All-Time Legends

101. Pretty Boy Floyd

One of seven children of dirt-poor Georgia farmers, Charles Arthur Floyd was born on February 3, 1904. His family moved to Oklahoma shortly after his birth, where they bought a small farm. Their luck was no better in Oklahoma than it was in Georgia, and drought, plagues of insects and devastating ...

102. William Bendix

Actor | Lifeboat

William Bendix was not a son of Brooklyn, New York, although because of his stereotypical "Brooklyn accent" it has been widely supposed that he was. Bendix was actually born in the Borough of Manhattan (New York City proper), in a midtown flat hard by the tracks of the long-since defunct ...

103. John Carradine

Actor | The Grapes of Wrath

John Carradine, the son of a reporter/artist and a surgeon, grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York. He attended Christ Church School and Graphic Art School, studying sculpture, and afterward roamed the South selling sketches. He made his acting debut in "Camille" in a New Orleans theatre in 1925. ...

104. Lon Chaney Jr.

Actor | The Wolf Man

American character actor whose career was influenced (and often overshadowed) by that of his father, silent film star Lon Chaney. The younger Chaney was born while his parents were on a theatrical tour, and he joined them onstage for the first time at the age of six months. However, as a young man,...

105. Gale Gordon

Actor | Our Miss Brooks

Gale Gordon was born on February 20, 1906 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Our Miss Brooks (1952), Here's Lucy (1968) and The 'Burbs (1989). He was married to Virginia Gordon. He died on June 30, 1995 in Escondido, California, USA.

106. Madeleine Carroll

Actress | The 39 Steps

The original ash-blonde "iceberg maiden", Madeleine Carroll was a knowing beauty with a confident air, the epitome of poise and "breeding". Not only did she have looks and allure in abundance, but she had intellectual heft to go with them, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from Birmingham ...

107. Bugsy Siegel

Bugsy Siegel (born Benjamin Siegelbaum) came out of the tough Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn, and was involved in criminal activities from an early age. As a teenager he struck up a friendship with another local gangster, Meyer Lansky, that would last the rest of their lives, and in fact one of ...

108. Henny Youngman

Actor | Goodfellas

A career of seven decades of snappy, irreverent one-liners put Henry "Henny" Youngman at the top of most comedians' list of favorite showmen. Born in London, England, and moving to the United States when he was a baby, Youngman started his professional career as a printer in a small store. ...

109. Ozzie Nelson

Actor | The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet

This preeminent sitcom dad of the 50s had already started things off studying law when he decided to put together a dance band in the 20s on the sly. The band was so successful that he never looked back -- his love for entertaining completely took over. The New Jersey-born performer made a living ...

110. Ned Glass

Actor | Charade

Veteran Polish-born character actor Ned Glass grew up in New York. After working in vaudeville he started acting in small parts on Broadway from the early 1930s. He gained further experience in the capacity of theatrical production supervisor before entering motion pictures in 1937 as an MGM ...

111. Bea Benaderet

Actress | Petticoat Junction

Bea Benaderet had a remarkable career in radio and television. In the earlier days of radio, before television, she provided the voice for numerous names of characters on the radio, on shows like "Fibber McGee and Molly," "My Favorite Husband" with Lucille Ball & "The Jack Benny Show. She was born ...

112. Samuel Beckett

Writer | Beckett Directs Beckett: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett is an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator.

A resident of Paris for most of his life, he wrote in both French and English.

Beckett's work offers a bleak, tragi-comic outlook on human existence, often coupled with black comedy ...

113. Arthur Lake

Actor | Tanned Legs

His parents were circus acrobats and he became part of their act. When they changed to vaudeville and wound up in California, he got a job in the movies. The founder of Universal Pictures, Carl Laemmle changed his name to Lake. In silent films he played somewhat dimwitted youngsters, The ...

114. Eddie Albert

Actor | Roman Holiday

A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Eddie Albert was a circus trapeze flier before becoming a stage and radio actor. He made his film debut in 1938 and has worked steadily since, often cast as the friendly, good-natured buddy of the hero but occasionally being cast as a villain; one of his ...

115. Roberto Rossellini

Writer | Roma città aperta

The master filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, as one of the creators of neo-realism, is one of the most influential directors of all time. His neo-realist films influenced France's nouvelle vague movement in the 1950s and '60s that changed the face of international cinema. He also influenced American ...

