People to Watch and Watch For

1. Jack Palance

Jack Palance quite often exemplified evil incarnate on film, portraying some of the most intensely feral villains witnessed in 1950s westerns and melodrama. Enhanced by his tall, powerful build, icy voice, and piercing eyes, he earned two "Best Supporting Actor" nominations early in his career. It ...

2. Sterling Hayden

Actor | Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Born to George & Frances Simonson Walter, and named Sterling Relyea Walter. Father died in 1925. Adopted by stepfather 'James Hayden' renamed Sterling Walter Hayden. Grew up in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., and Maine. Though very poor, attended prep school at ...

3. Albert Finney

Actor | Murder on the Orient Express

The son of a Lancashire bookmaker, Albert Finney came to motion pictures via the theatre. In 1956, he won a scholarship to RADA where his fellow alumni included Peter O'Toole and Alan Bates. He joined the Birmingham Repertory where he excelled in plays by William Shakespeare. A member of the Royal ...

4. Jessica Oreck

Producer | One Man Dies a Million Times

Jessica Oreck is known for One Man Dies a Million Times (2019), Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo (2009) and Aatsinki: The Story of Arctic Cowboys (2013).

Watch for new documentary about Lappi herders Aatsiki

5. Peter Jason

Actor | 48 Hrs.

Excellent, prolific and versatile character actor Peter Jason was born on July 22, 1944, in Hollywood, CA, and grew up in Balboa. He attended Newport Beach Elementary School, Horace Ensign Junior High and Newport Harbor High School. He originally planned on being a football player, but fell in love...

6. 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 ...

7. Susan George

Actress | Straw Dogs

Susan George was born on July 26, 1950 in Surbiton, Surrey, England, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for Straw Dogs (1971), Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974) and Mandingo (1975). She was previously married to Simon MacCorkindale.

8. Christopher George

Actor | El Dorado

Solidly built, boyishly handsome American leading-man, Christopher George was the son of Greek immigrants. Weaned on stories of the legendary Greek heroes, George and his brother Nick (later a prominent fashion photographer) both quit high school to join the Marines. Completing his education after ...

9. Mike Leigh

Director | Secrets & Lies

Mike Leigh is an English film and theatre director, screenwriter and playwright. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and further at the Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Design and the London School of Film Technique. He began his career as a theatre ...

10. Frank Braña

Actor | Mil gritos tiene la noche

Frank Braña was born on February 24, 1934 in Pola de Allande, Asturias, Spain. He was an actor, known for Pieces (1982), Slugs (1988) and Where Time Began (1977). He died on February 13, 2012 in Majadahonda, Madrid, Spain.

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11. 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 ...

12. Diana Dors

Actress | The Long Haul

Diana Dors was born Diana Mary Fluck on October 23, 1931 in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. She and her mother both nearly died from the traumatic birth. Because of the trauma, her mother lavished on Diana anything and everything she wanted--clothes, toys and dance lessons were the order of the day. ...

13. Vanda Godsell

Actress | The Pink Panther Strikes Again

Vanda Godsell was born on November 17, 1922 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), I Promised to Pay (1961) and A Shot in the Dark (1964). She was married to Alan J Orchard and George Selway. She died on April 2, 1990 in London, ...

14. 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...

15. Kenneth Tobey

Actor | The Thing from Another World

Born in Oakland, California, Kenneth Tobey was headed for a law career when he first dabbled in acting at the University of California Little Theater. That experience led to a year and a half of study at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, where his classmates included Gregory Peck, Eli Wallach and ...

16. Dick Randall

Sound_department | Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes

Dick Randall was a jolly and colorful film producer who specialized in blithely trashy low-budget exploitation pictures. Randall was born as Irving Reuben on March 3, 1926, in the Catskill Mountains, New York. He started his show-business career as a writer: he penned gags for Milton Berle and ...

17. Saul Rubinek

Actor | Unforgiven

Saul Rubinek was born in a refugee camp in Germany, where his father ran a Yiddish Repertory Theatre company. Saul started his professional career as a child actor in theater and radio in Canada. By the time he was 20, he was a member of the Stratford Shakespearean Festival company in Stratford, ...

