1920's

1. Bonnie Bartlett

Bonnie Bartlett grew up in Moline, Illinois. Her father E.E. was a failed Shakespearean actor who became an insurance salesman. Her mother Carrie was a homemaker. At an early age, Bonnie became determined to fulfill her father's failed acting career. She went to Northwestern University to study ...

2. 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 ...

3. Dick Van Dyke

Actor | Mary Poppins

Dick Van Dyke was born Richard Wayne Van Dyke in West Plains, Missouri, to Hazel Victoria (McCord), a stenographer, and Loren Wayne Van Dyke, a salesman. His younger brother was entertainer Jerry Van Dyke. His ancestry includes English, Dutch, Scottish, German and Swiss-German. Although he had ...

4. June Squibb

Actress | Nebraska

June Squibb is an American actress, once nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Squibb was born in 1929 in Vandalia, Illinois. Vandalia had served as the state capital of Illinois for two decades (1819-1839), but it has remained a small city since the capital was transferred ...

5. Estelle Parsons

Actress | Bonnie and Clyde

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

6. Alice Hirson

Actress | Being There

Alice Hirson was born on March 10, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She is an actress, known for Being There (1979), The Glass House (2001) and Revenge of the Nerds (1984).

7. 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...

8. Rebecca Schull

Actress | Wings

Rebecca Schull was born on February 22, 1929 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress, known for Wings (1990), United 93 (2006) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). She was previously married to Eugene Arnold Schull.

9. 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 ...

10. William Daniels

Actor | St. Elsewhere

William Daniels is an American actor, born in Brooklyn, New York City. He was born in 1927, to bricklayer David Daniels and his wife Irene.

Daniels was a member of the singing Daniels family in Brooklyn. He made his television debut in 1943 at the age of 16, as part of a variety act. That same year,...

11. Paul Dooley

Actor | Breaking Away

Dooley was a keen cartoonist as a youth and drew a strip for a local paper in Parkersburg, West Virginia. He joined the Navy before discovering acting while at college. Moving to New York, he soon found success as a regular on the stage. Also having an interest in comedy, Dooley was a stand-up ...

12. Lisa Lu

Actress | Crazy Rich Asians

Lisa Lu is a Chinese-American actress. She started her career as a teenager, performing in Kunqu theatrical productions, a traditional style of Chinese opera. The Chinese Civil War (1927-1949) ended with a Communist victory. While the new regime financially subsidized China's theaters for most of ...

13. 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...

14. Corinne Conley

Actress | Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Corinne Conley was born in upstate Le Roy, New York, but was raised in Radford, Virginia. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 1949 with a degree in Dramatic Arts. She went on to spend the majority of her career in Canada and is notable for having won the Canadian Council of Authors and...

15. Vera Miles

Actress | The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Born in Boise City, Oklahoma, Vera Miles attended school in Pratt, Kansas and Wichita, Kansas. The patrician beauty of Miss Miles won her the title of "Miss Kansas" in 1948, leading soon to small roles in Hollywood films and television series. Fame came to the forthright, spirited Miles when she ...

16. Patricia Routledge

Actress | Keeping Up Appearances

Daughter of Catherine and Isaac Routledge. Her father was a haberdasher, and, during WWII, the family lived weeks at a time in the basement of her father's shop. She attended Birkenhead High School, where she sang in the choir and ran the Sunday School. She studied English at Liverpool University, ...

17. Mina Kolb

Actress | A Mighty Wind

Mina Kolb was born on June 7, 1926 in Wilmette, Illinois, USA. She is an actress, known for A Mighty Wind (2003), The Hollywood Knights (1980) and Ellen (1994).

18. Ray Anthony

Soundtrack | Sixteen Candles

Ray Anthony (real name Raymond Antonini) was born in Bentleyville, PA, on Jan. 20, 1922. His family moved to Cleveland, where he spent most of his early life. There he studied trumpet with his father. From 1940-1941 he played in Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. He enlisted in the US Navy in 1942 and...

19. Gloria Stroock

Actress | Uncommon Valor

Veteran actress Gloria Jane Stroock is the daughter of James Stroock, president of the Brooks Costume and Uniform Company which supplied costumes to Broadway and to the film industry from 1914. It had been founded five years prior by Ely Stroock (1864-1949). Gloria's mother was a costume designer ...

20. William Russell

Actor | The Great Escape

William Russell was born William Russell Enoch on 19 November 1924, in Sunderland, County Durham, England, to Eva Compston (Pile) and Alfred James Enoch. He became interested in acting at an early age. He was involved in organizing entertainments during his national service in the Royal Air Force ...

21. 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 ...

