Top 400 American Actors – IMDb

Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson

1.

Gilbert M. ‘Broncho Billy’ Anderson

Director |
The Infant at Snakeville

American actor-director-writer-producer Gilbert M. Anderson, father of the movie cowboy and the first Western star, was born Maxwell Henry Aronson in Little Rock, Arkansas. His parents, Esther (Ash) and Henry Aronson, were from New York. His father was from a German Jewish family, and his mother …

Henry B. Walthall

5.

Henry B. Walthall

Actor |
London After Midnight

Henry B. Walthall was a respected stage actor who became a favorite of pioneering film director D.W. Griffith. Born in 1878 in Alabama, Walthall embarked on a law career but quit law school in 1898 to enlist in the US Army in order to fight in the Spanish-American War. Returning from the war he …

Robert Harron

6.

Robert Harron

Actor |
Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages

Today screen actor Robert (Bobby) Harron is one of Hollywood’s forgotten souls, although he was a huge celebrity in his time and graced some of the silent screen’s most enduring masterpieces. A talented, charismatic star in his heyday, Bobby had everything going for him but died far too young to …

Richard Barthelmess

8.

Richard Barthelmess

Actor |
Only Angels Have Wings

Richard Barthelmess was born into a theatrical family in which his mother was an actress. While attending Trinity College in Connecticut, he began appearing in stage productions. While on vacation in 1916, a friend of his mother, actress Alla Nazimova, offered him a part in War Brides (1916), and …

Douglas Fairbanks

9.

Douglas Fairbanks

Actor |
Robin Hood

Douglas Fairbanks was born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman in Denver, Colorado, to Ella Adelaide (nee Marsh) and Hezekiah Charles Ullman, an attorney and native of Pennsylvania, who was a captain for the Union forces during the Civil War. Fairbanks’ paternal grandparents were German Jewish immigrants, …

Joseph Schildkraut

10.

Joseph Schildkraut

Actor |
The Shop Around the Corner

An imposing Austrian import-turned-matinée idol on the silent screen, Hollywood actor Joseph Schildkraut went on to conquer talking films as well — with Oscar-winning results. Inclined towards smooth, cunning villainy, his Oscar came instead for his sympathetic portrayal of Captain Alfred Dreyfus …

An Austrian-American actor

Edward F. Cline

11.

Edward F. Cline

Director |
The Boat

Edward “Eddie” Cline began his career in the film business as one of the Keystone Kops. The former vaudevillian appeared sporadically in films as an actor until 1922, but became increasingly active behind the camera as a gagman and scenario writer for Mack Sennett. From 1916 he worked on a steady …

Jackie Coogan

12.

Jackie Coogan

Actor |
Oliver Twist

Jackie Coogan was born into a family of vaudevillians; his father was a dancer and his mother had been a child star. On the stage by age 4, Jackie was touring at age 5 with his family in Los Angeles, California.

While performing on the stage, he was spotted by Charles Chaplin, who then and there …

Joe Roberts

14.

Joe Roberts

Actor |
Our Hospitality

Joe Roberts was born on February 2, 1871 in Albany, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Our Hospitality (1923), The Primitive Lover (1922) and Three Ages (1923). He was previously married to Lillian Stuart Feld Roberts and Nina Mildred Straw Shannon. He died on October 28, 1923 in Los Angeles…

Buster Keaton

15.

Buster Keaton

Actor |
The General

Joseph Frank Keaton was born on October 4, 1895 in Piqua, Kansas, to Joe Keaton and Myra Keaton. Joe and Myra were Vaudevillian comedians with a popular, ever-changing variety act, giving Keaton an eclectic and interesting upbringing. In the earliest days on stage, they traveled with a medicine …

Joe Keaton

16.

Joe Keaton

Actor |
Sherlock Jr.

Joe Keaton and wife Myra were grade-Z vaudeville performers in the early 1900s. Their son Buster joined the act when he was only a few months old. The act was a rough-and-tumble one, with Buster being thrown around on stage most of the time. As the years went by, Joe Keaton became an alcoholic, …

Jean Hersholt

18.

