WJG Favorite Actors
by roark183 | created - 04 Apr 2022 | updated - 15 May 2022 | PublicThis is my own list of actors and actresses, whom I eminently admire for their acting abilities and the entertainment they create. Key to entertainment quality, is that an actor optimally is very upbeat and causes the audience to feel more upbeat as a result of the performance.
I find it difficult to compare the quality of acting between male and female actors. To me it's like apples and oranges. They're just different.
I try to limit my considerations here to the actors' performance on film, but I confess that an actor's performance off camera does occasionally affect my considerations for this list.
1. Cary Grant
Actor | North by Northwest
Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant", Grant is said to have replied, "So would I."
Cary Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904 in Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, who worked in a factory. His early years in ...
It was the pairing of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in Charade that prompted me to create this list. I have to say Cary & Audrey are my favorite actors of all time. I miss both of them on film.
Cary Grant's immediate and offhand comedic ability is displayed in "His Girl Friday". Cary was able to keep that upbeat quality throughout his film career. That makes him the Number One male actor for me - His irrepressible buoyancy hasn't been duplicated.
2. Audrey Hepburn
Actress | Breakfast at Tiffany's
Audrey Hepburn was born as Audrey Kathleen Ruston on May 4, 1929 in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium. Her mother, Baroness Ella Van Heemstra, was a Dutch noblewoman, while her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, was born in Úzice, Bohemia, to English and Austrian parents.
After her parents' divorce, ...
It was the pairing of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in Charade that prompted me to create this list. I have to say Cary & Audrey are my favorite actors of all time. I miss both of them on film.
Audrey's voice was dubbed for the most part in My Fair Lady. Nevertheless, the little bit that she did sing demonstrated that she could have done very well singing the entire film.
Audrey maintained and conveyed her lighthearted feelings throughout her film career, with the lone exception - "The Children's Hour".
3. Mel Gibson
Actor | Braveheart
Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson was born January 3, 1956 in Peekskill, New York, USA, as the sixth of eleven children of Hutton Gibson, a railroad brakeman, and Anne Patricia (Reilly) Gibson (who died in December of 1990). His mother was Irish, from County Longford, while his American-born father is ...
Very versatile actor. Really great action and makes good comedy as well.
4. Julie Andrews
Actress | The Sound of Music
Julia Elizabeth Wells was born on October 1, 1935, in England. Her mother, Barbara Ward (Morris), and stepfather, both vaudeville performers, discovered her freakish but undeniably lovely four-octave singing voice and immediately got her a singing career. She performed in music halls throughout her...
Great singer & actress. I find myself singing many of her songs in my head much of the time.
5. Mitzi Gaynor
Actress | South Pacific
It is perhaps ironic that the film for which this performer is best remembered was also her musical swansong and one of her very last motion picture appearances. That was, of course, South Pacific (1958), with Mitzi Gaynor famously cast as feisty Ensign Nellie Forbush, warbling "I'm Gonna Wash That...
Very upbeat lady. Very much missed on film & stage. Great singer and dancer. Really made "South Pacific" the hit that it was.
6. 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, ...
Disappointingly didn't sing in her musicals. I'm sure she would have done as well singing, as she did dancing.
7. Fred Astaire
Actor | The Towering Inferno
Fred Astaire was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to Johanna (Geilus) and Fritz Austerlitz, a brewer. Fred entered show business at age 5. He was successful both in vaudeville and on Broadway in partnership with his sister, Adele Astaire. After Adele retired to marry in 1932, Astaire headed to Hollywood. ...
One of the three greatest male dancers in film musicals, other two being Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly. I can't rate any one of the three above the others in the quality of their dancing.
8. 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 ...
Very upbeat lady.
9. Danny Kaye
Soundtrack | The Danny Kaye Show
Danny Kaye left school at the age of 13 to work in the so-called Borscht Belt of Jewish resorts in the Catskill Mountains. It was there he learned the basics of show biz. From there he went through a series of jobs in and out of the business. In 1939, he made his Broadway debut in "Straw Hat Revue,...
