Favorite actresses

1. Olivia de Havilland

Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916 in Tokyo, Japan to British parents, Lilian Augusta (Ruse), a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, an English professor and patent attorney. Her sister Joan, later to become famous as Joan Fontaine, was born the following year. Her ...

2. 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 ...

3. Jean Arthur

Actress | You Can't Take It with You

This marvelous screen comedienne's best asset was only muffled during her seven years' stint in silent films. That asset? It was, of course, her squeaky, frog-like voice, which silent-era cinema audiences had simply no way of perceiving, much less appreciating. Jean Arthur, born Gladys Georgianna ...

4. Rita Hayworth

Actress | Gilda

Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of dancers. Her father, Eduardo Cansino Reina, was a dancer as was his father before him. He emigrated from Spain in 1913. Rita's American mother, Volga Margaret (Hayworth), who was of mostly ...

5. 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 ...

6. Lillian Gish

Actress | The Night of the Hunter

Lillian Diana Gish was born on October 14, 1893, in Springfield, Ohio. Her father, James Lee Gish, was an alcoholic who caroused, was rarely at home, and left the family to, more or less, fend for themselves. To help make ends meet, Lillian, her sister Dorothy Gish, and their mother, Mary Gish, ...

7. 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...

8. 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 ...

9. Maureen O'Hara

Actress | The Quiet Man

In America, the early performing arts accomplishments of young Maureen FitzSimons (who we know as Maureen O'Hara) would definitely have put her in the child prodigy category. However, for a child of Irish heritage surrounded by gifted parents and family, these were very natural traits. Maureen made...

10. Grace Kelly

Actress | Dial M for Murder

On November 12, 1929, Grace Patricia Kelly was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to wealthy parents. Her girlhood was uneventful for the most part, but one of the things she desired was to become an actress which she had decided on at an early age. After her high school graduation in 1947, Grace ...

11. 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 ...

12. 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 ...

13. Shirley MacLaine

Actress | Terms of Endearment

Shirley MacLaine was born Shirley MacLean Beaty in Richmond, Virginia. Her mother, Kathlyn Corinne (MacLean), was a drama teacher from Nova Scotia, Canada, and her father, Ira Owens Beaty, a professor of psychology and real estate agent, was from Virginia. Her brother, Warren Beatty, was born on ...

14. Lauren Bacall

Actress | To Have and Have Not

Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924, in New York City. She was the daughter of Natalie Weinstein-Bacal, a Romanian Jewish immigrant, and William Perske, who was born in New Jersey, to Polish Jewish parents. Her family was middle-class, with her father working as a ...

15. 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 ...

16. 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 ...

17. 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...

18. 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 ...

19. Gillian Anderson

Actress | The X Files

Gillian Anderson was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Rosemary Alyce (Lane), a computer analyst, and Homer Edward Anderson III, who owned a film post-production company. Gillian started her career as a member of an amateur actor group while at high school. In 1987, her love of the theatre took her to ...

20. Ryôko Hirosue

Actress | Okuribito

Kochi on the island of Shikoku was bombed from the air and razed to the ground by the USA during 1945, but Kochi castle still stands as a historical point of interest. More recently the city has acted as the birth place of short-haired tomboyish singer and actress Hirosue Ryoko. She signed up for ...

21. Cate Blanchett

Actress | Carol

Cate Blanchett was born on May 14, 1969 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, to June (Gamble), an Australian teacher and property developer, and Robert DeWitt Blanchett, Jr., an American advertising executive, originally from Texas. She has an older brother and a younger sister. When she was ten ...

22. Veronica Lake

Actress | Sullivan's Travels

Veronica Lake was born as Constance Frances Marie Ockleman on November 14, 1922, in Brooklyn, New York. She was the daughter of Constance Charlotta (Trimble) and Harry Eugene Ockelman, who worked for an oil company as a ship employee. Her father was of half German and half Irish descent, and her ...

23. Ethel Barrymore

Actress | The Spiral Staircase

Ethel Barrymore was the second of three children seemingly destined for the actor's life of their parents Maurice and Georgiana. Maurice Barrymore had emigrated from England in 1875, and after graduating from Cambridge in law had shocked his family by becoming an actor. Georgiana Drew of ...

24. 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 ...

25. 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...

