"Amazing Beauties of the 20th Century"
by peculiar-1 | created - 28 Mar 2015 | updated - 1 month ago | Public
1. 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 ...
2. Mae West
Actress | She Done Him Wrong
Mae West was born August 17, 1893 in Brooklyn, New York, to "Battling Jack" West and Matilda Doelger. She began her career as a child star in vaudeville, and later went on to write her own plays, including "SEX", for which she was arrested. Though her first movie role, at age 40, was a small part ...
3. Marion Davies
Actress | Little Old New York
Marion Davies was one of the great comedic actresses of the silent era and into the 1930s.
Marion Cecelia Douras was born in the borough of Brooklyn, New York on January 3, 1897, the daughter of Rose (Reilly) and Bernard J. Douras, a lawyer and judge. Her parents were both of Irish descent. Marion ...
4. Alida Valli
Actress | The Third Man
Enigmatic, dark-haired foreign import Alida Valli was dubbed "The Next Garbo" but didn't live up to postwar expectations despite her cool, patrician beauty, remote allure and significant talent. Born in Pola, Italy (now Croatia), on May 3, 1921, the daughter of a Tridentine journalist and professor...
5. 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 ...
6. Frances Farmer
Actress | Flowing Gold
Born in Seattle, Frances Farmer studied drama at the University of Washington, Seattle. In 1935, she went to Hollywood where she secured a seven-year contract with Paramount. In 1943, she was wrongfully declared mentally incompetent and committed by her parents to a series of asylums and public ...
7. Dolores Del Río
Actress | Las abandonadas
Dolores del Rio was the one of the first Mexican movie stars with international appeal and who had meteoric career in the 1920s/1930s Hollywood. Del Rio came from an aristocratic family in Durango. In the Mexican revolution of 1916, however, the family lost everything and emigrated to Mexico City, ...
8. Carole Lombard
Actress | My Man Godfrey
Carole Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on October 6, 1908. Her parents divorced in 1916 and her mother took the family on a trip out West. While there they decided to settle down in the Los Angeles area. After being spotted playing baseball in the street with the ...
9. 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 ...
10. Joan Bennett
Actress | Suspiria
Joan Geraldine Bennett was born on February 27, 1910, in Palisades, New Jersey. Her parents were both successful stage actors, especially her father, Richard Bennett, and often toured the country for weeks at a time. In fact, Joan came from a long line of actors, dating back to the 18th century. ...
11. 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 ...
12. Louise Brooks
Actress | Die Büchse der Pandora
Mary Louise Brooks, also known by her childhood name of Brooksie, was born in the Midwestern town of Cherryvale, Kansas, on November 14, 1906. She began dancing at an early age with the Denishawn Dancers (which was how she left Kansas and went to New York) and then with George White's Scandals ...
13. 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 ...
14. May Britt
Actress | The Hunters
She was only 18 years old and working as a photographer's assistant in Stockholm when two Italians showed up. Producer Carlo Ponti and director Mario Soldati were there to see pictures of beautiful models, searching for a blonde girl for a movie. They picked her instead and soon she found herself ...
15. Dorothy Comingore
Actress | Citizen Kane
Dorothy Comingore earned a place in motion picture history for her role as the second Mrs. Kane (the Marion Davies to Orson Welles's William Randolph Hearst) in Citizen Kane (1941). It was an extraordinary performance, justifiably praised by critics and public alike. She was apparently slated to be...
16. 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 ...
17. 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 ...
18. Eleanor Parker
Actress | The Sound of Music
Eleanor Jean Parker was born on June 26, 1922, in Cedarville, Ohio, the last of three children born to a mathematics teacher and his wife. Eleanor caught the acting bug early and began performing in school plays. She was was so serious about becoming an actor, that she attended the Rice Summer ...
19. 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)...
20. Ann-Margret
Actress | Carnal Knowledge
Actress and singer Ann-Margret is one of the most famous sex symbols and actresses of the 1960s and beyond. She continued her career through the following decades and into the 21st century.
Ann-Margret was born Ann-Margret Olsson in Valsjöbyn, Jämtland County, Sweden, to Anna Regina (Aronsson) and ...
21. 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 ...
22. Leigh Snowden
Actress | Kiss Me Deadly
The Tennessee-born Snowden (real name: Martha Lee Estes) was a movie actress and model who first made a splash on the Jack Benny TV show, sashaying across the stage at the San Diego Naval base. Twenty thousand sailors gave the curvy sweater-clad starlet a standing ovation that made headlines in "...
