My favourite actresses
by sbmt68 | created - 29 Mar 2013 | updated - 29 Mar 2013 | PublicSome of my favourite actresses (in no particular order)
1. Katharine Hepburn
Actress | The Lion in Winter
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was born on May 12, 1907 in Hartford, Connecticut to a suffragist, Katharine Martha (Houghton), and a doctor, Thomas Norval Hepburn, who both always encouraged her to speak her mind, develop it fully, and exercise her body to its full potential. An athletic tomboy as a ...
2. Ingrid Bergman
Actress | Casablanca
Ingrid Bergman was one of the greatest actresses from Hollywood's lamented Golden Era. Her natural and unpretentious beauty and her immense acting talent made her one of the most celebrated figures in the history of American cinema. Bergman is also one of the most Oscar-awarded actresses, tied with ...
3. 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, ...
4. Judi Dench
Actress | Skyfall
Dame Judi Dench was born Judith Olivia Dench in York, England, to Eleanora Olive (Jones), who was from Dublin, Ireland, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor from Dorset, England. She attended Mount School in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed with the ...
5. Maggie Smith
Actress | Gosford Park
One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her Scottish mother, Margaret (Hutton), worked as a secretary, and her English father, Nathaniel Smith, was a teacher at Oxford University. Smith has been married twice: to actor ...
6. Gloria Grahame
Actress | In a Lonely Place
Gloria Grahame Hallward, an acting pupil of her mother (stage actress and teacher Jean Grahame), acted professionally while still in high school. In 1944 Louis B. Mayer saw her on Broadway and gave her an MGM contract under the name Gloria Grahame. Her debut in the title role of Blonde Fever (1944)...
7. Cate Blanchett
Actress | Carol
Cate Blanchett was born on May 14, 1969 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, to June (Gamble), an Australian teacher and property developer, and Robert DeWitt Blanchett, Jr., an American advertising executive, originally from Texas. She has an older brother and a younger sister. When she was ten ...
8. Kate Winslet
Actress | Titanic
Ask Kate Winslet what she likes about any of her characters, and the word "ballsy" is bound to pop up at least once. The British actress has made a point of eschewing straightforward pretty-girl parts in favor of more devilish damsels; as a result, she's built an eclectic resume that runs the gamut...
9. Margaret Tyzack
Actress | A Clockwork Orange
Margaret Tyzack was born on September 9, 1931 in Plaistow, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for A Clockwork Orange (1971), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Match Point (2005). She was married to Alan R. Stephenson. She died on June 25, 2011 in Blackheath, London, England, UK.
10. Anna Massey
Actress | Peeping Tom
Anna Massey was born on August 11, 1937 in Thakeham, West Sussex, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Peeping Tom (1960), Frenzy (1972) and The Machinist (2004). She was married to Dr. Uri Andres and Jeremy Brett. She died on July 2, 2011 in London, England, UK.
11. Margaret Rutherford
Actress | The V.I.P.s
Rare is the reference to Margaret Rutherford that doesn't characterize her as either jut-chinned, eccentric, or both. The combination of those most mundane of attributes has led some to suggest that she was made for the role of Agatha Christie's indomitable sleuth, Jane Marple, whom Rutherford ...
12. Deborah Kerr
Actress | The King and I
Deborah Jane Trimmer was born on 30 September 1921 in Glasgow, Scotland, the daughter of Captain Arthur Kerr Trimmer. She was educated at Northumberland House, Clifton, Bristol. She first performed at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London. She subsequently performed with the Oxford ...
13. Imelda Staunton
Actress | Vera Drake
Imelda Staunton is an English actress and singer from Archway, London. Her ancestry is primarily Irish. She has worked extensively in theater, and has won 4 Laurence Olivier Awards; 3 for leading roles and one for a supporting role. Her best known role in films has been the recurring villain ...
14. Wendy Hiller
Actress | A Man for All Seasons
Wendy Hiller, daughter of Frank and Marie Hiller, was born on 15th August 1912 in Bramhall, near Stockport, Cheshire, England. She was educated at Winceby House School, Bexhill then moved on to Manchester Repertory Theatre. She appeared on stage in Sir John Barry's tour of Evensong, then as Sally ...
15. Rachel Roberts
Actress | Murder on the Orient Express
Beautiful, swift and tough-tongued British character actress Rachel Roberts gained notice for her roles on the English stage, before she hit it largely in films. Born in Wales and married to actor Rex Harrison in 1962, Roberts made her film debut in a key role in J. Lee Thompson's Young and Willing...
