Thespians much admired.

1. Toshirô Mifune

Toshiro Mifune achieved more worldwide fame than any other Japanese actor of his century. He was born in Tsingtao, China, to Japanese parents and grew up in Dalian. He did not set foot in Japan until he was 21. His father was an importer and a commercial photographer, and young Toshiro worked in ...

2. Sunnyi Melles

Actress | Der Baader Meinhof Komplex

Swiss Actress Sunnyi Melles was born in Luxembourg, Luxembourg on October 7, 1958 as Judith Szunnyi Melles to Hungarian actress Judith Melles (née Rohonczy, +2001) and Austrian conductor Carl (Károly) Melles (+2004). She was not born a princess but later (1993) married German prince Peter Prinz zu ...

3. Lars Mikkelsen

Actor | Headhunter

Lars was born in Gladsaxe near Copenhagen, Denmark as the first child of Bente Christiansen, an occupational health nurse, and Henning Mikkelsen, a bank clerk. Lars grew up in Copenhagen, where about one and a half years after him brother Mads was born, who's also an actor now. At first the family ...

4. Ida Engvoll

Actress | En man som heter Ove

Ida Engvoll was born on October 6, 1985 in Sweden. She is an actress and producer, known for A Man Called Ove (2015), Rebecka Martinsson (2017) and The Kingdom (1994).

5. Hilde Van Mieghem

Actress | De suikerpot

Hilde Van Mieghem was born on April 14, 1958 in Antwerp, Belgium. She is an actress and director, known for De suikerpot (1997), De kus (2004) and Smoorverliefd (2013).

6. Una O'Connor

Actress | Bride of Frankenstein

Delightful character actress who held her own against such acting heavyweights as Charles Laughton, Boris Karloff, Tyrone Power, Barbara Stanwyck, and Sydney Greenstreet. Often cast by studio heads as comic relief thanks to her thick Irish accent and rubber-faced expressions, most notably in ...

7. Colin Clive

Actor | Frankenstein

Who could forget Colin Clive's "It's Alive! It's Alive!" as he melted to the floor mumbling the same over and over in ecstasy after his success at animating the Monster in the first sound version of Frankenstein (1931). Film history - horror film history - but part of a short history for actor ...

8. Karl Malden

Actor | A Streetcar Named Desire

Born to a Czech mother and a Serbian father in Chicago as Mladen Sekulovich, on March 22, 1912, Karl Malden did not speak English until he was in kindergarten. After graduating from high school in the nearby steel town of Gary, Indiana, Malden worked in the industry for three years until 1934, when...

9. Lee J. Cobb

Actor | 12 Angry Men

Lee J. Cobb, one of the premier character actors in American film for three decades in the post-World War II period, was born Leo Jacoby in New York City's Lower East Side on December 8, 1911. The son of a Jewish newspaper editor, young Leo was a child prodigy in music, mastering the violin and the...

10. Henry Fonda

Actor | 12 Angry Men

This remarkable, soft-spoken American began in films as a diffident juvenile. With passing years, he matured into a star character actor who exemplified not only integrity and strength, but an ideal of the common man fighting against social injustice and oppression. He was born in Grand Island, ...

11. 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 ...

12. Paul Hurst

Actor | Gone with the Wind

An American character actor of prodigious output who also directed and wrote silent films, Paul Hurst spent much of his early work in low-budget westerns. A native of Traver, California (in the San Joaquin Valley), Hurst had first-hand knowledge of western lore, growing up surrounded by the ...

13. Marc Lawrence

Actor | The Man with the Golden Gun

American character actor who specialized in underworld types, despite a far greater range. A native of the Bronx, he participated in plays in school, then attended City College of New York. In 1930, he was accepted into Eva Le Gallienne's company, where he became friendly with another young actor, ...

14. Morris Carnovsky

Actor | Cyrano de Bergerac

Morris Carnovsky was one of the more prominent victims of the Hollywood blacklist, being named as a Communist party member by both Elia Kazan -- the most infamous of the informers who sang before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the era blacklistee Lillian Hellman called the "Scoundrel...