116. Josephine Baker

Soundtrack | Zouzou

Josephine Baker was born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, MO, in 1906 to Carrie McDonald, a laundress, and Eddie Carson, a musician. Her early life hinted at her future career. She first danced for the public on the streets of St. Louis for nickels and dimes. Later she became a chorus girl on...

117. Billy Wilder

Writer | The Apartment

Originally planning to become a lawyer, Billy Wilder abandoned that career in favor of working as a reporter for a Viennese newspaper, using this experience to move to Berlin, where he worked for the city's largest tabloid. He broke into films as a screenwriter in 1929 and wrote scripts for many ...

118. James Baskett

Actor | Song of the South

James Baskett was born on February 16, 1904 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA as James Franklin Baskett. He was an actor, known for Song of the South (1946), Revenge of the Zombies (1943) and Policy Man (1938). He was married to Margaret. He died on July 9, 1948 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

119. Thelma Todd

Actress | Horse Feathers

Thelma Todd was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, an industrial city near the New Hampshire state line. She was a lovely child with good academic tendencies, so much so that she decided early on to become a schoolteacher. After high school she went on to college but at her mother's insistence ...

120. Friz Freleng

Producer | ABC Afterschool Specials

Friz Freleng was born Isadore Freleng on August 21, 1906 in Kansas City, Missouri. With no formal training in drawing, his first job as an animator was with United Film Advancement Services in 1924 at the age of 17. The first work Friz is credited with was for Disney Studios where he worked as an ...

121. Janet Gaynor

Actress | A Star Is Born

Janet Gaynor was born Laura Gainor on October 6, 1906, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a child, she & her parents moved to San Francisco, California, where she graduated from high school in 1923. She then moved to Los Angeles where she enrolled in a secretarial school. She got a job at a shoe ...

122. Terence Fisher

Director | Dracula

Terence Fisher was born in Maida Vale, England, in 1904. Raised by his grandmother in a strict Christian Scientist environment, Fisher left school while still in his teens to join the Merchant Marine. By his own account he soon discovered that a life at sea was not for him, so he left the service ...

123. Glenn Miller

Soundtrack | Wild at Heart

Alton Glenn Miller was born on March 1, 1904, in Clarinda, Iowa; the son of Lewis Elmer and Mattie Lou Cavender Miller. He started his music studies when his father gave him a mandolin. He soon traded the mandolin for an old horn. In 1916 he switched to trombone. In 1923, he enrolled in the ...

124. Oscar Levant

Actor | An American in Paris

Oscar Levant's own versatility may have helped to cloud his memory as a sort of Hollywood utility man, perhaps in the worst sense; people tended to see him as one among many personalities, but he was so much more. It is unfortunately forgotten that he was first and foremost, a brilliant musician ...

125. Dr. Seuss

Writer | How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Acclaimed writer, Dr. Seuss was born Theodor Geisel in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Wednesday, March 2nd, 1904. After attending Dartmouth College and Oxford University, he began a career in advertising. His advertising cartoons, featuring Quick, Henry, the Flit!, appeared in several leading ...

126. George Brent

Actor | Dark Victory

The favorite leading man of star Bette Davis was born George Brendan Nolan in Ballinasloe, County Galway, Ireland (although his place of birth has also been variosuly given as Raharabeg, County Roscommon and Shannonbridge, County Offaly). He was the youngest of five children born to shopkeeper John...

127. Joseph Campbell

Writer | 77-Star Wars-17

Joseph Campbell was born on March 26, 1904 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for 77-Star Wars-17 (2018), Mythos (1985) and The Hero's Journey: The World of Joseph Campbell (1987). He was married to Jean Erdman. He died on October 31, 1987 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.

128. Bruce Cabot

Actor | King Kong

Hollywood stalwart Bruce Cabot's main claim to fame, other than rescuing Fay Wray from King Kong (1933), is that he tested for the lead role of The Ringo Kid in John Ford's Western masterpiece Stagecoach (1939). John Wayne got the role and became the most durable star in Hollywood history, while ...

129. Raymond Bailey

Actor | The Beverly Hillbillies

Raymond Bailey was a great example of "If at first you don't succeed..." After high school, Bailey headed for Hollywood with the intent on becoming a movie star, but soon found it tougher than he thought. Instead Bailey went into a high finance career working as stockbroker and banker. He made a ...

