All Oscar-Nominated Actresses

1. Abigail Breslin

Academy Award-nominated actress Abigail Breslin is one of the most sought-after actors of her generation. Her unique and charismatic talents have contributed to her versatile roles in both comedy and drama.

Recently, Breslin headlined the first season of the horror-comedy series, Scream Queens (2015)...

2. Adriana Barraza

Actress | Babel

Adriana Barraza was born on March 5, 1956 in Toluca, Estado de Mexico, Mexico. She is a director and actress, known for Babel (2006), Blue Beetle (2023) and Drag Me to Hell (2009). She has been married to Arnaldo Pipke since April 29, 2005. She was previously married to Carlos Valsagna.

3. 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 ...

4. Alfre Woodard

Actress | Star Trek: First Contact

Alfre Woodard was born on November 8, 1952 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the youngest of three children of Constance, a homemaker, and Marion H. Woodard, an interior designer. She was named by her godmother, who claimed she saw a vision of Alfre's name written out in gold letters. A former high school ...

5. Ali MacGraw

Actress | Love Story

Ali was educated at Wellesley College, where she studied art history. After graduating, she worked on fashion magazines. Her interest in fashion photography led her to become a top model, a profession she carried on until 1968, when she made a late start in what was to be a sporadic film career, ...

6. Alice Brady

Actress | My Man Godfrey

Alice Brady was born in New York City on November 2, 1892. She was interested in the stage from childhood, as her father was famed Broadway producer William A. Brady. After a few stage productions, Alice was discovered by movie producers in New York, since this was the film capital at the time. Her...

7. Alicia Vikander

Actress | Ex Machina

Alicia Vikander is a Swedish actress, dancer and producer. She was born and raised in Gothenburg, Västra Götalands län, Sweden, to Maria Fahl, an actress of stage and screen, and Svante Vikander, a psychiatrist. Through her mother, she is one quarter Finnish, and had a maternal great aunt who moved...

8. Aline MacMahon

Actress | Kind Lady

Aline MacMahon was born of Scottish-Irish and Russian-Jewish ancestry on May 3,1899, the daughter of William Marcus MacMahon and Jennie Simon MacMahon. Her father became editor-in-chief of Munsey's Magazine, while her mother pursued a theatrical acting career from middle-age and lived to age107. ...

9. Amy Adams

Actress | Arrival

Amy Lou Adams was born in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy, to American parents, Kathryn (Hicken) and Richard Kent Adams, a U.S. serviceman who was stationed at Caserma Ederle in Italy at the time. She was raised in a Mormon family of seven children in Castle Rock, Colorado, and has English, as well as ...

10. Amy Irving

Actress | Traffic

Naturally brunette/blue-eyed beauty Amy Davis Irving was born in Palo Alto, California. She is the youngest of three children, and the daughter of influential theatrical/television director and producer Jules Irving, and actress Priscilla Pointer. Her father was of Russian Jewish descent, and her ...

11. Amy Madigan

Actress | Field of Dreams

In the 1960s, Amy attended St. Philip Neri grammar school and Aquinas High School, both in Chicago, where she performed in school plays and was known as the school tomboy. In the early 1970s, Amy was featured in Playboy Magazine wearing only jelly, to promote her music band, Jelly. Amy is the ...

12. Amy Ryan

Actress | Gone Baby Gone

Amy Ryan was born on May 3, 1968 in Queens, New York City, New York, USA as Amy Beth Dziewiontkowski. She is an actress, known for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), Gone Baby Gone (2007) and Escape Plan (2013). She has been married to Eric Slovin since August 23, 2011. They ...

13. Andrea Leeds

Actress | Stage Door

She made only a handful of films within a span of four years (1936-1940), but gentle, soulful-eyed Andrea Leeds touched hearts with those few, culminating in an Oscar-nomination for Best Supporting Actress as the sensitive, aspiring young actress who doesn't survive the school of hard knocks in the...