26. Giulietta Masina

Actress | Le notti di Cabiria

Born in San Giorgio di Piano, Giulietta Masina spent part of her teenage years living with a widowed aunt in Rome, where she cultivated a passion for the theater and studied for a degree in Philosophy. She began her career on the radio with the program "Terzoglio" (1942), about the adventures of ...

27. Monica Vitti

Actress | L'avventura

Monica Vitti was born on November 3, 1931 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She was an actress and writer, known for L'Avventura (1960), Red Desert (1964) and L'Eclisse (1962). She was married to Roberto Russo. She died on February 2, 2022 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.

28. 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 ...

29. Anna May Wong

Actress | The Toll of the Sea

Anna May Wong, the first Chinese-American movie star, was born Wong Liu Tsong on January 3, 1905, in Los Angeles, California, to laundryman Wong Sam Sing and his wife, Lee Gon Toy. A third-generation American, she managed to have a substantial acting career during a deeply racist time when the ...

30. Mary Pickford

Actress | Coquette

Mary Pickford was born Gladys Louise Smith in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Elsie Charlotte (Hennessy) and John Charles Smith. She was of English and Irish descent. Pickford began in the theater at age seven. Then known as "Baby Gladys Smith", she toured with her family in a number of theater ...

31. 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 ...

32. Lola Kirke

Actress | Gone Girl

Kirke was born in London, and raised in New York City from the age of five. Her father, Simon Kirke, is the former drummer of the rock bands Bad Company and Free. Her mother, Lorraine (née Dellal) Kirke, owns Geminola, a vintage boutique in New York City that supplied a number of outfits for the ...

33. Ella Raines

Actress | Phantom Lady

Ella Raines was born in Snoqualmie Falls, Washington, in 1920. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at the University of Washington as a drama student and participated in many plays. Following graduation, she traveled to New York and the lights of Broadway. She was eventually signed by ...

34. 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 ...

35. 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...

36. Hattie McDaniel

Actress | Gone with the Wind

After working as early as the 1910s as a band vocalist, Hattie McDaniel debuted as a maid in The Golden West (1932). Her maid-mammy characters became steadily more assertive, showing up first in Judge Priest (1934) and becoming pronounced in Alice Adams (1935). In this one, directed by George ...

37. 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 ...

38. Setsuko Hara

Actress | Banshun

Setsuko Hara became one of Japan's best-loved stars over her 30-year film career. Her signature character type, variations on a daughter devoted to her parents and home, inspired the nickname that stayed with her until retirement: the Eternal Virgin. To some extent, reality mirrored her roles in ...

39. Viola Dana

Actress | Two Sisters

Viola Dana (real name Virginia Flugrath) was born in Brooklyn, NY, on June 26, 1897. She was the middle sister of three sisters (the other two were Edna Flugrath and Shirley Mason). She made her film debut in 1914 in Molly the Drummer Boy (1914). The following year she received top billing playing ...

40. Maria Falconetti

Actress | La passion de Jeanne d'Arc

Renée Jeanne or Maria Falconetti, born in Pantin (not in Sermano, Corsica, as many film dictionaries wrongly attest) on July 21, 1892 and died in Buenos Aires on December 12, 1946, is a French actress of theater and cinema. Joining the troupe of the Odeon theater in 1916, she made her debut in "...

41. Corinne Griffith

Actress | The Divine Lady

Corinne Griffith was a popular star of the silent movies. She started her film career at Vitagraph in 1916 and later moved to First National, where she became one of that studio's biggest stars. At the height of her popularity she was known as the "Orchid Lady of the Screen." Black Oxen (1923) was ...

42. Colleen Moore

Actress | So Big

Colleen Moore was born Kathleen Morrison in Port Huron, Michigan. Her father was an irrigation engineer and his job was good enough to provide the family a middle-class environment. She was educated in parochial schools and studied at the famed Detroit Conservatory. Colleen's family moved to ...

43. Hideko Takamine

Actress | Ukigumo

Along with Hara Setsuko and Tanaka Kinuyo, Takamine Hideko remains one of Japan's most admired and prolific film actresses. Born as Hirayama Hideko in Hakodate, Hokkaido in northern Japan in 1924, she became a child actress for Shochiku Studio at age five appearing in the film Haha. She would go on...

44. 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 ...

