego, California. Her film debut was one-minute shot in MGM's Babes on Broadway (1941). Her big moment came when she was cast in Journey for Margaret (1942). This film shot her into instant stardom and also resulted in Angela changing her name ...

4. Angela Lansbury

Actress | The Manchurian Candidate

Angela Lansbury was born in 1925 into a prominent family of the upper middle class living in the Regent's Park neighborhood of London. Her father was socialist politician Edgar Isaac Lansbury (1887-1935), a member of both the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Labour Party. Edgar ...

5. Claude Jarman Jr.

Actor | Rio Grande

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Claude was the son of a railroad accountant. With no intentions of becoming a screen actor at the time, 12-year-old Claude Jarman, Jr. was discovered during an MGM nationwide talent search for their upcoming film, The Yearling (1946), and won the coveted role of Jody ...

6. 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 ...

7. Janis Paige

Actress | Silk Stockings

Joyous scene-stealer Janis Paige started out playing rather bland film ingénues, but never seemed to be comfortable in those roles--she had too much snap, crackle and pop to be confined in such a formulaic way.

Born Donna Mae Tjaden in 1922 in Tacoma, Washington, she was singing in public from age 5...

8. Jimmy Lydon

Actor | Vigilante Force

Born to a large Irish Catholic family (the fifth of nine children) and raised in New York City, Lydon overcame a birth defect and alcoholic father to begin a Broadway career in 1937, acting opposite Van Heflin, Sidney Lumet and Uta Hagen in separate productions. After a number of films with ...

9. Gigi Perreau

Actress | Shadow on the Wall

A major little talent, this French-American moppet star of the late '40s and early '50s was able to parlay her precocious popularity into a modest young adult career, but then left it for family. She has nevertheless maintained on its fringe for decades.

Gigi Perreau was born on February 6, 1941, in...

10. Elinor Donahue

Actress | Pretty Woman

Tap dancing at the age of 16 months, pert and pretty Elinor Donahue has been entertaining audiences for six decades. Born Mary Eleanor Donahue in Tacoma, Washington, on April 19, 1937, she appeared as a radio singer and vaudeville dancer while a mere toddler, then was picked up by Universal Studios...

11. June Lockhart

Actress | Lost in Space

Born in New York City on June 25, 1925, the daughter of actors Gene Lockhart and Kathleen Lockhart, June Lockhart made her professional debut at age eight in a Metropolitan Opera production of "Peter Ibbetson", playing Mimsey in the dream sequence. In the mid-1930s, the Lockharts relocated to ...

12. Robert Blake

Actor | Lost Highway

American actor who began as a child in Our Gang comedies and reappeared as a powerful adult performer of leading and character roles. Born in New Jersey, the young Mickey Gubitosi won a role in MGM's Our Gang series at the age of 5. As one of the more prominent children in the Gang, he gained ...

13. Billy Gray

Actor | The Day the Earth Stood Still

Billy Gray was born on January 13, 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA, as the son of famous actress Beatrice Gray. He was a successful child actor, known for Father Knows Best (1954), On Moonlight Bay (1951), and as Bobby in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). He went on the become an inventor ...

14. Karolyn Grimes

Actress | It's a Wonderful Life

At age 6, Karolyn Grimes played the role of Zuzu Bailey in the holiday film It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Her childhood film career spanned 16 movies, but she is best remembered for playing the daughter of George and Mary Bailey (James Stewart and Donna Reed). The petals from her rose symbolize the...

15. Cara Williams

Actress | The Defiant Ones

Perky, talented, blue-eyed redhead Cara Williams had acting aspirations from the get-go. She was born in Brooklyn on June 29, 1925, as Bernice Kamiat, to an Austrian Jewish father, Benjamin Kamiat, and a mother of Romanian Jewish descent, Flora (Schwartz). Cara began performing as a child and ...

16. Petula Clark

Soundtrack | Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Petula Clark was a star at the age of 11. She starred in British concert halls and on BBC radio singing for the troops during WWII. She was a child star in a series of British films from the end of WWII through to the early 1950s,and by 1954 was having hit records. After a move to France in 1960, ...

