Ben-Hur 1959 premiere
by germanior | created - 07 Dec 2020 | updated - 21 Dec 2021 | PublicTuesday November 24th, Egyptian Theatre 6712 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90028
1. Charlton Heston
Actor | Ben-Hur
With features chiseled in stone, and renowned for playing a long list of historical figures, particularly in Biblical epics, the tall, well-built and ruggedly handsome Charlton Heston was one of Hollywood's top leading men of his prime and remained active in front of movie cameras for over sixty ...
2. Haya Harareet
Actress | Ben-Hur
Born in Palestine before the inception of the Israeli state in the city of Haifa, she first distinguished herself by winning one of the first beauty contests in the nascent Israel. Haya Harareet (also spelled Hararit) made her debut in Thorold Dickinson's film Hill 24 Doesn't Answer (1955) ("Hill ...
3. Sam Jaffe
Actor | The Asphalt Jungle
Originally named Shalom Jaffe, he became known to the world as Sam Jaffe. He was born in New York City, to Heida (Ada) and Barnett Jaffe, who were Russian Jewish immigrants. As a child, he appeared in Yiddish theatre productions with his mother, a prominent regional stage actress. He graduated from...
4. Hugh Griffith
Actor | Ben-Hur
Enjoyably larger-than-life character actor Hugh Emrys Griffith was born in Marianglas, Anglesey, North Wales, to Mary (Williams) and William Griffith. Griffith left the world of banking (having been employed as a teller) after winning a scholarship to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic ...
5. Finlay Currie
Actor | Ben-Hur
Scottish-born Finlay Currie was a former church organist and choirmaster, who made his stage debut at 20 years of age. It took him 34 more years before making his first film, but he worked steadily for another 30 years after that. Although he was a large, imposing figure, with a rich, deep voice ...
6. William Wyler
Director | The Best Years of Our Lives
William Wyler was an American filmmaker who, at the time of his death in 1981, was considered by his peers as second only to John Ford as a master craftsman of cinema. The winner of three Best Director Academy Awards, second again only to Ford's four, Wyler's reputation has unfairly suffered as the...
7. Edie Adams
Actress | It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
The scintillating, sultry-eyed blonde (formerly a redhead) star of screen, TV and award-winning stage went on to become best known, however, for her sensual delivery pitching cigars in taunting '60s ads and commercials with her Mae Westian come-on line "Why don't you pick one up and smoke it ...
8. Anna Maria Alberghetti
Actress | Ten Thousand Bedrooms
The dark, delicate and demure beauty of an Anna Maria Alberghetti is what one envisions a princess to look like and, indeed, she did have a chance to play a couple in her lifetime. Reminding one instantly of the equally enchanting Pier Angeli, Anna Maria's Cinderella story did not take on a tragic ...
9. June Allyson
Actress | Executive Suite
American leading lady whose sweet smile and sunny disposition made her the prototypical girl-next-door of American movies of the 1940s. Raised in semi-poverty in Bronx neighborhoods by her divorced mother, Allyson (nee Ella Geisman) was injured in a fall at age eight and spent four years confined ...
10. Lucille Ball
Actress | I Love Lucy
The woman who will always be remembered as the crazy, accident-prone, lovable Lucy Ricardo was born Lucille Desiree Ball on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York, the daughter of Desiree Evelyn "DeDe" (Hunt) and Henry Durrell "Had" Ball. Her father died before she was four, and her mother worked ...
11. Anne Baxter
Actress | All About Eve
Anne Baxter was born in Michigan City, Indiana, on May 7, 1923. She was the daughter of a salesman, Kenneth Stuart Baxter, and his wife, Catherine Dorothy (Wright), who herself was the daughter of Frank Lloyd Wright, the world-renowned architect. Anne was a young girl of 11 when her parents moved ...
