best actors/actresses in Agatha Christie-movies
by wandracsektamas | created - 30 Mar 2012 | updated - 15 Jun 2014 | Public
1. David Suchet
Actor | Executive Decision
Widely regarded as one of England's finest stage, screen and TV actors, David Suchet's international reputation has only grown over the years, greatly enhanced by his definitive interpretation of Agatha Christie's suave Belgian super-sleuth Hercule Poirot, a character he played for nearly 25 years ...
Poirot TV-series: 1989-2013
2. Joan Hickson
Actress | Miss Marple: Nemesis
Joan Hickson was born in 1906 at Kingsthorpe, Northampton. Her stage career began with provincial theater in 1927, going on to a long series of West End comedies, usually playing the part of a confused or eccentric middle-age woman. She performed at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, at the time ...
Miss Marple: 1984-92
3. Angela Lansbury
Actress | The Manchurian Candidate
Angela Lansbury was born in 1925 into a prominent family of the upper middle class living in the Regent's Park neighborhood of London. Her father was socialist politician Edgar Isaac Lansbury (1887-1935), a member of both the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Labour Party. Edgar ...
Death on the Nile, The Mirror crack'd
4. Lauren Bacall
Actress | To Have and Have Not
Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924, in New York City. She was the daughter of Natalie Weinstein-Bacal, a Romanian Jewish immigrant, and William Perske, who was born in New Jersey, to Polish Jewish parents. Her family was middle-class, with her father working as a ...
Murder on the Orient Express, Appointment with Death
5. Maggie Smith
Actress | Gosford Park
One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her Scottish mother, Margaret (Hutton), worked as a secretary, and her English father, Nathaniel Smith, was a teacher at Oxford University. Smith has been married twice: to actor ...
Death on the Nile, Evil under the Sun
6. 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 ...
Murder on the Orient Express
7. Bette Davis
Actress | All About Eve
Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born April 5, 1908, in Lowell, Massachusetts, to Ruth Augusta (Favor) and Harlow Morrell Davis, a patent attorney. Her parents divorced when she was 10. She and her sister were raised by their mother. Her early interest was dance. To Bette, dancers led a glamorous life, but...
Death on the Nile, Murder with Mirrors
8. Mia Farrow
Actress | Rosemary's Baby
Mia Farrow is the daughter of the director John Farrow and the actress and Tarzan-girl Maureen O'Sullivan. She debuted at the movies in 1959 in very small roles. She was noticed for the first time in the film Rosemary's Baby (1968) by Roman Polanski. She showed her talent also on TV and at the ...
Murder on the Orient Express
9. Peter Ustinov
Actor | Spartacus
Peter Ustinov was a two-time Academy Award-winning film actor, director, writer, journalist and raconteur. He wrote and directed many acclaimed stage plays and led numerous international theatrical productions.
He was born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinow on April 16, 1921 in Swiss Cottage, ...
Hercule Poirot: 1977-89
10. Philip Jackson
Actor | Brassed Off
Philip Jackson was born on June 18, 1948 in Retford, Nottinghamshire, England, UK. He is an actor, known for Brassed Off (1996), The Best Offer (2013) and Scum (1979). He is married to Sally Baxter. They have two children.
Poirot TV-series: inspector Japp
11. Zoë Wanamaker
Actress | My Week with Marilyn
Zoë Wanamaker is an American expatriate actress, who has spend most of her career in the United Kingdom. She has worked extensively in the theatre. She has been nominated for 9 Laurence Olivier Awards, wining twice. She has also been nominated for 4 Tony Awards, without ever winning. In television,...
Poirot Tv-series: mrs. Ariadne Oliver
12. Pauline Moran
Actress | Poirot
Pauline Moran was born in 1947 in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Poirot (1989), Nicholas Nickleby (1977) and The Cleopatras (1983).
Poirot TV-series: miss Lemon
13. Marlene Dietrich
Soundtrack | Witness for the Prosecution
Her father was a police lieutenant and imbued in her a military attitude to life. Marlene was known in school for her "bedroom eyes" and her first affairs were at this stage in her life - a professor at the school was terminated. She entered the cabaret scene in 1920s Germany, first as a spectator ...
Witness for the Prosecution
14. Albert Finney
Actor | Murder on the Orient Express
The son of a Lancashire bookmaker, Albert Finney came to motion pictures via the theatre. In 1956, he won a scholarship to RADA where his fellow alumni included Peter O'Toole and Alan Bates. He joined the Birmingham Repertory where he excelled in plays by William Shakespeare. A member of the Royal ...
Murder on the Orient Express
15. Faye Dunaway
Actress | Bonnie and Clyde
An icy, elegant blonde with a knack for playing complex and strong-willed female leads, enormously popular actress Faye Dunaway starred in several films which defined what many would come to call Hollywood's "second Golden Age." During her tenure at the top of the box office, she was a more than ...
Thirteen at Dinner, Ordeal by Innocence
16. 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 ...