45. Clara Kimball Young

Actress | The Common Law

Clara Kimball Young was born Clarisa Kimball on September 6, 1890, to Edward Kimball and the former Mrs. E.M. Kimball, traveling stock company actors with the Holden Co. Though she claimed Chicago as her birthplace, there are no records of her being born in Cook County--which includes Chicago--and ...

46. Saoirse Ronan

Actress | Hanna

Saoirse Una Ronan was born in The Bronx, New York City, New York, United States, to Irish parents, Monica Ronan (née Brennan) and Paul Ronan, an actor. When Saoirse was three, the family moved back to Dublin, Ireland. Saoirse grew up in Dublin and briefly in Co. Carlow before moving back to Dublin ...

47. Martha Vickers

Actress | The Big Sleep

Lovely, auburn-haired Martha Vickers (nee Martha MacVicar) was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on May 28, 1925, the daughter of James S. and Frances MacVicar. After attending schools in various states - Florida, Texas and California - she and her family settled on the West Coast. A raving beauty, she ...

48. Shima Iwashita

Actress | Seppuku

Shima Iwashita was born on January 3, 1941 in Tokyo, Japan. She is an actress, known for Harakiri (1962), Ballad of Orin (1977) and Clouds at Sunset (1967). She has been married to Masahiro Shinoda since 1967.

49. Charlotte Rampling

Actress | 45 Years

Tessa Charlotte Rampling was born 5 February 1946 in Sturmer, England, to Isabel Anne (Gurteen), a painter, and Godfrey Lionel Rampling, an Olympic gold medalist, army officer, and colonel, who became a NATO commander. She was educated at Jeanne d'Arc Académie pour Jeunes Filles in Versailles, ...

50. Louise Brealey

Actress | Brian and Charles

Louise Brealey, also credited as Loo Brealey, is an English actress, writer and journalist. Born in Bozeat, Northamptonshire, England. She attended Kimbolton School, proceeding to read History at Cambridge. She then trained at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York City and with clown teacher ...

51. Yôko Tsukasa

Actress | Yôjinbô

Yôko Tsukasa was born on August 20, 1934 in Sakai-minato, Japan. She is an actress, known for Yojimbo (1961), The Kii River (1966) and Moment of Terror (1966). She has been married to Hideyuki Aizawa since 1969.

52. Esther Williams

Actress | Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Esther Jane Williams was born on August 8, 1921 in Inglewood, California. Her youth was spent as a teenage swimming champion and she won three United States National championships. She eventually was spotted by a MGM talent scout while working in a Los Angeles department store. She made her film ...

53. Emily Mortimer

Actress | Mary Poppins Returns

British actress Emily Kathleen Anne Mortimer was born in Hammersmith, London, England, to writer and barrister Sir John Mortimer and his second wife, Penelope (née Gollop). She was educated at St Paul's Girls' School in West London, and it was whilst there she began acting. Mortimer moved on from ...

54. Louise Fazenda

Actress | The Bat

When top "working girl" silent screen comedienne Mabel Normand would gripe to Mack Sennett about making classier films, Sennett's quippy retort would always be, "I'll send for Fazenda." This pretty, oval-faced, highly popular Keystone comedy cut-up put in her time first in comic two-reelers from ...

55. Estelle Winwood

Actress | The Producers

When Estelle saw the girl on a white horse at the circus, she then decided that she wanted to be an actress. And she was from the age of 5, to the disapproval of her father. Her mother had her train with the Liverpool Repertory Company, and Estelle performed in many plays and many roles in the West...

56. Sigourney Weaver

Actress | Alien Resurrection

Sigourney Weaver has created a host of memorable characters, both dramatic and comic, ranging from Ripley in Alien to Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist to Gwen/Tawny in Galaxy Quest and most recently, 14-year-old Kiri in Avatar: The Way of Water. With a career spanning over 50 years, Weaver has ...

57. Florence Turner

Actress | Far from the Madding Crowd

Widely publicized as "The Vitagraph Girl," dark-haired silent film actress Florence Turner was one of the screen's first celebrities to be called by the term "movie star." Born in New York City in 1885, she was pushed into the business at age 3 by an overzealous stage mother, performing on the ...

58. Tilda Swinton

Actress | We Need to Talk About Kevin

The iconoclastic gifts of the highly striking and ferociously talented actress Tilda Swinton have been appreciated by art house crowds and international audiences alike. After her stunning Oscar-winning turn as a high-powered corporate attorney in the George Clooney starring and critically-lauded ...