15. Don Beddoe

Actor | The Night of the Hunter

American character actor. Raised in New York City and Cincinnati, Ohio, Beddoe was the son of a professor at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music who happened also to be the world-famous Welsh tenor, Dan Beddoe. Although Don Beddoe intended a career in journalism, he took an interest in theatre and...

16. Philip Van Zandt

Actor | Citizen Kane

Philip Van Zandt was born on October 4, 1904 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. He was an actor, known for Citizen Kane (1941), City of Missing Girls (1941) and His Kind of Woman (1951). He died on February 15, 1958 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

17. Telly Savalas

Actor | Kojak

Of Greek descent on both sides, the son of immigrants, Savalas was a soldier during World War II, although most of his enlistment records were destroyed in a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1973. He later studied psychology at Columbia University under the ...

18. Don Rickles

Actor | Kelly's Heroes

Donald Jay Rickles was born May 8, 1926 in New York. Following the Golden Era of Hollywood, he remained active until early 2017. He got his start in night clubs, toiling for over 20 years, until 1958, when he made his film debut in Run Silent Run Deep (1958). The movie was a big hit. Afterward, ...

19. Francis L. Sullivan

Actor | Great Expectations

Francis L. Sullivan was born on January 6, 1903 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Great Expectations (1946), Night and the City (1950) and Oliver Twist (1948). He was married to Frances Joan Perkins (designer). He died on November 19, 1956 in New York City, New York, USA.

20. Robert Newton

Actor | Around the World in Eighty Days

Robert Newton was one of the great character actors -- and great characters -- of the British cinema, best remembered today for playing Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1950) and its sequel in 1954. His portrayal of Long John Silver and of Blackbeard, the Pirate (1952) created a persona that ...

21. William Bendix

Actor | Lifeboat

William Bendix was not a son of Brooklyn, New York, although because of his stereotypical "Brooklyn accent" it has been widely supposed that he was. Bendix was actually born in the Borough of Manhattan (New York City proper), in a midtown flat hard by the tracks of the long-since defunct ...

22. John Hodiak

Actor | Lifeboat

Pittsburgh-born John Hodiak was one of several up-and-coming male talents who managed to take advantage of the dearth of WWII-era superstars (MGM's Clark Gable, Van Johnson, Robert Taylor and James Stewart, among others) who were off serving their country. John's early death at age 41, however, ...

23. Tallulah Bankhead

Actress | Lifeboat

Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was born on January 31, 1902 in Huntsville, Alabama. Her father was a mover and shaker in the Democratic Party who served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from June 4, 1936, to September 16, 1940. Tallulah had been interested in acting and, at age ...

24. Henry Hull

Actor | Lifeboat

Henry Hull, the actor who created the role of Jeeter on Broadway in "Tobacco Road," was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on October 13, 1890, the son of a drama critic. Originally intending to become an engineer, Hull became an actor and made his Broadway debut in "Green Stockings" less than two weeks...

25. 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 ...

26. 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. ...

27. Edward G. Robinson

Actor | Double Indemnity

Emanuel Goldenberg arrived in the United States from Romania at age ten, and his family moved into New York's Lower East Side. He took up acting while attending City College, abandoning plans to become a rabbi or lawyer. The American Academy of Dramatic Arts awarded him a scholarship, and he began ...

28. Dick Powell

Actor | Murder, My Sweet

Few actors ever managed a complete image transition as thoroughly as did Dick Powell: in his case, from the boyish, wavy-haired crooner in musicals to rugged crime fighters in film noirs. Powell grew up in the town of Little Rock, Arkansas, one of three brothers (one of them, Howard, ended up as ...

29. Dan Duryea

Actor | Too Late for Tears

Dan Duryea was educated at Cornell University and worked in the advertising business before pursuing his career as an actor. Duryea made his Broadway debut in the play "Dead End." The critical acclaim he won for his performance as Leo Hubbard in the Broadway production of "The Little Foxes" led to ...

30. Christopher Lee

Actor | Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was perhaps the only actor of his generation to have starred in so many films and cult saga. Although most notable for personifying bloodsucking vampire, Dracula, on screen, he portrayed other varied characters on screen, most of which were villains, whether it ...

31. Ian McKellen

Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Widely regarded as one of greatest stage and screen actors both in his native Great Britain and internationally, twice nominated for the Oscar and recipient of every major theatrical award in the UK and US, Ian Murray McKellen was born on May 25, 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire, England, to Margery ...

