Favorite Actresses
by tony-r-vario | created - 24 Jan 2016 | updated - 28 Feb 2016 | Public1. Sandy Dennis
Actress | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
It would not be easy for anyone to out-do one of American theater's finest thespians, but somehow actress Sandy Dennis managed to even out-quirk the legendary Geraldine Page when it came to affecting nervous tics and offbeat mannerisms on stage and in film. She and Page had few peers when it came ...
2. Glenda Jackson
Actress | Women in Love
Few in modern British history have come as far or achieved as much from humble beginnings as Glenda Jackson did. From acclaimed actress to respected MP (Member of Parliament), she was known for her high intelligence and meticulous approach to her work. She was born to a working-class household in ...
3. Charlotte Rampling
Actress | 45 Years
Tessa Charlotte Rampling was born 5 February 1946 in Sturmer, England, to Isabel Anne (Gurteen), a painter, and Godfrey Lionel Rampling, an Olympic gold medalist, army officer, and colonel, who became a NATO commander. She was educated at Jeanne d'Arc Académie pour Jeunes Filles in Versailles, ...
4. Karen Black
Actress | Five Easy Pieces
Karen entered Northwestern University at 18 and left two years later. She studied under Lee Strasberg in New York and worked in a number of off-Broadway roles. She made a critically acclaimed debut on Broadway in 1965 in "The Playroom". Her first big film role was in You're a Big Boy Now (1966), ...
5. Piper Laurie
Actress | The Hustler
Piper Laurie was a three-time Oscar nominee, nominated by BAFTA as well as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for best performance by an actress in 'The Hustler' with Paul Newman.
Laurie was born Rosetta Jacobs in Detroit, Michigan, to Charlotte Sadie (Alperin) and Alfred Jacobs, a ...
6. Shelley Duvall
Actress | The Shining
Shelley Alexis Duvall was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the first child to Bobbie Ruth (Massengale, 1929-2020), a real estate broker, and Robert Richardson Duvall (1919-1994), a lawyer. At the time of her birth, her mother was visiting her grandmother in Fort Worth, though Duvall was raised in Houston...
7. Sissy Spacek
Actress | In the Bedroom
As a kid, Sissy Spacek climbed trees, rode horses, swam, and played in the woods. She was born Mary Elizabeth Spacek on December 25, 1949, in Quitman, Texas, to Virginia Frances (Spilman) and Edwin Arnold Spacek, Sr., a county agricultural agent. Her father's family was of Czech and German origin.
...
8. Dianne Wiest
Actress | The Birdcage
One of three children (she has two brothers, Greg and Don), Dianne Wiest was born in Kansas City, Missouri, USA on 28 March 1946. Her original ambition was to be a ballerina, but she was bitten by acting bug after some stage work, most notably playing Desdemona to James Earl Jones' Othello on ...
9. Eileen Brennan
Actress | Clue
A supremely gifted, versatile player who could reach dramatic depths, as exemplified in her weary-eyed, good-hearted waitress in The Last Picture Show (1971), or comedy heights, as in her sadistic drill captain in Private Benjamin (1980), Eileen Brennan managed to transition from lovely Broadway ...
10. Ellen Burstyn
Actress | Requiem for a Dream
Ellen Burstyn was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Correine Marie (Hamel) and John Austin Gillooly. She is of Irish, French/French-Canadian, Pennsylvania Dutch (German), and Native American ancestry.. She worked a number of jobs before she became an actress. At 14, she was a short-order cook at a ...
11. Susan Tyrrell
Actress | Cry-Baby
A bizarre, gloriously one-of-a-kind Hollywood gypsy and self-affirmed outcast, San Francisco-born actress Susan Tyrrell (born Susan Jillian Creamer) was a teenager when she made her stage debut in "Time Out for Ginger" in 1962. A product of the entertainment industry, her father was a top agent at ...
12. Frances Conroy
Actress | Six Feet Under
Award-winning stage actress Frances Conroy was introduced and encouraged by her parents to explore the elements of theater. Born Frances Hardman Conroy in Monroe, Georgia, she attended high school in Long Island and experienced classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse as a teenager. The pale, ...
13. Frances McDormand
Actress | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Frances Louise McDormand was born on June 23, 1957, in Gibson City, Illinois. She was adopted by Canadian-born parents Noreen Eloise (Nickleson), a nurse from Ontario, and Rev. Vernon Weir McDormand, a Disciples of Christ minister from Nova Scotia, who raised her in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. She ...
14. Anjelica Huston
Actress | The Grifters
Anjelica Huston was born on July 8, 1951 to director and actor John Huston and Russian prima ballerina Enrica 'Ricki' Soma. Huston spent most of her childhood overseas, in Ireland and England, and in 1968 first dipped her toe into the world of show business, taking on the lead role of her father's ...
