Born Before 1940 (Most Beautiful Women)
by cairn11 | created - 17 Mar 2022 | updated - 7 hours ago | Public
1. Ursula Andress
Actress | Dr. No
The quintessential jet-set Euro starlet, Ursula Andress was born in the Swiss canton of Berne on March 19, 1936, one of six children in a strict German Protestant family. Although often seeming icily aloof, a restless streak early demonstrated itself in her personality, and she had an impetuous ...
2. Bettie Page
Actress | The Dr. Susan Block Show
Bettie Page's life was filled with cult myth, mystery and sadness. Her image captured the imagination of a generation with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality, during an era of strong sexual repression. She was the quintessential pin-up, tacked up on walls in military barracks and garages; ...
3. Gloria Grahame
Actress | In a Lonely Place
Gloria Grahame Hallward, an acting pupil of her mother (stage actress and teacher Jean Grahame), acted professionally while still in high school. In 1944 Louis B. Mayer saw her on Broadway and gave her an MGM contract under the name Gloria Grahame. Her debut in the title role of Blonde Fever (1944)...
4. Ingrid Bergman
Actress | Casablanca
Ingrid Bergman was one of the greatest actresses from Hollywood's lamented Golden Era. Her natural and unpretentious beauty and her immense acting talent made her one of the most celebrated figures in the history of American cinema. Bergman is also one of the most Oscar-awarded actresses, tied with ...
5. Jean Seberg
Actress | À bout de souffle
Jean Dorothy Seberg was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, to substitute teacher Dorothy Arline (Benson) and pharmacist Edward Waldemar Seberg. Her father was of Swedish descent and her mother was of English and German ancestry.
One month before her 18th birthday, Jean landed the title role in Otto ...
6. Marilyn Monroe
Actress | Some Like It Hot
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, comedienne, singer, and model. Monroe is of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh descent. She became one of the world's most enduring iconic figures and is remembered both for her winsome embodiment of the Hollywood sex symbol and her tragic personal and ...
7. 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...
8. Elizabeth Allen
Actress | Donovan's Reef
Elizabeth Allen was born on January 25, 1929 in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. She was an actress, known for Donovan's Reef (1963), The Carey Treatment (1972) and The Fugitive (1963). She was married to Baron Karl von Vietinghoff-Scheel. She died on September 19, 2006 in Fishkill, New York, USA.
9. Deborah Kerr
Actress | The King and I
Deborah Jane Trimmer was born on 30 September 1921 in Glasgow, Scotland, the daughter of Captain Arthur Kerr Trimmer. She was educated at Northumberland House, Clifton, Bristol. She first performed at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London. She subsequently performed with the Oxford ...
10. 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 ...
11. Honor Blackman
Actress | Goldfinger
One of four children, Blackman was born in London's East End, to Edith Eliza (Stokes), a homemaker, and Frederick Thomas Blackman, a statistician employed with the Civil Service. She received elocution lessons for her 16th birthday (at her own request), and later attended the Guildhall School of ...
12. Joi Lansing
Actress | Touch of Evil
Joi Lansing was born Joyce Renee Brown on April 6, 1929 in Salt Lake City, Utah. As a teen she developed early, and because of her striking good looks, she began to model and was extremely successful throughout the 1940s.
It was only natural that her physical assets eventually landed her on the ...
13. Vikki Dougan
Actress | The Tunnel of Love
Vikki Dougan was born on January 1, 1929 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress, known for The Tunnel of Love (1958), Hootenanny Hoot (1963) and The Great Man (1956).
14. 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 ...
15. Gia Scala
Actress | The Guns of Navarone
This tall, dazzling, yet reserved and sensitive foreign import was born Giovanna Scoglio in Liverpool, England but moved to Sicily with her aristocratic Sicilian father and Irish mother at three months of age. She migrated to New York at age 14 and attended Bayside (Queens) High School, graduating ...