14. Angela Bassett

Actress | Strange Days

Captivating, gifted, and sensational, Angela Bassett's presence has been felt in theaters and on stages and television screens throughout the world. Angela Evelyn Bassett was born on August 16, 1958 in New York City, to Betty Jane (Gilbert), a social worker, and Daniel Benjamin Bassett, a ...

15. 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 ...

16. Angelina Jolie

Actress | Maleficent

Angelina Jolie is an Academy Award-winning actress who rose to fame after her role in Girl, Interrupted (1999), playing the title role in the "Lara Croft" blockbuster movies, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), Salt (2010) and Maleficent (2014). Off-screen, Jolie has become ...

17. Anjelica Huston

Actress | The Grifters

Anjelica Huston was born on July 8, 1951 to director and actor John Huston and Russian prima ballerina Enrica 'Ricki' Soma. Huston spent most of her childhood overseas, in Ireland and England, and in 1968 first dipped her toe into the world of show business, taking on the lead role of her father's ...

18. Ann Blyth

Actress | Mildred Pierce

The dark, petulant beauty of this petite American film and musical star worked to her advantage, especially in her early dramatic career. Anne Marie Blythe was born of Irish stock to Harry and Annie (nee Lynch) Blythe on August 16, 1928 in Mt. Kisco, New York. Her parents split while she was young ...

19. Ann Harding

Actress | When Ladies Meet

Ann, born Dorothy Gatley, spent most of her childhood as an "army brat" constantly moving around before the family finally settled in New York. Ann first appeared on the stage while she spent a year attending Bryn Mawr College. She became a clerk and freelance script reader with a film company ...

20. 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 ...

21. Ann-Margret

Actress | Carnal Knowledge

Actress and singer Ann-Margret is one of the most famous sex symbols and actresses of the 1960s and beyond. She continued her career through the following decades and into the 21st century.

Ann-Margret was born Ann-Margret Olsson in Valsjöbyn, Jämtland County, Sweden, to Anna Regina (Aronsson) and ...

22. Anna Kendrick

Actress | Up in the Air

Anna Kendrick was born in Portland, Maine, to Janice (Cooke), an accountant, and William Kendrick, a teacher. She has an older brother, Michael Cooke Kendrick, who has also acted. She is of English, Irish, and Scottish descent.

For her role as "Dinah" in "High Society" on Broadway, Anna Kendrick was...

23. Anna Magnani

Actress | Roma città aperta

Anna Magnani was born in Rome, Italy (not in Egypt, as some biographies claim), on March 7, 1908. She was the child of Marina Magnani and an unknown father often said to be from Alexandria, Egypt, but whom Anna herself claimed was from the Calabria region of Italy although she never knew his name. ...

24. Anna Paquin

Actress | The Piano

Anna Paquin is the first millennial to have received an Academy Award nomination for acting, and the first to win.

She was born on July 24, 1982 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Mary (Brophy), an English teacher from Wellington, New Zealand, and Brian Paquin, a Canadian phys-ed teacher. Anna moved ...

25. Anne Archer

Actress | Fatal Attraction

Anne Archer was nominated for an Academy Award®, a Golden Globe and the British (BAFTA) Academy Award for her role as Michael Douglas' sympathetic, tortured wife, "Beth Gallagher", in Adrian Lyne's 1987 thriller Fatal Attraction (1987). Archer is also well-known for her poignant Golden ...

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. 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 ...

28. Anne Hathaway

Actress | Les Misérables

Anne Jacqueline Hathaway was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Kate McCauley Hathaway, an actress, and Gerald T. Hathaway, a lawyer, both originally from Philadelphia. She is of mostly Irish descent, along with English, German, and French. Her first major role came in the short-lived television series ...

29. Anne Ramsey

Actress | The Goonies

American character actress Anne Ramsey was born Anne Mobley in Omaha, Nebraska to Eleanor (Smith), a national treasurer of the Girl Scouts, and Nathan Mobley, an insurance executive. Her uncle was U.S. Ambassador David S. Smith. An ancestor was Mayflower Pilgrim William Brewster. She attended ...