32. Mikael Persbrandt

Actor | Hævnen

Mikael was born in Jakobsberg, Stockholm, Sweden on September 25th 1963. His interest in acting started at an early age when working as an extra in Ingmar Bergman's staging of William Shakespeare's "King Lear."

In the 1990s, Mikael starred in the immensely popular Swedish TV series, "Rederiet" ("The...

33. Machiko Kyô

Actress | Rashômon

Machiko Kyô was born on March 25, 1924 in Osaka, Japan. She was an actress, known for Rashomon (1950), The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956) and Gate of Hell (1953). She died on May 12, 2019 in Tokyo, Japan.

34. Saburô Date

Actor | Echizen take-ningyô

Saburô Date was born on March 27, 1924 in Osaka, Japan. He was an actor, known for Bamboo Doll of Echizen (1963), Nemuri Kyôshirô: Joyôken (1964) and Sansho the Bailiff (1954). He died on September 12, 1991.

35. Ayako Wakao

Actress | Seisaku no tsuma

Ayako Wakao was born on November 8, 1933 in Tokyo, Japan. She is an actress, known for Seisaku's Wife (1965), Women Are Born Twice (1961) and A Wife Confesses (1961).

36. Ganjirô Nakamura

Actor | Enjô

Ganjirô Nakamura was born on February 17, 1902 in Osaka, Japan. He was an actor, known for Conflagration (1958), Summer Clouds (1958) and Floating Weeds (1959). He died on April 13, 1983.

37. 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...

38. Shintarô Katsu

Actor | Zatôichi to yôjinbô

Shintarô Katsu was born on November 29, 1931 in Tokyo, Japan. He was an actor and director, known for Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo (1970), Kaoyaku (1971) and Zatoichi and the One-Armed Swordsman (1971). He was married to Tamao Nakamura. He died on June 21, 1997 in Kashiwa, Japan.

39. Tamao Nakamura

Actress | Echizen take-ningyô

Tamao Nakamura was born on July 12, 1939 in Kyoto, Japan. She is an actress, known for Bamboo Doll of Echizen (1963), Satan's Sword (1960) and Bonchi (1960). She was previously married to Shintarô Katsu.

40. Raizô Ichikawa

Actor | Enjô

Raizô Ichikawa was born on August 29, 1931 in Kyoto, Japan as Akio Kamezaki, at the age of 6 months was adopted by his uncle Kazo Takeuchi (kabuki actor Kudanji Ichikawa III) as Yoshio Takeuchi. Started his kabuki career in 1946 as Enzo Ichikawa II. In 1951 he was both re-adopted by Shôzô Ôta (...

41. Rentarô Mikuni

Actor | Seppuku

Rentarô Mikuni was born on January 20, 1923 in Gunma, Japan. He was an actor and director, known for Harakiri (1962), Vengeance Is Mine (1979) and Tsuribaka nisshi (1988). He died on April 14, 2013 in Inagi, Tokyo, Japan.

42. Tatsuya Nakadai

Actor | Seppuku

Japanese leading man, an important star and one of the handful of Japanese actors well known outside Japan. Nakadai was a tall handsome clerk in a Tokyo shop when director Masaki Kobayashi encountered him and cast him in The Thick-Walled Room (1956). Nakadai was subsequently cast in the lead role in...

43. Takashi Shimura

Actor | Shichinin no samurai

Japanese character actor Takashi Shimura was one of the finest film actors of the 20th century and a leading member of the "stock company" of master director Akira Kurosawa. A native of southern Japan, Shimura was a descendant of the samurai warrior class. Following university training, he founded ...

44. Bokuzen Hidari

Actor | Shichinin no samurai

Bokuzen Hidari was born on February 20, 1894 in Saitama, Japan. He was an actor, known for Seven Samurai (1954), Ikiru (1952) and The Lower Depths (1957). He died on May 26, 1971 in Tokyo, Japan.

45. Kamatari Fujiwara

Actor | Kakushi-toride no san-akunin

Kamatari Fujiwara was born on January 15, 1905 in Tokyo, Japan. He was an actor, known for The Hidden Fortress (1958), Seven Samurai (1954) and Ikiru (1952). He died on December 21, 1985 in Tokyo, Japan.