18. Richard Basehart

Actor | Moby Dick

Despite many a powerful performance, this actor's actor never quite achieved the stardom he deserved. Ultimately, Richard Basehart became best-known to television audiences as Admiral Harriman Nelson, commander of the glass-nosed nuclear submarine 'S.S.R.N Seaview' in Irwin Allen's Voyage to the ...

19. Paul Newman

Actor | The Hustler

Screen legend, superstar, and the man with the most famous blue eyes in movie history, Paul Leonard Newman was born on January 26, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio, the second son of Arthur Sigmund Newman (died 1950) and Theresa Fetsko (died 1982). His elder brother was Arthur S. Newman Jr., named for ...

20. Strother Martin

Actor | Cool Hand Luke

American character actor who achieved considerable fame in the last decade of his life. A native of Kokomo, Indiana, Strother Martin Jr. was the youngest of three children of Strother Douglas Martin, a machinist, and Ethel Dunlap Martin. His family moved soon after his birth to San Antonio, Texas, ...

21. Dub Taylor

Actor | The Getaway

Dub Taylor was born on February 26, 1907 in Richmond, Virginia, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Getaway (1972), The Wild Bunch (1969) and You Can't Take It with You (1938). He was married to Florence Gertrude Heffernan. He died on October 3, 1994 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

22. L.Q. Jones

Actor | The Edge

This tall, sandy-haired, mustachioed actor from Texas, born Justus McQueen, adopted the name of the character he portrayed in his first film, Battle Cry (1955). Jones, with his craggy, gaunt looks, first appeared in minor character roles in plenty of WWII films including The Young Lions (1958), The...

23. Barry Corbin

Actor | Tulsa King

Barry's full given name is Leonard Barrie Corbin, and he was born on October 16, 1940 in Lamesa, Texas, to Kilmer Blain Corbin, an attorney & TX State Senator, and Alma Corbin, an elementary school teacher. Barry and his wife Jo share a ranch in Fort Worth, Texas. He says when he isn't working, he ...

24. Rick Ducommun

Actor | The 'Burbs

Once an overweight comic from Canada, Rick Ducommun slimmed down in the late 1980s and went on to tackle solid co-starring roles in feature films and TV, as well as headline several HBO and other pay-cable specials.

Ducommun grew up on a farm, the son of an entrepreneur father with whom he did not ...

25. John Candy

Actor | Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Candy was one of Canada's greatest and funniest character actors. His well-known role as the big hearted buffoon earned him classics in Uncle Buck (1989) and Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987). His career has handed him some dry spells but Candy always rebounded.

Born in Newmarket, Ontario, in ...

26. Tracey Walter

Actor | Repo Man

Tracey Walter was born on November 25, 1947 in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. He is an actor, known for Repo Man (1984), Batman (1989) and Conan the Destroyer (1984).

27. Sy Richardson

Actor | Repo Man

Sy Richardson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and raised in Chicago Illinois. He attended fourteen elementary schools, five high schools and three colleges before he figured it out. An artist is a free spirit and boredom is a breath away from than death. He is married to a former Blue Satin model. Sy ...

28. Del Zamora

Actor | True Blood

Del Zamora was raised in various locations across the Southwest of the United States of America. His family dates back to the 1500's, and even further back, on the Mescalero Apache side of his family; in what is now known as Lincoln County, New Mexico. Del is a Mescalero Apache/Chicano mix. His ...

29. Robert Beltran

Actor | Star Trek: Voyager

Robert Adame Beltran was born in Bakersfield, California. He is the seventh of ten children, of Mexican-Native American ancestry, though Robert describes his heritage as Latindio. After finishing high school, he attended Fresno State College, where he graduated with a degree in theater arts. ...

30. Miguel Sandoval

Actor | Sharp Objects

Miguel Sandoval was born on November 16, 1951 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He is an actor and director, known for Sharp Objects (2018), Clear and Present Danger (1994) and Jurassic Park (1993). He is married to Linda Sandoval. They have one child.

31. Jeff Goldblum

Actor | Jurassic Park

Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum was born October 22, 1952 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of four children of Shirley (Temeles), a radio broadcaster who also ran an appliances firm, and Harold L. Goldblum, a doctor. His father was of Russian Jewish descent and his mother was of Austrian Jewish ancestry.