30. Anne Revere

Actress | Gentleman's Agreement

Veteran character actress Anne Revere became another in the long line of talented artists whose careers would crash under the weight of the "Red Scare" hysteria that tore through Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. Born in Manhattan and a direct descendant of Revolutionary War figure Paul Revere, ...

31. Anne Shirley

Actress | Murder, My Sweet

They didn't come packaged any sweeter or lovelier than Anne Shirley, a gentle and gracious 1930s teen film actress who didn't quite reach the zenith of front-rank stardom and retired all too soon at age 26. On film as a toddler, she went through a small revolving door of marquee names before ...

32. Annette Bening

Actress | American Beauty

Annette Bening was born on May 29, 1958 in Topeka, Kansas, the youngest of four children. Her family moved to California when she was young, and she grew up there. She graduated from San Francisco State University and began her acting career with the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, ...

33. Anouk Aimée

Actress | 8½

The daughter of actress Geneviève Sorya, in 1948 she played the part of Juliette in The Lovers of Verona (1949). During the 1950s and 1960s she made various films, including Montparnasse 19 (1958) and La Dolce Vita (1960), but only Lola (1961) , Jacques Demy, and A Man and a Woman (1966) Claude ...

34. 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, ...

35. 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 ...

36. Barbara Barrie

Actress | Breaking Away

After endless stage and television work, Barrie received a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for her performance in the ground-breaking racial drama One Potato, Two Potato (1964), as Julie, a young, white mother who marries a black man after she and her daughter are abandoned by her ...

37. Barbara Bel Geddes

Actress | Vertigo

Arguably best remembered for her role as Miss Ellie, the Ewing family matriarch on the long-running TV series Dallas (1978), Barbara Bel Geddes had earlier scored success on stage and screen long before gaining more lasting fame on television. She was born in New York City on Halloween Day 1922, ...

38. Barbara Harris

Actress | Nashville

Barbara Harris began acting while still a teenager in Chicago, playing small parts in the Playwrights Theatre Club (whose other players included such youngsters as Edward Asner, Mike Nichols and Elaine May). She was also in "The Compass Players", the first ongoing improvisational theater troupe in ...

39. Barbara Hershey

Actress | Black Swan

Barbara Hershey was born Barbara Lynn Herzstein in Hollywood, California, to Melrose (Moore) and Arnold Nathan Herzstein, a horse racing columnist. Her father, born in Manhattan, was from a Jewish family (from Hungary and Russia), and her mother, originally from Arkansas, had English and ...

40. Barbara O'Neil

Actress | Gone with the Wind

Barbara O'Neil was an American actress, mostly remembered for playing Ellen O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind" (1939). She was once nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress .

O'Neil was born in St. Louis, Missouri to a prominent family. Her father was businessman David O'Neil (1874-...

41. Barbara Stanwyck

Actress | Double Indemnity

Today Barbara Stanwyck is remembered primarily as the matriarch of the family known as the Barkleys on the TV western The Big Valley (1965), wherein she played Victoria, and from the hit drama The Colbys (1985). But she was known to millions of other fans for her movie career, which spanned the ...

42. Barbra Streisand

Actress | Yentl

Barbra Streisand is an American singer, actress, director and producer and one of the most successful personalities in show business. She is the only person ever to receive all of the following: Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, Cable Ace, National Endowment for the Arts, and Peabody awards,...

43. Beah Richards

Actress | Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Beah Richards left her native Vicksburg, Mississippi, for New York City in 1950. She would not acquire a significant role on stage until 1955,when she appeared in the off-Broadway show "Take a Giant Step" convincingly portraying an 84-year-old grandmother without using theatrical makeup. In 1962 ...