12. Edgar Bergen
Actor | Fun & Fancy Free
Edgar Bergen was born on February 16, 1903 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Fun and Fancy Free (1947), The Muppet Movie (1979) and Letter of Introduction (1938). He was married to Frances Bergen. He died on September 30, 1978 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
13. Frances Bergen
Actress | American Gigolo
The daughter of William and Lillie Mae Westerman, her father died of tuberculosis when she was ten years old. Her mother then moved the family to Los Angeles.
She suffered a skull fracture in an auto accident when she was 14. While recuperating, she was given a Charlie McCarthy doll to cheer her up....
14. Ray Bolger
Actor | The Wizard of Oz
Ray Bolger was born Raymond Wallace Bolger on January 10, 1904 in Dorchester, Massachusetts, to Anne C. (Wallace) and James Edward Bolger, both Irish-Americans. Ray began his career in vaudeville. He was half of a team called "Sanford and Bolger" and also did numerous Broadway shows on his own. ...
15. Edd Byrnes
Actor | Grease
Edd Byrnes was born Edward Byrne Breitenberger on July 30, 1932 in New York City, the son of Mary (Byrne) and Augustus "Gus" Breitenberger. Edd shared an impoverished and unhappy childhood with brother Vincent and sister Jo-Ann. Their mother worked hard at various jobs to keep the family together ...
16. Macdonald Carey
Actor | Shadow of a Doubt
American film and television actor MacDonald Carey became famous for his role as Dr. Tom Horton on NBC's soap opera Days of Our Lives (1965). For three decades he was the centered cast member of the show.
His film career was from the 1940s-'60s, and he appeared mostly in second-features (aka "B" ...
17. Jack Carter
Actor | History of the World: Part I
Jack Carter was born on June 24, 1922 in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and director, known for History of the World: Part I (1981), Alligator (1980) and Amazing Stories (1985). He was married to Roxanne Wander, Paula Stewart and Joan Mann. He died on June ...
18. Cyd Charisse
Actress | Silk Stockings
Cyd Charisse was born Tula Ellice Finklea on March 8, 1922, in Amarillo, Texas. Born to be a dancer, she spent her early childhood taking ballet lessons and joined the Ballet Russe at age 13. In 1939, she married Nico Charisse, her former dance teacher. In 1943, she appeared in her first film, ...
19. Gary Cooper
Actor | High Noon
Born to Alice Cooper and Charles Cooper. Gary attended school at Dunstable school England, Helena Montana and Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa (then called Iowa College). His first stage experience was during high school and college. Afterwards, he worked as an extra for one year before getting a ...
20. Cesare Danova
Actor | Mean Streets
Tall, dark, and handsome, Italian actor Cesare Danova (pronounced Chez-a-ray Da-NO-va) was a true Renaissance man. As a boy, it appeared he might become a professional athlete. But his family wanted him to become a doctor. Cesare, by his own account, studied medicine with such diligence that he ...
21. William Demarest
Actor | Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
A stocky, serious-looking character, Carl William Demarest started off in vaudeville in 1905 along with two older brothers. At one time he also performed in a stage act with his wife Estelle Collette (billed as 'Demarest and Collette') and then moved on to Broadway. He entered movies in 1926 and ...
22. Angie Dickinson
Actress | Rio Bravo
Angie Dickinson was born in Kulm, North Dakota, in 1931, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L. H. Brown. Mr. Brown was the publisher of The Kulm Messenger. The family left North Dakota in 1942 when Angie was 11 years old, moving to Burbank, California. In December of 1946, when she was a senior at ...
23. Peter Duchin
Soundtrack | The Post
Peter Duchin was born on July 28, 1937 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for The Post (2017), Working Girl (1988) and Jade (1995). He has been married to Virginia Coleman since 2012. He was previously married to Brooke Hayward and Cheray Georgea Zauderer.
24. Irene Dunne
Actress | The Awful Truth
Irene Marie Dunne was born on December 20, 1898, in Louisville, Kentucky. She was the daughter of Joseph Dunne, who inspected steamships, and Adelaide Henry, a musician who prompted Irene in the arts. Her first production was in Louisville when she appeared in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the age...