16. Ava Gardner
Actress | The Night of the Iguana
Ava Lavina Gardner was born on December 24, 1922 in Grabtown, North Carolina, to Mary Elizabeth (née Baker) and Jonas Bailey Gardner. Born on a tobacco farm, where she got her lifelong love of earthy language and going barefoot, Ava grew up in the rural South. At age 18, her picture in the window ...
17. 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 ...
18. Luciana Paluzzi
Actress | Thunderball
Luciana Paluzzi's an Italian actress, best known for playing SPECTRE assassin ,Fiona Volpe, in the fourth James Bond film, Thunderball.
In the film, Thunderball she had auditioned for the part of the lead Bond girl, Dominetta "Domino" Petacchi, but producers cast Claudine Auger, changing the Domino ...
19. Lee Meriwether
Actress | Batman: The Movie
Today, sexy Lee Meriwether is best remembered for her roles in a few science fiction/fantasy cult productions made between 1966 and 1969. Batman: The Movie (1966), Star Trek (1966), The Time Tunnel (1966) and Land of the Giants (1968).
Firstly Batman: The Movie (1966), in which she played both evil ...
20. Brigitte Bardot
Actress | Le mépris
Brigitte Bardot was born on September 28, 1934 in Paris, France. Her father had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance, and she proved to be very adept at it. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was ...
21. Hedy Lamarr
Actress | Samson and Delilah
Hedy Lamarr, the woman many critics and fans alike regard as the most beautiful ever to appear in films, was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria. She was the daughter of Gertrud (Lichtwitz), from Budapest, and Emil Kiesler, a banker from Lemberg (now known as Lviv). Her parents were ...
22. Anita Ekberg
Actress | La dolce vita
Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg was born on September 29, 1931 in Malmo, Sweden. Growing up with seven brothers and sisters was not an adventure, but Anita's adventure began when she was elected Miss Sweden in 1950. She did not win the Miss Universe contest but she got a modeling contract in the ...
23. Jane Russell
Actress | Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell was born on June 21, 1921, in Bemidji, Minnesota. Her father was a United States Army lieutenant and her mother had been a student of drama and an actress with a traveling troupe. Once Mr. Russell was mustered out of the service, the family took up residence in ...
24. 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, ...
25. Rhonda Fleming
Actress | Out of the Past
A native-born Californian, Rhonda Fleming attended Beverly Hills public and private schools. Her father was Harold Cheverton Louis (1896-1951). Her mother, Effie Olivia Graham (1891-1985), was a famous model and actress in New York. She has a son (Kent Lane), two granddaughters (Kimberly and Kelly)...
26. Jane Greer
Actress | Out of the Past
As a baby, she was winning beauty contests; as a teenager, with good looks and an attractive contralto voice, she was singing with big bands (most notably Enric Madriguera's orchestra in Latin Club Del Rio in Washington, D.C.. She met Rudy Vallee, her first husband, on the radio where she also ...
27. 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...
28. Gina Lollobrigida
Actress | Notre-Dame de Paris
Gina Lollobrigida was born on July 4, 1927 in Subiaco, Italy. Destined to be called "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World", Gina possibly had St. Brigid as part of her surname. She was the daughter of a furniture manufacturer, and grew up in the pictorial mountain village. The young Gina did some ...
29. Yvonne De Carlo
Actress | The Ten Commandments
Yvonne De Carlo was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton on September 1, 1922 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She was three when her father abandoned the family. Her mother turned to waitressing in a restaurant to make ends meet--a rough beginning for an actress who would, one day, be one of ...
30. 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" ...
31. Elaine Stewart
Actress | The Bad and the Beautiful
Ravishing redhead Elaine Stewart came onto the film scene in the early 1950s and decorated a number of eastern and western films as well as crimers as a second-tier MGM star. Her striking, shapely beauty and "come hither" sensuality was on full display throughout the decade, often as a temptress or...
32. 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 ...
33. Elga Andersen
Actress | Ascenseur pour l'échafaud
Elga Andersen was born on February 2, 1935 in Dortmund, Germany. She was an actress and producer, known for Elevator to the Gallows (1958), Le Mans (1971) and Aux frontières du possible (1971). She was married to Peter Gimbel and Christian Girard. She died on December 7, 1994 in New York ...
