The Best Actress 1933

by dziwnytenswiat | created - 1 month ago | updated - 1 month ago | Public

From my list: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls027552669/

1. 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 ...

2975 points

2. 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...

2189 points

3. 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. ...

1571 points

4. Ruby Keeler

Actress | 42nd Street

Ruby Keeler started as a dancer on Broadway. After her marriage to Al Jolson she moved to Hollywood and become a star in Warners musicals opposite Dick Powell. After her divorce from Jolson she retired for almost 30 years, until she appeared in "No No Nanette" on Broadway in 1971 under the ...

1545 points

5. May Robson

Actress | A Star Is Born

Born Mary Jeanette Robison. She was the youngest daughter of Henry Robison of Penrith, Cumberland, England and Julia Schelesinger of Liverpool, Lancashire, England. Her father died in 1860 and her mother remarried. In 1866/67 they were living in St Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and moved ...

1534 points

6. Marie Dressler

Actress | Dinner at Eight

Once you saw her, you would not forget her. Despite her age and weight, she became one of the top box office draws of the sound era. She was 14 when she joined a theater group and she went on to work on stage and in light opera. By 1892, she was on Broadway and she later became a star comedienne on...

1495 points

7. 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...

1493 points

8. Jean Harlow

Actress | China Seas

Harlean Carpenter, who later became Jean Harlow, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 3, 1911. She was the daughter of a successful dentist and his wife. In 1927, at the age of 16, she ran away from home to marry a young businessman named Charles McGrew, who was 23. The couple pulled up ...

1485 points

9. Mary Astor

Actress | The Maltese Falcon

Mary Astor was born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke on May 3, 1906 in Quincy, Illinois to Helen Marie Vasconcellos, an American of Portuguese and Irish ancestry from Illinois, and Otto Ludwig Langhanke, a German immigrant. Mary's parents were very ambitious for her and wanted something better for her...

1446 points

10. Bebe Daniels

Actress | 42nd Street

Bebe Daniels already had toured as an actor by the age of four in a stage production of "Richard III". She had her first leading role at the age of seven and started her film career shortly after this in movies for Imperial, Pathe and others. At 14 she was already a film veteran, and was enlisted ...

1446 points

11. Greta Garbo

Actress | Ninotchka

Greta Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson on September 18, 1905, in Stockholm, Sweden, to Anna Lovisa (Johansdotter), who worked at a jam factory, and Karl Alfred Gustafsson, a laborer. She was fourteen when her father died, which left the family destitute. Greta was forced to leave school and ...

809 points

12. Joan Blondell

Actress | Grease

With blonde hair, big blue eyes and a big smile, Joan Blondell was usually cast as the wisecracking working girl who was the lead's best friend.

Joan was born Rose Blondell in Manhattan, New York, the daughter of Katie and Eddie Blondell, who were vaudeville performers. Her father was a Polish ...

800 points

13. Miriam Hopkins

Actress | Trouble in Paradise

Born into wealth in Savannah, Georgia, on October 18, 1902, Ellen Miriam Hopkins was able to attend the finest educational institutions, including Goddard Seminary in Plainfield, Vermont, and Syracuse University in New York State. Studying dance in New York, she received her first taste of show ...

795 points

14. Yoshiko Okada

Actress | Kyôren no onna shishô

Yoshiko Okada was born Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan on April 1, 1903. She is described as 5 feet, 95 pounds with black eyes and hair. She was educated at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. She was part of Butai Kyokai (Stage Show Association). In 1929 she founded Taishu Eiga-sha. She worked with Shochiku ...

779 points

15. 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 ...

773 points

16. 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...

772 points

17. Lilian Harvey

Actress | Die Drei von der Tankstelle

Lilian Harvey was born on January 19th, 1906 in London. Her mother was English and her father was German. When she was eight her family moved to Berlin shortly before the outbreak of WW1. She spent much of the war at school in Switzerland where she broadened her knowledge of languages and classical...

769 points

18. Magda Schneider

Actress | Sissi

Magda Schneider was born on 17 May 1909 in Augsburg, Germany and a singer, stage and film actress. After her graduation at a monastery school, she studied stenography and office management at a business school, but also attended ballet lessons and art courses at the Augsburg School of Music. Six ...

763 points

19. Luise Ullrich

Actress | Annelie

Louise Ullrich was born in Vienna, the daughter of a major in the Austro/Hungarian Army. She studied at the Kunstakademie, and, while still a teenager, was contracted for two years by the Wiener Volkstheater where she enjoyed her first success on the stage. In late 1932, Louise received an ...

763 points

20. Rochelle Hudson

Actress | Imitation of Life

Rochelle Hudson was born on March 6, 1916 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA. She was an actress, known for Imitation of Life (1934), The Officer and the Lady (1941) and Born Reckless (1937). She was married to Robert Louis Mindell, Charles Kenneth Brust Jr., Richard Francis Hyland and Harold Edward ...