Jean Hersholt

Actor |
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg

If ever there was a Great Dane in Hollywood it was Jean Hersholt – and one of its great hearts as well. He was from a well-known Danish stage and entertainment family that had toured throughout Europe performing with young Jean as an essential cast member. He graduated from the Copenhagen Art …

A Danish-American actor

Lon Chaney

20.

Lon Chaney

Actor |
He Who Gets Slapped

Although his parents were deaf, Leonidas Chaney became an actor and also owner of a theatre company (together with his brother John). He made his debut at the movies in 1912, and his filmography is vast. Lon Chaney was especially famous for his horror parts in movies like e.g. Quasimodo in The …

Mack Swain

21.

Mack Swain

Actor |
The Gold Rush

Mack Swain was born in 1876 and soon became a talented vaudevillian. In 1913 he was hired by Mack Sennett and appeared in a few Mabel Normand pictures until a year later he became even bigger when Charlie Chaplin arrived at the Keystone Studio. Swain later created a character by the name of Ambrose…

Snitz Edwards

23.

Snitz Edwards

Actor |
The Phantom of the Opera

Snitz Edwards was born Edward Neumann in Hungary. Married first wife in 1889 and was divorced some time later. Although he was almost 20 years older than his wife, Edwards married Eleanor Taylor, an actress from Boston, in 1906. They had three children, Cricket (b. 1906), Evelyn (b. 1914) and …

George O'Brien

26.

George O’Brien

Actor |
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

George was the son of the San Francisco Chief of Police who became a college athlete. He was the Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the Pacific Fleet during World War I. In the early 1920s, George wound up in Hollywood where he worked as a stuntman and part time actor. In 1924, Director John Ford …

Erich von Stroheim

27.

Erich von Stroheim

Actor |
Sunset Blvd.

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

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

An Austrian-American actor

James Murray

28.

James Murray

Actor |
The Crowd

Sometimes the early tragic death of a Hollywood actor can lead to immortality, as in the cases of icons James Dean and Marilyn Monroe–and, to a somewhat lesser extent, little Bobby Driscoll, who died a Skid Row bum in the streets, a victim of drug addiction. Not so for actor James Murray, whose …

Lew Ayres

32.

Lew Ayres

Actor |
Holiday

Lew Ayres was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and raised in San Diego, California. A college dropout, he was found by a talent scout in the Coconut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles and entered Hollywood as a bit player. He was leading man to Greta Garbo in The Kiss (1929), but it was the role of Paul …

Paul Muni

34.

Paul Muni

Actor |
Scarface

Paul Muni was born Sept. 22, 1895, in Lemberg, Austro-Hungarian Empire, to Salli and Phillip Weisenfreund, who were both professionals. His family was Jewish, and spoke Yiddish. Paul was educated in New York and Cleveland public schools. He was described as 5 feet 10 inches, with black hair and …

George Brent

35.

George Brent

Actor |
Dark Victory

The favorite leading man of star Bette Davis was born George Brendan Nolan in Ballinasloe, County Galway, Ireland (although his place of birth was also given as, variously, Raharabeg, County Roscommon and Shannonbridge, County Offaly), the youngest of five children born to John J. Nolan and Mary (…

An Irish-American actor

Wallace Ford

36.

Wallace Ford

Actor |
Freaks

A stocky, friendly-faced character actor, Ford was born Samuel Jones in England, where the brutality of his childhood rivaled anything that Charles Dickens ever dreamed up. He lived for a while in an orphanage after being separated from his parents. While still young, he was sent to a Toronto …

A British-American actor

Charles Ruggles

37.

Charles Ruggles

Actor |
Murder in the Private Car

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

Harry Earles

38.

Harry Earles

Actor |
Freaks

Harry/Kurt (stage name/real name) came over to the U.S. from Germany around 1915 with his sister, Grace/Freida. Once they arrived, they worked for a man named Earles, at which time they adopted his last name. In the early 1920s, their sister Daisy/Hilda joined them and in the mid- to late 1920s, …

Groucho Marx

39.