34. Donna Reed
Actress | It's a Wonderful Life
Donna Reed was born in the midwestern town of Denison, Iowa, on January 27, 1921, as Donna Belle Mullenger. A small town - a population of less than 3,000 people - Denison was located by the Boyer River, and was the county seat of Crawford County. Donna grew up as a farm girl, much like many young ...
35. Teresa Wright
Actress | Shadow of a Doubt
A natural and lovely talent who was discovered for films by Samuel Goldwyn, the always likable Teresa Wright distinguished herself early on in high-caliber, Oscar-worthy form -- the only performer ever to be nominated for Oscars for her first three films. Always true to herself, she was able to ...
36. Ingrid Pitt
Actress | Where Eagles Dare
Best known as Hammer Films' most seductive female vampire of the early 1970s, the Polish-born Pitt possessed dark, alluring features and a sexy figure that made her just right for Gothic horror! Ingrid Pitt (born Ingoushka Petrov) survived World War II and became a well-known actress on the East ...
37. 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 ...
38. Mary Costa
Actress | Sleeping Beauty
American lyric soprano and actress, best known on screen as the voice of Princess Aurora in Walt Disney's animated feature Sleeping Beauty (1959). A beautiful blue-eyed blonde, Mary was born of Italian ancestry, the daughter of John and Hazel Costa. She trained at the Los Angeles Conservatory of ...
39. Martha Hyer
Actress | The Sons of Katie Elder
Martha Hyer was born on August 10, 1924 in Fort Worth, Texas. Once she finished her formal schooling, Martha played a bit role in 1946's The Locket (1946). Slowly, Martha began picking up roles with more and more substance. The best years for the beautiful actress began in 1954 when she played in ...
40. Debra Paget
Actress | The Ten Commandments
An acting career was always in the cards for Debra Paget (nee Debralee Griffin) and her siblings, coming from a show biz family and being the offspring of a "stage mother" anxious to get her kids into the movies. Paget's sister Teala Loring got her movie breaks in the 1940s, Lisa Gaye was a film ...
41. Gianna Maria Canale
Actress | Le chevalier de Pardaillan
Gianna Maria Canale was born on September 12, 1927 in Reggio di Calabria, Calabria, Italy. She was an actress, known for Clash of Steel (1962), Theodora, Slave Empress (1954) and Dead Woman's Kiss (1949). She was married to Riccardo Freda. She died on February 13, 2009 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy.
42. Jocelyn Lane
Actress | The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Jocelyn Lane is one of the most stunningly beautiful, and overlooked, actresses to grace the screen. Born Jocelyn Bolton in Austria to British parents in 1937, she was the younger sister of Mara Lane, who was considered one of the most beautiful models in the UK during the early 1950s. Either ...
43. Nanette Newman
Actress | The Stepford Wives
Prior to going to RADA she'd had a small part in 'The Rebel' with Tony Hancock but after the first day she went home in tears as she'd been made up with bright green lips and mud in her hair for her part as an extra sensualist. While she liked making the film and working with Tony she didn't enjoy ...
44. Nicole Maurey
Actress | The Day of the Triffids
This glamorous French import who was born Nicole Arlette Maurey in a Paris suburb on December 20, 1925, began studying dancing in her early career but switched to films in 1944, where she was cast in various heroine roles.
She made her French film debut with a featured role in the costume period ...
45. Marisa Mell
Actress | Diabolik
Marisa Mell was born on February 24, 1939 in Graz, Austria. She was an actress, known for Danger: Diabolik (1968), The Great Swindle (1971) and Under Siege (1980). She was married to Henri Tucci. She died on May 16, 1992 in Vienna, Austria.
46. Antonella Lualdi
Actress | Andrea Chénier
Antonella Lualdi was born on July 6, 1931 in Beirut, French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon [now Lebanon]. She was an actress, known for Andrea Chenier (1955), The Big Night (1959) and Cordier and Son: Judge and Cop (1992). She was married to Franco Interlenghi. She died on August 10, 2023 in ...