...

32. Ben Gazzara

Actor | Road House

Ben Gazzara's screen career began with two critically acclaimed roles as heavies in the late 1950s. He turned to television in the 1960s but made a big screen comeback with roles in three John Cassavetes films in the 1970s. The 1980s and 1990s saw Gazzara work more frequently than ever before in ...

33. John Cassavetes

Actor | Rosemary's Baby

John Cassavetes was a Greek-American actor, film director, and screenwriter. He is considered a pioneer of American independent film, as he often financed his own films.

Cassavetes was born in New York City in 1929 to Nicholas John Cassavetes (1893-1979) and his wife, Katherine Demetre (1906-1983). ...

34. Ruth Gordon

Actress | Rosemary's Baby

When Ruth Gordon convinced her father, a sea captain, to let her pursue acting she came to New York and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She acted in a few silents made at Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 1915. She made her Broadway debut in "Peter Pan" as Nibs the same year. The next 20 ...

35. Katherine Helmond

Actress | Overboard

Katherine Marie Helmond was born on July 5, 1929, in Galveston, Texas. After her parents divorced, she was raised by her mother, Thelma (nee Malone) Helmond, and her maternal grandmother, both of Irish Catholic descent. She attended Catholic school, and appeared in numerous school plays and ...

36. Karen Allen

Actress | Raiders of the Lost Ark

Karen Jane Allen was born in Carrollton, rural southern Illinois, to Patricia (Howell), a teacher, and Carroll Thompson Allen, an FBI agent. She spent her first 10 years traveling around the country with her parents and two sisters. She was always "the new girl in school." Acting did not really ...

37. Nancy Allen

Actress | Dressed to Kill

Nancy Anne Allen was born and raised in the Bronx borough of New York City, the youngest of three children. Her father, Eugene Allen, was a New York police lieutenant. At a young age, she trained for a dancing career at the High School of Performing Arts, and then attended Jose Quintano's School ...

38. Margot Kidder

Actress | Superman

Margot Kidder was born Margaret Ruth Kidder in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, to Jocelyn Mary "Jill" (Wilson), a history teacher from British Columbia, and Kendall Kidder, a New Mexico-born mining engineer and explosives expert. Margot was a delightful child who took pride in ...

39. Teri Garr

Actress | Tootsie

Teri Garr can claim a career in show business by birthright. She was the daughter of Eddie Garr, a Broadway stage and film actor, and Phyllis Garr, a dancer. While she was still an infant, her family moved from Hollywood to New Jersey but, after the death of her father when she was 11, the family ...

40. Keith David

Actor | The Princess and the Frog

Keith David is a classically trained actor, winning 3 Emmys out of 6 nominations as well as being nominated for a Tony award. He starred in the recently concluded TV series "Greenleaf" for Oprah Winfrey's OWN network. Upcoming films include "Horizon Line" with Allison Williams ("Get Out") and "...

41. Dick Cavett

Actor | Forrest Gump

Yale-educated Dick Cavett established his reputation as the most erudite of American talk show hosts in the late 1960s and early '70s. Although there were many contenders who took on Johnny Carson, the undisputed heavyweight champion of late-night TV, Cavett generally was considered the most ...

42. Mel Brooks

Actor | Spaceballs

Mel Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky on June 28, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. He served in WWII, and afterwards got a job playing the drums at nightclubs in the Catskills. Brooks eventually started a comedy act and also worked in radio and as Master Entertainer at Grossinger's Resort before going to ...

43. Gene Wilder

Actor | Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

When he was 11, he wanted to be a comedian like Sid Caesar. Then, when he was 15 and saw Lee J. Cobb in 'Death of a Salesman,' he decided he would be a comedy actor and found that Mel Brooks was a great influence on his screen writing. He combined both talents with directing in The World's Greatest...

44. Marty Feldman

Actor | Young Frankenstein

"I am too old to die young, and too young to grow up," Marty Feldman told a reporter -- a week before he died.

This beloved comedian, who poked fun at himself, as well as others, was born Martin Alan Feldman on July 8, 1934, in London, England. His parents were of Ukrainian Jewish heritage (from ...