130. Val Lewton

Producer | The Body Snatcher

Born in Russian Empire in 1904, Lewton moved with his mother and sister to Berlin in 1906, then to USA in 1909. He wrote for newspapers, magazines, novels, pornography, etc.- often using pseudonyms to disguise their origin (the name Val Lewton was one such pseudonym, used first for some novels in ...

131. Salvador Dalí

Art_department | Spellbound

Surrealist-turned-catholic painter Dalí worked on various movies as well. While a member of the French surrealist group, he co-wrote Un chien andalou (1929) and The Golden Age (1930) with Luis Buñuel. The latter may have marked the beginning of a long-lasting quarrel with the surrealists when Dalí ...

132. Jean Gabin

Actor | La grande illusion

Jean-Alexis Moncorgé started his career with 15 years at the theatre and debuted at the "Moulin Rouge" in Paris in 1929. Despite of his rude aspect he knew to be the gentleman of the French cinema in the time between the two World Wars. One of his most popular personalities was inspector Maigret. ...

133. John Hamilton

Actor | The Maltese Falcon

Burly, stentorian-voiced John Hamilton, worked on Broadway and in touring theatrical companies for many years prior to his 1930 film debut. He was in the original Broadway company of "Seventh Heaven" and would appear in the film remake (Seventh Heaven (1937)) in 1937. For Warner Bros, he starred ...

134. Glenda Farrell

Actress | Girl Missing

Glenda Farrell began as the archetypal wisecracking blonde in 1930s gangland films like Little Caesar (1931) and I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932). Diminutive, grey-eyed and undeniably sassy, she was a seasoned performer long before Warner Brothers snapped her up as a contract player in 1929...

135. Tom Conway

Actor | Cat People

Tom Conway played "The Falcon" in ten of that series' entries. He starred in three Val Lewton horror classics. He appeared in comedies, musicals, two Tarzan films and even science fiction films.

He was early television's Detective Mark Saber, but Conway will probably be best remembered as George ...

136. Graham Greene

Writer | The Fallen Idol

Graham Greene was one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century and his influence on the cinema and theatre was enormous. He wrote five plays and almost all of his novels, including "Brighton Rock", "The Ministry of Fear" and "The End of the Affair", have been brought to the screen. A superb ...

137. Constance Bennett

Actress | Topper

Independent, outspoken Constance Bennett, the first of the Bennett sisters to enter films, appeared in New York-produced silents before a chance meeting with Samuel Goldwyn led to her Hollywood debut in Cytherea (1924). She abandoned a burgeoning career in silents for marriage to Philip Plant in ...

138. William Frawley

Actor | I Love Lucy

William Frawley was born in Burlington, Iowa. As a boy he sang at St. Paul's Catholic Church and played at the Burlington Opera House. His first job was as a stenographer for the Union Pacific Railroad. He did vaudeville with his brother Paul, then joined pianist Franz Rath in an act they took to ...

139. Raoul Walsh

Editor | The Birth of a Nation

Raoul Walsh's 52-year directorial career made him a Hollywood legend. Walsh was also an actor: He appeared in the first version of W. Somerset Maugham's "Rain" renamed Sadie Thompson (1928) opposite Gloria Swanson in the title role. He would have played the Cisco Kid in his own film In Old Arizona ...

140. Chico Marx

Actor | Duck Soup

As a kid trying to negotiate his way through various gang territories to a floating crap game or a new pool hall where he was not yet known as a hustler, Leonard (Chico) Marx learned to fake several accents. Because he later employed an Italian accent in the Marx Brothers' act, people assumed his ...

141. Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle

Actor | Coney Island

Roscoe Arbuckle, the youngest of nine children, reportedly weighed 16 pounds at birth in Smith Center, Kansas on March 24, 1887. His family moved to California when he was one year old. At age 8 he first appeared on the stage. His first part was with the Webster-Brown stock company. From then until...

142. Reginald Owen

Actor | Mary Poppins

Born August 5th, 1887 in England, Reginald Owen was among Hollywood's busier character actors, making more than 80 films. He was educated in England at Sir Herbert Tree's Academy of Dramatic Arts. Owen excelled and made his professional debut also in England at the age of 18. He came to New York in...

143. Roland Young

Actor | Topper

Fondly remembered for his many deceptively meek, erudite characters played on film -- think Cosmo Topper, of the screwball classic Topper (1937) -- this short (5'6"), balding, highly distinguished actor was born in London, England on November 11,1887, to an architect and his wife. Young was ...