46. Seiji Miyaguchi

Actor | Shichinin no samurai

Seiji Miyaguchi was born on November 15, 1913 in Tokyo, Japan. He was an actor, known for Seven Samurai (1954), Ikiru (1952) and Throne of Blood (1957). He died on April 12, 1985.

47. Daisuke Katô

Actor | Shichinin no samurai

Daisuke Katô was born on February 18, 1911 in Tokyo, Japan. He was an actor and director, known for Seven Samurai (1954), Yojimbo (1961) and Rashomon (1950). He died on July 31, 1975 in Takasaki, Japan.

48. Pîtâ

Actor | Ran

Pîtâ was born on August 8, 1952 in Osaka, Japan. He is an actor, known for Ran (1985), Death Note: The Last Name (2006) and The Lightning Tree (2010).

49. Katsuo Nakamura

Actor | Shirikurae Magoichi

Katsuo Nakamura was born on April 23, 1938 in Tokyo, Japan. He is an actor, known for Shirikurae Magoichi (1969), Kagero-za (1981) and Love Letter (1981).

50. Keiko Kishi

Actress | Tasogare Seibei

Keiko Kishi was born on August 11, 1932 in Yokohama, Japan. She is an actress, known for The Twilight Samurai (2002), Kah-chan (2001) and Brother (1960). She was previously married to Yves Ciampi.

51. Naoko Kubo

Actress | Makai tenshô

Japanese actress born on 23rd September 1932 in Shibuya ward, Tokyo. With over 50 films in her career, she appeared mostly in "Jidaigeki" dramas for Daiei studio.

She started her career in early 50s and later became noticed for her roles in such films as Joobachi (1958), Kenpei to Yurei (1958) and ...

52. Asao Koike

Actor | Kumonosu-jô

Asao Koike was born on March 18, 1931 in Tokyo, Japan. He was an actor, known for Throne of Blood (1957), Ninja Warriors (1980) and Zatoichi in Desperation (1972). He died on March 23, 1985.

53. Minoru Chiaki

Actor | Shichinin no samurai

Japanese character actor equally adept at comic or seriously unsavory roles. Chiaki graduated from the University of Chuo with degrees in economics and commerce, but almost immediately found that his interest lay more with the theatre. In 1937, he began to study with the Shin-Tsukiji Gekidan ("The ...

54. Mikijirô Hira

Actor | Jûsan-nin no shikaku

Mikijirô Hira was born on November 21, 1933 in Hiroshima, Japan. He was an actor, known for 13 Assassins (2010), The Face of Another (1966) and Sword of the Beast (1965). He was married to Yoshiko Sakuma. He died on October 23, 2016 in Tokyo, Japan.

55. 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.

56. Eiji Okada

Actor | Hiroshima mon amour

Eiji Okada was born on June 13, 1920 in Chiba, Japan. He was an actor, known for Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), Woman in the Dunes (1964) and The Boy Detectives Club - The Iron Fiend (1957). He was married to Wasa, Aiko. He died on September 14, 1995 in Japan.

57. Masayuki Mori

Actor | Rashômon

Masayuki Mori was born on January 13, 1911 in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. He was an actor, known for Rashomon (1950), The Bad Sleep Well (1960) and The Idiot (1951). He died on October 7, 1973.

58. Jerry Orbach

Actor | Law & Order

Jerry Orbach was born in the Bronx, New York, the only child of Leon Orbach, a former vaudevillian actor, was a German Jewish immigrant, who was born in Hamburg, Germany, and Emily (nee Olexy), a radio singer, was born in Pennsylvania to immigrant Polish-Lithuanian Roman Catholic parents, Alexander...

59. Kathryn Erbe

Actress | Stir of Echoes

Kathryn Erbe was born on July 5, 1965 in Newton, Massachusetts, USA. She is an actress, known for Stir of Echoes (1999), Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001) and What About Bob? (1991). She was previously married to Terry Kinney.

60. Vincent D'Onofrio

Actor | Men in Black

Vincent Phillip D'Onofrio was born on June 30, 1959 in Brooklyn, New York, to Phyllis, a restaurant manager and server, and Gene D'Onofrio, a theatre production assistant and interior designer. He is of Italian descent and has two older sisters. He studied at the Actors Studio and the American ...