23. Dani Crayne
Actress | The Story of Mankind
A pretty, green-eyed, husky-voiced champagne blonde, she was born Darlyne Danielle Swanson in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her family moved to California when she was five. Schooled there, she later attended the University of California in Berkeley. At sixteen, she married a Frenchman named Donalde ...
24. 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 ...
25. Madeline Smith
Actress | Live and Let Die
Shapely, dark haired British actress who appeared in a number of sensual film and TV roles that showcased her beauty. She is probably best recognizable as Miss Caruso, the beautiful young Italian agent sleeping with James Bond in the opening of Live and Let Die (1973) whose blue dress zipper meets ...
26. Raquel Welch
Actress | The Three Musketeers
A new reigning 1960s international sex symbol took to the cinematic throne as soon as Raquel Welch emerged from the sea in her purposely depleted, furry prehistoric bikini. Tantalizingly wet with her garb clinging to all the right amazonian places, One Million Years B.C. (1966), if nothing else, ...
27. 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; ...
28. Danièle Gaubert
Actress | Camille 2000
Born 9 August, 1943, in Nuars, Nièvre, France, Danièle Louise Régina Gaubert had a brief career as a teen model before director Claude Autant-Lara chose her for the lead of his film, Les régates de San Francisco (1960).
She then starred as a rebellious teen, in Terrain vague (1960), directed ...
29. Valerie Leon
Actress | The Spy Who Loved Me
Not just another tall, beautiful brunette, Valerie Leon had extensive experience in British theatre, television and films, before she became a fixture in the "Carry On" series, appearing in seven of them. In addition to comedy, she also excelled in horror films, playing a dual role in one of ...
30. Sharon Tate
Actress | Valley of the Dolls
Sharon's early life was one of constant moving as her father served in the military. When she lived in Italy, she was voted "Homecoming Queen" of her high school. After being an extra in a few Italian films, Sharon headed to Hollywood where she would again start as an extra. Her first big break ...
31. 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 ...
32. 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 ...
33. 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 ...
34. Jane Fonda
Actress | Klute
Born in New York City to legendary screen star Henry Fonda and Ontario-born New York socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw, Jane Seymour Fonda was destined early to an uncommon and influential life in the limelight. Although she initially showed little inclination to follow her father's trade, she was ...
35. Barbara Parkins
Actress | Valley of the Dolls
Barbara Parkins is best remembered as an icon of the Sixties who had starring roles in two of the era's more notorious productions, Peyton Place (1964) and Valley of the Dolls (1967). After arriving in Hollywood as a teenager, Parkins soon began appearing on episodic television programs such as ...
36. Margaret Nolan
Actress | Goldfinger
Born in 1943 in Hampstead, London, Margaret Nolan had a career as a glamour model under the name of Vicky Kennedy, even posing for Playboy magazine. Entering films in 1963 in Saturday Night Out (1964) saw her catapulted into Goldfinger (1964). Often cast mainly for her fabulous buxom figure and ...
37. Tina Louise
Actress | Gilligan's Island
Born in New York City, Tina was still in her teens when she burst upon the national scene by starring on Broadway in the critically acclaimed box-office success "Li'l Abner", based on the famous comic strip character created by Al Capp. Stellar reviews caught the attention of Hollywood and Tina ...
38. Priscilla Barnes
Actress | Jane the Virgin
Though probably not to her liking, actress Priscilla Barnes is best known for her bittersweet replacement of TV goddess Suzanne Somers during the tension-riddled times of the popular ABC slapstick comedy series, Three's Company (1976) -- bittersweet in that although the lovely, stringy-framed ...
39. Julie Christie
Actress | Doctor Zhivago
Julie Christie, the British movie legend whom Al Pacino called "the most poetic of all actresses," was born in Chabua, Assam, India, on April 14, 1940, the daughter of a tea planter and his Welsh wife Rosemary, who was a painter. The young Christie grew up on her father's plantation before being ...
40. Susan Lucci
Actress | All My Children
Susan Lucci was born on December 23, 1946, in Scarsdale, New York, to Jeanette (Granquist) and Victor Lucci, a building contractor. She is of Italian (father) and Swedish, German, and French (mother) descent. Susan grew up in Garden City. Since she can remember, she wanted to be a performer, and ...
41. Jean Shrimpton
Actress | Privilege
Jean Shrimpton was born on November 7, 1942 in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Privilege (1967), Double Pisces, Scorpio Rising (1970) and We'll Take Manhattan (2012). She has been married to Michael Cox since January 12, 1979. They have one child.
42. Cher
Actress | Moonstruck
The beat goes on ... and on ... and as strong as ever for this superstar entertainer who has well surpassed the half-century mark while improbably transforming herself from an artificial, glossy "flashionplate" singer into a serious, Oscar-worthy, dramatic actress ... and back again! With more ups ...