144. Boris Karloff

Actor | Bride of Frankenstein

Along with fellow actors Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price, Boris Karloff is recognized as one of the true icons of horror cinema, and the actor most closely identified with the general public's perception of the "monster" from the classic Mary Shelley book, "Frankenstein". William Henry ...

145. Barry Fitzgerald

Actor | The Quiet Man

One of Hollywood's finest character actors and most accomplished scene stealers, Barry Fitzgerald was born William Joseph Shields in 1888 in Dublin, Ireland. Educated to enter the banking business, the diminutive Irishman with the irresistible brogue was bitten by the acting bug in the 1920s and ...

146. Irving Berlin

Soundtrack | Alexander's Ragtime Band

Irving Berlin was born Israel Isidor Baline on May 11, 1888 in Mogilev, Belarus, Russian Empire. Towering composer, songwriter, ("God Bless America", "Always", "Blue Skies", "White Christmas") author and publisher, he came to the United States at age 5 and was educated in New York's public schools....

147. Raymond Chandler

Writer | Double Indemnity

An American novelist, writer of crime fiction featuring the private detective Philip Marlowe, Raymond (Thornton) Chandler was born in Chicago of an American father and an Anglo-Irish mother. He moved to England when his parents divorced. He attended Dulwich College and studied languages in France ...

148. Maurice Chevalier

Actor | Gigi

Maurice Chevalier's first working job was as an acrobat, until a serious accident ended that career. He turned his talents to singing and acting, and made several short films in France. During World War I he enlisted in the French army. He was wounded in battle, captured and placed in a POW camp by...

149. Hank Patterson

Actor | The Amazing Colossal Man

Hank Patterson was born in Springville, Alabama to Green and Mary Newton Patterson. Hank's great-grandfather, James Pearson, was an original settler of St. Clair County, AL as was his mother's great-grandfather, Thomas Newton. Between 1894 & 1897, the family left AL to live in Taylor, Texas, where ...

150. Eugene O'Neill

Writer | Long Day's Journey Into Night

Eugene O'Neill, the winner of four Pulitzer Prizes for Drama and the 1936 Nobel Prize for Literature, is widely considered the greatest American playwright. No one, not Maxwell Anderson, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, nor Edward Albee, approaches O'Neill in terms of his artistic achievement or ...

151. Harpo Marx

Actor | A Night at the Opera

With poofy, curly red hair, a top hat and a horn, the lovable mute was the favorite of the Marx Brothers. Though chasing women was a favorite routine of his in the movies, Harpo was a devoted father and husband. He adopted the mute routine in vaudeville and carried it over to the films. Harpo was ...

152. Gladys Cooper

Actress | My Fair Lady

Gladys Cooper was the daughter of journalist William Frederick Cooper and his wife Mabel Barnett. As a child she was very striking and was used as a photographic model beginning at six years old. She wanted to become an actress and started on that road in 1905 after being discovered by Seymour ...

153. F.W. Murnau

Director | Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

F.W. Murnau was a German film director. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at the age of 12, and became a friend of director Max Reinhardt. During World War I he served as a company commander at the eastern front and was in the German air ...

154. Victor Fleming

Director | Gone with the Wind

Victor Fleming entered the film business as a stuntman in 1910, mainly doing stunt driving - which came easy to him, as he had been a mechanic and professional race-car driver. He became interested in working on the other side of the camera, and eventually got a job as a cameraman on many of the ...

155. Charles Chaplin

Writer | The Great Dictator

Considered to be one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin lived an interesting life both in his films and behind the camera. He is most recognized as an icon of the silent film era, often associated with his popular character, the Little Tramp; the man with the ...

156. Adolf Hitler

Self | Triumph des Willens

Born the fourth of six children to Austrian customs officer Alois Hitler--who had been married twice before--and the former Klara Polzl, Adolf Hitler grew up in a small Austrian town in the late 19th century. He was a slow learner and did poorly in school. He was frequently beaten by his ...

157. Jean Cocteau

Writer | La Belle et la Bête

Jean Cocteau was one of the most multi-talented artists of the 20th century. In addition to being a director, he was a poet, novelist, painter, playwright, set designer, and actor. He began writing at 10 and was a published poet by age 16. He collaborated with the "Russian Ballet" company of Sergei...

158. James Whale

Director | Bride of Frankenstein

James Whale was an English film director, theatre director and actor. He is best remembered for his four classic horror films: Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). He also directed films in other genres, including what is ...