44. Beatrice Straight

Actress | Network

In her long career, Beatrice Straight did quite a bit of work in the movies, despite plying her trade mostly onstage. When she did grace the silver screen, she did it with great skill. Her first love was theater, having debuted on Broadway in the 1935 "Bitter Oleander". Her work garnered her much ...

45. Bérénice Bejo

Actress | The Artist

Actress Bérénice Bejo was born in Buenos Aires, the daughter of Silvia De Paoli, a lawyer, and Miguel Bejo, a filmmaker. When she was three, Bejo's family relocated to Paris, France. She embarked on a successful acting career in the 1990s, with various roles in French television and film ...

46. Bessie Love

Actress | The Broadway Melody

Bessie Love was born in Texas. Her cowboy father moved the family to Hollywood, where he became a chiropractor. As the family needed money, Bessie's mother sent her to Biograph Studios, hoping she would become an actress. D.W. Griffith saw she was pretty and had some acting talent, and put her in ...

47. Betsy Blair

Actress | Marty

Betsy Blair was born in Cliffside, New Jersey, a child model before finding work as a chorus dancer at the early age of 15. She received her first mini-break on Broadway in "Panama Hattie" in 1940 delivering a single line, but by the next year she had copped the ingénue lead in William Saroyan's "...

48. Bette Davis

Actress | All About Eve

Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born April 5, 1908, in Lowell, Massachusetts, to Ruth Augusta (Favor) and Harlow Morrell Davis, a patent attorney. Her parents divorced when she was 10. She and her sister were raised by their mother. Her early interest was dance. To Bette, dancers led a glamorous life, but...

49. Bette Midler

Soundtrack | Beaches

Multi Grammy Award-winning singer/comedienne/author Bette Midler has also proven herself to be a very capable actress in a string of both dramatic and comedic roles. Midler was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 1, 1945. She is the daughter of Ruth (Schindel), a seamstress, and Fred Midler, a ...

50. Betty Compson

Actress | Street Girl

A mining engineer's daughter, blond, blue-eyed Betty Compson began in show business playing the violin in a Salt Lake City vaudeville establishment for $15 a week. Following that, she went on tour, accompanied by her mother, with an act called 'The Vagabond Violinist'. Aged eighteen, she appeared ...

51. Beulah Bondi

Actress | It's a Wonderful Life

Character actress Beulah Bondi was a favorite of directors and audiences and is one of the reasons so many films from the 1930s and 1940s remain so enjoyable, as she was an integral part of many of the ensemble casts (a hallmark of the studio system) of major and/or great films, including The Trail...

52. Billie Burke

Actress | The Wizard of Oz

Billie Burke was born Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke on August 7, 1885 in Washington, D.C. Her father was a circus clown, and as a child she toured the United States and Europe with the circus (before motion pictures and after the stage, circuses were the biggest form of entertainment in the...

53. Bonita Granville

Actress | Now, Voyager

Daughter of Bernard Granville, Bonita Granville was born into an acting family. It's not surprising that she herself became a child actor, first on the stage and, at the age of 9, debuting in movies in Westward Passage (1932). She was regularly cast as a naughty little girl, as in These Three (1936)...

54. 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...

55. Brenda Fricker

Actress | My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown

Irish character actress Brenda Fricker was born in Dublin, and gained experience in Irish theatre and with the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the Court Theatre Company in Great Britain. Brenda received great acclaim for her Oscar-winning supporting performance as the ...

56. Brenda Vaccaro

Actress | Midnight Cowboy

A leading lady on screen, stage and sometimes television, Brenda Vaccaro, was born in Brooklyn but was actually raised in Dallas, Texas.

Her appetite for acting increased following several appearances in high school productions, and she finally started a professional career in the 1960s. Memorable ...

57. Brie Larson

Actress | Room

Brie Larson has built an impressive career as an acclaimed television actress, rising feature film star and emerging recording artist. A native of Sacramento, Brie started studying drama at the early age of 6, as the youngest student ever to attend the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco...