59. Mae Marsh

Actress | The Birth of a Nation

Mae Marsh's father was an auditor for the railroad who died when she was four. Her family moved to San Francisco, where her stepfather was killed in the 1906 earthquake. Her great-aunt then took Mae and her sister to Los Angeles. With her show business background, Mae's aunt took them to the ...

60. Mariko Okada

Actress | Miyamoto Musashi kanketsuhen: kettô Ganryûjima

Mariko Okada was born on January 11, 1933 in Tokyo, Japan. She is an actress and producer, known for Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island (1956), Akitsu Springs (1962) and This Year's Love (1962). She was previously married to Yoshishige Yoshida.

61. Dakota Fanning

Actress | War of the Worlds

Hannah Dakota Fanning was born on the 23rd of February 1994, in Conyers, Georgia, USA, to Heather Joy (Arrington) and Steven Fanning. Her mother played professional tennis, and her father, now an electronics salesman, played minor league baseball. She is of German, Irish, English, French, and ...

62. Betty Compson

Actress | Street Girl

A mining engineer's daughter, blond, blue-eyed Betty Compson began in show business playing the violin in a Salt Lake City vaudeville establishment for $15 a week. Following that, she went on tour, accompanied by her mother, with an act called 'The Vagabond Violinist'. Aged eighteen, she appeared ...

63. Pola Negri

Actress | Bella Donna

Pola Negri was born in Lipno, Poland, and moved to Warsaw as a child. Living in poverty with her mother, a teenage Pola auditioned and was accepted to the Imperial Ballet. Due to an illness that ended her dancing career, she soon switched to the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts and became ...

64. Dorothy Gish

Actress | Nell Gwyn

Dorothy Gish was born into a broken family where her restless father James Lee Gish was frequently absent. Mary Robinson McConnell a.k.a. Mary Gish, her mother, had entered into acting to make money to support the family. As soon as Dorothy and her sister Lillian Gish were old enough, they became ...

65. Doris Day

Soundtrack | Love Me or Leave Me

One of America's most loved actresses was born Doris Mary Kappelhoff on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Alma Sophia (Welz), a housewife, and William Joseph Kappelhoff, a music teacher and choir master. Her grandparents were all German immigrants. She had two brothers, Richard, who died ...

66. Constance Cummings

Actress | Blithe Spirit

Coming from a musical family - her mother was a concert soprano - Constance Cummings made her show business debut in 1926 in regional stock theater, and by 1928 had appeared in her first Broadway play. Her success in the theater resulted in an invitation to Hollywood, where she went 1931. Although ...

67. Rebecca Hall

Actress | Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Rebecca Hall was born in London, England, the daughter of Peter Hall, a stage director and founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Maria Ewing, an opera singer. Her father was English. Her mother, who is American, is of Dutch and African-American origin. Her parents separated when she was ...

68. Moira Shearer

Actress | The Red Shoes

Moira was born the daughter of Harold Charles King, a civil engineer, in Dunfermline, Scotland. She was educated at Dunfermline High School, Ndola in Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia) and Bearsden Academy, Scotland. She received her professional training at the Mayfair School and The Nicholas ...

69. Jewel Staite

Actress | Firefly

Born in White Rock, British Columbia, Canada, Jewel Staite spent the first three years of life living in Maui, Hawaii. She started out as a model and was recommended at the age of six to act. She won an award as best actor in "Meeting Dad," a Vancouver, British Columbia Film School short.

70. Asta Nielsen

Actress | Hamlet

Danish leading woman of German films who became one of the greatest stars of the silent era. A native of the Copenhagen suburb of Vesterbro, Nielsen was the daughter of a coppersmith and a washerwoman, both of whom died before Nielsen was fifteen. Her stage debut came as a child in the chorus of ...

71. 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 ...

72. 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 ...

73. Dorothy Malone

Actress | Written on the Wind

The blonde, sultry, dreamy-eyed beauty of Dorothy Malone, who was born Mary Maloney in Chicago on January 29, 1924, took some time before it made an impact with American film-going audiences. But once she did, she played it for all it was worth in her one chance Academy Award-winning "bad girl" ...

74. Fujiko Yamamoto

Actress | Bokutô kidan

Fujiko Yamamoto was born on December 11, 1931 in Osaka, Japan. She is an actress, known for The Twilight Story (1960), Shirasagi (1958) and A Woman's Testament (1960).