159. Claude Rains

Actor | Casablanca

William Claude Rains, born in the Clapham area of London, was the son of the British stage actor Frederick Rains. The younger Rains followed, making his stage debut at the age of eleven in "Nell of Old Drury." Growing up in the world of theater, he saw not only acting up close but the down-to-earth...

160. Clifton Webb

Actor | Laura

Already trained in dance and theater, he quit school at age 13 to study music and painting. By 19 he was a professional ballroom dancer in New York, and by his mid-twenties he was performing in musicals, dramas on Broadway and in London, and in silent movies. His first real success in film came in ...

161. Ray Collins

Actor | Citizen Kane

Ray Bidwell Collins was an American actor in film, stage, radio and television. One of his best remembered roles was that of Lt. Arthur Tragg in the long-running series Perry Mason (1957). Collins was born in Sacramento, California, to Lillie Bidwell and William C. Collins, a newspaper drama editor...

162. Edward Arnold

Actor | You Can't Take It with You

Edward Arnold was born as Gunther Edward Arnold Schneider in 1890, on the Lower East Side of New York City, the son of German immigrants, Elizabeth (Ohse) and Carl Schneider. Arnold began his acting career on the New York stage and became a film actor in 1916. A burly man with a commanding style ...

163. Adolphe Menjou

Actor | Paths of Glory

The words "suave" and "debonair" became synonymous with the name Adolphe Menjou in Hollywood, both on- and off-camera. The epitome of knavish, continental charm and sartorial opulence, Menjou, complete with trademark waxy black mustache, evolved into one of Hollywood's most distinguished of artists...

164. Marjorie Main

Actress | The Egg and I

Her father was a minister, and when she joined a local stock company as a youngster she changed her name to avoid embarrassing her family. She worked in vaudeville and debuted on Broadway in 1916. Her film debut was in A House Divided (1931). She repeated her stage role in Dead End (1937) as Baby ...

165. Herbert Marshall

Actor | Foreign Correspondent

Herbert Marshall had trained to become a certified accountant, but his interest turned to the stage. He lost a leg while serving in World War I and was rehabilitated with a wooden leg. This did not stop him from making good his decision to make the stage his vocation. He used a very deliberate ...

166. Frank Morgan

Actor | The Wizard of Oz

Jovial, somewhat flamboyant Frank Morgan (born Francis Wuppermann) will forever be remembered as the title character in The Wizard of Oz (1939), but he was a veteran and respected actor long before he played that part, and turned in outstanding performances both before and after that film. One of ...

167. Leslie Banks

Actor | The Most Dangerous Game

English actor Leslie Banks' film career would be negligible compared to his prestigious theatrical one if it were not for four exceptions. Hitchcock, for one, gave him the occasion to shine in two of his films, in a sympathetic role in "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1934) and in an outright ...

168. Stan Laurel

Actor | Saps at Sea

Stan Laurel came from a theatrical family, his father was an actor and theatre manager, and he made his stage debut at the age of 16 at Pickard's Museum, Glasgow. He traveled with Fred Karno's vaudeville company to the United States in 1910 and again in 1913. While with that company he was Charles ...

169. Rose Kennedy

Self | Jack: The Last Kennedy Film

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy was born Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald on July 22, 1890 to Josie Hannon and the future mayor of Boston, John Francis Fitzgerald. She grew up with several brothers and sisters and thanks to her father, the family was very well off. Rose went to a series of Catholic Schools in ...

170. H.P. Lovecraft

Writer | Color Out of Space

Born in Providence, Lovecraft was a sickly child whose parents died insane. When he was 16, he wrote the astronomy column in the Providence Tribune. Between 1908 and 1923, he wrote short stories for Weird Tales magazine and others. He died in Providence, in poverty, on March 15, 1937. His most ...

171. Agatha Christie

Writer | Les petits meurtres d'Agatha Christie

Agatha was born as "Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller" in 1890 to Frederick Alvah Miller and Clara Boehmer. Agatha was of American and British descent, her father being American and her mother British. Her father was a relatively affluent stockbroker. Agatha received home education from early childhood ...

172. Stanley Holloway

Actor | My Fair Lady

Stanley Holloway was a British actor and singer, primarily known for comic monologues and songs. In 1890, Holloway was born in Manor Park, Essex. In 1965, Manor Park was incorporated into Greater London, as part of an administrative reform. It is now part of the London Borough of Newham, in East ...