25. Jimmy Durante
Actor | It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
First wife Jeanne died in 1943. Wed second wife, Marjorie Little after 16 year courtship when she was 39 and he 67 Marjorie Little had been the hatcheck girl at the Copacabana. Durante and his second wife adopted a baby girl, Cecelia Alicia on Christmas day 1961. Durante doted on "CeCe" until his ...
26. Taina Elg
Actress | Les Girls
One of her country's most celebrated performers, Finnish actress and dancer Taina Elisabeth Elg was born in 1930 but later her family moved and lived in and around Finland, including Turku. Taina's mother was a Russian immigrant, pianist Helena Doroumova, and her father was pianist Åke Elg (a.k.a. ...
27. Mel Ferrer
Actor | Lili
Actor/director/producer Mel Ferrer was born Melchor Gaston Ferrer on August 25, 1917, in Elberon, New Jersey. The son of a Cuban-born surgeon and a Manhattan socialite, he went to prep school and attended Princeton University. From the age of 15 he worked in summer stock. After Princeton he became ...
28. Glenn Ford
Actor | Gilda
Legendary actor Glenn Ford was born Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford in Sainte-Christine-d'Auvergne, Quebec, Canada, to Hannah Wood (Mitchell) and Newton Ford, a railroad executive. His family moved to Santa Monica, California when he was eight years old. His acting career began with plays at high school...
29. 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 ...
30. Mona Freeman
Actress | Dear Ruth
A professional model while still in high school, Mona Freeman was signed to a movie contract by Howard Hughes, who then proceeded to sell her contract to Paramount. Starting out in typical juvenile parts, she developed into a very competent actress. As she worked her way out of the teenage ingénue ...
31. Clark Gable
Actor | It Happened One Night
William Clark Gable was born on February 1, 1901 in Cadiz, Ohio, to Adeline (Hershelman) and William Henry Gable, an oil-well driller. He was of German, Irish, and Swiss-German descent. When he was seven months old, his mother died, and his father sent him to live with his maternal aunt and uncle ...
32. Greer Garson
Actress | Pride and Prejudice
Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson was born on September 29, 1904 in London, England, to Nancy Sophia (Greer) and George Garson, a commercial clerk. Of Scottish and Ulster-Scots descent, Garson displayed no early interest in becoming an actress. Educated at the University of London intending to become a ...
33. Sandra Giles
Actress | Columbo
Sandra Giles was born on July 24, 1932 in Hooker, Oklahoma, USA. She was an actress, known for Columbo (1971), Daddy-O (1958) and The Mad Bomber (1973). She was married to Paul Everett Robertson and Dalton R Smith. She died on December 25, 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
34. Stewart Granger
Actor | King Solomon's Mines
Stewart Granger was born James Lablache Stewart in London, the great grandson of the opera singer Luigi Lablache. He attended Epsom College but left after deciding not to pursue a medical degree. He decided to try acting and attended Webber-Douglas School of Dramatic Art, London. By 1935, he made ...
35. 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 ...
36. George Hamilton
Actor | Zorro: The Gay Blade
Noted these days for his dashing, sporting, jet-setting playboy image and perpetually bronzed skin tones in commercials, film spoofs and reality shows, George Hamilton was, at the onset, a serious contender for dramatic film stardom. Born George Stevens Hamilton in Memphis, TN, on August 12, 1939, ...
37. Audrey Hepburn
Actress | Breakfast at Tiffany's
Audrey Hepburn was born as Audrey Kathleen Ruston on May 4, 1929 in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium. Her mother, Baroness Ella Van Heemstra, was a Dutch noblewoman, while her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, was born in Úzice, Bohemia, to English and Austrian parents.
After her parents' divorce, ...