15. Glenn Close
Actress | Fatal Attraction
Eight time Academy Award-nominated actress Glenn Close was born and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. She is the daughter of Elizabeth Mary H. "Bettine" (Moore) and William Taliaferro Close (William Close), a prominent doctor. Both of her parents were from upper-class families.
Glenn was a noted ...
16. Judith Light
Actress | Who's the Boss?
Tony Award and Emmy Award winner Judith Light made her professional stage debut in 1970 and made her Broadway debut in the 1975 revival of A Doll's House starring Liv Ullmann and Sam Waterston. She made her television breakthrough in the daytime soap opera One Life to Live (1968). She assumed the ...
17. Gena Rowlands
Actress | The Notebook
Virginia Cathryn "Gena" Rowlands is an American film, stage, and television actress, whose career in the entertainment industry has spanned over six decades. A four-time Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner, she is known for her collaborations with her late actor-director husband John Cassavetes ...
18. 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 ...
19. Gillian Anderson
Actress | The X Files
Gillian Anderson was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Rosemary Alyce (Lane), a computer analyst, and Homer Edward Anderson III, who owned a film post-production company. Gillian started her career as a member of an amateur actor group while at high school. In 1987, her love of the theatre took her to ...
20. Elizabeth McGovern
Actress | Ordinary People
Daughter of a law professor at Northwestern University, she moved with her family to Los Angeles when he transferred to the University of California at Los Angeles (U.C.L.A.). She began acting in school plays at North Hollywood High, graduated from The Oakwood School and then continued her stage ...
21. 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 ...
22. Diane Keaton
Actress | Annie Hall
Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Deanne (Keaton), an amateur photographer, and John Newton Ignatius "Jack" Hall, a civil engineer and real estate broker. She studied Drama at Santa Ana College, before dropping out in favor of the Neighborhood Playhouse in New ...
23. Lili Taylor
Actress | American Crime
Lili Taylor is a well-known and successful American actress. She acts in film, TV and stage. She was born in Glencoe, Illinois, to Marie (Lecour) and George Park Taylor, an artist and hardware store operator. Lili graduated from New Trier High School in 1985. Then, she attended the Theatre School ...
24. Stockard Channing
Actress | Practical Magic
One of Broadway and Hollywood's perennial and cleverer talents who tends to shine a smart, cynical light on her surroundings, Stockard Channing was born Susan Williams Antonia Stockard on February 13, 1944 in New York City to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother of Irish descent. Her parents ...
25. Lois Smith
Actress | Minority Report
Lois Smith was born on November 3, 1930 in Topeka, Kansas, USA. She is an actress, known for Minority Report (2002), Lady Bird (2017) and Twister (1996). She was previously married to Wesley Dale Smith.
26. Madeline Kahn
Actress | Paper Moon
Madeline Kahn was born Madeline Gail Wolfson of Russian Jewish descent on September 29, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts, to Freda Goldberg (later known as Paula Kahn), who was still in her teens, and Bernard B. Wolfson, a garment manufacturer. She began her acting career in high school and went on to...
27. Marianne Faithfull
Actress | Marie Antoinette
Daughter of Eva, the Baroness Erisso, and Major Glynn Faithfull, a WWII British spy. Recorded the first song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, "As Tears Go By" (1964). Involved in a major drug scandal with Jagger, Richards, and others, which ultimately turned public opinion favorably ...
28. Melinda Dillon
Actress | Magnolia
Melinda Dillon came to prominence with the role of Jillian Guiler, a mother whose child is abducted by aliens in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Dillon's performance in the film earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. A few years later, Dillon ...
29. Blythe Danner
Actress | Meet the Parents
Blythe Danner was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Katharine (Kile) and Harry Earl Danner, a bank executive. She has German, as well as English and Irish, ancestry. Danner studied acting and got her degree from Bard College and began her career in Boston theater companies. By 25, she won the ...
30. Mercedes Ruehl
Actress | The Fisher King
Ruehl received her first Academy Award nomination and win for her performance as Anne Napolitano, the emotionally driven girlfriend to fallen radio personality, (played by Jeff Bridges), in Terry Gilliam's masterpiece, The Fisher King (1991). In addition to an Oscar, and a Golden Globe, Ruehl's ...
31. Parker Posey
Actress | Scream 3
Parker Posey was born two months premature in Baltimore, Maryland, to Lynda (Patton) and Chris Posey. The family moved to Monroe, La. and then Laurel, Mississippi, where Chris became owner of Laurel's own Posey Chevrolet. Parker attended high school at R. H. Watkins High School in Laurel, and ...
32. Patricia Clarkson
Actress | The Station Agent
This remarkable, one-of-a-kind actress has, since the early 1990s, intrigued film and TV audiences with her glowing, yet careworn eccentricity and old world-styled glamour. Very much in demand these days as a character player, Patricia Clarkson nevertheless continues to avoid the temptation of ...
