King Kong 1933 premiere

1. Fay Wray

Actress | King Kong

Canadian-born Fay Wray was brought up in Los Angeles and entered films at an early age. She was barely in her teens when she started working as an extra. She began her career as a heroine in westerns at Universal during the silent era. In 1926 the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers ...

2. 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 ...

3. 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 ...

4. Joel McCrea

Actor | Sullivan's Travels

One of the great stars of American Westerns, and a very popular leading man in non-Westerns as well. He was born and raised in the surroundings of Hollywood and as a boy became interested in the movies that were being made all around. He studied acting at Pomona College and got some stage ...

5. Peggy Hopkins Joyce

Actress | International House

Peggy Hopkins Joyce was born on May 26, 1893 in Berkley, Virginia, USA. She was an actress, known for International House (1933), The Skyrocket (1926) and Dimples (1916). She was married to Andrew Meyer, Anthony Easton, Gustave Morner, J. Stanley Joyce, Sherburne Philbrick Hopkins and Everett ...

6. Harold Lloyd

Actor | Safety Last!

Born in Burchard, Nebraska, USA to Elizabeth Fraser and J. Darcie 'Foxy' Lloyd who fought constantly and soon divorced (at the time a rare event), Harold Clayton Lloyd was nominally educated in Denver and San Diego high schools and received his stage training at the School of Dramatic Art (San ...

7. 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 ...

8. Wallace Beery

Actor | A Date with Judy

In 1902, 16-year-old Wallace Beery joined the Ringling Brothers Circus as an assistant to the elephant trainer. He left two years later after a leopard clawed his arm. Beery next went to New York, where he found work in musical variety shows. He became a leading man in musicals and appeared on ...

9. 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 ...

10. Robert Montgomery

Actor | Night Must Fall

Robert Montgomery was born Henry Montgomery Jr., the elder son of New York businessman Henry Montgomery and his wife, Mary Weed (Barney), a native of Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. Montgomery had a younger brother, Donald. He was not related to Belinda Montgomery.

As a child, he enjoyed a ...

11. 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...

12. 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. ...

13. Robert Woolsey

Actor | So This Is Africa

At the age of 7, his father died, leaving his mother and her six children in poverty, of the children, 4 died in early years. To earn some money to support the family, Robert took odd jobs, before becoming a jockey. This career ended when the horse, Pink Star, the future Kentucky Derby winner of ...

14. Bert Wheeler

Actor | High Flyers

After his mother died at the age of only 17 he was raised by his father and an aunt, and later a stepmother.

He later went to New York, where he tried to break into showbiz.

He got his first break with Gus Edwards, working later as actor in several shows, among them "The Gingerbread Man" and "When ...

15. Charles Ruggles

Actor | The Parent Trap

Charles Ruggles had one of the longest careers in Hollywood, lasting more than 50 years and encompassing more than 100 films. He made his film debut in 1914 in The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914) and worked steadily after that. He was memorably paired with Mary Boland in a series of comedies in the ...

16. William Haines

Actor | Show People

Born in Staunton, Virginia, William Haines ran off to live life on his own terms while still in his teens, moving to New York City and becoming friends with such later Hollywood luminaries as designer Orry-Kelly and Cary Grant. His film career started slowly, but by the end of the silent era he was...

17. Louis B. Mayer

Producer | The Great Secret

Mayer was born Lazar Meir in the Ukraine and grew up in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada after his parents fled Russian oppression in 1886. He had a brutal childhood, raised in poverty and suffering physical and emotional abuse from his nearly-illiterate peddler father. In the early 1890s, he ...

18. William Boyd

Actor | The Volga Boatman

The son of a day laborer, William Boyd moved with his family to Tulsa, Oklahoma, when he was seven. His parents died while he was in his early teens, forcing him to quit school and take such jobs as a grocery clerk, surveyor and oil field worker. He went to Hollywood in 1919, already gray-haired. ...

19. Ann Harding

Actress | When Ladies Meet

Ann, born Dorothy Gatley, spent most of her childhood as an "army brat" constantly moving around before the family finally settled in New York. Ann first appeared on the stage while she spent a year attending Bryn Mawr College. She became a clerk and freelance script reader with a film company ...

20. Sally Eilers

Actress | They Made Her a Spy

Sally Eilers enjoyed lunch with a classmate from drama school, Jane Peters (who would later become known as Carole Lombard), at the Sennett Studios cafeteria. There she was spotted by Mack Sennett and instantly became one of his "discoveries". Having already appeared in several bit parts, beginning...

21. Tom Mix

Actor | Dick Turpin

The son of a lumberman, Tom Mix joined the army as a young man and was an artillery sergeant during the Philippine campaign from 1898 to 1901, though he never saw action. In fact, Mix deserted from the army and carefully kept the facts about his military service a closely guarded secret. About 1903...