38. Marty Ingels
Actor | Pac-Man
Martin Ingerman was born on March 6, 1936 in New York City. He had an older brother named Arthur. He had a rough childhood and was often picked on. After he finished school, he went into the army. Later, he appeared in a couple of game shows and won. He wanted to be an actor so he went to ...
39. Burl Ives
Actor | The Big Country
Burl Ives was one of six children born to a farming family in Hunt City, Jasper, Illinois, the son of Cordellia "Dellie" (White) and Levi Franklin Ives. He first sang in public for a soldiers' reunion when he was age 4. In high school, he learned the banjo and played fullback, intending to become a...
40. David Janssen
Actor | The Green Berets
David Janssen was born David Harold Meyer in 1931 in Naponee, Nebraska, to Berniece Mae (Graf) and Harold Edward Meyer, a banker. He was of German, and some Swiss-German and Ulster-Scots, descent. David took the surname of his stepfather, Eugene Janssen. The Janssen family settled in Hollywood when...
41. George Jessel
Actor | Lucky Boy
George Jessel gained fame in vaudeville, where it was not uncommon for him--and other performers, such as Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor--to perform in blackface, and in fact at age 11 Jessel was Cantor's vaudeville partner. Jessel acted in several movies in the '30s and became a respected film producer. ...
42. Carolyn Jones
Actress | The Man Who Knew Too Much
Carolyn Jones was born April 28, 1930, in Amarillo, Texas to homemaker Chloe Jeanette Southern (1906-1979), and Julius Alfred Jones (1897-1979), a barber. Her sister was Bette (later Mrs. Moriarty). Carolyn was an imaginative child, much like her mother. In 1934, her father abandoned the family and...
43. Shirley Jones
Actress | The Music Man
Named after child star Shirley Temple, Shirley Jones started singing at the age of six. She started formal training at the age of 12 and would dream of singing with her idol, Gordon MacRae. Upon graduating from high school, Shirley went to New York to audition for the casting director of Rodgers & ...
44. Harry Karl
Self | The 37th Annual Academy Awards
Harry Karl was born on March 9, 1914 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was married to Debbie Reynolds, Joan Perry, Marie McDonald and Ruth Elizabeth Lamb. He died on August 7, 1982 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
45. Danny Kaye
Soundtrack | The Danny Kaye Show
Danny Kaye left school at the age of 13 to work in the so-called Borscht Belt of Jewish resorts in the Catskill Mountains. It was there he learned the basics of show biz. From there he went through a series of jobs in and out of the business. In 1939, he made his Broadway debut in "Straw Hat Revue,...
46. 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...
47. Frank King
Producer | Gun Crazy
Frank King was born on April 1, 1913 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a producer and production manager, known for Gun Crazy (1950), Klondike Fury (1942) and Rodan (1956). He died on February 12, 1989 in Beverly Hills, California, USA.
48. Susan Kohner
Actress | Imitation of Life
Susan Kohner was born on November 11, 1936 in Los Angeles, California. Her Mexican mother was actress Lupita Tovar, a successful performer from the 1930s and it was only natural that for Susan to gravitate toward acting. Her first role was in To Hell and Back (1955) in 1955. One more film in 1956 ...
49. Ernie Kovacs
Actor | Bell Book and Candle
Author, actor, comedian, composer and producer. He was educated at the New York School of Theatre, and received the Sylvania Television Award. Joining the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) in 1957, he composed a number of songs and themes, a number of which were used in ...
50. Toni Mannix
Toni Lanier was a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl whose lasting notoriety came not as a performer but as the wife of a high-level studio executive and the mistress of a famous television star. Lanier appeared in the film version of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.'s life, The Great Ziegfeld (1936), met MGM studio ...
51. Hope Lange
Actress | Death Wish
One of the most natural beauties of the 1960s with a gentle voice and personality to match, blonde Hope Lange was born in Redding Ridge, Connecticut, and performed on stage from the age of nine. She studied both drama and dance under Martha Graham, did some modeling and then worked in stock ...