47. Haya Harareet
Actress | Ben-Hur
Born in Palestine before the inception of the Israeli state in the city of Haifa, she first distinguished herself by winning one of the first beauty contests in the nascent Israel. Haya Harareet (also spelled Hararit) made her debut in Thorold Dickinson's film Hill 24 Doesn't Answer (1955) ("Hill ...
48. Pier Angeli
Actress | Battle of the Bulge
Anna Maria Pierangeli was born June 19, 1932, in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. Anna and her twin sister, Marisa Pavan, both had their eyes on becoming film stars, since that was one of the big Italian pastimes. Anna adopted her surname and split it in half, and it was as Pier Angeli that she would ...
49. Patricia Medina
Actress | Snow White and the Three Stooges
Patricia Paz Maria Medina was born on July 19, 1919 in Liverpool, England to a Spanish father and an English mother. She began acting as a teenager in the late 1930s and worked her way up to leading roles in the mid-1940s, then left for Hollywood. Medina teamed up with British actor Louis Hayward ...
50. Dorothy Hart
Actress | Tarzan's Savage Fury
A former model, the luminously beautiful Dorothy Hart was signed to a contract by Universal Pictures after having made only one film, Columbia's Gunfighters (1947). After that she did westerns, costume dramas, prison sagas, Tarzan movies, and the cult classic I Was a Communist for the F.B.I. (1951)...
51. Constance Smith
Actress | Man in the Attic
Strikingly attractive, but troubled Irish leading lady of the 1950's, born to a struggling family in Limerick. Constance's is, perhaps, one of the more lurid and tragic tales of a promising career ending up on the skids. It began with her winning a 1946 look-alike competition in a Dublin movie ...
52. Yvonne Romain
Actress | Corridors of Blood
Yvonne Romain was born on February 17, 1938 in London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Corridors of Blood (1958), Double Trouble (1967) and The Swinger (1966). She was previously married to Leslie Bricusse.
53. Joan O'Brien
Actress | Operation Petticoat
Joan O'Brien began her show-biz career while she was in high school, on a local TV music show in California with Tennessee Ernie Ford. Soon, she was a successful singer, and made the jump to acting. In about half the films she ever made, it appeared that Joan played a nurse. Perhaps her most ...
54. Ava Norring
Actress | The Snows of Kilimanjaro
Ava Norring was born on July 25, 1929 in Bogács, Hungary. She was an actress, known for The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952). She was married to Leverett Saltonstall Miller and Fred S. Norring. She died on January 14, 2016 in Woodland Hills, California, USA.
55. Jean Chatburn
Actress | The Devil on Horseback
Jean Chatburn was born on September 11, 1914 in Hanover, Michigan, USA. She was an actress, known for The Devil on Horseback (1936), Paradise Valley (1934) and The Great Ziegfeld (1936). She was married to Dick Metz and Frank Orsatti. She died on July 18, 2007.
56. Lisa Seagram
Actress | The Beverly Hillbillies
Lisa Seagram was born on July 7, 1936 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She was an actress and director, known for The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), Paradise Pictures (1997) and Caprice (1967). She was married to Marc Fiorini and Ira Hershman. She died on February 1, 2019 in Burbank, California, USA.
57. Jacqueline Jones
Actress | The Cool Mikado
Jacqueline Jones was born on June 19, 1934 in Ealing, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for The Cool Mikado (1963), The Avengers (1961) and The Road to Hong Kong (1962). She was previously married to Erwin Leonard Cutler and Colin Warman.
58. Laurette Luez
Actress | D.O.A.
Laurette Luez was born on August 19, 1928 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. She was an actress, known for D.O.A. (1949), Prehistoric Women (1950) and Kim (1950). She was married to Robert Creel, Gregg G. Tallas and Philip Sudano. She died on September 12, 1999 in Milton, Florida, USA.
59. Lana Turner
Actress | Madame X
Lana Turner had an acting ability that belied the "Sweater Girl" image MGM thrust upon her, and even many of her directors admitted that they knew she was capable of greatness (check out The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)). Unfortunately, her private life sometimes overshadowed her professional ...