22. 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 ...

23. Al Jolson

Actor | The Jazz Singer

Al Jolson was known in the industry as "The World's Greatest Entertainer," for well over 40 years. After his death his influence continued unabated with such performers as Sammy Davis Jr., Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Jackie Wilson and Jerry Lee Lewis all mentioning him as an ...

24. Lionel Barrymore

Actor | You Can't Take It with You

Famed actor, composer, artist, author and director. His talents extended to the authoring of the novel "Mr. Cartonwine: A Moral Tale" as well as his autobiography. In 1944, he joined ASCAP, and composed "Russian Dances", "Partita", "Ballet Viennois", "The Woodman and the Elves", "Behind the Horizon...

25. Erich von Stroheim

Actor | Sunset Blvd.

Erich von Stroheim was born Erich Oswald Stroheim in 1885, in Vienna, Austria, to Johanna (Bondy), from Prague, and Benno Stroheim, a hatter from Gleiwitz, Germany (now Gliwice, Poland). His family was Jewish.

After spending some time working in his father's hat factory, he emigrated to America ...

26. Warner Baxter

Actor | Penthouse

Warner Baxter claimed to have an early pre-disposition toward show business: "I discovered a boy a block away who would eat worms and swallow flies for a penny. For one-third of the profits, I exhibited him in a tent." When he was age 9, his widowed mother moved to San Francisco where, following ...

27. 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 ...

28. 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...

29. Spencer Tracy

Actor | Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Spencer Tracy was the second son born on April 5, 1900, to truck salesman John Edward and Caroline Brown Tracy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While attending Marquette Academy, he and classmate Pat O'Brien quit school to enlist in the Navy at the start of World War I. Tracy was still at Norfolk Navy Yard...

30. Boots Mallory

Actress | The Big Race

Patricia Boots Mallory was raised in Mobile, Alabama. She was discovered by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., where she got her start in show biz. A tall, thin, natural blond teenager, she caught his keen eye. Her career began in the era of early talkies. In 1933 she married James Cagney's brother William. ...

31. Laura Hope Crews

Actress | Gone with the Wind

Laura Hope Crews was born on December 12, 1879 in San Francisco, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Gone with the Wind (1939), The Silver Cord (1933) and Camille (1936). She died on November 13, 1942 in New York City, New York, USA.

32. Sharon Lynn

Actress | Way Out West

Brunette, petite Sharon Lynne was born D'Auvergne Sharon Lindsay in Weatherford, Texas. A former beauty contest winner, she began in show business as a nightclub singer and songwriter. Possessed of a strong, bluesy voice, she drifted towards the musical stage, eventually appearing in both the ...

33. Genevieve Tobin

Actress | Easy to Love

The daughter of a stage entertainer, New York-born actress Genevieve Tobin started treading the boards as a child and appeared in the role of Little Eva in the silent short Uncle Tom's Cabin (1910). Her older brother George Tobin and younger sister Vivian Tobin also became stage and film actors. By...

34. 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 ...

35. Richard Dix

Actor | Cimarron

Richard Dix was a major leading man at RKO Radio Pictures from 1929 through 1943. He was born Ernest Carlton Brimmer July 18, 1893, in St. Paul, Minnesota. There he was educated, and at the desires of his father, studied to be a surgeon. His obvious acting talent in his school dramatic club led him...

36. Julian Eltinge

Actor | Madame Behave

One of the greatest drag performers in the history of the American Theatre. First performed in drag at the age of 10 in an annual revue of the Boston Cadets. Subsequently appeared on Broadway in 1904 in a drag role in Mr. Wix of Wickham. Performed in the legitimate theatre and also in a number of ...

37. Hoot Gibson

Actor | The Horse Soldiers

A pioneering cowboy star of silent and early talking Westerns, Hoot Gibson was one of the 1920s' most popular children's matinée heroes. In his real life, however, he had a rather painful rags-to-riches-and-back-to-rags career, a problem that seemed to plague a number of big stars who fell victim ...

38. Fredric March

Actor | Inherit the Wind

Fredric March began a career in banking but in 1920 found himself cast as an extra in films being produced in New York. He starred on the Broadway stage first in 1926 and would return there between screen appearances later on. He won plaudits (and an Academy Award nomination) for his send-up of ...

39. Sid Grauman

Actor | Mad About Music

Sid Grauman was born on March 17, 1879 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. He was an actor, known for Mad About Music (1938), Hollywood (1923) and Hollywood on Parade No. A-6 (1933). He was married to Rose. He died on March 5, 1950 in Hollywood, California, USA.

40. LeRoy Prinz

Director | All-American Co-Ed

LeRoy Prinz started his career after running away from a boarding school. He came to France prior to WWI, where he earned his money dancing in nightclubs. After the outbreak of the war he became a pilot. He was shot down 15 times. After the war he fought as a mercenary in a civil war in Nicaragua, ...