45. Frank Langella

Actor | Frost/Nixon

Frank Langella was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, to Angelina and Frank A. Langella, a business executive. He is of Italian descent.

A stage and screen actor of extreme versatility, Frank Langella won acclaim on the New York stage in "Seascape" and followed it up with the title role in the Edward Gorey...

46. Michael Sheen

Actor | Masters of Sex

Even though he had burned up the London stage for nearly a decade--and appeared in several films--Michael Sheen was not really "discovered" by American audiences until his critically-acclaimed turn as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the 1999 Broadway revival of "Amadeus".

Sheen was born in Newport, Wales...

47. Johnny Depp

Actor | Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II was born on June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Betty Sue Palmer (née Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, a civil engineer. He was raised in Florida. He dropped out of school when he was 15, and fronted a series of music-garage bands, including one ...

48. Peter Falk

Actor | Columbo

Peter Michael Falk was born on September 16, 1927, in New York City, New York. At the age of 3, his right eye was surgically removed due to cancer. He graduated from Ossining High School, where he was president of his class. His early career choices involved becoming a certified public accountant, ...

49. Alan Arkin

Actor | Argo

Alan Arkin was an Academy Award-winning American actor who was also an acclaimed director, producer, author, singer and composer.

He was born Alan Wolf Arkin on March 26, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. His family were Jewish emigrants from Russia and Germany. In 1946, the Arkins moved from Brooklyn to...

50. Tony Shalhoub

Actor | Monk

Anthony Marc Shalhoub was born and raised in Green Bay, Wisconsin. His father, Joseph Shalhoub, who owned a grocery chain, emigrated from Lebanon to the United States as an orphan at age ten, later marrying Shalhoub's mother, Helen (Seroogy), who herself was born in Wisconsin, to Lebanese parents. ...

51. David Keith

Actor | An Officer and a Gentleman

David Lemuel Keith was born on May 8, 1954 in Knoxville, Tennessee, the son of Lemuel Grady Keith Jr. and Hilda Earle. He graduated from the University of Tennessee with a Bachelor of Arts in Speech and Theater. Keith had a supporting role in The Rose (1979) starring Bette Midler, had a supporting ...

52. Harrison Ford

Actor | Raiders of the Lost Ark

Harrison Ford was born on July 13, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, to Dorothy (Nidelman), a radio actress, and Christopher Ford (born John William Ford), an actor turned advertising executive. His father was of Irish and German ancestry, while his maternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Minsk, ...

53. James Franco

Actor | Spring Breakers

Known for his breakthrough starring role on Freaks and Geeks (1999), James Franco was born April 19, 1978 in Palo Alto, California, to Betsy Franco, a writer, artist, and actress, and Douglas Eugene "Doug" Franco, who ran a Silicon Valley business. His mother is Jewish and his father was of ...

54. Jack Nicholson

Actor | Chinatown

Jack Nicholson, an American actor, producer, director and screenwriter, is a three-time Academy Award winner and twelve-time nominee. Nicholson is also notable for being one of two actors - the other being Michael Caine - who have received an Oscar nomination in every decade from the '60s through ...

55. Ken Foree

Actor | Dawn of the Dead

Large, likable, and muscular actor Ken Foree was born as Kentotis Alvin Foree on February 29, 1948, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Foree attended Loyola University in Chicago and studied acting at Michael Shulman's Performing Gallery in New York City. He began his career in off-Broadway theater and ...

56. Tony Todd

Actor | Candyman

Perhaps best known for his chilling performance as "Candyman", the charismatic 6' 5" actor Tony Todd has consistently turned in compelling performances since his debut in the fantasy film Sleepwalk (1986). Born in Washington, D.C., Todd spent two years on a scholarship at the University of ...

57. Marianne Sägebrecht

Actress | The War of the Roses

Shortly after being discovered by director Percy Adlon in a 1977 production of "Adele Spitzeder", Marianne Sägebrecht was cast as Madame Sanchez/Mrs. Sancho in the Director's TV special Herr Kischott (1980), a spin on "Don Quixote". Eventually, the actress became a muse (for lack of better term) to...

