Motion Picture Magazine "Hall of Fame" Poll (1918)

During 1918, Motion Picture Magazine ran a poll of its readers, asking them for their picks of movie stars, with the top 12 to be the inaugural class inducted into a proposed Motion Picture Hall of Fame in Washington, DC. Their concept of a Hall was based on the Hall of Fame of Great Americans that is currently located on the campus of Bronx Community College in New York. Readers were provided with entry forms in the February through October issues; they could enter up to twelve names, but they also had to include their names and address to discourage vote padding. After the results were published in the December issue, the magazine's editors rarely mentioned the Hall again, and the proposed Hall was never built, although the Hollywood Walk of Fame now fills that role. Names are presented in the order that they appeared on the list; the number appearing with each name is the total vote tally that each star received. Four names towards the end of the list have no corresponding IMDb files. Only those with a minimum of 5,000 votes were listed. (And, yes, Charlie Chaplin really did only manage a 17th place showing, while Lillian Gish tied with George Beban for 64th place on the list, and other prominent stars of the silent film era -- most notably Gloria Swanson -- didn't make the list at all.)