Groucho Marx

Actor |
A Night at the Opera

The bushy-browed, cigar-smoking wise-cracker with the painted-on moustache and stooped walk was the leader of The Marx Brothers. With one-liners that were often double entendres, Groucho never cursed in any of his performances and said he never wanted to be known as a dirty comic. With a great love…

Harpo Marx

40.

Harpo Marx

Actor |
A Night at the Opera

With poofy, curly red hair, a top hat and a horn, the lovable mute was the favorite of the Marx Brothers. Though chasing women was a favorite routine of his in the movies, Harpo was a devoted father and husband. He adopted the mute routine in vaudeville and carried it over to the films. Harpo was …

Chico Marx

41.

Chico Marx

Actor |
Duck Soup

As a kid trying to negotiate his way through various gang territories to a floating crap game or a new pool hall where he was not yet known as a hustler, Leonard (Chico) Marx learned to fake several accents. Because he later employed an Italian accent in the Marx Brothers’ act, people assumed his …

Claude Rains

42.

Claude Rains

Actor |
Casablanca

William Claude Rains, born in the Clapham area of London, was the son of the British stage actor Frederick Rains. The younger Rains followed, making his stage debut at the age of eleven in “Nell of Old Drury.” Growing up in the world of theater, he saw not only acting up close but the down-to-earth…

A British-American actor

Gene Raymond

44.

Gene Raymond

Actor |
Smartest Girl in Town

Gene Raymond was born on August 13, 1908, in New York City as Raymond Guion. He was a child performer and a Broadway veteran by the age of 12. Blond, husky, and handsome, he enjoyed his greatest popularity in the 1930s and early 1940s. His big break came in Personal Maid (1931). He was soon cast in…

Robert Armstrong

45.

Robert Armstrong

Actor |
King Kong

Robert Armstrong is familiar to old-movie buffs for his case-hardened, rapid-fire delivery in such roles as fast-talking promoters, managers, FBI agents, street cops, detectives and other such characters in scores of films–over 160–many of them at Warner Brothers, where he was part of the …

Warner Baxter

46.

Warner Baxter

Actor |
Penthouse

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

Walter Connolly

47.

Walter Connolly

Actor |
It Happened One Night

The name may have been forgotten, especially today (seven decades later), but the portly, apoplectic, exasperated figure on the 1930s screen wasn’t. While his film career, save a couple of silents, lasted a paltry seven years (1932-1939), character actor Walter Connolly certainly ran the distance. …

Fred Astaire

48.

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. …

Franchot Tone

49.

Franchot Tone

Actor |
Dangerous

President of the Dramatic Club at Cornell University, Franchot Tone gave up the family business for acting, making his Broadway debut in “The Age of Innocence”.

Tone then went into movies for MGM, making his film debut (at Paramount Pictures) in The Wiser Sex (1932). With his theatrical background, …

Edward Everett Horton

50.

Edward Everett Horton

Actor |
Arsenic and Old Lace

It seemed like Edward Everett Horton appeared in just about every Hollywood comedy made in the 1930s. He was always the perfect counterpart to the great gentlemen and protagonists of the films. Horton was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to Isabella S. (Diack) and Edward Everett Horton, a …

William Powell

51.

William Powell

Actor |
The Thin Man

William Powell was on the New York stage by 1912, but it would be ten years before his film career would begin. In 1924 he went to Paramount Pictures, where he was employed for the next seven years. During that time, he played in a number of interesting films, but stardom was elusive. He did …

Melvyn Douglas

55.

Melvyn Douglas

Actor |
Being There

Two-time Oscar-winner Melvyn Douglas was one of America’s finest actors, and would enjoy cinema immortality if for no other reason than his being the man who made Greta Garbo laugh in Ernst Lubitsch’s classic comedy Ninotchka (1939), but he was much, much more.

Melvyn Douglas was born Melvyn Edouard…

Errol Flynn

57.

Errol Flynn

Actor |
The Adventures of Robin Hood

Errol Flynn was born to parents Theodore Flynn, a respected biologist, and Marrelle Young, an adventurous young woman. Young Flynn was a rambunctious child who could be counted on to find trouble. Errol managed to have himself thrown out of every school in which he was enrolled. In his late teens …

An Australian-American actor

Clark Gable

58.