762 points

21. 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 ...

746 points

22. Joan Bennett

Actress | Suspiria

Joan Geraldine Bennett was born on February 27, 1910, in Palisades, New Jersey. Her parents were both successful stage actors, especially her father, Richard Bennett, and often toured the country for weeks at a time. In fact, Joan came from a long line of actors, dating back to the 18th century. ...

746 points

23. Edna May Oliver

Actress | Penguin Pool Murder

She was born Edna May Nutter, a child of solid New England stock, on 9th November 1883 in Malden, Massachusetts. The daughter of Ida May and Charles Edward Nutter, Edna was a descendant of the 2nd American president John Adams and his son, the 6th American president John Quincy Adams. In addition, ...

746 points

24. Margaret Dumont

Actress | A Night at the Opera

Margaret Dumont would not consider it a tragedy that she is best-known for her performances as the ultimate straight woman in seven of the Marx Brothers' films (including most of their best). It is a popular myth that she never understood their jokes (offscreen and on); restored footage of ...

746 points

25. Raquel Torres

Actress | Duck Soup

Fetching Raquel Torres had a very brief but sexy reign in Hollywood with the advent of sound, but late-night viewers can still get a sampling of this spitfire's charms in one zany piece of slapstick with The Marx Brothers.

Born Guillermina Ostermann in Hermosillo, Mexico, on November 11, 1908, she ...

746 points

26. Mae Busch

Actress | The Unholy Three

Mae Busch can certainly claim career versatility, having successfully played Erich von Stroheim's mistress, Lon Chaney's girlfriend, Charley Chase's sister, James Finlayson's ex-wife and Oliver Hardy's wife! She was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1891; her parents were in the theater and when she...

743 points

27. Dorothy Christy

Actress | The Phantom Empire

Born as Dorothea Seltzer in Reading, Pennsylvania, Dorothy Christy was an American actress who worked with film greats such as Will Rogers, Buster Keaton, the Marx brothers, Laurel and Hardy, and many others. She even worked with the singing cowboy himself, Gene Autry. She died in Santa Monica, ...

743 points

28. Alice White

Actress | Show Girl in Hollywood

This Hollywood High graduate began her career as a secretary and script girl, working for Josef von Sternberg and Charles Chaplin. A sexy and bubbly player, she was repeatedly miscast as a singer-dancer. She toured the vaudeville circuit after her career spluttered, returning to Hollywood only to ...

739 points

29. Kay Francis

Actress | Mandalay

Kay Francis is possibly the biggest of the 'forgotten stars' from Hollywood's Golden Era. Yet, for a while in the 1930s she ranked as one of America's most popular actresses, tagged the 'Queen of Warner Brothers'. By 1935, she earned a yearly salary of $115,000 (compared to Bette Davis with $18,000...

738 points

30. 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 ...

735 points

31. Helen Vinson

Actress | I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

Texas-born Helen Vinson was born Helen Rulfs in Beaumont on September 17, 1907, the daughter of an oil company exec.. The family eventually settled in Houston, where her inflamed passion for acting was first ignited. While in her teens she married Harry N. Vickerman, a man fifteen years her senior ...

734 points

32. Marlene Dietrich

Soundtrack | Witness for the Prosecution

Her father was a police lieutenant and imbued in her a military attitude to life. Marlene was known in school for her "bedroom eyes" and her first affairs were at this stage in her life - a professor at the school was terminated. She entered the cabaret scene in 1920s Germany, first as a spectator ...

733 points

33. Marjorie Rambeau

Actress | Primrose Path

Born July 15, 1889 in San Francisco, unappreciated character player Marjorie Rambeau worked on the stage from the age of 12. In the 1910s and 1920s, she became a prominent Broadway lead, noted for her serene beauty, elegant poise and touching theatrics. Around the same time she made a few silent ...

731 points

34. 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 ...

730 points

35. Maureen O'Sullivan

Actress | The Thin Man

Of Irish, English, and Scottish descent, Maureen Paula O'Sullivan was born on May 17, 1911 in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland. Her father was Charles Joseph O'Sullivan, an officer in the Connaught Rangers, and his wife, the former Mary Fraser (or Frazer). She was educated at Catholic schools in ...

723 points

36. Ruth Etting

Actress | Hips, Hips, Hooray!

Ruth Etting was born on November 23, 1896 in David City, Nebraska, USA. She was an actress, known for Hips, Hips, Hooray! (1934), Road to Perdition (2002) and Water for Elephants (2011). She was married to Myrl Alderman and Martin Snyder. She died on September 24, 1978 in Colorado Springs, Colorado...

721 points

37. Gloria Stuart

Actress | Titanic

Gloria Stuart was born on a dining room table on 4th Street in Santa Monica, California on July 4, 1910. Her early roles as a performing artist were in plays she produced in her home as a young girl. She was the star of her senior class play at Santa Monica High School in 1927. Attending the ...