60. Laura Devon
Actress | Gunn
Gorgeous, well-endowed singer/actress Laura Devon arrived in Tinseltown during the early 1960s, but gave notice less than a decade later and retired permanently after her fourth marriage. She made only five films. Laura was categorized as one of those beautiful bouffant blondes of film and TV who ...
61. Leslie Parrish
Actress | The Manchurian Candidate
She started as a model, and in 1955 became an actress. She acted under her birth name, Marjorie Hellen, until 1959. Afterwards she was known as Leslie Parrish. She appeared in more than 100 TV shows. She is known as one of the first women producers. She's always had a passion for music. She was ...
62. Françoise Fabian
Actress | Ma nuit chez Maud
Françoise Fabian was born on May 10, 1933 in Algiers, Alger, France [now Algeria]. She is an actress and writer, known for My Night at Maud's (1969), Belle de Jour (1967) and Me, Myself and Mum (2013). She was previously married to Marcel Bozzuffi and Jacques Becker.
63. Gene Tierney
Actress | Laura
With prominent cheekbones, luminous skin and the most crystalline green eyes of her day, Gene Tierney's striking good looks helped propel her to stardom. Her best known role is the enigmatic murder victim in Laura (1944). She was also Oscar-nominated for Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Her acting ...
64. Vera Miles
Actress | The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Born in Boise City, Oklahoma, Vera Miles attended school in Pratt, Kansas and Wichita, Kansas. The patrician beauty of Miss Miles won her the title of "Miss Kansas" in 1948, leading soon to small roles in Hollywood films and television series. Fame came to the forthright, spirited Miles when she ...
65. Jeanne Crain
Actress | Pinky
Jeanne Crain was born in Barstow, California, on May 25, 1925. The daughter of a high school English teacher and his wife, Jeanne was moved to Los Angeles not long after her birth after her father got another teaching position in that city. While in junior high school, Jeanne played the lead in a ...
66. Ann Blyth
Actress | Mildred Pierce
The dark, petulant beauty of this petite American film and musical star worked to her advantage, especially in her early dramatic career. Anne Marie Blythe was born of Irish stock to Harry and Annie (nee Lynch) Blythe on August 16, 1928 in Mt. Kisco, New York. Her parents split while she was young ...
67. Joan Weldon
Actress | Them!
A blue-eyed, chestnut-haired beauty, Joan Weldon trained to be a singer, and made her professional debut as a member of the San Francisco Opera Company. While appearing with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Company, she came to the attention of Warner Brothers, who took her out of grand opera and ...
68. Vivien Leigh
Actress | A Streetcar Named Desire
If a film were made of the life of Vivien Leigh, it would open in India just before World War I, where a successful British businessman could live like a prince. In the mountains above Calcutta, a little princess is born. Because of the outbreak of World War I, she is six years old the first time ...
69. 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 ...
70. 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...
71. Michèle Mercier
Actress | Angélique, marquise des anges
For Michèle Mercier, the role of Angélique, "the Marquise of the Angels," was both a blessing and a curse. It catapulted her to almost instant stardom, rivaling Brigitte Bardot in her celebrity and popularity, but ruined her acting career. The character of Angélique made to forget the other aspects...
72. Carmen Sevilla
Actress | El techo de cristal
Born on October 6, 1930 in Seville, popular Spanish entertainer Carmen Sevilla is better regarded as a dancer and singer than for her output of films, most of them, especially her later ones, seldom testing her abilities. Starting very young, she made her movie debut in grand style with the musical...
73. Giovanna Ralli
Actress | C'eravamo tanto amati
Giovanna Ralli was born on January 2, 1935 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress and writer, known for We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974), The Mercenary (1968) and A Prostitute Serving the Public and in Compliance with the Laws of the State (1971). She was previously married to Ettore Boschi.
74. Mary Tyler Moore
Actress | Ordinary People
Mary Tyler Moore was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn, on December 29, 1936. Moore's family relocated to California when she was eight. Her childhood was troubled, due in part to her mother's alcoholism. The eldest of three siblings, she attended a Catholic high school and married upon her graduation, in...