58. Candice Bergen

Actress | Miss Congeniality

One cool, eternally classy lady, Candice Bergen was elegantly poised for trendy "ice princess" stardom when she first arrived on the '60s screen, but she gradually reshaped that débutante image in the '70s, both on- and off-camera. A staunch, outspoken feminist with a decisive edge, she went on to ...

59. Candy Clark

Actress | American Graffiti

Candy Clark was born on June 20, 1947 in Norman, Oklahoma, USA. She is an actress, known for American Graffiti (1973), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) and Blue Thunder (1983). She was previously married to Jeff Wald and Marjoe Gortner.

60. Cara Williams

Actress | The Defiant Ones

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

61. Carey Mulligan

Actress | Never Let Me Go

Carey Hannah Mulligan is a British actress. She was born May 28, 1985, in Westminster, London, England, to Nano (Booth), a university lecturer, and Stephen Mulligan, a hotel manager. Her mother is from Llandeilo, Wales, and Carey also has Irish and English ancestry.

Her first major appearance was ...

62. Carol Channing

Actress | Thoroughly Modern Millie

Carol Channing was born January 31, 1921, at Seattle, Washington, the daughter of a prominent newspaper editor, who was very active in the Christian Science movement. She attended high school in San Francisco and later worked as a model in Los Angeles. She attended prestigious Bennington College in...

63. Carol Kane

Actress | The Princess Bride

American stage, screen and television actress, and comedian Carol Kane (b. Carolyn Laurie Kane, June 18, 1952, in Cleveland, Ohio), was born to Elaine Joy (née Fetterman), a jazz singer and pianist, and Michael Myron Kane, an architect. Her family is Jewish (from Russia, Poland, and Austria). Due ...

64. 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 ...

65. 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...

66. Carrie Snodgress

Actress | Diary of a Mad Housewife

A student of Northern Illinois University, Carrie switched to drama at Chicago's Goodman Theatre School where she won the Sarah Siddons Award as outstanding graduate. After graduating, Carrie worked in TV and also appeared in TV movies. She made her big screen debut in Rabbit, Run (1970), working ...

67. Carroll Baker

Actress | Baby Doll

Carroll Baker was born on May 28, 1931 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the daughter of a traveling salesman, William W. Baker. She attended community college for a year and then worked as a dancer and magician's assistant. After a brief marriage, she had a small part in Easy to Love (1953), did TV ...

68. Catalina Sandino Moreno

Actress | Maria Full of Grace

Catalina Sandino Moreno made her screen debut as the title character in the critically-acclaimed film "Maria Full of Grace" from Fine Line Features/HBO. For her performance, Sandino was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, a Screen Actors Guild Award for Performance by...

69. 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 ...

70. Catherine Burns

Actress | Last Summer

Catherine Burns was an American actress and children's book writer of Irish and Polish descent. She was once nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, for playing the rape victim Rhoda in "Last Summer" (1969).

In 1945, Burns was born in New York City. She was educated (in order) ...

71. Catherine Deneuve

Actress | 8 femmes

Catherine Fabienne Deneuve was born October 22, 1943 in Paris, France, to actor parents Renée Simonot and Maurice Dorléac. She made her movie debut in 1957, when she was barely a teenager and continued with small parts in minor films, until Roger Vadim gave her a meatier role in Vice and Virtue (...

72. Catherine Keener

Actress | Being John Malkovich

Catherine Keener is an American actress, Oscar-nominated for her roles in the independent films Being John Malkovich (1999) and Capote (2005). Acclaimed in her community for her quirky roles in independent film and mainstream such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Keener got her start as a casting ...

73. Catherine Zeta-Jones

Actress | Chicago

Catherine Zeta-Jones was born September 25, 1969 in Swansea, Wales (and raised in the nearby town of Mumbles), the only daughter of Patricia (nee Fair) and David James "Dai" Jones, who formerly owned a sweet factory. She attended Dumbarton House School (Swansea). Her father (the son of Bertram (...