33. Ruth Gordon
Actress | Rosemary's Baby
When Ruth Gordon convinced her father, a sea captain, to let her pursue acting she came to New York and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She acted in a few silents made at Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 1915. She made her Broadway debut in "Peter Pan" as Nibs the same year. The next 20 ...
34. Sally Kellerman
Actress | MASH
Sally Kellerman arrived quite young on the late 1950s film and television scene with a fresh and distinctively weird, misfit presence. It is this same uniqueness that continued to make her such an attractively offbeat performer. The willowy, swan-necked, flaxen-haired actress shot to film comedy ...
35. Shelley Winters
Actress | The Poseidon Adventure
Shelley Winters was born Shirley Schrift of very humble beginnings on August 18, 1920 (some sources list 1922) in East St. Louis, Illinois. Her mother, Rose Winter, was born in Missouri, to Austrian Jewish parents, and her father, Jonas Schrift, was an Austrian Jewish immigrant. She had one sibling...
36. Sigourney Weaver
Actress | Alien Resurrection
Sigourney Weaver has created a host of memorable characters, both dramatic and comic, ranging from Ripley in Alien to Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist to Gwen/Tawny in Galaxy Quest and most recently, 14-year-old Kiri in Avatar: The Way of Water. With a career spanning over 50 years, Weaver has ...
37. Jessica Lange
Actress | Tootsie
Jessica Lange was born in 1949, in Cloquet, Minnesota, USA, where her father worked as a traveling salesman. She obtained a scholarship to study art at the University of Minnesota, but instead went to Paris to study drama. She moved to New York, working as a model, until producer Dino De Laurentiis...
38. Kathy Bates
Actress | Misery
Multi-talented, multi-award-winning actress Kathleen (Doyle) Bates was born on June 28, 1948, and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. She is the youngest of three girls born to Bertye Kathleen (Talbot), a homemaker, and Langdon Doyle Bates, a mechanical engineer. Her grandfather was author Finis L. Bates...
39. Eileen Heckart
Actress | The Bad Seed
Versatile, award-winning character actress Eileen Heckart, with the lean, horsey face and assured, fervent gait, was born Anna Eileen Herbert on March 29, 1919, in Columbus, Ohio. An only child, she lived with her mother after her parents separated when she was 2 years old, and was eventually ...
40. Eve Arden
Actress | Our Miss Brooks
Eve Arden was born Eunice Mary Quedens in Mill Valley, California (near San Francisco), and was interested in show business from an early age. At 16, she made her stage debut after quitting school to join a stock company. After appearing in minor roles in two films under her real name, Eunice ...
41. Tracey Ullman
Actress | The Tracey Ullman Show
Tracey Ullman (born Trace Ullman) is a multiple award-winning television, stage and film actress who performs as a comedian, singer, dancer, as well as works as a screenwriter, producer, director, author, and businesswoman. She holds dual British and American citizenship.
Ullman's early appearances ...
42. Catherine O'Hara
Actress | A Mighty Wind
Canadian actress, writer, and comedian, Catherine O'Hara gained recognition as one of the original cast members on the Canadian television sketch comedy show SCTV (1976). On the series, she impersonated the likes of Lucille Ball, Tammy Faye Bakker, Gilda Radner, Katharine Hepburn, and Brooke Shields...
43. Amanda Plummer
Actress | Pulp Fiction
The daughter of Canadian actor Christopher Plummer and American actress Tammy Grimes, Amanda Plummer was born in New York City on March 23, 1957. Her breakthrough role came when she starred opposite Robin Williams in The Fisher King (1991). However, Plummer may be best remembered for her work in ...
44. Joan Cusack
Actress | In & Out
Actress Joan Cusack was born on October 11, 1962 in New York City and is the daughter of Nancy (née Carolan) and Dick Cusack. Her father was an advertising executive, writer and actor, and her mother was a mathematics teacher. Her siblings - Susie Cusack, John Cusack, Ann Cusack and Bill Cusack are...
45. Lily Tomlin
Actress | Nashville
Lily Tomlin was born September 1, 1939 in Detroit, Michigan, to Lillie Mae (Ford) and Guy Tomlin, who moved to Michigan from Paducah, Kentucky, during the Great Depression. Her mother was a nurse's aide and her father was a factory worker. She graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1957, and ...
46. Brenda Vaccaro
Actress | Midnight Cowboy
A leading lady on screen, stage and sometimes television, Brenda Vaccaro, was born in Brooklyn but was actually raised in Dallas, Texas.
Her appetite for acting increased following several appearances in high school productions, and she finally started a professional career in the 1960s. Memorable ...