Clark Gable

Actor |
It Happened One Night

William Clark Gable was born on February 1, 1901 in Cadiz, Ohio, to Adeline (Hershelman) and William Henry Gable, an oil-well driller. He was of German, Irish, and Swiss-German descent. When he was seven months old, his mother died, and his father sent him to live with his maternal aunt and uncle …

Charles Laughton

59.

Charles Laughton

Actor |
Witness for the Prosecution

Charles Laughton was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, to Eliza (Conlon) and Robert Laughton, hotel keepers of Irish and English descent, respectively. He was educated at Stonyhurst (a highly esteemed Jesuit college in England) and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (received gold medal). …

A British-American actor.

Victor McLaglen

60.

Victor McLaglen

Actor |
The Quiet Man

Rambunctious British leading man (contrary to popular belief, he was of Scottish ancestry, not Irish) and later character actor primarily in American films, Victor McLaglen was a vital presence in a number of great motion pictures, especially those of director John Ford. McLaglen (pronounced …

A British-American actor.

Oliver Hardy

61.

Oliver Hardy

Actor |
Saps at Sea

Although his parents were never in show business, as a young boy Oliver Hardy was a gifted singer and, by age eight, was performing with minstrel shows. In 1910 he ran a movie theatre, which he preferred to studying law. In 1913 he became a comedy actor with the Lubin Company in Florida and began …

Frank Morgan

63.

Frank Morgan

Actor |
The Wizard of Oz

Jovial, somewhat flamboyant Frank Morgan (born Francis Wuppermann) will forever be remembered as the title character in The Wizard of Oz (1939), but he was a veteran and respected actor long before he played that part, and turned in outstanding performances both before and after that film. One of …

John Carradine

64.

John Carradine

Actor |
The Grapes of Wrath

John Carradine, the son of a reporter/artist and a surgeon, grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York. He attended Christ Church School and Graphic Art School, studying sculpture, and afterward roamed the South selling sketches. He made his acting debut in “Camille” in a New Orleans theatre in 1925. …

Bela Lugosi

65.

Bela Lugosi

Actor |
Dracula

Bela Lugosi was born Béla Ferenc Dezsö Blaskó on October 20, 1882, Lugos, Hungary, Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania), to Paula de Vojnich and István Blaskó, a banker. He was the youngest of four children. During WWI, he volunteered and was commissioned as an infantry lieutenant, and was wounded …

A Hungarian-American actor

Ray Bolger

66.

Ray Bolger

Actor |
The Wizard of Oz

Ray Bolger was born Raymond Wallace Bolger on January 10, 1904 in Dorchester, Massachusetts, to Anne C. (Wallace) and James Edward Bolger, both Irish-Americans. Ray began his career in vaudeville. He was half of a team called “Sanford and Bolger” and also did numerous Broadway shows on his own. …

Jack Haley

67.

Jack Haley

Actor |
The Wizard of Oz

Jack Haley was a movie and vaudeville actor who is always remembered as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (1939). The Tin Man role was originally was going to Buddy Ebsen, but due to allergic reaction from the aluminum powder makeup, Ebsen was taken out of the casting and Haley replaced him. To avoid…

Bert Lahr

68.

Bert Lahr

Actor |
The Wizard of Oz

Fittingly known to be a “Leo” for his horoscope, Bert Lahr is always remembered as the Cowardly Lion in (and the farmer “Zeke”) The Wizard of Oz (1939). But during his acting career, he has been known for being in burlesque, vaudeville, and Broadway.

Dropped out of high school at the age of fifteen …

Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

69.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

Actor |
The Rise of Catherine the Great

Although he appeared in approximately 100 movies or TV shows, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. never really intended to take up acting as a career. However, the environment he was born into and the circumstances naturally led him to be a thespian. Noblesse oblige.

He was born Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. in …

Cary Grant

70.

Cary Grant

Actor |
Charade

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 …

A British-American actor.

Raymond Massey

71.

