The Vikings 1958 (NY) premiere

1. Kirk Douglas

Actor | The Final Countdown

Cleft-chinned, steely-eyed and virile star of international cinema who rose from being "the ragman's son" (the name of his best-selling 1988 autobiography) to become a bona fide superstar, Kirk Douglas, also known as Issur Danielovitch Demsky, was born on December 9, 1916 in Amsterdam, New York. ...

2. Tony Curtis

Actor | Some Like It Hot

Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz, the eldest of three children of Helen (Klein) and Emanuel Schwartz, Jewish immigrants from Hungary. Curtis himself admits that while he had almost no formal education, he was a student of the "school of hard knocks" and learned from a young age that the only ...

3. Janet Leigh

Actress | Psycho

Janet Leigh was the only child of a couple who often moved from town to town. Living in apartments, Janet was a bright child who skipped several grades and finished high school when she was 15. A lonely child, she would spend much of her time at movie theaters. She was a student, studying music and...

4. Steve Allen

Actor | Casino

Steve Allen was born on December 26, 1921 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Casino (1995), The Player (1992) and College Confidential (1960). He was married to Jayne Meadows and Dorothy Goodman. He died on October 30, 2000 in Encino, Los Angeles, California, USA.

5. John Cassavetes

Actor | Rosemary's Baby

John Cassavetes was a Greek-American actor, film director, and screenwriter. He is considered a pioneer of American independent film, as he often financed his own films.

Cassavetes was born in New York City in 1929 to Nicholas John Cassavetes (1893-1979) and his wife, Katherine Demetre (1906-1983). ...

6. Alistair Cooke

Writer | America

British-born American journalist and broadcaster. Cooke was born in Salford, Manchester: his father was an iron-fitter and Methodist lay-preacher. He grew up in Blackpool where his parents ran a guest house. Here he first came into contact with Americans, in the form of GIs on their way to fight in...

7. Joan Crawford

Actress | What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur on March 23, 1906, in San Antonio, Texas, to Anna Belle (Johnson) and Thomas E. LeSueur, a laundry laborer. By the time she was born, her parents had separated, and by the time she was a teenager, she'd had three stepfathers. It wasn't an easy life; ...

8. Arlene Dahl

Actress | Journey to the Center of the Earth

Elegance and femininity are fitting descriptions for Arlene Dahl. She is considered to be one of the most beautiful actresses to have graced the screen during the postwar period. Audiences were captivated by her breathtaking beauty and the way she used to it to her advantage, progressing from ...

9. Robert Evans

Producer | Chinatown

Robert Evans was born in New York City, to Florence (Krasne) and Archie Shapera, a dentist with a thriving practice in Harlem. His family was of Russian Jewish descent. He was raised on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He began his show-business career as a teenage radio actor. After flopping in his ...

10. Eva Gabor

Actress | Green Acres

Eva Gabor was born on February 11, 1919 in Budapest, Hungary, to Jolie Gabor (née Janka Tilleman) and Vilmos Gabor (born Farkas Miklós Grün), a soldier. Her older siblings were Magda Gabor, an actress, and Zsa Zsa Gabor, an actress and socialite. Her parents were both from Jewish families. She went...

11. Zsa Zsa Gabor

Actress | A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

Undoubtedly the woman who had come to epitomize what we recognize today as "celebrity," Zsa Zsa Gabor, is better known for her many marriages, personal appearances, her "dahlink" catchphrase, her actions, gossip, and quotations on men, rather than her film career.

Zsa Zsa was born as Sári Gabor on ...

12. Dave Garroway

Actor | I Surrender Dear

Dave Garroway was born on July 13, 1913 in Schenectady, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for I Surrender Dear (1948), It Happened to Jane (1959) and The World Through the Eyes of Children (1975). He was married to Sarah Lee Lippincott, Pamela Wilde and Adele Marie Dwyer. He died on ...

13. Hurd Hatfield

Actor | The Picture of Dorian Gray

William Rukard Hurd Hatfield was an American leading man best known for his portrayal of the title character in the Oscar-winning movie The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945). A native of New York, Hatfield came to England to study acting at the Chekhov Theatre Studio in Devonshire. He had resided in ...