75. Jessica Tandy

Actress | Driving Miss Daisy

A beloved, twinkly blue-eyed doyenne of stage and screen, actress Jessica Tandy's career spanned nearly six and a half decades. In that span of time, she enjoyed an amazing film renaissance at age 80, something unheard of in a town that worships youth and nubile beauty. She was born Jessie Alice ...

76. Blanche Sweet

Actress | Anna Christie

Born into a family of show people, Blanche Sweet first appeared on the stage when she was 18 months old. She was a dancer by the time she was four and a talented actress by 1909 when she started work at the Biograph with D.W. Griffith. By 1910, aged 14, she was four years younger than Mary Pickford...

77. Lucia Bosè

Actress | La signora senza camelie

Lucia Bosè was born on January 28, 1931 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy. She was an actress, known for The Lady Without Camelias (1953), Death of a Cyclist (1955) and Story of a Love Affair (1950). She was married to Luis Miguel Dominguín. She died on March 23, 2020 in Segovia, Segovia, Castilla y León, ...

78. Vilma Bánky

Actress | The Son of the Sheik

Vilma Bánky appeared in Hungarian, Austrian and French movies between 1920 and 1925, the year in which Samuel Goldwyn signed her, in Budapest, to a Hollywood contract. In Hollywood she was billed as the "The Hungarian Rhapsody". In the mid and late 1920s she was Goldwyn's biggest money maker, ...

79. Dorothy Mackaill

Actress | Chickie

Dorothy Mackaill was 11 when her parents separated; she then lived with her father. A rebellious teenager, Dorothy -- who had long wanted a career in the theater -- ran away to London and finally persuaded her father to pay for her board and lessons. Her first job was in the chorus; she then ...

80. Anna Karina

Actress | Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux

Born in Denmark, she came to Paris at 18. She met Coco Chanel and Pierre Cardin and started as a top model. She met Jean-Luc Godard about a cameo in Breathless (1960), but she had to be naked and she refused to play in the movie. One year later, they wed and she became famous with the "Nouvelle ...

81. Florence La Badie

Actress | The Million Dollar Mystery

Early information on Florence La Badie is sketchy. She is thought to have been born in New York City in 1888, and was either taken away from or given up for adoption by her birth mother. Florence was adopted by a married couple named LaBadie, who legally gave the child their last name. Her adoptive...

82. Charlotte Greenwood

Actress | Oklahoma!

Charlotte Greenwood was born Frances Charlotte Greenwood on June 25, 1890, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was a sickly child and her father left the family when she was very young. Charlotte grew into a healthy, six foot tall woman. She started her career dancing in vaudeville where she became ...

83. Irene Purcell

Actress | The Man in Possession

Irene Purcell was born on August 7, 1896 in Whiting, Indiana, USA. She was an actress, known for The Man in Possession (1931), The Passionate Plumber (1932) and Just a Gigolo (1931). She was married to Herbert Fisk Johnson Jr.. She died on July 9, 1972 in Racine, Wisconsin, USA.

84. Carole Landis

Actress | I Wake Up Screaming

Carole Landis was born on New Year's Day in 1919 in Fairchild, Wisconsin, as Frances Lillian Mary Ridste. Her father, a railroad mechanic, was of Norwegian descent and her mother was Polish. Her father walked out, leaving Carole, her mother and an older brother and sister to fend for themselves.

...

85. Masako Motai

Actress | Soredemo boku wa yattenai

Born in Shibuya, Tokyo. A Japanese actress joined in Shasha Co.. Started acting in around 1972, created an acting band called Gekidan Sanjyumaru with Eri Watanabe in 1979. At the time she was directing, yet she began to act later on. In 1984, she played a role of a teacher in a TV drama called "...

86. Marion Leonard

Actress | What Avails the Crown

Marion Leonard was born on June 9, 1881 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. She was an actress and writer, known for What Avails the Crown (1912), The Seed of the Fathers (1913) and The Voice of the Millions (1912). She was married to Stanner E.V. Taylor. She died on January 9, 1956 in Woodland Hills, Los ...

87. Niamh Cusack

Actress | Hereafter

The daughter of actors Cyril Cusack and Maureen Cusack, she along with her two brothers and two sisters were raised in Dalkey, a seaside village south of Dublin, Ireland. She is an actress known for Hereafter (2010), In Love with Alma Cogan (2012) and Paris by Night (1988). She won a scholarship to...