17. Terry Moore

Actress | Peyton Place

Born Helen Luella Koford on January 7, 1929, the Los Angeles, California native worked as a model before she made her film debut at age 11 in 20th Century-Fox's Maryland (1940). Through the 1940s, she worked under a variety of names (her own, Judy Ford and January Ford) before settling on Terry ...

18. Juliet Mills

Actress | Avanti!

An English actress of stage, screen and television, sister to Hayley Mills and daughter of Sir John Mills, Juliet first came to notice in films, actually after her sister Hayley started her career. Juliet, however, was first plucked onto the screen and signing a contract with Warner Brothers and ...

19. Mickey Kuhn

Actor | A Streetcar Named Desire

One of Hollywood's staple child actors during the 30s and 40s, Mickey Kuhn played alongside many a top Hollywood star from Leslie Howard and Conrad Nagel's son to playing Dick Tracy's ward. Once he reached the "awkward teens" stage, however, he found himself primarily unemployed or in unbilled ...

20. Marsha Hunt

Actress | Pride and Prejudice

Stardom somehow eluded this vastly gifted actress. Had it not perhaps been for her low-level profile compounded by her McCarthy-era blacklisting in the early 1950s, there is no telling what higher tier Marsha Hunt might have attained. Perhaps her work was not flashy enough, or too subdued, or ...

21. Glynis Johns

Actress | Mary Poppins

Glynis Johns was the daughter of actor Mervyn Johns. Best known for her light comedy roles and often playful flirtation, Glynis was born in South Africa while her parents were on tour there (her mother was a concert pianist) but was always proud of her Welsh roots and took delight in playing the ...

22. Terry Kilburn

Actor | Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Terry Kilburn was born on November 25, 1926 in West Ham, London, England, UK. He is an actor, known for Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), Lolita (1962) and Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back (1947).

23. Cora Sue Collins

Actress | Black Moon

Cora Sue Collins was born in Beckley, West Virginia. A chubby-cheeked, curly-haired child actress, she was nudged (or, rather, propelled) into show business by her ambitious mother. Though she was heavily in demand during the 1930s, Cora never posed a serious threat as a rival to Shirley Temple. ...

24. Nancy Olson

Actress | Sunset Blvd.

Milwaukee-born Nancy Ann Olson was the daughter of Henry, a physician, and Evelyn Olson, and educated at the University of Wisconsin. Discovered on stage after transferring to California's UCLA, the pretty, peaches-and-cream blonde was quickly signed by Paramount Studios in 1948 and almost ...

25. Jimmy Hunt

Actor | Pitfall

Jimmy Hunt was born on December 4, 1939 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is an actor, known for Pitfall (1948), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) and Invaders from Mars (1953). He has been married to Roswitha Theresia Jager since January 26, 1963. They have three children.

26. Noreen Nash

Actress | Phantom from Space

Brunette, blue-eyed Noreen Nash was born Norabelle Jean Roth in Wenatchee, Washington. Her father was Albert Roth, owner of a Coca Cola bottling plant, her mother Gail was a teacher. At the age of eighteen, Noreen was crowned 'Apple Blossom Queen' in her home town and sent to Washington to promote ...

27. Joyce Reynolds

Actress | Girls' School

Perky, brunette Joyce Reynolds was another doe-eyed hopeful who had a brief flirtation with Hollywood stardom in the 1940s. The daughter of Joel B. Reynolds and his wife Mary (née Dunn) attended the University of California before being 'discovered' by a talent scout during an amateur stage ...

28. Darryl Hickman

Actor | Network

Although younger brother Dwayne Hickman (born 1934) is probably the better-remembered sibling today with his cult following as TV's favorite lovestruck teenager Dobie Gillis and a few "Beach Party" films, it is Darryl Hickman who is certainly the more prolific brother in the movies. At one time, he...

29. Dwayne Hickman

Actor | How to Stuff a Wild Bikini

Blond, boyishly handsome Dwayne Hickman, the younger brother of Darryl Hickman, followed in his sibling's tiny footsteps as a moppet film actor himself. Born Dwayne Bernard Hickman in Los Angeles on May 18, 1934, the brothers had a younger sister as well, Deidre (born 1940). He had minor roles in ...