52. 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 ...
53. Margie Little
Actress | The Lucy Show
Margie Little was born on September 26, 1919 in New Jersey, USA. She was an actress, known for The Lucy Show (1962), The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) and Jimmy Durante: The Great Schnozzola (2001). She was married to Jimmy Durante. She died on June 7, 2009 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
54. Shirley MacLaine
Actress | Terms of Endearment
Shirley MacLaine was born Shirley MacLean Beaty in Richmond, Virginia. Her mother, Kathlyn Corinne (MacLean), was a drama teacher from Nova Scotia, Canada, and her father, Ira Owens Beaty, a professor of psychology and real estate agent, was from Virginia. Her brother, Warren Beatty, was born on ...
55. E.J. Mannix
Producer | It's in the Air
New Jersey-born Eddie Mannix was a long-time studio executive at MGM. Known as "The Fixer", he had a reputation as someone who could take care of any problems caused by recalcitrant or wayward studio employees and major stars that might embarrass the company. Mannix had a rather unsavory past, and ...
56. Tony Martin
Soundtrack | The Big Store
Born Alvin Morris, the son of immigrants from Poland, Tony Martin received a soprano saxophone on his tenth birthday. In his grammar school glee club, he became an instrumentalist and soprano pop singer. When in high school, he then formed his first band called "The Red Peppers", eventually joining...
57. Asa Maynor
Actress | Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
Asa was born as Virginia Maynor. She made her motion picture debut as the female lead in Man Beast (1956), a low-budget creature feature in which an expedition to the Himalayas is attacked and mostly wiped out by irate Yetis (they may have just wanted some privacy). Later, producers changed her ...
58. Jimmy McHugh
Soundtrack | North by Northwest
Jimmy McHugh was born on July 10, 1893 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for North by Northwest (1959), Ford v Ferrari (2019) and Labor Day (2013). He was married to Bessie Hornbrook. He died on May 23, 1969 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
59. George Montgomery
Actor | Samar
George Montgomery was boxing champion at the University of Montana where he majored in architecture and interior design. Dropping out a year later he decided to take up boxing more seriously. He moved to California where he was coached by ex-heavyweight world champion James J. Jeffries. While in ...
60. Gary Morton
Actor | Postcards from the Edge
Gary Morton was a comedian who worked the famed "Borscht Belt" of resorts in the Catskills Mountains. Never as talented nor as renowned as such fellow Borscht Belt comics like Milton Berle, whom he caricatured in one of his few film roles in Lenny (1974), Morton nonetheless was personally popular ...
61. Don Murray
Actor | Bus Stop
Don Murray is an American actor. He is best known for playing Governor Breck, the authoritarian ruler in the science fiction film "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" (1972).
Murray was born in 1929 to Dennis Aloisius Murray and his wife Ethel Cook. Dennis worked as a dance director and stage ...
62. Gloria Noble
Actress | Small Town Girl
Gloria Noble was born on December 15, 1928 in Queens, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Small Town Girl (1953), The Donald O'Connor Show (1954) and The 27th Annual Academy Awards (1955). She was married to Donald O'Connor. She died on June 4, 2013 in Thousand Oaks, California, USA.
63. 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...
64. Arthur O'Connell
Actor | Anatomy of a Murder
Though stage, screen and TV veteran Arthur O'Connell was born in New York City (on March 29, 1908), he looked as countrified as the American Gothic painting or Mom's home-made apple pie. Looking much more comfy in overalls than he ever could in a tuxedo, he would find an equally comfortable niche ...
65. Donald O'Connor
Actor | Singin' in the Rain
Born into a vaudeville family, O'Connor was the youthful figure cutting a rug in several Universal musicals of the 1940s. His best-known musical work is probably Singin' in the Rain (1952), in which he did an impressive dance that culminated in a series of backflips off the wall. O'Connor was also ...