22. Eve Brenner

Actress | The Great Mouse Detective

Eve Brenner was born on September 24, 1925 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress, known for The Great Mouse Detective (1986), Walk of Shame (2014) and Murder in the First (1995).

23. John Kander

Soundtrack | Chicago

John Kander was born on March 18, 1927 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He is a composer and writer, known for Chicago (2002), Cabaret (1972) and Shame (2011). He has been married to Albert Stephenson since 2010.

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. Michael Forest

Actor | Jûbê ninpûchô

Six-foot-three and weighing in at a lean, mean 215, Michael Forest was a rugged-looking addition to the Roger Corman and Gene Corman's list of leading men during their 1950s heyday. Between Corman films, he was a stage actor who worked in Shakespearean plays and other legitimate productions as ...

26. Fernanda Montenegro

Actress | Central do Brasil

Arlette Pinheiro Esteves da Silva was born on 16th October 1929 in Rio de Janeiro. She adopted the name "Fernanda" because she thought it sounded good. "Montenegro" came after her family doctor.

In late 40s she was translating and adapting famous theater plays to radio. She begun her artistic life ...

27. 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 ...

28. Lee Grant

Actress | In the Heat of the Night

Academy Award-winner Lee Grant was born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal on October 31, 1925 in Manhattan, New York City, to Witia (Haskell), a teacher and model, and Abraham Rosenthal, an educator and realtor. Her father was of Romanian Jewish descent, and her mother was a Russian Jewish immigrant. Lee ...

29. Marion Ross

Actress | Superhero Movie

The lovely, cheery, continuously upbeat All-American mom from the classic Happy Days (1974) TV sitcom had fervent desires of becoming an actress while growing up in her obscure Minnesota town. Born Marian Ross (with an "a") on October 25, 1928, she grew up in her native state and, at one time, ...

30. Rosemary Harris

Actress | Spider-Man

Rosemary Harris is an English actress. She has won 4 Drama Desk Awards, and nominated 9 times for Tony Awards. In 1966, she won the "Tony Award for Best Actress" for her role as Eleanor of Aquitaine in "The Lion in Winter". In films, she is better known for portraying May Reilly Parker in the "...

31. David Attenborough

Self | Blue Planet II

Born 8 May 1926, the younger brother of actor Lord Richard Attenborough. He never expressed a wish to act and, instead, studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, graduating in 1947, the year he began his two years National Service in the Royal Navy. In 1952, he joined BBC Television at ...

32. Ruth Westheimer

Actress | Une femme ou deux

Ruth Westheimer was born on June 4, 1928 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. She is an actress and producer, known for One Woman or Two (1985), Electric Dreams (1984) and Ask Dr. Ruth (2019). She was previously married to Manfred "Fred" Westheimer.

33. Bunny Levine

Actress | A Thousand Words

Bunny Levine has had a passion for entertaining from her earliest memory. At the age of two, she subjected all her relatives to her rendition of the song "When I Grow Too Old to Dream" at every possible opportunity. Playing with her sister and friends in pre-school days, her favorite game was a ...

34. 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. ...

35. Baddie Winkle

Actress | Double Dutchess: Seeing Double

Baddie Winkle was born on July 18, 1928 in Hazard, Kentucky, USA. She is an actress, known for Double Dutchess: Seeing Double (2017), CNN Newsroom (1989) and Ridiculousness (2011).

36. Bob Newhart

Actor | Elf

Bob Newhart is an American actor and stand-up comedian. His comedic style involves deadpan delivery of dialogue, a slight stammer when talking, and comedic monologues. He has cited earlier comedians George Gobel (1919-1991), Ray Goulding (1922-1990), and Bob Elliott (1923-2016) as his main ...

37. Tommy Morton

Actor | Target

Tommy Morton was born on February 17, 1926 in Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for Target (1958), Main Street to Broadway (1953) and The Stars Are Singing (1953).

38. Jerry Hardin

Actor | Big Trouble in Little China

A highly engaging, charismatic, and reliable character actor with a long and distinguished career spanning half a century, Jerry Hardin has been gracing both the big and small screen, and stage, with many enjoyable performances, highlighted by a relaxed and pleasing Southern twang. Born November 20...

39. Jimmy Carter

Actor | The American President

James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American former politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975 and as a Georgia state senator from 1963 to...

40. Priscilla Pointer

Actress | Blue Velvet

Though character actress Priscilla Pointer may be better known as the mother of Amy Irving, she has enjoyed a major stage, film and TV career herself for over four decades. The New York-born performer was trained on the stage and appeared in several tours and Broadway shows, including "A Streetcar ...