47. Carol Kane
Actress | The Princess Bride
American stage, screen and television actress, and comedian Carol Kane (b. Carolyn Laurie Kane, June 18, 1952, in Cleveland, Ohio), was born to Elaine Joy (née Fetterman), a jazz singer and pianist, and Michael Myron Kane, an architect. Her family is Jewish (from Russia, Poland, and Austria). Due ...
48. Brenda Blethyn
Actress | Pride & Prejudice
After forty years of hard work on stage and both television and film, there are not many other actresses who deserved the success, recognition and stardom which Brenda Blethyn has now achieved.
Born in 1946 in Ramsgate, Kent, England, she started her career at British Rail in the 1960s. Saving money...
49. Debbie Harry
Actress | Videodrome
Deborah Harry was born Angela Trimble on July 1, 1945 in Miami, Florida. At three months, she was adopted by Catherine (Peters) and Richard Smith Harry, and was raised in Hawthorne, New Jersey. In the 1960s, she worked as a Playboy Bunny and hung out at Max's Kansas City, a famous Warhol-inhabited ...
50. Caroline Aaron
Actress | 21 Jump Street
Secondary to studying performing arts as American University in Washington, D.C., Aaron made her debut in motion pictures with a small part in Robert Altman's Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982). Since, she has built her acting career as a character actress, and continues to...
51. Mary Gross
Actress | Saturday Night Live
Mary Gross was born March 25, 1953 in Chicago, Illinois, to Virginia Ruth and William Oscar Gross. She is often associated with her run on Saturday Night Live (1975), from 1981-85, and other characters she plays on television and film including, Janis Zuckerman in Feds (1988), Annie Herman in Troop...
52. Joanna Gleason
Actress | Boogie Nights
Joanna Gleason was born in Winnipeg, Canada, moving to the U.S. in 1956. She retains dual citizenship.
Her Broadway debut was in Cy Coleman's musical. "I Love My Wife", in 1977, for which she won a Theatre World Award.
She returned to Broadway and off Broadway with "Joe Egg" in 1984, for which earned...
53. Robin Bartlett
Actress | City of Angels
Robin Bartlett is a revered stage actress who made her film and television acting debut opposite Vanessa Redgrave, Jane Alexander and Shirley Knight in Playing for Time (1980), a CBS television film written by Arthur Miller. Bartlett gave an emotionally gripping performance as one of several female...
54. Diane Salinger
Actress | Pee-wee's Big Adventure
Diane Salinger's striking features and offbeat nature make her a sought after character actress to several inventive filmmakers, particularly Tim Burton who directed Salinger at the start of her career in Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985). She played Simone, a roadside diner waitress determined to ...
55. Rutanya Alda
Actress | The Deer Hunter
Rutanya Alda was born on October 13, 1942 in Riga, Latvia. She is an actress and writer, known for The Deer Hunter (1978), Mommie Dearest (1981) and Amityville II: The Possession (1982). She was previously married to Richard Bright.
56. Diana Scarwid
Actress | What Lies Beneath
Born in Savannah, Georgia, Scarwid moved to New York at 17 to become an actress. Simultaneously, as an honors student, she graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and Pace University. She landed some small film and TV roles before her subtle performance in Inside Moves (1980) was ...
57. Susan Sarandon
Actress | Thelma & Louise
It was after the 1968 Democratic convention and there was a casting call for a film with several roles for the kind of young people who had disrupted the convention. Two recent graduates of Catholic University in Washington DC, went to the audition in New York for Joe (1970). Chris Sarandon, who ...
58. Laurie Metcalf
Actress | Lady Bird
Laurie Metcalf was born June 16, 1955 in Carbondale, Illinois, the oldest of three children of Libby (Mars), a librarian, and James Metcalf, a budget director. She was raised in Edwardsville, Illinois. Laurie attended Illinois State University, where she obtained her bachelor of arts in theater in ...
59. Dee Wallace
Actress | E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
This attractive, happy go lucky blonde actress, educated at the University of Kansas and a former ballet soloist, first broke into both TV and cinema screens in the mid 1970s and through her appearances in several well remembered horror and sci-fi films, and Dee quickly gained a cult following ...
60. Martha Plimpton
Actress | The Goonies
She has show biz in her blood. Martha Plimpton was born November 16, 1970, in New York City to two actors: Keith Carradine and Shelley Plimpton. Martha began her career at age 8, when her mom had a friend of hers, composer Elizabeth Swados, enroll her in an actors' workshop. At age 10, she got a ...
61. Estelle Parsons
Actress | Bonnie and Clyde
The charming, witty, and immeasurably talented Estelle Parsons was born November 20, 1927 in Lynn, Massachusetts, to Elinor and Eben Parsons. She attended the Oak Grove School for Girls in Maine, and later graduated from Connecticut College in 1949. She worked as a singer with a band before she ...
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