10. Donald O'Connor
Actor | Singin' in the Rain
Born into a vaudeville family, O'Connor was the youthful figure cutting a rug in several Universal musicals of the 1940s. His best-known musical work is probably Singin' in the Rain (1952), in which he did an impressive dance that culminated in a series of backflips off the wall. O'Connor was also ...
Along with Fred Astair and Gene Kelly, one of the three greatest male dancers in film musicals. Really can't rate anyone of the three better than the others, but O'Connor's "Make 'Em Laugh" performance in "Singin' in the Rain" really does stand out. I've never seen anything like that from either Astair or Kelly.
11. Charlton Heston
Actor | Ben-Hur
With features chiseled in stone, and renowned for playing a long list of historical figures, particularly in Biblical epics, the tall, well-built and ruggedly handsome Charlton Heston was one of Hollywood's top leading men of his prime and remained active in front of movie cameras for over sixty ...
Heston set the standard for epic films with "Ten Commandments" and "Ben Hur".
12. Lee Marvin
Actor | Paint Your Wagon
American actor Lee Marvin was born Lamont Waltman Marvin Jr. in New York City. After leaving school aged 18, Marvin enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in August 1942. He served with the 4th Marine Division in the Pacific Theater during World War II and after being wounded in action ...
I usually think of Lee Marvin as being type cast as the ultimate tough guy, as he shows in "Point Blank". But he comes through with comedy in "Cat Ballou" and does a great job of singing in "Paint Your Wagon". Not usually thought of for his singing and comedy, but did very well.
13. Denzel Washington
Actor | Fences
Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. was born on December 28, 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York. He is the middle of three children of a beautician mother, Lennis, from Georgia, and a Pentecostal minister father, Denzel Washington, Sr., from Virginia. After graduating from high school, Denzel enrolled at ...
Denzel is one of those actors that can just be himself and that makes him entertaining.
14. Sidney Poitier
Actor | In the Heat of the Night
Sidney Poitier was a native of Cat Island, Bahamas, although born, two months prematurely, in Miami during a visit by his parents, Evelyn (Outten) and Reginald James Poitier. He grew up in poverty as the son of farmers, with his father also driving a cab in Nassau. Sidney had little formal ...
Sidney is another one of those actors that can just be himself and that makes him entertaining.
15. Barbra Streisand
Actress | Yentl
Barbra Streisand is an American singer, actress, director and producer and one of the most successful personalities in show business. She is the only person ever to receive all of the following: Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, Cable Ace, National Endowment for the Arts, and Peabody awards,...
Ms Streisand's political views are very confused and misleading. Nevertheless, her singing is unparalleled in her musicals. She adds great dry comedy to her scenes.
To my perception, she has kept her politics out of her films. So for her masterful singing and comedy, I include her on this list.
16. Sean Connery
Actor | The Rock
The tall, handsome and muscular Scottish actor Sean Connery is best known as the original actor to portray James Bond in the hugely successful movie franchise, starring in seven films between 1962 and 1983. Some believed that such a career-defining role might leave him unable to escape it, but he ...
17. Claire Forlani
Actress | Meet Joe Black
Claire Forlani was born in the United Kingdom and grew up in London. Educated at Arts Educational School, she moved to the United States with her parents Pier Luigi and Barbara Forlani when she was 19 and began starring in films.
Claire has had leading roles in such films as Meet Joe Black (1998), ...
Unforgettable performances in "Meet Joe Black" & "AntiTrust". But it was her performance in "The Pentagon Papers" that really endeared me to this lady.
It was the faithfulness she conveyed to Ellsberg that really caught my attention. She actually portrays that faithfulness in the other films as well, but Ellsberg really needed it more than characters in the other films and Claire conveyed it.
18. Walter Matthau
Actor | The Odd Couple
Walter Matthau was best known for starring in many films which included Charade (1963), The Odd Couple (1968), Grumpy Old Men (1993), and Dennis the Menace (1993). He often worked with Jack Lemmon and the two were Hollywood's craziest stars.
He was born Walter Jake Matthow in New York City, New York...
Walter Matthau's dry humor is top notch. It comes so natural to him, that it seems he can't help but show his dry humor in about every one of his films.
19. Clint Eastwood
Actor | Million Dollar Baby
Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margaret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took ...
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