74. Cathy Moriarty

Actress | Raging Bull

Bronx-born character actress Cathy Moriarty was just 18 years old, fresh out of high school and had no idea that her life was about to change. Joe Pesci discovered her competing in a bathing-beauty contest at a bar. He invited her to audition for the part of Vikki LaMotta, second wife to champion ...

75. Celeste Holm

Actress | All About Eve

Celeste Holm was an only child, born into a home where her mother was a painter and her father worked in insurance. She would study acting at the University of Chicago and make her stage debut in 1936. Her Broadway debut came when she was 19 in 'The Time of Your Life'. She appeared in many ...

76. Celia Johnson

Actress | Brief Encounter

Celia Johnson was an English actress, once nominated for an Academy Award. Johnson was born in the town of Richmond, Surrey in 1908. Richmond was incorporated into Greater London in 1965, as part of an administrative reform. Celia's parents were John Robert Johnson and Ethel Griffiths. Neither of ...

77. Charlize Theron

Producer | Monster

Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, a city in the greater Johannesburg area, in South Africa, the only child of Gerda Theron (née Maritz) and Charles Theron. She was raised on a farm outside the city. Theron is of Afrikaner (Dutch, with some French Huguenot and German) descent, and Afrikaner ...

78. Charlotte Rampling

Actress | 45 Years

Tessa Charlotte Rampling was born 5 February 1946 in Sturmer, England, to Isabel Anne (Gurteen), a painter, and Godfrey Lionel Rampling, an Olympic gold medalist, army officer, and colonel, who became a NATO commander. She was educated at Jeanne d'Arc Académie pour Jeunes Filles in Versailles, ...

79. Cher

Actress | Moonstruck

The beat goes on ... and on ... and as strong as ever for this superstar entertainer who has well surpassed the half-century mark while improbably transforming herself from an artificial, glossy "flashionplate" singer into a serious, Oscar-worthy, dramatic actress ... and back again! With more ups ...

80. Chloë Sevigny

Actress | We Are Who We Are

Chloë Sevigny is an Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning actress and director who is known for her groundbreaking work across film, television and theatre. Sevigny has spent her career working with innovative and revolutionary filmmakers and artists including Lars von Trier, Jim ...

81. Christine Lahti

Actress | Chicago Hope

Christine Lahti was born April 4, 1950 in Birmingham, Michigan, to Elizabeth Margaret (Tabar), a painter and nurse, and Paul Theodore Lahti, a surgeon. She is of half Finnish and half Austro-Hungarian descent. She studied fine arts at Florida State University and received a bachelors degree in ...

82. Cicely Tyson

Actress | The Help

Cicely Tyson was born in Harlem, New York City, where she was raised by her devoutly religious parents, who had come from the Caribbean island of Nevis. Her mother Theodosia was a domestic worker and her her father William was a carpenter and painter. Tyson was discovered by a fashion editor at ...

83. Claire Trevor

Actress | Key Largo

Claire Trevor was born Claire Wemlinger in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, New York, the only child of Fifth Avenue merchant-tailor Noel Wemlinger, an immigrant Frenchman from Paris who lost his business during the Depression, and his Belfast-born wife, Benjamina, known as "Betty". Young ...

84. Claudette Colbert

Actress | It Happened One Night

One of the brightest film stars to grace the screen was born Emilie Claudette Chauchoin on September 13, 1903, in Saint Mandé, France where her father owned a bakery at 57, rue de la République (now Avenue Général de Gaulle). The family moved to the United States when she was three. As Claudette ...

85. Cloris Leachman

Actress | The Last Picture Show

The legendary actress set a record when at age 82, she appeared on Dancing with the Stars (2005). Cloris Leachman was born on April 30, 1926 in Des Moines, Iowa to Berkeley Claiborne "Buck" Leachman and the former Cloris Wallace. Her father's family owned a lumber company, Leachman Lumber Co. She ...