61. Rip Torn

Actor | Men in Black

Rip Torn was born Elmore Rual Torn Jr. on February 6, 1931 in Temple, Texas, the son of Thelma Mary (Spacek) and Elmore Rudolph Torn, who was an agriculturalist and economist, credited with popularizing the custom of eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day. "Rip" is a family name, taken by ...

62. Tomisaburô Wakayama

Actor | Black Rain

Tomisaburô Wakayama was born on September 1, 1929 in Tokyo, Japan. He was an actor and producer, known for Black Rain (1989), Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (1972) and Shogun Assassin (1980). He died on April 2, 1992 in Kyoto, Japan.

63. Eijirô Tôno

Actor | Tora! Tora! Tora!

Eijirô Tôno was born on September 17, 1907 in Gunma, Japan. He was an actor, known for Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), Yojimbo (1961) and An Autumn Afternoon (1962). He died on September 8, 1994.

64. Junji Shimada

Actor | Hagure keiji: Junjôha

Junji Shimada is known for Hagure keiji: Junjôha (1988), Nigai mitsu: Kieta rekôdo (2010) and Bonkura (2014).

65. Hidemi Fujita

Actress | Hagure keiji: Junjôha

Hidemi Fujita is known for Hagure keiji: Junjôha (1988).

66. Nobuko Otowa

Actress | Bokutô kidan

Nobuko Otowa was born on October 1, 1924 in Tottori, Japan. She was an actress, known for The Strange Tale of Oyuki (1992), Onibaba (1964) and Epitome (1953). She was married to Kaneto Shindô. She died on December 22, 1994.

67. Reizaburô Yamamoto

Actor | Yoidore tenshi

Reizaburô Yamamoto was born on September 15, 1902 in Tokyo, Japan. He was an actor, known for Drunken Angel (1948), Kurama Tengu (1928) and Kurama tengu ibun: Kakubei-jishi (1927). He died on September 11, 1964 in Japan.

68. Denjirô Ôkôchi

Actor | Waga seishun ni kuinashi

Denjirô Ôkôchi was born on February 5, 1898 in Iwaya-mura, Chikujo-gun, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan [now Buzen City, Fukuoka Prefecture]. He was an actor and writer, known for No Regrets for Our Youth (1946), Sanshiro Sugata (1943) and Oatsurae Jirôkichi kôshi (1931). He died on July 19, ...

69. Ken'ichi Enomoto

Actor | Tora no o wo fumu otoko-tachi

He started his career as a singer in a little theatrical company in Asakusa. After years of going from a company to another in the same Asakusa, he slowly changes his performing style until to be better known as a comedy revue actor. Finally he creates his own theatrical company in 1932. He debuted...

70. Mikio Naruse

Director | Ukigumo

Considered a major figure of Japan's 'golden age of cinema', Mikio Naruse was a filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer who directed 89 films in the period 1930 to 1967. Although Naruse's work is lesser known in the twenty-first century than those of his contemporaries Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi...

71. Terence Hill

Actor | ...altrimenti ci arrabbiamo!

Terence Hill was born as Mario Girotti on March 29, 1939 in Venice, Italy to a chemist. His mother was German, and as a child the family lived near Dresden, Saxony, Germany where they survived the Allied bombings of World War II. Italian film-maker Dino Risi discovered him at a swimming meet and he...

72. Bud Spencer

Actor | ...altrimenti ci arrabbiamo!

Bud Spencer, the popular Italian actor who starred in innumerable spaghetti Westerns and action-packed potboilers during the 1960s and 1970s, was born Carlo Pedersoli on October 31, 1929, in Naples. The first Italian to swim the 100-meter freestyle in less than a minute, Spencer competed as a ...

73. Claudia Cardinale

Actress | C'era una volta il West

Like many other female Italian film stars, Claudia Cardinale's entry into the business was by way of a beauty pageant. She was 17 years old and studying at the Centro Sperimentale in Rome when she entered a beauty contest, which resulted in her getting a succession of small film roles. Her earthy ...