The Mirror crack'd
17. 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). ...
Witness for the Prosecution
18. Julia McKenzie
Actress | Notes on a Scandal
Julia McKenzie was born on February 17, 1941 in Enfield, Middlesex, England, UK. She is an actress and writer, known for Notes on a Scandal (2006), Bright Young Things (2003) and Cranford (2007). She was previously married to Jerry Harte.
Miss Marple: 2009-2012
19. Vanessa Redgrave
Actress | Coriolanus
On January 30, 1937, renowned theatre actor Michael Redgrave was performing in a production of Hamlet in London. During the curtain call, the show's lead, Laurence Olivier, announced to the audience: "tonight a great actress was born". This was in reference to his co-star's newborn daughter, ...
Murder on the Orient Express
20. Sinéad Cusack
Actress | V for Vendetta
Sinéad Cusack was born on February 18, 1948 in Dalkey, Ireland. She is an actress, known for V for Vendetta (2005), Eastern Promises (2007) and Stealing Beauty (1996). She has been married to Jeremy Irons since March 28, 1978. They have two children.
Poirot: Deadman's Folly
21. Michael Fassbender
Actor | Shame
Michael Fassbender is an Irish actor who was born in Heidelberg, Germany, to a German father, Josef, and an Irish mother, Adele (originally from Larne, County Antrim, in Northern Ireland). Michael was raised in the town of Killarney, Co. Kerry, in south-west Ireland, where his family moved to when ...
Poirot: After the funeral
22. Caroline Blakiston
Actress | Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi
Incisive, classically-trained English stage and screen actress, latterly often seen on TV as imperious titled ladies or dowagers. She was born Caroline Georgiana Blakiston in Chelsea, London, the daughter of archivist Hugh Noel Blakiston (1905-1984) and non-fiction author Rachel Georgiana Russell (...
BBC's Marple: At Bertrams Poirot: Elephants can remember
23. Judy Parfitt
Actress | Girl with a Pearl Earring
Of regal bearing and imposing stance, flame-haired British classical actress Judy Parfitt is the possessor of the chilliest blue orbs in all of London and has used them to her advantage over the years with her clever portrayals of haughty, bossy, imperious, deliciously malevolent patricians. Born ...
Poirot: Death on the Nile Marple: Greenshaw's Folly
24. Shirley Henderson
Actress | 24 Hour Party People
Shirley Henderson was the eldest of three sisters born into a working-class family in the village of Kincardine in Fife, Scotland. As a teenager she sang locally and performed in school drama clubs. Her first break came when she watched a singer on the Opportunity Knocks (1956) TV talent program ...
Marple: Murder is easy
25. Geraldine McEwan
Actress | The Magdalene Sisters
Geraldine McEwan was born in Old Windsor, England and made her theatre debut at the age of 14 at the Theatre Royal in Windsor. By the age of 18 she was starring in London's West End in several long-running popular productions. During the 1950s she acted with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in ...
Miss Marple: 2004-2007
26. Hugh Fraser
Animation_department | Lady and the Tramp
Hugh Fraser was born on August 15, 1904 in Butte, Montana, USA. He is known for Lady and the Tramp (1955), Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Dumbo (1941). He was married to Mary Ann White. He died on January 6, 1994 in Walnut Creek, California, USA.
Poirot TV-series: captain Hastings
27. Geraldine Chaplin
Actress | Hable con ella
Geraldine Leigh Chaplin was born in Santa Monica, California, to Oona Chaplin (née O'Neill) and legendary entertainer Charles Chaplin (A.K.A. Charlie Chaplin). She is a granddaughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill and a great-granddaughter of stage actor James O'Neill. She attended the Royal Ballet ...
The Mirror crack'd Marple: Sleeping Murder
28. Joanna Lumley
Actress | Absolutely Fabulous
Joanna Lumley was born on 1 May, 1946 in Kashmir, India, to British parents, Thya Beatrice Rose (Weir) and James Rutherford Lumley. Her father was a major in the Gurkha Rifles, and she spent most of her early childhood in the Far East where her father was posted.
An aspiring actress, she first came ...
Marple TV-series: Mrs. Dolly Bantry
29. Bill Nighy
Actor | Love Actually
Bill Nighy is an award-winning British character actor. He was born William Francis Nighy on December 12, 1949 in Caterham, Surrey, England, to Catherine Josephine (Whittaker), a psychiatric nurse from Glasgow, and Alfred Martin Nighy, who was English-born and managed a garage in Croydon.
At school,...
Thirteen at Dinner
30. Margaret Rutherford
Actress | The V.I.P.s
Rare is the reference to Margaret Rutherford that doesn't characterize her as either jut-chinned, eccentric, or both. The combination of those most mundane of attributes has led some to suggest that she was made for the role of Agatha Christie's indomitable sleuth, Jane Marple, whom Rutherford ...
Miss Marple: 1961-64
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