86. Colette Marchand

Actress | Moulin Rouge

Colette Marchand was a French prima ballerina with a relatively brief acting career. For her performance in "Moulin Rouge" (1952), Marchand was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In 1925, Marchand was born in Paris, Her parents were Roger Marchand and his wife Alice Lioret.

...

87. Corinne Griffith

Actress | The Divine Lady

Corinne Griffith was a popular star of the silent movies. She started her film career at Vitagraph in 1916 and later moved to First National, where she became one of that studio's biggest stars. At the height of her popularity she was known as the "Orchid Lady of the Screen." Black Oxen (1923) was ...

88. May Whitty

Actress | The Lady Vanishes

Born Mary Whitty on June 19, 1865, to a Liverpool newspaper editor and his wife, she became known as May Whitty to the world. She first stepped onto the London stage in 1882 at which she worked as an understudy at the St. James Theatre and then began playing leading roles when she joined a ...

89. 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 ...

90. 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 ...

91. Debra Winger

Actress | Terms of Endearment

Mary Debra Winger was born May 16, 1955 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Ruth (Felder), an office manager, and Robert Jack Winger, a meat packer. She is from a Jewish family (originally from Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire). Her maternal grandparents called her Mary, while her parents called her Debra...

92. Diahann Carroll

Actress | Julia

One of television's premier African-American series stars, elegant actress, singer and recording artist Diahann Carroll was born Carol Diann (or Diahann) Johnson on July 17, 1935, in the Bronx, New York. The first child of John Johnson, a subway conductor, and Mabel Faulk Johnson, a nurse; music ...

93. Diana Ross

Soundtrack | The Wiz

Best known as the the lead singer of the popular 1960s singing group The Supremes, Diana Ernestine Earle Ross was born on March 26, 1944, in Detroit, Michigan, the second of six children of African-American parents Ernestine Lillian (Moten), a schoolteacher, and Fred Earl Ross, who served in the ...

94. Diana Scarwid

Actress | What Lies Beneath

Born in Savannah, Georgia, Scarwid moved to New York at 17 to become an actress. Simultaneously, as an honors student, she graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and Pace University. She landed some small film and TV roles before her subtle performance in Inside Moves (1980) was ...

95. Diana Wynyard

Actress | Cavalcade

One of the outstanding stage actresses of her time, Diana Wynyard will always be remembered for her unforgettable performance in the British version of the thriller Gaslight (1940) (re-made in Hollywood in 1944 with Ingrid Bergman). Starring opposite the great Anton Walbrook, she played the part of...

96. Diane Cilento

Actress | The Wicker Man

Diane Cilento was an Australian actress from Queensland. She had partial Italian descent. She was once nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. For a theatrical role as Helen of Troy, Cilento was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play.

In 1932, Cilento ...

97. Diane Keaton

Actress | Annie Hall

Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Deanne (Keaton), an amateur photographer, and John Newton Ignatius "Jack" Hall, a civil engineer and real estate broker. She studied Drama at Santa Ana College, before dropping out in favor of the Neighborhood Playhouse in New ...

98. Diane Ladd

Actress | Wild at Heart

The amazingly gifted and versatile, Ms. Diane Ladd, received immense praise for her dramatic efforts throughout the course of her electric and unique seventy-year career. Her timeless offbeat charm and beauty reminiscent of a lamented Hollywood Golden Era actress gleam in the most understated roles...

99. Diane Lane

Actress | Unfaithful

Diane Lane was born on January 22, 1965, in New York. She is the daughter of acting coach Burton Eugene "Burt" Lane and nightclub singer/centerfold Colleen Farrington. Her parents' families were both from the state of Georgia. Diane was acting from a very young age and made her stage debut at the ...

100. Diane Varsi

Actress | Peyton Place

This lovely, long-haired, fresh-faced and most promising product of the late 1950s was born Diane Marie Antonia Varsi in San Mateo, California, on February 23, 1938, the elder of two daughters of Russell Varsi, a florist, and wife Beatrice DeMerchant. A troubling childhood led to her dropping out ...