16. Lilli Palmer
Actress | Anastasia - Die letzte Zarentochter
A charming, elegant, and exceedingly popular international film star with a gentle, understated beauty, actress Lilli Palmer was born as Lilli Marie Peiser on May 24, 1914, in Posen, Prussia. She was the daughter of Rose Lissman, an Austrian Jewish actress, and Alfred Peiser, a German Jewish ...
17. Vivien Leigh
Actress | A Streetcar Named Desire
If a film were made of the life of Vivien Leigh, it would open in India just before World War I, where a successful British businessman could live like a prince. In the mountains above Calcutta, a little princess is born. Because of the outbreak of World War I, she is six years old the first time ...
18. Meryl Streep
Actress | Out of Africa
Considered by many critics to be the greatest living actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 21 times, and has won it three times. Meryl was born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf (Wilkinson), a commercial artist, and Harry William ...
19. Helen Mirren
Actress | The Queen
Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in West London. Her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (Rogers), was from a working-class English family, and her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov, was a Russian-born civil servant, from Kuryanovo, whose own father was a diplomat. ...
20. Rachel Weisz
Actress | The Constant Gardener
Rachel Hannah Weisz was born on 7 March, 1970, in London, U.K., to Edith Ruth (Teich), a psychoanalyst, and George Weisz, an inventor. Her parents both came to England around 1938. Her father is a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, and her mother, from Vienna, was of Italian and Austrian Jewish heritage. ...
21. Agnes Moorehead
Actress | The Magnificent Ambersons
Agnes was born of Anglo-Irish ancestry near Boston, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister (her mother was a mezzo-soprano) who encouraged her to perform in church pageants. Aged three, she sang 'The Lord is my Shepherd' on a public stage and seven years later joined the St. Louis Municipal Opera ...
22. 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 ...
23. 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 ...
24. Elizabeth Taylor
Actress | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was considered one of the last, if not the last, major star to have come out of the old Hollywood studio system. She was known internationally for her beauty, especially for her violet eyes, with which she captured audiences early in her youth and kept the world hooked ...
25. 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 ...
26. 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...
27. Flora Robson
Actress | Clash of the Titans
Flora Robson knew she was no beauty, but her wise and sympathetic face would become a familiar - indeed, shining - ornament of the 1930s and '40s silver screen. Though not sure of acting as a career in her early years, she first appeared on stage when 5 years old. She was educated at Palmer's Green...
28. 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 (...
29. Dorothy Tutin
Actress | The Importance of Being Earnest
Dame Dorothy Tutin's esteemed company of peers included other remarkable dames, including Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. Unlike these others, Dorothy had limited screen time over the years and would develop the respect but not the stardom afforded the other two outside the realm of the theatre. ...
30. Hattie Jacques
Actress | Carry on Again Doctor
Best known for playing Matron--as in "Ooh, Matron!"--in four films: Carry on Nurse (1959), Carry on Doctor (1967), Carry on Again Doctor (1969) and, of course Carry on Matron (1972). Key roles included: Grace Short in Carry on Teacher (1959), Sophie Bliss in Carry on Loving (1970) and Peggy Hawkins...
31. Joan Sims
Actress | Carry on Up the Khyber
Joan Sims, the "First Lady of Carry On", was born Irene Joan Marion Sims on 9 May 1930. The daughter of an Essex railway station master, Joan was interested in pursuing show-business, and soon became a familiar face in a growing number of amateur productions. In 1946, Joan first applied to RADA, ...
32. Gwen Watford
Actress | Cleopatra
Gwen Watford was born on September 10, 1927 in Islington, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Cleopatra (1963), ITV Saturday Night Theatre (1969) and The Company of Five (1968). She was married to Richard Bebb. She died on February 6, 1994 in Westminster, London, England, UK.
33. Ava Gardner
Actress | The Night of the Iguana
Ava Lavina Gardner was born on December 24, 1922 in Grabtown, North Carolina, to Mary Elizabeth (née Baker) and Jonas Bailey Gardner. Born on a tobacco farm, where she got her lifelong love of earthy language and going barefoot, Ava grew up in the rural South. At age 18, her picture in the window ...
34. Natalie Wood
Actress | Rebel Without a Cause
Natalie Wood was an American actress of Russian and Ukrainian descent. She started her career as a child actress and eventually transitioned into teenage roles, young adult roles, and middle-aged roles. She drowned off Catalina Island on November 29, 1981 at age 43.
Wood was born July 20, 1938 in ...
35. Sarah Miles
Actress | Ryan's Daughter
Sarah Miles is an English actress whose career flourished during the Swinging Sixties and in the early Seventies. The high point of her career came when her husband, screenwriter Robert Bolt, adapted "Madame Bovary" into a story set during the 1916 Easter Rebellion in Ireland. Directed by David Lean...