721 points

38. Merle Oberon

Actress | Wuthering Heights

Estelle Merle Thompson was born in India on February 19, 1911 of Welsh and Ceylonese (now Sri Lankan) descent. She was educated in that country until the age of 17, when she left for London. She began her career in British films with mostly forgettable roles or bit parts. She appeared in an ...

718 points

39. Wendy Barrie

Actress | The Gay Falcon

Wendy Barrie was born in Hong Kong to an English-Irish father and a Russian Jewish mother. Her dad was the distinguished King's Counsel F.C. Jenkins which ensured that the family was well off. Wendy received her education at a convent school in England and a finishing school in Switzerland. After ...

718 points

40. Elsa Lanchester

Actress | Witness for the Prosecution

Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was born into an unconventional a family at the turn of the 20th century. Her parents, James "Shamus" Sullivan and Edith "Biddy" Lanchester, were socialists - very active members of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) in a rather broad sense - and did not believe in the ...

718 points

41. Binnie Barnes

Actress | The Time of Their Lives

British-born actress who appeared in both British and American films, but who found her greatest success in Hollywood second leads. After a variety of jobs, including nurse, chorus girl and milkmaid, Barnes entered vaudeville. She appeared in more than a score of short comedies with comedian ...

718 points

42. Heather Angel

Actress | Peter Pan

Heather Grace Angel was born in Oxford, England, on February 9, 1909. She dabbled on the stage for a time before coming to California to try her luck on the screen. Heather was 20 years old when she landed a bit part for the 1929 film, Bulldog Drummond (1929). Although she didn't know it at the ...

717 points

43. Sylvia Sidney

Actress | Beetlejuice

Sylvia Sidney was born in The Bronx, New York City, on August 8, 1910 as Sophia Kosow to Jewish parents. Her father was born in Russia and her mother was born in Romania. They divorced not long after her birth. Her mother subsequently remarried and young Sophia was adopted by her stepfather, ...

712 points

44. Ruth Chatterton

Actress | Dodsworth

Beginning as a chorus girl at age 14, Ruth Chatterton became a Broadway star with "Daddy Long Legs" in 1914. She appeared in such shows as "Mary Rose" and "Come Out of the Kitchen" before moving to Hollywood in 1925. As her film career faded in the late 1930s, she returned to the stage in revivals,...

711 points

45. Lois Wilson

Actress | The Covered Wagon

A schoolteacher who became a stage actress (briefly), Lois Wilson entered films in 1916 at Paramount (her sisters, Diana Kane and Connie Lewis, also worked as actresses). Wilson played leading roles well into the sound era, and after she retired from the screen she worked sporadically in television...

711 points

46. Zita Johann

Actress | The Mummy

Zita Johann was born on July 14, 1904 in Temesvar, Austria-Hungary [now Timisoara, Timis, Romania]. She was an actress, known for The Mummy (1932), The Sin of Nora Moran (1933) and Tiger Shark (1932). She was married to Bernard Edward Shedd (Schetnitz), John McCormick and John Houseman. She died on...

706 points

47. Benita Hume

Actress | The Lady of the Lake

Benita Hume was a British actress whose career began on the stage in London. She was born on October 14, 1906 in London, England. After breaking into cinema in a 1925 British silent film in 1925, she transitioned nicely into sound and made two dozen films in England before travelling to the U.S. By...

705 points

48. Elizabeth Allan

Actress | The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger

British stage and film actress Elizabeth Allan was born in Skegness, Lincolnshire. She made her stage debut at the age of 17; her movie debut came about four years later with an appearance in the Hercule Poirot mystery Alibi (1931).

At the beginning of her career, Allan mainly appeared in films for ...

705 points

49. Mae Clarke

Actress | Frankenstein

Vivacious, blonde Mae Clarke was exposed to cinema from an early age, her father being an organist in a motion picture cinema. Growing up in Atlantic City, New Jersey, she learned how to dance. At the tender age of 13 she was already performing in nightclubs and amateur theatricals. In 1924, she ...

703 points

50. 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...

703 points

51. Doris Kenyon

Actress | The Road to Singapore

The daughter of a poet, Doris Kenyon made her stage and screen debuts in 1915. She was often cast as a pleasant heroine in many silent films. She co-starred with popular silent-era actors like Rudolph Valentino and her future husband Milton Sills. Due to her stage experience she made a smooth ...

701 points

52. Isabel Jewell

Actress | Gone with the Wind

Isabel Jewell, like other actresses in Hollywood in the 1930s, suffered from chronic typecasting. The diminutive, platinum-haired daughter of a doctor and medical researcher seemed to be often playing hard-boiled, tough-talking broads: gangster's molls, dumb blondes, prostitutes and, of course, ...

701 points



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