14. Jacob Javits

Self | The Sam Levenson Show

Jacob Javits was born on May 18, 1904 in New York City, New York, USA. He was married to Marion Javits and Marjorie Ringling. He died on March 7, 1986 in West Palm Beach, Florida, USA.

15. Gene Kelly

Soundtrack | Singin' in the Rain

Eugene Curran Kelly was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the third son of Harriet Catherine (Curran) and James Patrick Joseph Kelly, a phonograph salesman. His father was of Irish descent and his mother was of Irish and German ancestry.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the largest and most powerful studio in...

16. Fernando Lamas

Actor | The Cheap Detective

Handsome, dapper Argentine-born actor who came to Hollywood as a romantic lead in several colourful MGM extravaganzas and then succeeded in living up to his Latin Lover image in real life. Lamas studied drama at school in his native country and later enrolled in a law course at college. His strong ...

17. Sophia Loren

Actress | La ciociara

Sophia Loren was born as Sofia Scicolone at the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome on September 20, 1934. Her father Riccardo was married to another woman and refused to marry her mother Romilda Villani, despite the fact that she was the mother of his two children (Sophia and her younger sister ...

18. Jayne Meadows

Actress | City Slickers

One of four children (two older brothers, one younger sister) born to American missionaries, Jayne Meadows (née Jane Cotter) was born September 27, 1919, in China. The family returned to the US in the early 1930s wherein Jayne was forced to learn the English language, speaking Chinese and other ...

19. Elliott Nugent

The Seven Year Itch

An American minor leading man of early Depression-era talkies who played earnest, boyish leads, Ohio-born Elliott Nugent would earn more distinction as a writer, producer and director of stage and film after all was said and done. The son of playwright/producer/actor J.C. Nugent, Elliott was born ...

20. Geraldine Page

Actress | Sweet Bird of Youth

Considered by many to be one of the greatest American actresses of all time, Geraldine Page was a master craftswoman who seemed to bring out the most inner detail of the character she was playing. Her dedication to her craft has earned her the respect of many of today's great actors including Meryl...

21. Carlo Ponti

Producer | Doctor Zhivago

Carlo Ponti was born on December 11, 1912 in Magenta, Lombardy, Italy. He was a producer and production manager, known for Doctor Zhivago (1965), The Road (1954) and Marriage Italian Style (1964). He was married to Sophia Loren and Giuliana Fiastri. He died on January 10, 2007 in Geneva, ...

22. Alfred Steele

Alfred Steele was born on April 24, 1901 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. He was married to Joan Crawford, Marjorie Garvey and Lillian Nelson. He died on April 19, 1959 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.

23. Mike Wallace

Self | 60 Minutes

Mike Wallace was born on May 9, 1918 in Brookline, Massachusetts, USA. He was a producer and actor, known for 60 Minutes (1968), The Sword and the Dragon (1956) and The Big Surprise (1955). He was married to Mary Yates, Lorraine Perigord, Buff Cobb and Norma Kaphan. He died on April 7, 2012 in New ...

24. Peggy Wood

Actress | The Sound of Music

Above all else, singer/actress Peggy Wood has endeared herself to both TV and film audiences with one single role in each medium. She made warm, lasting impressions as the benevolent, strong-willed Scandinanvian matriarch Marta Hansen in the series drama Mama (1949), and as the knowing Mother ...

25. Ruth Warrick

Actress | Citizen Kane

Reedy and regal actress Ruth Warrick will be remembered for two names and two names alone. In films, she will indelibly be referred to as the castoff first "Mrs. Citizen Kane," and on TV she will forever be synonymous with her character of Phoebe Tyler Wallingford, the obnoxiously wealthy, ...

26. Gig Young

Actor | They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

Gig Young was born Byron Barr to parents John and Emma Barr in Minnesota, and raised in Washington, DC, where he developed a passion for theatre while appearing in high school plays. After gaining some amateur experience, he applied for and received a scholarship to the acclaimed Southern ...