74. Jason Robards

Actor | All the President's Men

Powerful and highly respected American actor Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Hope Maxine (Glanville) and stage and film star Jason Robards Sr. He had Swedish, English, Welsh, German, and Irish ancestry. Robards was raised mostly in Los Angeles. A star athlete at ...

75. Woody Strode

Actor | Spartacus

An athlete turned actor, Strode was a top-notch decathlete and a football star at UCLA. He became part of Hollywood lore after meeting director John Ford and becoming a part of the Ford "family," appearing in four Ford motion pictures. Strode also played the powerful gladiator who does battle with ...

76. Laurence Olivier

Actor | Sleuth

Laurence Olivier could speak William Shakespeare's lines as naturally as if he were "actually thinking them", said English playwright Charles Bennett, who met Olivier in 1927. Laurence Kerr Olivier was born in Dorking, Surrey, England, to Agnes Louise (Crookenden) and Gerard Kerr Olivier, a High ...

77. Michael Caine

Actor | The Dark Knight

Michael Caine was born as Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in London, to Ellen (née Burchell), a cook, and Maurice Micklewhite Sr., a fish-market porter. He had a younger brother, Stanley Caine, and an older maternal half-brother named David Burchell. He left school at age 15 and took a series of ...

78. Gregory Peck

Actor | To Kill a Mockingbird

Eldred Gregory Peck was born on April 5, 1916 in La Jolla, California, to Bernice Mae (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist and druggist in San Diego. He had Irish (from his paternal grandmother), English, and some German, ancestry. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child...

79. John Dehner

Actor | The Boys from Brazil

He had one of Hollywood's most distinctive faces and a stentorian baritone voice to match. Character actor John Dehner, was born John Forkum in Staten Island, New York, the son of a globe-trotting artist. He attended school in France and Norway, in the process learning to speak four languages ...

80. Anne Meara

Actress | Heavyweights

The incredibly gifted comedienne-actress Anne Meara is known for her comedic efforts alongside husband-comedian, Jerry Stiller; together, they were 'Stiller and Meara'; they were original members of the improvisational company, the Compass Players, which later evolved as the Second City Theater. ...

81. Jeremy Irons

Actor | Dead Ringers

British actor Jeremy Irons was born in Cowes, Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of England. He is the son of Barbara Anne Brereton (Sharpe) and Paul Dugan Irons, an accountant. Young Jeremy didn't prove very fond of figures. He visited mainland England only once a year. He wound up ...

82. Barry Foster

Actor | Frenzy

John Barry Foster's acting career began and ended on the stage. At the age of 20 he won a scholarship to the Central School of Speech and Drama where he befriended future playwright Harold Pinter. After two years training, Barry went on tour with Andrew McMaster and fellow actors Patrick Magee and ...

83. Audrey Dalton

Actress | My Cousin Rachel

Dublin-born Audrey Dalton knew right from childhood that she wanted to be an actress: She appeared in school plays and (after the family's move to London) applied to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. While Dalton was at RADA, a London-based Paramount executive saw her in a play and asked her to ...

84. Jayne Mansfield

Actress | The Girl Can't Help It

One of the leading sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s, film actress Jayne Mansfield was born Vera Jayne Palmer on April 19, 1933 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, the only child of Vera J. (nee Palmer; later Peers) and Herbert W. Palmer. Her parents were well-to-do, with her father a successful attorney ...

85. George Sanders

Actor | All About Eve

George Sanders was born of English parents in St. Petersburg, Russia. He worked in a Birmingham textile mill, in the tobacco business and as a writer in advertising. He entered show business in London as a chorus boy, going from there to cabaret, radio and theatrical understudy. His film debut, in ...

86. Tyrone Power

Actor | Witness for the Prosecution

Tyrone Power was one of the great romantic swashbuckling stars of the mid-twentieth century, and the third Tyrone Power of four in a famed acting dynasty reaching back to the eighteenth century. His great-grandfather was the first Tyrone Power (1795-1841), a famed Irish comedian. His father, known ...

87. Brian Donlevy

Actor | Beau Geste

It seems that Brian Donlevy started out life as colorfully as any character he ever played on the stage or screen. He lied about his age (he was actually 14) in 1916 so he could join the army. When Gen. John J. Pershing sent American troops to invade Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa--Mexican ...