36. Harriet Walter
Actress | Sense and Sensibility
Dame Harriet Mary Walter DBE is a British actress. She has received a Laurence Olivier Award as well as numerous nominations including for a Tony Award, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2011, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) ...
37. Elizabeth Spriggs
Actress | Sense and Sensibility
Elizabeth Spriggs was born on September 18, 1929 in Buxton, Derbyshire, England, UK. She was an actress and writer, known for Sense and Sensibility (1995), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) and Paradise Road (1997). She was married to Murray Manson, Marshall Jones and Kenneth Spriggs. ...
38. Emma Thompson
Actress | Sense and Sensibility
Emma Thompson was born on April 15, 1959 in Paddington, London, into a family of actors - father Eric Thompson and mother Phyllida Law, who has co-starred with Thompson in several films. Her sister, Sophie Thompson, is an actor as well. Her father was English-born and her mother is Scottish-born. ...
39. Sally Field
Actress | Forrest Gump
Sally Margaret Field was born November 6, 1946 in Pasadena, California, to actress Margaret Field (née Morlan) and salesman Richard Dryden Field. Her parents divorced in 1950 and her mother then married stuntman Jock Mahoney, and they had a daughter, Princess O'Mahoney. She also has a brother, ...
40. Glenn Close
Actress | Fatal Attraction
Eight time Academy Award-nominated actress Glenn Close was born and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. She is the daughter of Elizabeth Mary H. "Bettine" (Moore) and William Taliaferro Close (William Close), a prominent doctor. Both of her parents were from upper-class families.
Glenn was a noted ...
41. Whoopi Goldberg
Actress | Ghost
Whoopi Goldberg was born Caryn Elaine Johnson in the Chelsea section of Manhattan on November 13, 1955. Her mother, Emma (Harris), was a teacher and a nurse, and her father, Robert James Johnson, Jr., was a clergyman. Whoopi's recent ancestors were from Georgia, Florida, and Virginia. She worked in...
42. Jodie Foster
Actress | The Silence of the Lambs
Jodie Foster started her career at the age of two. For four years she made commercials and finally gave her debut as an actress in the TV series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). In 1975 Jodie was offered the role of prostitute Iris Steensma in the movie Taxi Driver (1976). This role, for which she received ...
43. Joan Plowright
Actress | The Spiderwick Chronicles
Dame Joan Ann Plowright, the Baroness Olivier, is one of the most distinguished actors of her generation. She may be best remembered as the third wife and widow of Laurence Olivier, generally considered the greatest anglophone actor of the 20th Century, but she had a distinguished career of her own...
44. Kathy Bates
Actress | Misery
Multi-talented, multi-award-winning actress Kathleen (Doyle) Bates was born on June 28, 1948, and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. She is the youngest of three girls born to Bertye Kathleen (Talbot), a homemaker, and Langdon Doyle Bates, a mechanical engineer. Her grandfather was author Finis L. Bates...
45. Sandra Bullock
Producer | The Proposal
Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Her mother, Helga Bullock (née Helga Mathilde Meyer), was a German opera singer. Her father, John W. Bullock, was an American voice teacher, who was born in Alabama, of German descent. Sandra grew up on the road ...
46. Brenda Blethyn
Actress | Pride & Prejudice
After forty years of hard work on stage and both television and film, there are not many other actresses who deserved the success, recognition and stardom which Brenda Blethyn has now achieved.
Born in 1946 in Ramsgate, Kent, England, she started her career at British Rail in the 1960s. Saving money...
47. Marianne Jean-Baptiste
Actress | Without a Trace
Marianne Raigipcien Jean-Baptiste is an English actress. She is known for her role in the 1996 comedy-drama film Secrets & Lies, for which she received acclaim and earned nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award in the same category. ...
48. Halle Berry
Actress | Catwoman
Halle Maria Berry was born Maria Halle Berry on August 14, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Oakwood, Ohio to Judith Ann Berry (née Hawkins), a psychiatric nurse & Jerome Jesse Berry, a hospital attendant. Her father was African-American and her mother is of mostly English and German descent. ...
49. Maggie Steed
Actress | The Painted Veil
Born Margaret Baker in Plymouth, Devon, in 1946, Maggie Steed studied drama with the Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, graduating in the late 1960s. However, her first professional engagements were as an assistant stage manager, working behind the scenes in a somewhat lowly capacity, because, she ...
50. Hermione Gingold
Actress | Gigi
One of stage, screen, radio and TV's most inimitable, irrepressible entertainers, Hermione Ferdinanda Gingold was born in London on December 9, 1897, the daughter of an upscale Austrian-Jewish financier and English homemaker. The blue-eyed blonde loved to perform in school plays and made her ...
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