41. Ben Ellison

Soundtrack | Theodore Rex

Ben Ellison was born on November 7, 1902 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. He was a composer, known for Theodore Rex (1995), The Duke Is Tops (1938) and Dark Manhattan (1937). He died on February 1, 1984 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

42. Harvey Brooks

Composer | The Duke Is Tops

Songwriter ("I Want You, I Need You"), and composer, he joined ASCAP in 1942 and wrote songs for films. His other song compositions include "I'm No Angel", "It's a Mighty Pretty Night for Love", "A Little Bird Told Me", "That's When I Long For You", "La Martinique", "They Call Me Sister Honky Tonk"...

43. Dudley Dickerson

Actor | Hold That Lion!

Dudley Dickerson was born on November 27, 1906 in Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA. He was an actor, known for Hold That Lion! (1947), The Green Pastures (1936) and Vagabond Loafers (1949). He died on September 23, 1968 in Lynwood, California, USA.

44. Serge Flash

Actor | Ice-Capades

Serge Flash is known for Ice-Capades (1941).

45. Gloria Gilbert

Actress | Leave It to Beaver

Gloria Gilbert was born on September 24, 1946 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is an actress, known for Leave It to Beaver (1957) and Your Chevrolet Showroom (1953).

46. Jimmy Savo

Actor | Merry-Go-Round of 1938

Jimmy Savo was born on July 31, 1892 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Merry-Go-Round of 1938 (1937), CBS Television Workshop (1952) and Exclusive Rights (1926). He was married to Joan Franza, Lina Farina Vecchi and Frances Victoria Browder. He died on September 5, 1960 in...

47. Alma Travers

Alma Travers was an actress. She died on January 20, 1947 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

48. Marguerite Robinson

Writer | Hope

Marguerite Robinson is known for Hope (1922).

49. Dorothy Jordan

Actress | The Searchers

Brunette Dorothy Jordan was a graduate of Southwestern University and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Trained as a ballerina, she first graced the stage as a chorus girl in top flight musicals, like "Funny Face" (1927), with Fred Astaire, and "Treasure Girl" (1928), with Gertrude Lawrence and...

50. Florence Eldridge

Actress | Inherit the Wind

Versatile character actress Florence Eldridge seemed often better served by the stage than by her roles in motion pictures. On the boards from the age of seventeen as a chorine in "Rock-a-Bye Baby" in 1918, she acted with touring companies and on Broadway and soon found herself playing leading ...

51. Rouben Mamoulian

Director | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Rouben Mamoulian was born on October 8, 1897 in Tiflis, Russian Empire [now Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia]. He was a director and writer, known for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Applause (1929) and Becky Sharp (1935). He was married to Catharine Azadia Newman. He died on December 4, 1987 in ...

52. David O. Selznick

Producer | Gone with the Wind

David O. Selznick was a son of the silent movie producer Lewis J. Selznick. David studied at Columbia University until his father lost his fortune in the 1920s. David started work as an MGM script reader, shortly followed by becoming an assistant to Harry Rapf. He left MGM to work at Paramount then...

53. Arline Judge

Actress | Sensation Hunters

This pert and pretty number was probably better known for her not-so-private off-camera escapades than for her commendable "B" work as a light comedienne in 30s and 40s films. Nevertheless, actress Arline Judge enlivened a number of them with her blue-eyed, brunette beauty and colorful ...

54. Wesley Ruggles

Director | London Town

The younger brother of Hollywood character player Charles Ruggles, Wesley Ruggles spent most of his early years in San Francisco. He attended university there, began a lengthy apprenticeship in stock and musical comedy and then joined Keystone in Hollywood as an actor in 1914 working alongside Syd ...

55. Phil Harris

Actor | Robin Hood

A bandleader of the 1940s and a radio, film, and TV actor who celebrated his Southern roots. He was a principal of long standing among the comedian Jack Benny's radio retinue, parlaying his popularity into his own radio series, in which his wife, Alice Faye, co-starred.

Linton, Indiana birthplace, ...

56. Johnny Weissmuller

Actor | Tarzan the Ape Man

Johnny Weissmuller was born as Peter Johann Weißmüller in Freidorf, today a district of the city of Timisoara in Romania, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Weissmuller would later claim to have been born in Windber, Pennsylvania, probably to ensure his eligibility to compete as part of ...

57. Tom Keene

Actor | Plan 9 from Outer Space

Not much is known about the early life of darkly handsome "B" cowboy actor Tom Keene, who was born George Duryea on December 30, 1896, in Rochester, New York. However, he did arrive in Hollywood in the late 1920s after college studies at Columbia and Carnegie Tech and immediately made an impact as ...