173. Groucho Marx

Actor | A Night at the Opera

The bushy-browed, cigar-smoking wise-cracker with the painted-on moustache and stooped walk was the leader of The Marx Brothers. With one-liners that were often double entendres, Groucho never cursed in any of his performances and said he never wanted to be known as a dirty comic. With a great love...

174. Henry Hull

Actor | Lifeboat

Henry Hull, the actor who created the role of Jeeter on Broadway in "Tobacco Road," was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on October 13, 1890, the son of a drama critic. Originally intending to become an engineer, Hull became an actor and made his Broadway debut in "Green Stockings" less than two weeks...

175. Dwight D. Eisenhower

Self | Nazi Concentration Camps

Dwight D. Eisenhower was born on Tuesday, October 14, 1890, as Dwight David Eisenhower, in Denison, Texas. He was the third of seven sons born to David Jacob Eisenhower and Ida Elizabeth Stover. Both of his parents were of German descent. Eisenhower studied at the West Point Military Academy from ...

176. Robert Armstrong

Actor | King Kong

Robert Armstrong is familiar to old-movie buffs for his case-hardened, rapid-fire delivery in such roles as fast-talking promoters, managers, FBI agents, street cops, detectives and other such characters in scores of films--over 160--many of them at Warner Brothers, where he was part of the ...

177. Fritz Lang

Actor | Le mépris

Fritz Lang was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1890. His father managed a construction company. His mother, Pauline Schlesinger, was Jewish but converted to Catholicism when Lang was ten. After high school, he enrolled briefly at the Technische Hochschule Wien and then started to train as a painter. ...

178. Charles Bickford

Actor | A Star Is Born

American character actor of gruff voice and appearance who was a fixture in Hollywood pictures from the earliest days of the talkies. The fifth of seven children, he was born in the first minute of 1891. He was a boisterous child, and at nine was tried and acquitted for attempted murder in the ...

179. Frank Costello

Self | Kefauver Investigation

Frank Costello was born Francisco Castiglia in Cosenza, Italy, in 1891. His family moved to New York, and as a young man he joined the local Mafia gang. When the "Castellamarese War" between gang bosses Giuseppe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano ended, Costello was one of the few who were held in ...

180. Ronald Colman

Actor | A Double Life

British leading man of primarily American films, one of the great stars of the Golden Age. Raised in Ealing, the son of a successful silk merchant, he attended boarding school in Sussex, where he discovered amateur theatre. He intended to attend Cambridge and become an engineer, but his father's ...

181. Victor Kilian

Actor | The Ox-Bow Incident

American character actor of gruff demeanor who played in dozens of films through the Thirties and Forties. A native of New Jersey, he was a wagon driver for his father's laundry business before joining a vaudeville company. He played in stock and touring companies, then was cast in the Walter Huston...

182. Sam Jaffe

Actor | The Asphalt Jungle

Originally named Shalom Jaffe, he became known to the world as Sam Jaffe. He was born in New York City, to Heida (Ada) and Barnett Jaffe, who were Russian Jewish immigrants. As a child, he appeared in Yiddish theatre productions with his mother, a prominent regional stage actress. He graduated from...

183. Jonathan Hale

Actor | The Saint's Double Trouble

Canadian-born character actor Jonathan Hale had a long and distinguished film career, appearing in over 260 pictures and television programs.

He was a member of the diplomatic service prior to his film career, and his stately bearing stood him in good stead for the large variety of corporate ...

184. Cole Porter

Soundtrack | At Long Last Love

Cole Porter was born June 9, 1891, at Peru, Indiana, the son of pharmacist Samuel Fenwick Porter and Kate Cole. Cole was raised on a 750-acre fruit ranch. Kate Cole married Samuel Porter in 1884 and had two children, Louis and Rachel, who both died in infancy. Porter's grandfather, J.G. Cole, was a...

185. Gene Lockhart

Actor | His Girl Friday

Gene Lockhart was born on July 18, 1891, in London, Ontario, Canada, the son of John Coates Lockhart and Ellen Mary (Delany) Lockhart. His father had studied singing and young Gene displayed an early interest in drama and music. Shortly after the 7-year-old danced a Highland fling in a concert ...

186. Roscoe Karns

Actor | His Girl Friday

On stage since age 15, Roscoe Karns parlayed his machine-gun delivery and street-wise demeanor (although many thought of him as a New Yorker, he was actually from San Bernardino, California) into character roles in dozens of films from the 1920s to the 1960s. His peak period, though, was in the ...