66. Louella Parsons
Actress | Hollywood Hotel
Louella Parsons was born on August 6, 1881 in Freeport, Illinois, USA. She was an actress and writer, known for Hollywood Hotel (1937), Without Reservations (1946) and Starlift (1951). She was married to Dr. Henry Watson Martin, John McCaffrey Jr. and John Demont Parsons. She died on December 9, ...
67. Anthony Perkins
Actor | Psycho
Anthony Perkins was born April 4, 1932 in New York City, to Janet Esselstyn (Rane) and Osgood Perkins, an actor of both stage and film. His father died when he was five. Anthony's paternal great-grandfather was engraver Andrew Varick Stout Anthony. Perkins attended the Brooks School, the Browne & ...
68. 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 ...
69. Tony Randall
Actor | The Odd Couple
Tony Randall was born on February 26, 1920 in Tulsa, Oklahoma as Aryeh Leonard Rosenberg. He attended Tulsa Central High School and later Northwestern University and New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. After graduating, he starred in two plays: George Bernard Shaw's '...
70. Nancy Reagan
Actress | Hellcats of the Navy
Nancy Reagan was born on July 6, 1921 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Hellcats of the Navy (1957), Night Into Morning (1951) and Donovan's Brain (1953). She was married to Ronald Reagan. She died on March 6, 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
71. Ronald Reagan
Actor | Kings Row
Ronald Reagan had quite a prolific career, having catapulted from a Warner Bros. contract player and television star, into serving as president of the Screen Actors Guild, the governorship of California (1967-1975), and lastly, two terms as President of the United States (1981-1989).
Ronald Wilson ...
72. Debbie Reynolds
Actress | Singin' in the Rain
Debbie Reynolds was born Mary Frances Reynolds in El Paso, Texas, the second child of Maxine N. (Harmon) and Raymond Francis Reynolds, a carpenter for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Her film career began at MGM after she won a beauty contest at age 16 impersonating Betty Hutton. Reynolds wasn't a ...
73. Cesar Romero
Actor | Batman: The Movie
Tall, suave and sophisticated Cesar Romero actually had two claims to fame in Hollywood. To one generation, he was the distinguished Latin lover of numerous musicals and romantic comedies, and the rogue bandit The Cisco Kid in a string of low-budget westerns. However, to a younger generation weaned...
74. Mickey Rooney
Actor | It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Mickey Rooney was born Joe Yule Jr. on September 23, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York. He first took the stage as a toddler in his parents vaudeville act at 17 months old. He made his first film appearance in 1926. The following year, he played the lead character in the first Mickey McGuire short film. ...
75. Eva Marie Saint
Actress | On the Waterfront
Actress and producer Eva Marie Saint was born on July 4, 1924 on Newark, New Jersey. She is known for starring in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954), for which she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959). Her film career also includes ...
76. Olga San Juan
Actress | Are You with It?
She possessed the same tiny frame and fervid temperament as Brazilian Carmen Miranda and, for most her career, Puerto Rican singer/dancer Olga San Juan, like Miranda, was a welcome distraction by American audiences. A flavorful, scene-stealing personality who delightfully mangled the English ...
77. Maria Schell
Actress | Superman
Maria Schell studied in a religious institution in Colmar (Haut-Rhin, France). She received a dramatic training in Zurich, Switzerland. To pay her studies, she was a secretary there. Besides being a film star; Maria appeared in plays in Zurich, Basel, in Vienna (Josefstad Theater), Berlin, Munich (...
78. Dinah Shore
Soundtrack | The Dinah Shore Chevy Show
Her real name was Frances "Fanny" Rose Shore, and she was born in Winchester, Tennessee. Stricken with polio at 18 months of age, she recovered after receiving the Sister Kenny treatment. She became a cheerleader at Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville and went on to graduate from Vanderbilt ...