58. CCH Pounder

Actress | The Shield

The CCH stands for Carol Christine Hilaria, her birth name. Most of her characters are enriched with positive attributes -- strength, confidence, integrity, strong-mindedness -- and it is a testament to the abilities of this four-time Emmy nominated actress that she continues on such a high plane ...

59. Klaus Löwitsch

Actor | Welt am Draht

Klaus Löwitsch was born on April 8, 1936 in Berlin, Germany. He was an actor and writer, known for World on a Wire (1973), Firefox (1982) and Cross of Iron (1977). He was married to Helga Heinrich. He died on December 3, 2002 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.

60. Barbara Valentin

Actress | Welt am Draht

Barbara Valentin was born on December 15, 1940 in Vienna, Austria. She was an actress, known for World on a Wire (1973), Our Man in Jamaica (1965) and Horrors of Spider Island (1960). She was married to Helmut Dietl, Rald Lüders and Ernst Reichardt. She died on February 22, 2002 in Munich, Bavaria,...

61. Karl Heinz Vosgerau

Actor | Wie ein Blitz

Karl Heinz Vosgerau was born on August 16, 1927 in Kiel, Germany. He was an actor, known for Wie ein Blitz (1970), Die Wächter (1986) and M.E.T.R.O. - Ein Team auf Leben und Tod (2006). He was married to Sabine. He died on January 4, 2021 in Wolfenbüttel, Lower Saxony, Germany.

62. Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Writer | Faustrecht der Freiheit

Above all, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a rebel whose life and art was marked by gross contradiction. Openly homosexual, he married twice; one of his wives acted in his films and the other served as his editor. Accused variously by detractors of being anticommunist, male chauvinist, antiSemitic and...

63. Andrei Tarkovsky

Writer | Offret

The most famous Soviet film-maker since Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky (the son of noted poet Arseniy Tarkovsky) studied music and Arabic in Moscow before enrolling in the Soviet film school VGIK. He shot to international attention with his first feature, Ivan's Childhood (1962), which won the...

64. Joe Turkel

Actor | The Shining

Joseph Turkel was an American character actor. He is known for his roles in Stanley Kubrick's films The Killing, Paths of Glory, and The Shining, and as Dr. Eldon Tyrell in Blade Runner. He also had roles in three of Bert I. Gordon's films. Joseph Turkel was born in Brooklyn on July 15, 1927, to ...

65. Danny McBride

Actor | Pineapple Express

Daniel Richard McBride is an American actor, comedian, producer, and writer. He starred in the HBO television series Eastbound & Down, Vice Principals, and The Righteous Gemstones, also co-creating the former two with frequent collaborator Jody Hill while creating the latter himself. He has ...

66. John C. Reilly

Actor | Chicago

Character actor, dramatic leading man, or hilarious comic foil? With an astonishing range of roles already under his belt, John C. Reilly has played an eclectic host of rich characters to great effect over the years, from seedy ne'er-do-wells, to lovable, good-natured schlepps.

The fifth of six ...

67. Will Ferrell

Producer | Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

John William Ferrell was born in Irvine, California, to Betty Kay (Overman), a teacher, and Roy Lee Ferrell, Jr., a musician. His parents were originally from Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina.

A graduate of the University of Southern California, Ferrell became interested in performing while a student ...

68. Bruce McCulloch

Actor | The Kids in the Hall

Bruce McCulloch was born on May 12, 1961 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He is an actor and writer, known for The Kids in the Hall (1988), Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy (1996) and Dog Park (1998). He has been married to Tracy Ryan since 2003. They have two children.

69. Christoph Waltz

Actor | Django Unchained

Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He is known for his work with American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, receiving acclaim for portraying SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009) and bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained (2012). For each performance, he won...

70. Eric Braeden

Actor | The Young and the Restless

Eric Braeden is a German actor in America who began his career playing Nazis and eventually became a star of daytime soap operas. Born Hans Gudegast in Kiel, Germany, during the Second World War, he was a superb athlete who excelled in track-and-field events. As a teenager, he immigrated to the ...

71. Jürgen Prochnow

Actor | Das Boot

Jürgen Prochnow is the son of a telecommunications engineer. He has an older brother, Dieter Prochnow, who is also in the acting profession. Jürgen's parents encouraged him initially to study the banking trade. However, their son had other ideas and began working on the side as an extra and a ...