30. Ted Donaldson

Actor | A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Ted Donaldson was born on August 20, 1933 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), The Return of Rusty (1946) and Rusty Saves a Life (1949). He died on March 1, 2023 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

31. Dean Stockwell

Actor | Quantum Leap

Dean Robert Stockwell grew up in North Hollywood, the son of Broadway performers Harry Stockwell and Elizabeth "Betty" Stockwell (née Veronica). His vaudevillian father was a replacement Curly in the original production of "Oklahoma!". He was also a decent tenor whose voice was used for the part of...

32. Sharyn Moffett

Actress | Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

A child actress who showed heart-warming potential in the 1940s, child actress Sharyn Moffett (born Patricia Sharyn Moffett) was a cute presence in a number of sentimental tales. Closer to young Margaret O'Brien than Shirley Temple in type and demeanor, Sharyn was born on September 12, 1936 in ...

33. Micheline Presle

Actress | If a Man Answers

Elegant, dark-haired Parisian Micheline Presle (billed in the U.S. as Micheline Prelle) was the daughter of a businessman whose surname was Chassagne. Taking acting classes as a teen, she was discovered by Georg Wilhelm Pabst and cast in Jeunes filles en détresse (1939) (portraying ...

34. Jacqueline White

Actress | The Narrow Margin

Warm, charming leading lady of 1940s films, Jacqueline White was under contract to both MGM (which wasted her in mostly unbilled bits) and then RKO, where she appeared in two classics--Crossfire (1947) and The Narrow Margin (1952). RKO used her as a second lead in A pictures and leading roles in Bs.

...

35. Terry Randall

Actress | School for Randle

Terry Randall was born on October 30, 1914 in Cardiff, Wales, UK. She was an actress, known for School for Randle (1949), BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1950) and Laburnum Grove (1947). She was married to Arthur Charles Burrell. She died on May 5, 2015 in East Sussex, England, UK.

Note: As of May 2019 it is unknown if Ms. Randall is living.

36. Yoshiko Kuga

Actress | Taiyô to bara

Yoshiko Kuga was born on January 21, 1931 in Tokyo, Japan. She is an actress, known for Taiyô to bara (1956), Somewhere Under the Broad Sky (1954) and Jôshû to tomo ni (1956). She was previously married to Akihiko Hirata.

37. Conrad Janis

Actor | The Cable Guy

After decades in show business, character actor Conrad Janis came to prominence as Mindy's father on TV's Mork & Mindy (1978). Manhattan-born Janis was the son of renowned art dealer and clothing manufacturer Sidney Janis (1986-1989), and his wife Harriet (Grossman), who wrote books about jazz....

38. Sally Ann Howes

Actress | Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Sally Ann Howes grew up in a show business family led by her father, famous English comedian/actor Bobby Howes, her mother Patricia Malone and grandfather, Broadway director Capt. J.A.E. Malone. She had her first screen test offer on her 12th birthday and went on to star in several films before she...

39. Margaret Barton

Actress | Brief Encounter

Margaret Barton was born on May 27, 1926 in Finsbury Park, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Brief Encounter (1945), Fly Away Peter (1948) and BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1950). She has been married to Rob Cave since August 31, 2018. She was previously married to Raymond James.

40. Russ Tamblyn

Actor | West Side Story

Russ wasn't discovered, he discovered show business at the age of 5 when, with other youngsters at Inglewood, California, he went to Saturday matinees at the Granada Theatre. One afternoon while waiting for the show to start he got on the stage and did an impromptu dance which the kids loved. He ...

41. Marcy McGuire

Actress | Higher and Higher

This Kansas redhead, only 16 when she was cast in Seven Days' Leave (1942), was already working as a nightclub entertainer. When her first role received excellent notices, stressing her singing and wide-eyed appeal, she was signed to an RKO contract. RKO made little use of her comedy talent, ...

42. Patti Brady

Actress | Never Say Goodbye

Patti Brady was born on May 15, 1937 in Woodside, New York, USA. She is an actress, known for Never Say Goodbye (1946), Gasoline Alley (1951) and Corky of Gasoline Alley (1951).