88. Lyle Talbot

Actor | The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet

Lyle Talbot, who appeared in over 150 movies from leads in Warner Bros.' "pre-Code" pictures to countless supporting roles, and later enjoyed a steady TV career as a character actor, was born Lysle Henderson on February 8, 1902, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He grew up in a small town in Nebraska, ...

89. Akim Tamiroff

Actor | Touch of Evil

Though born in Georgia and having a Russian-sounding name, Akim Tamiroff is actually of Armenian descent. At 19 he decided to pursue acting as a career and was chosen from among 500 applicants to the Moscow Art Theater School. There he studied under the great Konstantin Stanislavski, and launched a...

90. Orson Welles

Actor | Citizen Kane

His father, Richard Head Welles, was a well-to-do inventor, his mother, Beatrice (Ives) Welles, a beautiful concert pianist; Orson Welles was gifted in many arts (magic, piano, painting) as a child. When his mother died in 1924 (when he was nine) he traveled the world with his father. He was ...

91. Joseph Cotten

Actor | The Third Man

Joseph Cheshire Cotten, Jr. was born in Petersburg, Virginia, into a well-to-do Southern family. He was the eldest of three sons born to Sally Whitworth (Willson) and Joseph Cheshire Cotten, Sr., an assistant postmaster.

Jo (as he was known) and his brothers Whit and Sam spent their summers at their...

92. S. Epatha Merkerson

Actress | Law & Order

A native of Michigan, S. Epatha Merkerson earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Wayne State University. In 1978, she moved to New York City to apply her craft on stage. Although best known since 1993 as the smart and shrewd Lieutenant Anita Van Buren on the long-running TV crime drama Law &...

93. Sam Waterston

Actor | The Killing Fields

Sam Waterston was born on November 15, 1940 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for The Killing Fields (1984), The Great Gatsby (1974) and Law & Order (1990). He has been married to Lynn Louisa Woodruff since January 26, 1976. They have three children. He was ...

94. Dann Florek

Actor | Hard Rain

Born (May 1, 1950) and raised in Flat Rock, Michigan, the son of a chiropractor, bald-domed, serious-looking Dann Harvey Florek majored in math and physics at Eastern Michigan University. A drama scholarship, however, changed his destiny and he left the college before graduating. He moved to New ...

95. Steven Hill

Actor | Law & Order

Born in Seattle, Washington, in 1922, as Solomon Krakovsky, to Russian Jewish immigrants, Hill became interested in the theater as a little boy. After graduation from high school, he served in the Naval Reserve (1940-44). From there, he worked alongside a young, unknown star Marlon Brando in "A ...

96. David Janssen

Actor | The Green Berets

David Janssen was born David Harold Meyer in 1931 in Naponee, Nebraska, to Berniece Mae (Graf) and Harold Edward Meyer, a banker. He was of German, and some Swiss-German and Ulster-Scots, descent. David took the surname of his stepfather, Eugene Janssen. The Janssen family settled in Hollywood when...

97. William Conrad

Actor | Cannon

William Conrad became a television star relatively late in his career. In fact, the former Army Air Corps World War II fighter pilot began his screen career playing heavies. He was Max, one of The Killers (1946) hired to finish off Burt Lancaster in his dingy lodgings. He was the corrupt state ...

98. Barry Morse

Actor | Whoops Apocalypse

Born in London's East End, Barry's career began when he won a full scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the age of 15. Upon graduation, he followed with successful stage runs in London's West End and in theatrical productions throughout the United Kingdom, and appeared on the BBC's ...

99. Paul Birch

Actor | Queen of Outer Space

Paul Birch, born Paul Lowery Smith in Atmore, Alabama, was a stocky and barrel-chested actor, gifted with a resonant baritone speaking voice. Birch was a veteran of 39 movies, 50 stage dramas and an untold number of television shows, including the Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951). He entered motion ...

100. Richard Anderson

Actor | Paths of Glory

Richard Anderson appeared in high school plays, served a hitch in the Army and, upon his discharge, began doing summer stock, radio work, a movie bit part (a wounded soldier in Twelve O'Clock High (1949)) and all the other minor jobs required of your basic struggling actor. He did comedy scenes on a...