Raymond Massey

Actor |
Arsenic and Old Lace

Educated at the University of Toronto & Balliol College, Oxford, he joined the Canadian Field Artillery in World War I, served in France & was wounded. His first appearance was in a stage production in Siberia, during the multi-nation intervention of 1918 – 1919. Raymond returned to Canada & his …

A Canadian-American actor

Gene Lockhart

72.

Gene Lockhart

Actor |
His Girl Friday

Gene Lockhart was born on July 18, 1891, in London, Ontario, Canada, the son of John Coates Lockhart and Ellen Mary (Delany) Lockhart. His father had studied singing and young Gene displayed an early interest in drama and music. Shortly after the 7-year-old danced a Highland fling in a concert …

A Canadian-American actor

Ralph Bellamy

73.

Ralph Bellamy

Actor |
His Girl Friday

Ralph Bellamy was a veteran actor who was so well-liked and respected by his peers that he was the recipient of an honorary Oscar in 1987 for his contributions to the acting profession.

Ralph Rexford Bellamy was born June 17, 1904 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Lilla Louise (Smith), originally …

Orson Welles

74.

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 …

Joel McCrea

75.

Joel McCrea

Actor |
Sullivan’s Travels

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

Walter Pidgeon

76.

Walter Pidgeon

Actor |
Forbidden Planet

Walter Pidgeon, a handsome, tall and dark-haired man, began his career studying voice at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He then did theater, mainly stage musicals. He went to Hollywood in the early 1920s, where he made silent films, including Mannequin (1926) and Sumuru (1927). …

A Canadian-American actor.

Robert Montgomery

77.

Robert Montgomery

Actor |
Night Must Fall

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

As a child, he enjoyed a …

Edward Arnold

78.

Edward Arnold

Actor |
You Can’t Take It with You

Edward Arnold was born as Gunther Edward Arnold Schneider in 1890, on the Lower East Side of New York City, the son of German immigrants, Elizabeth (Ohse) and Carl Schneider. Arnold began his acting career on the New York stage and became a film actor in 1916. A burly man with a commanding style …

James Gleason

79.

James Gleason

Actor |
Here Comes Mr. Jordan

James Gleason was born in New York City to William Gleason and Mina Crolius, who were both in the theatre. He was married to Lucile Gleason (born Lucile Webster), and had a son, Russell Gleason. As a young man James fought in the Spanish-American War. After the war he joined the stock company at …

Peter Lorre

80.

Peter Lorre

Actor |
M – Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder

Peter Lorre was born László Löwenstein in Rózsahegy in the Slovak area of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the son of Hungarian Jewish parents. He learned both Hungarian and German languages from birth, and was educated in elementary and secondary schools in the Austria-Hungary capitol Vienna, but did …

An Austrian-American actor

Mel Blanc

81.

Mel Blanc

Actor |
Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Mel Blanc, known as “The Man of Thousand Voices” is regarded as the most prolific actor to ever work in Hollywood with over a thousand screen credits. He developed and performed nearly 400 distinct character voices with precision and a uniquely expressive vocal range. The legendary specialist from …

Humphrey Bogart

82.

Humphrey Bogart

Actor |
Casablanca

Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born in New York City, New York, to Maud Humphrey, a famed magazine illustrator and suffragette, and Belmont DeForest Bogart, a moderately wealthy surgeon (who was secretly addicted to opium). Bogart was educated at Trinity School, NYC, and was sent to Phillips Academy …

Tim Holt

83.

Tim Holt

Actor |
The Magnificent Ambersons

As they say, like father, like son. Cowboy hero Tim Holt avidly followed in the boots of his famous character-actor dad, the granite-jawed Jack Holt (b. Charles John Holt), who appeared in hundreds of silents and talkies (many of them westerns) over the years. The two actually appeared together as …

Robert Stack

84.

Robert Stack

Actor |
To Be or Not to Be

“Straight Shooting” — whether skeet shooting, or portraying Eliot Ness — Robert Stack always told it like it was, and shot straight. Born in Los Angeles, California, the younger son of James Langford Stack (1860-1928), the owner of an advertising agency, and Mary Elizabeth Modini Wood (1891-1975)…

Kent Smith

85.