72. Ryan Gosling

Actor | Blue Valentine

Born Ryan Thomas Gosling on November 12, 1980, in London, Ontario, Canada, he is the son of Donna (Wilson), a secretary, and Thomas Ray Gosling, a traveling salesman. Ryan was the second of their two children, with an older sister, Mandi. His ancestry is French-Canadian, as well as English, ...

73. Albert Brooks

Actor | Drive

Albert Brooks was born on July 22, 1947 in Beverly Hills, California, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Drive (2011), Broadcast News (1987) and Defending Your Life (1991). He has been married to Kimberly Shlain since March 15, 1997. They have two children.

74. Robin Riker

Actress | Brothers

A third-generation actress on both sides of her family, Robin was born in a trunk. Actually, she was almost born in a taxi on the Brooklyn Bridge but traffic was good that day so she made her actual debut at Beth Israel hospital in New York City. Her parents, both professional actors, owned and ran...

75. Madeline Kahn

Actress | Paper Moon

Madeline Kahn was born Madeline Gail Wolfson of Russian Jewish descent on September 29, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts, to Freda Goldberg (later known as Paula Kahn), who was still in her teens, and Bernard B. Wolfson, a garment manufacturer. She began her acting career in high school and went on to...

76. Marlene Dietrich

Soundtrack | Witness for the Prosecution

Her father was a police lieutenant and imbued in her a military attitude to life. Marlene was known in school for her "bedroom eyes" and her first affairs were at this stage in her life - a professor at the school was terminated. She entered the cabaret scene in 1920s Germany, first as a spectator ...

77. Susan Hayward

Actress | With a Song in My Heart

Susan Hayward was born Edythe Marrener in Brooklyn, New York, on June 30, 1917. Her father was a transportation worker, and Susan lived a fairly comfortable life as a child, but the precocious little redhead had no idea of the life that awaited her. She attended public school in Brooklyn, where she...

78. Jayne Mansfield

Actress | The Girl Can't Help It

One of the leading sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s, film actress Jayne Mansfield was born Vera Jayne Palmer on April 19, 1933 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, the only child of Vera J. (nee Palmer; later Peers) and Herbert W. Palmer. Her parents were well-to-do, with her father a successful attorney ...

79. Jane Russell

Actress | Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell was born on June 21, 1921, in Bemidji, Minnesota. Her father was a United States Army lieutenant and her mother had been a student of drama and an actress with a traveling troupe. Once Mr. Russell was mustered out of the service, the family took up residence in ...

80. Lauren Bacall

Actress | To Have and Have Not

Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924, in New York City. She was the daughter of Natalie Weinstein-Bacal, a Romanian Jewish immigrant, and William Perske, who was born in New Jersey, to Polish Jewish parents. Her family was middle-class, with her father working as a ...

81. Nike Arrighi

Actress | The Devil Rides Out

Nike Arrighi was born on March 9, 1947 in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France. She is an actress, known for The Devil Rides Out (1968), Day for Night (1973) and Countess Dracula (1971). She is married to Paolo Borghese. They have one child.

82. Dana Gillespie

Actress | Mahler

Dana Gillespie was born on March 30, 1949 in London, England, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for Mahler (1974), Gustav Mahler: To Live, I Will Die (1987) and The Lost Continent (1968).

83. Caroline Munro

Actress | The Spy Who Loved Me

Leggy, brunette-maned pin-up actress Caroline Munro was born in Windsor, Berkshire, England, and lived in Rottingdean near Brighton where she attended a Roman Catholic convent school. By chance, her mother and a photographer entered her picture in a "Face of the Year" competition for the British ...

84. Ingrid Pitt

Actress | Where Eagles Dare

Best known as Hammer Films' most seductive female vampire of the early 1970s, the Polish-born Pitt possessed dark, alluring features and a sexy figure that made her just right for Gothic horror! Ingrid Pitt (born Ingoushka Petrov) survived World War II and became a well-known actress on the East ...