88. Alice Joyce

Actress | Beau Geste

Having worked as a telephone operator at age 13 and a fashion model afterwards, Alice Joyce joined the Kalem film company at 20, making her debut in The Deacon's Daughter (1910), and achieved popularity as a charming, proper leading lady in many shorts. After Vitagraph bought out Kalem, Joyce began ...

89. Corinne Marchand

Actress | Cléo de 5 à 7

Blonde Corrine Marchand began her career as a vocalist, singing in nightclubs, operettas and revues. In addition, she was a successful photographic model who eventually made her motion picture debut as an oriental dancer in Cadet Rousselle (1954). After several years playing minor parts, she hit ...

90. Ruth Roland

Actress | The Haunted Valley

Ruth Roland was, along with Pearl White, the queen of the early movie serials. She came from a show-business family, her father being a San Francisco theater manager and her mother a professional singer. Ruth made her acting debut at age 3-1/2, and soon became a professional actress and singer. Her...

91. Lyda Borelli

Actress | Malombra

Lyda Borelli was born on March 22, 1884 in Rivarolo Ligure, Genoa, Liguria, Italy. She was an actress, known for Malombra (1917), Satan's Rhapsody (1917) and Love Everlasting (1914). She was married to Vittorio Cini di Monselice. She died on June 1, 1959 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.

92. Helene Costello

Actress | The Fatal Warning

Some of Helene Costello's films available on video are Her Crowning Glory (1911), Lulu's Doctor (1912) and Lights of New York (1928), the first all-talking feature. She worked for a time as a reader for 20th Century Fox in the early 1940s. Miss Costello died on January 26, 1957, in California's ...

93. Kyôko Kishida

Actress | Suna no onna

Kyôko Kishida was born on April 29, 1930 in Suginami, Tokyo, Japan. She was an actress and writer, known for Woman in the Dunes (1964), An Autumn Afternoon (1962) and Ninja, a Band of Assassins (1962). She was married to Noboru Nakaya. She died on December 17, 2006 in Tokyo, Japan.

94. Pina Menichelli

Actress | La dama de Chez Maxim's

Pina Menichelli was born on January 10, 1890 in Castroreale, Sicily, Italy. She was an actress, known for La dama de Chez Maxim's (1923), Il fuoco (la favilla - la vampa - la cenere) (1916) and The Rival Actresses (1913). She died on August 29, 1984 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy.

95. Cyd Charisse

Actress | Silk Stockings

Cyd Charisse was born Tula Ellice Finklea on March 8, 1922, in Amarillo, Texas. Born to be a dancer, she spent her early childhood taking ballet lessons and joined the Ballet Russe at age 13. In 1939, she married Nico Charisse, her former dance teacher. In 1943, she appeared in her first film, ...

96. Lorena Gale

Actress | Freddy Got Fingered

Lorena Gale was born on May 9, 1958 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She was an actress, known for Freddy Got Fingered (2001), Halloween: Resurrection (2002) and The Butterfly Effect (2004). She was married to John Cooper. She died on June 21, 2009 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

97. Sakura Andô

Actress | Manbiki kazoku

With parents in the show business perhaps it is not surprising that Ando Sakura would become an actress and, moreover, also end up marrying an actor. She was born to actor/director Okuda Eiji and celebrity Kazu Ando on 18.02.1986. Her great grandfather was prime minister Tsuyoshi. Her older sister ...

98. Michelle Reis

Actress | Do lok tin si

Michelle Reis was born on June 20, 1970 in Macao [now Macao SAR, China]. She is an actress, known for Fallen Angels (1995), Wicked City (1992) and The Legend (1993). She has been married to Julian Hui since November 23, 2008. They have one child.

99. Haru Kuroki

Actress | Ôkami kodomo no Ame to Yuki

Haru Kuroki was born on March 14, 1990 in Osaka, Japan. She is an actress, known for Wolf Children (2012), The Great Passage (2013) and The Little House (2014).

100. Kayoko Kishimoto

Actress | Hana-bi

Kayoko Kishimoto was born on December 29, 1960 in Shizuoka, Japan. She is an actress, known for Fireworks (1997), Kikujiro (1999) and Island of the Evil Spirits (1981).