187. Fanny Brice

Actress | Be Yourself!

Fanny Brice was a popular and influential American comedienne, singer, theatre and film actress, who made many stage, radio and film appearances but is best remembered as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series, The Baby Snooks Show. Thirteen years after her death, she was ...

188. Reginald Denny

Actor | Rebecca

Sometime in the early 1930s, Denny was between scenes on a movie set when he met a neighborhood boy who was trying to fly a bulky gas-powered model plane. When he tried to help by making an adjustment on the machine, Denny succeeded only in wrecking it. But this launched his infatuation with model ...

189. Henry Miller

Actor | Reds

Henry Miller was born on December 26, 1891 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Reds (1981), Quiet Days in Clichy (1970) and Quiet Days in Clichy (1990). He was married to Hoki Tokuda, Evelyn Byrd (Keven) McClure, Janina Martha Lepska, June Edith Smith and Beatrice ...

190. J.R.R. Tolkien

Writer | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

English writer, scholar and philologist, Tolkien's father was a bank manager in South Africa. Shortly before his father died (1896) his mother took him and his younger brother to his father's native village of Sarehole, near Birmingham, England. The landscapes and Nordic mythology of the Midlands ...

191. Hal Roach

Producer | One Million B.C.

Hal Roach was born in 1892 in Elmira, New York. After working as a mule skinner, wrangler and gold prospector, among other things, he wound up in Hollywood and began picking up jobs as an extra in comedies, where he met comedian Harold Lloyd in 1913 in San Diego. By all accounts, including his own,...

192. Oliver Hardy

Actor | Saps at Sea

Although his parents were never in show business, as a young boy Oliver Hardy was a gifted singer and, by age eight, was performing with minstrel shows. In 1910 he ran a movie theatre, which he preferred to studying law. In 1913 he became a comedy actor with the Lubin Company in Florida and began ...

193. Zara Cully

Actress | The Jeffersons

Zara Cully was born on January 26, 1892 in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. She was an actress, known for The Jeffersons (1975), All in the Family (1971) and Sugar Hill (1974). She was married to James M. Brown. She died on February 28, 1978 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

194. Ernst Lubitsch

Director | To Be or Not to Be

From Ernst Lubitsch's experiences in Sophien Gymnasium (high school) theater, he decided to leave school at the age of 16 and pursue a career on the stage. He had to compromise with his father and keep the account books for the family tailor business while he acted in cabarets and music halls at ...

195. Eddie Cantor

Soundtrack | Kid Millions

Singer, songwriter ("Merrily We Roll Along"), comedian, author and actor, educated in public schools. He made his first public appearance in Vaudeville in 1907 at New York's Clinton Music Hall, then became a member of the Gus Edwards Gang, later touring vaudeville with Lila Lee as the team Cantor &...

196. Alan Hale

Actor | The Adventures of Robin Hood

Alan Hale decided on a film career after his attempt at becoming an opera singer didn't pan out. He quickly became much in demand as a supporting actor, starred in several films for Cecil B. DeMille and directed others for him. With the advent of sound, Hale played leads in a few films but soon ...

197. William Demarest

Actor | Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

A stocky, serious-looking character, Carl William Demarest started off in vaudeville in 1905 along with two older brothers. At one time he also performed in a stage act with his wife Estelle Collette (billed as 'Demarest and Collette') and then moved on to Broadway. He entered movies in 1926 and ...

198. Mary Pickford

Actress | Coquette

Mary Pickford was born Gladys Louise Smith in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Elsie Charlotte (Hennessy) and John Charles Smith. She was of English and Irish descent. Pickford began in the theater at age seven. Then known as "Baby Gladys Smith", she toured with her family in a number of theater ...

199. Basil Rathbone

Actor | The Adventures of Robin Hood

Basil Rathbone was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1892, but three years later his family was forced to flee the country because his father was accused by the Boers of being a British spy at a time when Dutch-British conflicts were leading to the Boer War. The Rathbones escaped to England, ...

200. James M. Cain

Writer | Double Indemnity

James M. Cain was a 'Film Noir' author. His father was a professor, and president, of 'Washington College'. His mother was an opera singer in Maryland.

James graduated from the same college in 1910, and became a writer for 'Baltimore American', then 'Baltimore Sun' [still being published] by 1914. ...