75. Nichelle Nichols
Actress | Star Trek
Nichelle Nichols was one of 10 children born to parents Lishia and Samuel Nichols in Robbins, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. She was a singer and dancer before turning to acting and finding fame in her groundbreaking role of Lt. Nyota Uhura in the Star Trek (1966) series.
As long as she could remember,...
76. Fay Spain
Actress | The Godfather Part II
Fay Spain was was your typical B-movie drive-in bad girl - sometimes blonde, sometimes brunette, always bodacious. A tease, a taunt, and a temptress throughout most her career, Fay Spain was born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1932, as Lona May Spain to R.C. Spain and Arminta Frances Cochran. She headed ...
77. Joan Taylor
Actress | 20 Million Miles to Earth
Joan Taylor's mother, Amelia Berky, was a vaudeville singing-dancing star in the 1920s. Her father was a prop man in Hollywood during that same period, but, after Joan's birth, the family moved to Lake Forest, Illinois, where her father managed a movie theater. She developed a love of movies from ...
78. Anna Navarro
Actress | Last Action Hero
Anna Navarro was born on August 18, 1933 in Winter Park, Orange, Florida, USA. She was an actress, known for Last Action Hero (1993), Topaz (1969) and The First Deadly Sin (1980). She was married to George Pappas and Thomas F. Foley. She died on December 27, 2006 in Studio City, California, USA.
79. Joanna Moore
Actress | Touch of Evil
Armed with an entrancing whiskey-like voice that complemented her stunning, creamy blonde looks, Southern-bred beauty Joanna Moore had so much going for her when her film and TV career first took off in the late 1950s. Sadly, what began as an exciting Hollywood carnival ride would all too soon ...
80. Jan Harrison
Actress | Sea Hunt
Jan Harrison was born on December 29, 1924 in Portland, Oregon, USA. She was an actress, known for Sea Hunt (1958), Fort Bowie (1958) and Target (1958). She was married to Carl R. Bergquist and Carroll Shelby. She died in November 2014 in La Mirada, Los Angeles, California, USA.
81. Estella Blain
Actress | Im weissen Rössl
Estella Blain was born on March 30, 1930 in Paris, France. She was an actress and writer, known for The White Horse Inn (1960), Angelique and the King (1966) and Çiplaklar (1971). She was married to Demir Gorgun, Michel Bonjean and Gérard Blain. She died on January 1, 1982 in Port-Vendres, ...
82. Sally Gray
Actress | The Saint's Vacation
Lovely, statuesque actress Sally Gray, complete with husky voice and dumb blonde persona was born Constance Vera Stevens in London, England on February 14, 1915. In a career instigated by her ballerina mother, Sally began performing at age 10 in minstrel shows and was initially trained in dance and...
83. Suzy Kendall
Actress | To Sir, with Love
A doe-eyed, honey-blond actress of extraordinary beauty, Suzy Kendall was one of the most popular British actresses of the 1960s. Yet, she never really sought the spotlight and accepted fame only reluctantly. Born as Freida Harrison, her goal was actually to be a clothing designer and, in fact, she...
84. Molly Peters
Actress | Thunderball
Molly Peters was a gorgeous and voluptuous British blonde bombshell actress and model who alas only appeared in a handful of films and TV shows during her regrettably fleeting acting career in the mid 60s. Molly was born in 1942 in Walsham-le-Willows, Suffolk, England. Peters started out as a model...
85. Lee Grant
Actress | In the Heat of the Night
Academy Award-winner Lee Grant was born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal on October 31, 1925 in Manhattan, New York City, to Witia (Haskell), a teacher and model, and Abraham Rosenthal, an educator and realtor. Her father was of Romanian Jewish descent, and her mother was a Russian Jewish immigrant. Lee ...
86. María Félix
Actress | Enamorada
Doubtlessly the most famous Mexican movie star, María Félix created a larger-than-life character: herself. La Doña, as the star was known after the character of her 1943 movie Doña Bárbara, starred in 47 movies, most of them forgettable except for her presence in them. More a star than an actress, ...