79. Sol C. Siegel
Producer | Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Sol C. Siegel grew up on the East side of Manhattan. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1934 to begin a career as a producer that extended to 1968. Mr. Siegel was married to Ruth Siegel and is survived by three sons, Norman (b.1937), Richard (b.1938) and Andrew (b.1941). Siegel was nominated for best ...
80. Jean Simmons
Actress | Guys and Dolls
Demure British beauty Jean Simmons was born January 31, 1929, in Crouch End, London. As a 14-year-old dance student, she was plucked from her school to play Margaret Lockwood's precocious sister in Give Us the Moon (1944). She had a small part as a harpist in the high-profile Caesar and Cleopatra (...
81. Frank Sinatra
Actor | From Here to Eternity
Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants Natalina Della (Garaventa), from Northern Italy, and Saverio Antonino Martino Sinatra, a Sicilian boxer, fireman, and bar owner. Growing up on the gritty streets of Hoboken made Sinatra determined to work hard to get ahead. ...
82. Ann Sothern
Actress | Lady Be Good
Ann Sothern's film career started as an extra in 1927. Originally a redhead, she began to bleach her hair blonde for comedy roles. After working at MGM and on Broadway, Ann was signed by Columbia Pictures for Let's Fall in Love (1933). The next year she would work with Eddie Cantor in his hit Kid ...
83. Aaron Spelling
Producer | Charlie's Angels
Aaron Spelling graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, with a Bachelor of Arts Degree. Before that, he attended Forest Avenue High. He started as a writer and sold his first script to Jane Wyman Presents the Fireside Theatre (1955). He wrote for various television shows, ...
84. Robert Stack
Actor | Written on the Wind
"Straight Shooting" -- whether skeet shooting, or portraying Eliot Ness -- Robert Stack always told it like it was, and shot straight. Born in Los Angeles, California, the younger son of James Langford Stack (1860-1928), the owner of an advertising agency, and Mary Elizabeth Modini Wood (1891-1975)...
85. Rosemarie Stack
Actress | The Big Bluff
Rosemarie Bowe frequently turned heads with her flashing turquoise eyes, sultry mane of black hair and sparkling personality. Effortlessly diverting attention from the scenic location spots of her mid-'50s film adventures and dramas, her stroll before the cameras was short--it was over within a few...
86. Mary Taylor
Actress | Lady of the Tropics
Mary Taylor was born on February 13, 1915 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Lady of the Tropics (1939), Blossoms in the Dust (1941) and Soak the Rich (1936). She was married to Sam Zimbalist. She died on June 17, 2008 in Ojai, California, USA.
87. 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 ...
88. Kay Williams
Actress | The Actress
Kay Williams was born on August 7, 1916 in Erie, Pennsylvania, USA. She was an actress, known for The Actress (1953). She was married to Clark Gable, Adolph Bernard Spreckels II, Martin de Alzaga Unzue and Charles Parker Capps. She died on May 25, 1983 in Houston, Texas, USA.
89. Shelley Winters
Actress | The Poseidon Adventure
Shelley Winters was born Shirley Schrift of very humble beginnings on August 18, 1920 (some sources list 1922) in East St. Louis, Illinois. Her mother, Rose Winter, was born in Missouri, to Austrian Jewish parents, and her father, Jonas Schrift, was an Austrian Jewish immigrant. She had one sibling...
90. Jane Wyman
Actress | Falcon Crest
Jane Wyman was born Sarah Jane Mayfield on January 5, 1917, in St. Joseph, Missouri (she was also known later as Sarah Jane Fulks). When she was only eight years old, and after her parents filed for divorce, she lost her father prematurely. After graduating high school she attempted, with the help ...
91. Dana Wynter
Actress | Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The daughter of a noted surgeon, Dana Wynter was born Dagmar Winter in Berlin, Germany, and grew up in England. When she was 16 her father went to Morocco, reportedly to operate on a woman who wouldn't allow anyone else to attend her; he visited friends in Southern Rhodesia, fell in love with it ...
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