85. Barbara Steele

Actress | La maschera del demonio

The most beautiful star of the greatest horror masterpiece of Italian film, Black Sunday (1960): Barbara Steele was born on December 29, 1937 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England. Barbara is loved by her fans for her talent, intelligence, and a dark mysterious beauty that is unique; her face epitomizes...

86. Hazel Court

Actress | The Curse of Frankenstein

Born in Birmingham, England, Hazel Court carried on a love affair with the world of movies and make-believe that made her a leading student at her hometown's School of Drama and later helped her land a contract with the J. Arthur Rank Organisation. Graduating from bits to supporting roles to leads,...

87. Dagmar Lassander

Actress | Shark: Rosso nell'oceano

Dagmar Lassander was born on June 16, 1943 in Prague, Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia [now Czech Republic]. She is an actress, known for Devil Fish (1984), Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970) and I racconti fantastici di Edgar Allan Poe (1979).

88. John Diehl

Actor | The Client

John Henry Diehl has appeared more than 150 times in films and TV including Armageddon Time (2022), Five Days at Memorial (2022), Nixon, Stripes, and TV series Dark Winds (2022), Snowfall (2017), Castle Rock (2018), The Shield, and Miami Vice. Described by the Los Angeles Times as a "versatile and ...

89. Adrienne Barbeau

Actress | Escape from New York

Adrienne Jo Barbeau is an American actress and author best known for her roles on the sitcom Maude (1972) and in horror films, especially those directed by John Carpenter, with whom she was once married. She was born on June 11, 1945 in Sacramento, California, the daughter of an executive for Mobil...

90. Jamie Lee Curtis

Actress | Halloween

Jamie Lee Curtis was born on November 22, 1958 in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of legendary actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. She got her big break at acting in 1978 when she won the role of Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978). After that, she became famous for roles in movies like Trading...

91. Max von Sydow

Actor | Flash Gordon

Max von Sydow was born Carl Adolf von Sydow on April 10, 1929 in Lund, Skåne, Sweden, to a middle-class family. He was the son of Baroness Maria Margareta (Rappe), a teacher, and Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, an ethnologist and folklore professor. His surname traces back to his partial German ancestry.

...

92. Mimi Rogers

Actress | Ginger Snaps

It's fair to say that after 20 years and over 50 film appearances, Mimi Rogers should be praised for her variety of roles and acting capabilities, not for a brief marriage to a Hollywood star. In the early 1980s she began to carve a niche for herself in Hollywood, appearing on television and in ...

93. Carole Lombard

Actress | My Man Godfrey

Carole Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on October 6, 1908. Her parents divorced in 1916 and her mother took the family on a trip out West. While there they decided to settle down in the Los Angeles area. After being spotted playing baseball in the street with the ...

94. 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)...

95. Dabney Coleman

Actor | WarGames

For decades, Dabney Coleman has often appeared as a smarmy, selfish, nervous person, often with money, who is mostly out for himself. He did such a good job in this type of part that he's made a career of it in film.

Dabney Wharton Coleman was born in Austin, Texas, to Mary Wharton (Johns) and ...

96. Tanya Roberts

Actress | A View to a Kill

The second daughter of manufacturing executive Oscar Blum and his wife Dorothy, Tanya Roberts was born 1949 in Manhattan and grew up in the elite Westchester County suburbs Scarsdale and Greenburgh. Tanya reportedly dropped out of high school, got married and hitchhiked around the country until her...

97. 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 ...

98. John Getz

Actor | The Social Network

A graduate of the University of Iowa, Getz is one of four siblings raised in Iowa and in the Mississippi River Valley of Northern Illinois. After doing a number of plays at the University of Iowa he was encouraged to try acting as a profession. A children's theater production in Napa led to New ...

99. Samm-Art Williams

Actor | Blood Simple

Samm-Art Williams was born on January 20, 1946 in Burgaw, North Carolina, USA. He is a producer and writer, known for Blood Simple (1984), Frank's Place (1987) and Dressed to Kill (1980).

100. Frances McDormand

Actress | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Frances Louise McDormand was born on June 23, 1957, in Gibson City, Illinois. She was adopted by Canadian-born parents Noreen Eloise (Nickleson), a nurse from Ontario, and Rev. Vernon Weir McDormand, a Disciples of Christ minister from Nova Scotia, who raised her in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. She ...