87. Dana Wynter
Actress | Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The daughter of a noted surgeon, Dana Wynter was born Dagmar Winter in Berlin, Germany, and grew up in England. When she was 16 her father went to Morocco, reportedly to operate on a woman who wouldn't allow anyone else to attend her; he visited friends in Southern Rhodesia, fell in love with it ...
88. Diana Rigg
Actress | Last Night in Soho
British actress Dame Diana Rigg was born on July 20, 1938 in Doncaster, Yorkshire, England. She has had an extensive career in film and theatre, including playing the title role in "Medea", both in London and New York, for which she won the 1994 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.
Rigg made her ...
89. 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 ...
90. Joanna Barnes
Actress | Auntie Mame
Joanna Barnes was an American actress and novelist and journalist. Barnes was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She moved to Los Angeles, California soon after finishing her education, and took up a contract with Columbia Pictures. She had roles in more than twenty films and made guest appearances on ...
91. Paula Raymond
Actress | Hand of Death
American leading woman of films and television in the 1950s, whose career was hampered by injuries. Raised in San Francisco, Paula Raymond studied music, dance, and opera as a child. She made her film debut as a child by chance in Keep Smiling (1938) during a visit to Los Angeles. She remained to ...
92. Noel Neill
Actress | Superman Returns
Minnesota-born Noel Neill's ambition was to be a journalist like her father, the editor of a Minneapolis newspaper. However, she was hired by Bing Crosby to sing at the Turf Club at the race track in Del Mar, California (Crosby was one of the owners). Shortly thereafter, in 1941, she was signed to ...
93. Frances Dee
Actress | I Walked with a Zombie
Dee was born in Los Angeles, where her Army officer father was stationed, and grew up in Chicago after her father was transferred there. In 1929, he was re-assigned to L.A., and, as a lark, the 19 year old Dee began working in motion pictures as an extra. Her debut was in Words and Music (1929) ...
94. Barbara Slater
Actress | The Lady Confesses
Barbara Slater was born on December 17, 1920 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Lady Confesses (1945), Half-Wits Holiday (1947) and Monsieur Verdoux (1947). She was married to Robert Foulk and Charles "Sandy" Sims. She died on October 14, 1997 in Green Valley, ...
95. Elizabeth Taylor
Actress | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was considered one of the last, if not the last, major star to have come out of the old Hollywood studio system. She was known internationally for her beauty, especially for her violet eyes, with which she captured audiences early in her youth and kept the world hooked ...
96. Merle Oberon
Actress | Wuthering Heights
Estelle Merle Thompson was born in India on February 19, 1911 of Welsh and Ceylonese (now Sri Lankan) descent. She was educated in that country until the age of 17, when she left for London. She began her career in British films with mostly forgettable roles or bit parts. She appeared in an ...
97. Dina Merrill
Actress | BUtterfield 8
It would have been pretty difficult for willowy actress/model Dina Merrill to have pulled off playing a commoner on stage, film or TV in her day. She reeked of elegance and class. The epitome of style, poise and glamour, the New York-born socialite and celebrity was born Nedenia Marjorie Hutton on ...
98. Mara Corday
Actress | Sudden Impact
The actress was born Marilyn Watts in Santa Monica, California, 17 years before she put her foot on the bottom step of the show biz ladder, dancing in the back row of the chorus in "Earl Carroll's Revue" at the famed showman's theater-restaurant in Hollywood. Modeling for photographers led to wider...
99. Capucine
Actress | The Pink Panther
With classic patrician features and an independent, non-conformist personality, Capucine began her film debut in 1949 at the age of 21 with an appearance in the film Rendezvous in July (1949). She attended school in France and received a BA degree in foreign languages. Married for six months in her...
100. May Wynn
Actress | The Caine Mutiny
She was born Donna Lee Hickey, the daughter of a vaudevillian. At seventeen, she entered show biz as a dancer at the Copacabana and thereafter won several beauty contests, including "Miss American Legion," "Miss Miami Beach", and "Miss Fire Fighter". In January 1950, she was voted Queen of the New ...
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