The Best Actress 1940
by dziwnytenswiat | created - 1 month ago | updated - 1 month ago | PublicFrom my list: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls027084530/
1. Ann Sheridan
Actress | Kings Row
Ann Sheridan won the "Search for Beauty" contest which carried with it a Paramount screen test. Signed to a contract at 18, she was put into a number of small roles under her real name of Clara Lou Sheridan. As she got better, her name was changed to Ann. In 1936, after two dozen films, she went to...
2206 points
2. Margaret Sullavan
Actress | The Shop Around the Corner
Born in Norfolk, Virginia to wealthy stockbroker Cornelius Hancock Sullavan and heiress Garland Council Sullavan, Margaret Brooke overcame a muscle weakness in her childhood to go on to become a rebellious teenager at posh private schools. She went on to perform with the University Players at ...
1618 points
3. Paulette Goddard
Actress | The Ghost Breakers
Paulette Goddard was a child model who debuted in "The Ziegfeld Follies" at the age of 13. She gained fame with the show as the girl on the crescent moon, and was married to a wealthy man, Edgar James, by the time she was 17. After her divorce she went to Hollywood in 1931, where she appeared in ...
1601 points
4. 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...
1518 points
5. Gail Patrick
Actress | My Man Godfrey
Cold, calculating and hard-as-nails is probably the best definition of Gail Patrick's femmes on the 30s and 40s silver screen, and the actress herself was no softie in real life. The tall, slender, patrician beauty was born with the equally stately-sounding name Margaret LaVelle Fitzpatrick in ...
1505 points
6. Jane Darwell
Actress | The Grapes of Wrath
Missouri-born Jane Darwell was born Patti Woodard, the daughter of William Robert Woodard, president of the Louisville Southern Railroad, and Ellen (Booth) Woodard, in Palmyra, Missouri, where she grew up on a ranch . She nursed ambitions to be an opera singer, but put it off because of her ...
857 points
7. Joan Fontaine
Actress | Suspicion
Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland on October 22, 1917, in Tokyo, Japan, in what was known as the International Settlement, to British parents, Lilian Augusta (Ruse), a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, an English professor and patent attorney. Her paternal grandfather's family was ...
792 points
8. Judith Anderson
Actress | Rebecca
Dame Judith Anderson was born Frances Margaret Anderson on February 10, 1897 in Adelaide, South Australia. She began her acting career in Australia before moving to New York in 1918. There she established herself as one of the greatest theatrical actresses and was a major star on Broadway ...
792 points
9. Ellen Drew
Actress | Christmas in July
Missouri-born Ellen Drew was born Esther Loretta Ray in 1914, the daughter of an Irish-born barber. After her parents separated when she was 15 years old, she worked various jobs (accountant, salesgirl) to support her mother and younger brother. At one time she worked at Marshall Field's Department...
788 points
10. 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 ...
783 points
11. Ruth Hussey
Actress | The Philadelphia Story
A graduate of the University of Michigan School of Drama, Ruth Hussey's first show-business job was as a fashion commentator on a local radio station. She journeyed to New York City, where she was signed as a model by the world-famous Powers agency. She obtained some stage roles with touring ...
783 points
12. Irene Dunne
Actress | The Awful Truth
Irene Marie Dunne was born on December 20, 1898, in Louisville, Kentucky. She was the daughter of Joseph Dunne, who inspected steamships, and Adelaide Henry, a musician who prompted Irene in the arts. Her first production was in Louisville when she appeared in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the age...
778 points
13. Rosalind Russell
Actress | Auntie Mame
The middle of seven children, she was named, not for the heroine of "As You Like It" but for the S.S. Rosalind on which her parents had sailed, at the suggestion of her father, a successful lawyer.
After receiving a Catholic school education, she went to the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New ...
775 points
14. Myrna Loy
Actress | The Thin Man
Myrna Williams, later to become Myrna Loy, was born on August 2, 1905 in Helena, Montana. Her father was the youngest person ever elected to the Montana State legislature. Later on her family moved to Radersburg where she spent her youth on a cattle ranch. At the age of 13, Myrna's father died of ...
763 points
15. Muriel Angelus
Actress | The Light That Failed
The memories are vague when it comes to recalling this London-born leading lady, but Muriel Angelus did have her moments. She managed to appear in a few classic Broadway musical shows and Hollywood films before her early retirement in the mid-1940s.
Of Scottish parentage and the daughter of a ...
758 points
16. Brenda Marshall
Actress | The Sea Hawk
This alluring hazel-eyed 1940s leading lady was born Ardis Ankerson on the Philippine island of Negros, one of two siblings. Her father was Otto Peter Ankerson who held an important position as overseer of a large sugar plantation. Following the premature death of her mother in 1925, Ardis and her ...
756 points
17. Ruth Gordon
Actress | Rosemary's Baby
When Ruth Gordon convinced her father, a sea captain, to let her pursue acting she came to New York and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She acted in a few silents made at Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 1915. She made her Broadway debut in "Peter Pan" as Nibs the same year. The next 20 ...
751 points
18. 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...
750 points
19. 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-...
743 points
20. 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 ...
731 points
21. Lucile Watson
Actress | Watch on the Rhine
Unsmiling character player Lucile Watson was one of Hollywood's most indomitable mothers of the 1930s and 1940s...and you can take that both ways. The archetypal matriarch who enhanced scores of plush, soapy, Victorian-styled drama, her prickly pears could be insufferable indeed and heaven help ...