58. Albert S. Rogell

Director | The Wrecker

Born in Oklahoma City, Albert Rogell moved with his family to Spokane, WA, when he was a child. At 15 he got a job with the Washington Motion Picture Co. Having gotten a taste of the film business, he headed to Los Angeles after the company went bankrupt, and had a succession of jobs before joining...

59. Pat O'Brien

Actor | Some Like It Hot

Although he came to be called "Hollywood's Irishman in Residence"--and, along with good friends James Cagney, Allen Jenkins, Frank McHugh and a few others were called "The Irish Mafia"--and he often played Irish immigrants, Pat O'Brien was US-born and -bred. As a young boy the devoutly Roman ...

60. Eloise Taylor

Actress | Damaged Love

Eloise Taylor was born on February 3, 1903 in Iowa, USA. She was an actress, known for Damaged Love (1931), Convict's Code (1930) and Ragtime (1981). She was married to Pat O'Brien. She died on December 16, 1987 in Santa Monica, California, USA.

61. Jeanette Loff

Actress | Flirtation

Jeanette Loff was born Janette Lov in Orofino, Idaho, on October 9, 1906. Her father Maurice was a successful violinist from Denmark who moved their family to Canada when Jeanette was a child. She loved to sing and she studied music at the Ellison-White Conservatory in Portland, Oregon. At age ...

62. Raymond Hatton

Actor | Behind the Front

The son of a physician, Raymond Hatton entered films in 1909, eventually appearing in almost 500 other pictures. In early silents he formed a comedy team with big, burly Wallace Beery. He was best known as the tobacco-chewing, rip-snorting Rusty Joslin in the Three Mesquiteers series. He was also ...

63. Frances Hatton

Actress | The Grail

Frances Hatton was born on October 19, 1886 in Nebraska, USA. She was an actress, known for The Grail (1923), Lovetime (1921) and Java Head (1923). She was married to Raymond Hatton. She died on October 16, 1971 in Palmdale, California, USA.

64. Lee Tracy

Actor | Turn Back the Clock

Rangy, red-headed and straightforward to the bone while possessing distinctively adenoidal vocal tones, this actor with a voracious appetite for high living was a fine cinematic representation of the racy and race-paced style of pre-Code Hollywood. Lee Tracy patented with peerless skill the ...

65. James Dunn

Actor | A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

James Dunn worked on the stage, in vaudeville and as an extra in silent movies before he was signed by Fox in 1931. His first movie with Fox was 1931's Sob Sister (1931). While at Fox, he appeared with Shirley Temple in her first three features: Baby, Take a Bow (1934), Stand Up and Cheer! (1934) ...

66. Henri Garat

Soundtrack | Chocolat

Henri Garat was born on April 3, 1902 in Paris, France. He was an actor and producer, known for Chocolat (2000), Les dieux s'amusent (1935) and The Congress Dances (1932). He was married to Anna Luginbühl, Jacqueline Nigon, Ila Mecséry and Betty Rowe. He died on August 13, 1959 in Hyères, Var, ...

67. Will Rogers

Actor | Steamboat Round the Bend

World-famous, widely popular American humorist of the vaudeville stage and of silent and sound films, Will Rogers graduated from military school, but his first real job was in the livestock business in Argentina, of all places. He transported pack animals across the South Atlantic from Buenos Aires...

68. Merian C. Cooper

Writer | King Kong

In 1920, Merian C. Cooper was a member of volunteer of the American Kosciuszko Squadron that supported the Polish army in the war with Soviet Russia, where he met best friend and producing partner Ernest B. Schoedsack. On 26 July 1920, his plane was shot down, and he spent nearly nine months in the...

69. Clara Bow

Actress | Wings

Clara Gordon Bow, destined to become "The It Girl", was born on July 29, 1905 in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in poverty and violence. Her often absentee and brutish father could not or did not provide and her schizophrenic mother tried to slit Clara's throat when the girl spoke of becoming ...

70. Ernest B. Schoedsack

Director | Dr. Cyclops

Ernest B. Schoedsack was born on June 8, 1893 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA. He was a director and cinematographer, known for Dr. Cyclops (1940), The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and Rango (1931). He was married to Ruth Rose. He died on December 23, 1979 in Los Angeles County, California, USA.

71. Miriam Cooper

Actress | The Birth of a Nation

Miriam Cooper was born to Julian Cooper and Margaret Stewart in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1891. The family was Roman Catholic, and the Coopers were fairly well-to-do. After the birth of five children in five years (one of whom died in infancy), Julian Cooper deserted his family and fled to Europe. ...

72. Louella Parsons

Actress | Hollywood Hotel

Louella Parsons was born on August 6, 1881 in Freeport, Illinois, USA. She was an actress and writer, known for Hollywood Hotel (1937), Without Reservations (1946) and Starlift (1951). She was married to Dr. Henry Watson Martin, John McCaffrey Jr. and John Demont Parsons. She died on December 9, ...