43. Alfredo Varelli

Writer | 30 Winchester per El Diablo

Alfredo Varelli was born on August 31, 1914 in Saracinesco, Lazio, Italy. He was an actor and assistant director, known for Gold Train (1965), The Pagans (1953) and Pontius Pilate (1962). He died on August 18, 1996 in Rome, Italy.

Note: As of May 2019 it is unknown if Mr. Varelli is living.

44. Yumeko Aizome

Actress | Hijôsen no onna

Yumeko Aizome was born on December 25, 1915 in Inawashiro, Fukushima, Japan. She was an actress, known for Dragnet Girl (1933), Sabakaruru onna (1939) and Tonari no Yae-chan (1934). She died on January 1, 2002 in Inawashiro, Fukushima, Japan.

Note: As of May 2019 it is unknown if Ms. Aizome is living.

45. Johnny Russell

Actor | The Blue Bird

Johnny Russell was born on January 25, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for The Blue Bird (1940), Jesse James (1939) and The Duke Comes Back (1937).

46. Cecile Dionne

Actress | The Country Doctor

Cecile Dionne was born on May 28, 1934 in Callander, Ontario, Canada. She is an actress, known for The Country Doctor (1936), Five of a Kind (1938) and Reunion (1936).

Note: Ms. Dionne starred in short films during the '40s (as well as full-length major motion pictures and shorts in the '30s with her sisters).

47. Annette Dionne

Actress | The Country Doctor

Annette Dionne was born on May 28, 1934 in Callander, Ontario, Canada. She is an actress, known for The Country Doctor (1936), Five of a Kind (1938) and Reunion (1936).

Note: Ms. Dionne starred in short films during the '40s (as well as full-length major motion pictures and shorts in the '30s with her sisters).

48. Sidney Kibrick

Actor | Beginner's Luck

Sidney Kibrick was born on July 2, 1928 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. He is an actor, known for Beginner's Luck (1935), The Pinch Singer (1936) and Our Gang Follies of 1936 (1935).

Note: Mr. Kibrick appeared in short films.

49. Mildred Kornman

Actress | Fish Hooky

Mildred Gene Kornman was the daughter of German-born still photographer Eugene Kornman and his wife, the actress Verna Kornman. Eugene was employed on the staff of Harold Lloyd at Hal Roach Studios. His close friendship with star comedian Lloyd led to the child being named Mildred, after Lloyd's ...

Note: Ms. Kornman appeared in short films.

50. Carla Balenda

Actress | Prince of Pirates

She was born Sally Bliss in Carthage, New York. Her father had moved the family from Ohio and was a science teacher at Carthage High School. In 1927, the family moved to Amityville, Long Island. She attended drama school in Rhode Island and at age 17, she was invited to Hollywood by Howard Hughes, ...

51. Margia Dean

Actress | The Quatermass Xperiment

Stunning, dark-haired '40s and '50s leading lady Margia Dean was the daughter of a Greek lawyer. Her parents moved from Athens to the US in 1913, a number of years before her birth on April 7, 1922, in Chicago, Illinois. The youngest of three girls, she was christened Marguerite Louise Skliris. Her...

52. Barbra Fuller

Actress | Alias the Champ

Hers was one of the best known voices on the airwaves. By the age of 18, Barbra Deane Fuller had been featured in 25 radio serials and had by her own count portrayed more than 1000 different characters. Though having earlier aspired to become a math teacher, she went into show biz instead and made ...

53. Betty Lynn

Actress | The Andy Griffith Show

Missouri born-and-bred Betty Ann Lynn was born in Kansas City. Her name is as light, breezy and innocent as the characters she played on film and TV. She is pleasantly remembered for playing TV's sweet-as-apple-pie "Thelma Lou," who had the tough end of the bargain as the ever-patient girlfriend of ...

54. Tommy Cook

Actor | Night Passage

Spry, curly-haired, dark-complexioned child actor Tommy Cook's most famous roles happened during his nascent career in serial adventures. He came on the feature film scene auspiciously in the role of young Indian boy Little Beaver alongside western good guy 'Don 'Red' Barry' in the Adventures of ...