731 points
22. Virginia Field
Actress | Waterloo Bridge
London-born actress, daughter of the King's Counsel, St. John Field, educated in Paris and Vienna. Her mother, a cousin of famous Confederate General Robert E. Lee, chose the name "Virginia" as homage to Lee's beloved home state. Virginia also had an actress aunt, Auriol Lee, who paved the way for ...
731 points
23. Margaret Lockwood
Actress | The Lady Vanishes
Karachi-born Margaret Lockwood, daughter of a British colonial railway clerk, was educated in London and studied to be an actress at the Italia Conti Drama School. Her first moment on stage came at the age of 12, when she played a fairy in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in 1928. She had a bit part in ...
728 points
24. Loretta Young
Actress | The Stranger
Sweet, sweeter, sweetest. No combination of terms better describes the screen persona of lovely Loretta Young. A&E's Biography (1987) has stated that Young "remains a symbol of beauty, serenity, and grace. But behind the glamour and stardom is a woman of substance whose true beauty lies in her ...
727 points
25. 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 ...
726 points
26. Hedy Lamarr
Actress | Samson and Delilah
Hedy Lamarr, the woman many critics and fans alike regard as the most beautiful ever to appear in films, was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria. She was the daughter of Gertrud (Lichtwitz), from Budapest, and Emil Kiesler, a banker from Lemberg (now known as Lviv). Her parents were ...
726 points
27. Fay Bainter
Actress | Jezebel
Fay Bainter's career began as a child performer in 1898. For some time, she was a member of the traveling cast of the Morosco Stock Company in Los Angeles. In 1912, she made her Broadway debut in 'The Rose of Panama', but this and her subsequent play 'The Bridal Path' (1913), were conspicuous ...
723 points
28. Ida Lupino
Actress | High Sierra
Ida was born in London to a show business family. In 1932, her mother took Ida with her to an audition and Ida got the part her mother wanted. The picture was Her First Affaire (1932). Ida, a bleached blonde, went to Hollywood in 1934 playing small, insignificant parts. Peter Ibbetson (1935) was ...
723 points
29. 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 ...
723 points
30. 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...
723 points
31. Elizabeth Patterson
Actress | Dinner at Eight
A dainty but nevertheless feisty character actress, southern-bred (Mary) Elizabeth Patterson was born in Savannah, Tennessee, on November 22, 1874, and started her career over her strict parent's objections. She became a member of Chicago's Ben Greet Players, performing Shakespeare at the turn of ...
723 points
32. Margaret Tallichet
Actress | Stranger on the Third Floor
Margaret Tallichet was born on March 13, 1914 in Dallas, Texas, USA. She was an actress, known for Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), A Desperate Adventure (1938) and It Started with Eve (1941). She was married to William Wyler. She died on May 3, 1991 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
721 points
33. Laraine Day
Actress | Foreign Correspondent
Born into a prominent Mormon family in Utah, Laraine Day's acting career began after her parents moved to Long Beach, California, where she joined the Long Beach Players. She appeared in her first film in 1937 in a bit part, then did leads in several George O'Brien westerns. Signing a contract with...
719 points
34. Margaret Lindsay
Actress | Scarlet Street
Picture-pretty brunette Margaret Lindsay was one of a number of pleasant, sweet-natured ingénues who could do no wrong in a score of 1930s stylish Hollywood pictures. Such altruistic love interests were often overlooked in pictures that were carried by the flashy histrionics of a jaunty James Cagney...
718 points
35. Josette Day
Actress | La Belle et la Bête
Paris-born Josette Day debuted in films at the age of five, but soon returned to the stage, including a stint as a child dancer in the Paris Opera. She did not return to the screen until she was into her adulthood, and her career took off. She played leads in countless French films, but is probably...
715 points
36. Norma Shearer
Actress | The Divorcee
She won a beauty contest at age fourteen. In 1920 her mother, Edith Shearer, took Norma and her sister Athole Shearer (Mrs. Howard Hawks) to New York. Ziegfeld rejected her for his "Follies," but she got work as an extra in several movies. She spent much money on eye doctor's services trying to ...
710 points
37. Doris Davenport
Actress | Behind the News
Doris Davenport was born in Moline, IL, but grew up in Hollywood. Samuel Goldwyn gave her the part of Eddie Cantor's sweetheart in his musical Kid Millions (1934) after seeing her work as a Goldwyn Girl. As Doris Jordan, she tested for the part of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and ...
707 points
38. Edna Best
Actress | The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Genteel, ladylike British actress who was a much respected theatrical star in the 1920s and '30s, both in her own country and in the United States. Born in March 1900 in Hove, Sussex, she took to the stage at the age of seventeen as Ela Delahay in 'Charley's Aunt'. She played Peter Pan three years ...
703 points
39. 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 ...
703 points
40. Greer Garson
Actress | Pride and Prejudice
Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson was born on September 29, 1904 in London, England, to Nancy Sophia (Greer) and George Garson, a commercial clerk. Of Scottish and Ulster-Scots descent, Garson displayed no early interest in becoming an actress. Educated at the University of London intending to become a ...
703 points
41. Mary Boland
Actress | The Women
Lively, buxom character actress Mary Boland made a name for herself playing vacuous or pixilated motherly types during the 1930s. One of her most memorable performances was as the addle-brained Mrs. Rimplegar of Three Cornered Moon (1933), who gives away her family fortune to a swindler because he ...
703 points
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