Kent Smith

Actor |
Cat People

He was one of Hollywood’s more interesting curiosities. Kent Smith, by most standards, had the makings of a topflight ’40s and ’50s film star–handsome, virile, personable, highly dedicated, equipped with a rich stage background–and no slouch in the talent department. For some reason all these …

Brian Donlevy

86.

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 …

Don Ameche

87.

Don Ameche

Actor |
Cocoon

Don Ameche was a versatile and popular American film actor in the 1930s and ’40s, usually as the dapper, mustached leading man. He was also popular as a radio master of ceremonies during this time. As his film popularity waned in the 1950s, he continued working in theater and some TV. His film …

Fred MacMurray

88.

Fred MacMurray

Actor |
Double Indemnity

Fred MacMurray was likely the most underrated actor of his generation. True, his earliest work is mostly dismissed as pedestrian, but no other actor working in the 1940s and 50s was able to score so supremely whenever cast against type.

Frederick Martin MacMurray was born in Kankakee, Illinois, to …

Edward G. Robinson

89.

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 …

Jack Carson

90.

Jack Carson

Actor |
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

When Jack Carson arrived in Hollywood in 1937, he found work at RKO as an extra. His first major acting role came alongside Humphrey Bogart in the romantic comedy Complot in Hollywood (1937). After a few years, he developed into a popular character actor who would be seen in a large number of …

Dan Duryea

91.

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 …

Vincent Price

92.

Vincent Price

Actor |
The Abominable Dr. Phibes

Actor, raconteur, art collector and connoisseur of haute cuisine are just some of the attributes associated with Vincent Price. He was born Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. in St. Louis, Missouri, to Marguerite Cobb “Daisy” (Wilcox) and Vincent Leonard Price, who was President of the National Candy …

Fredric March

93.

Fredric March

Actor |
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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

Dana Andrews

94.

Dana Andrews

Actor |
Laura

American leading man of the 1940s and 1950s, Dana Andrews was born Carver Dana Andrews on New Years Day 1909 on a farmstead outside Collins, Covington County, Mississippi. One of thirteen children, including fellow actor Steve Forrest, he was a son of Annis (Speed) and Charles Forrest Andrews, a …

Victor Mature

95.

Victor Mature

Actor |
Kiss of Death

American leading man Victor John Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Clara P. (Ackley) and Marcellus George Mature, a cutler and knife sharpener. His father, born Marcello Gelindo Maturi in Pinzolo, Trentino, was Italian, and his mother was of Swiss-German and German descent. Mature worked …

Lionel Barrymore

96.

Lionel Barrymore

Actor |
Key Largo

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

Robert Mitchum

97.

Robert Mitchum

Actor |
Out of the Past

Robert Mitchum was an underrated American leading man of enormous ability, who sublimated his talents beneath an air of disinterest. He was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Ann Harriet (Gunderson), a Norwegian immigrant, and James Thomas Mitchum, a shipyard/railroad worker. His father died in a …

Everett Sloane

98.

Everett Sloane

Actor |
Citizen Kane

Everett Sloane, the actor most known for playing Mr. Bernstein in Orson Welles classic Citizen Kane (1941) as a member of Welles’ Mercury Players, was born in New York, New York on October 1, 1909. Sloane was bitten by the acting bug quite early, and first went on-stage when he was seven years old….

Walter Brennan

99.

Walter Brennan

Actor |
The Westerner

In many ways the most successful and familiar character actor of American sound films and the only actor to date to win three Oscars for Best Supporting Actor, Walter Brennan attended college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, studying engineering. While in school he became interested in acting and …

Roddy McDowall

100.

Roddy McDowall

Actor |
Fright Night

Roddy McDowall was born in Herne Hill, London, England, to Winifriede Lucinda (Corcoran), an Irish-born aspiring actress, and Thomas Andrew McDowall, a merchant seaman. Roddy was enrolled in elocution courses at age five and by ten had appeared in his first film, Murder in the Family (1938), …

A British-American actor