43. 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 ...
44. 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 ...
45. Stefania Casini
Actress | Suspiria
After graduating in Architecture, Stefania began a career in acting and worked with Pietro Germi, Bernardo Bertolucci, Peter Greenaway and Dario Argento. She moved to New York in the late 1970s, where she acted in Andy Warhol's 'Bad'. While in New York she decided to move behind the camera, and ...
46. Barbara Magnolfi
Actress | Suspiria
Barbara Magnolfi was born in France to an Italian father and French mother. Raised in Rome, Italy, she began studying ballet at age four. Falling in love with the art of dance, she rose to the level of lead ballerina by age 10. Making the leap from stage to screen at 13, Barbara was spotted at a ...
47. Susan Lanier
Actress | The Hills Have Eyes
Susan Lanier, also known as Suze Lanier-Bramlett, was born in Dallas, Texas. This multi-talented and sassy actress, producer, director, writer, vocalist and musician is most known for starring in The Hills Have Eyes (1977), Welcome Back, Kotter (1975) and Cut! (2014). She has performed everywhere ...
48. Kelly LeBrock
Actress | Weird Science
Kelly LeBrock was born in New York and raised in London. She is the daughter of a French-Canadian father and an Irish mother. Kelly LeBrock began her career as a model beginning at the age of sixteen. She has appeared on hundreds of covers and magazines including a Christian Dior ad. She became one...
49. Jerry Hall
Actress | Batman
Born July 2, 1956 in Gonzales, Texas, to John Printes Hall (May 11, 1918-June 21, 1977) and Marjorie Nell Hall née Sheffield (October 15,1924-February 5, 2013), she was one of five daughters, including her twin, Terry Jaye, moved with her family to Mesquite, a nearby working-class town, when she ...
50. Michelle Pfeiffer
Actress | The Fabulous Baker Boys
Michelle Pfeiffer was born in Santa Ana, California to Dick and Donna Pfeiffer. She has an older brother and two younger sisters - Dedee Pfeiffer, and Lori Pfeiffer, who both dabbled in acting and modeling but decided against making it their lives' work. She graduated from Fountain Valley High ...
51. Rebecca De Mornay
Actress | The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
Rebecca De Mornay was born 1959 as Rebecca Jane Pearch, in Santa Rosa, CA, to Wally George and Julie Eager. Her parents divorced when she was young, and her mother moved to Pasadena and married Richard De Mornay, who adopted her. After her stepfather's untimely death in 1962, Rebecca's mother moved...
52. Lea Thompson
Actress | Back to the Future
Lea Katherine Thompson was born May 31, 1961 in Rochester, Minnesota. She is the youngest of five children. Her parents are Barbara and Cliff Thompson. Since all her siblings were much older than her, Lea says it seemed like she had more than two parents. The family lived in the Starlight motel, ...
53. Sam Sorbo
Actress | Miracle in East Texas
Sam Sorbo was born on October 18, 1964 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Miracle in East Texas (2019), Andromeda (2000) and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995). She has been married to Kevin Sorbo since January 5, 1998. They have three children.
54. Kirsten Baker
Actress | Friday the 13th Part 2
Kirsten Baker made her film debut in California Dreaming (1979). Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, she worked as an actress in feature films and television, as well as a print model for Cannon Pictures. This led to a modeling career which she pursued into the early 1990s. Circa 1993, ...
55. Angela Bassett
Actress | Strange Days
Captivating, gifted, and sensational, Angela Bassett's presence has been felt in theaters and on stages and television screens throughout the world. Angela Evelyn Bassett was born on August 16, 1958 in New York City, to Betty Jane (Gilbert), a social worker, and Daniel Benjamin Bassett, a ...
56. Diane Lane
Actress | Unfaithful
Diane Lane was born on January 22, 1965, in New York. She is the daughter of acting coach Burton Eugene "Burt" Lane and nightclub singer/centerfold Colleen Farrington. Her parents' families were both from the state of Georgia. Diane was acting from a very young age and made her stage debut at the ...
57. Samantha Fox
Soundtrack | A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child
Samantha Karen Fox was born on 15 April 1966 in Mile End, East London, UK. Her parents were Carole Fox and Patrick Fox and she's got a little sister named Vanessa Lai Fox.
She started out as a nude model for "Page 3" of British tabloids when she was still 16, and in 1983 Sam was said to have her ...
58. Kim Basinger
Actress | L.A. Confidential
Kim Basinger was born December 8, 1953, in Athens, Georgia, the third of five children. Both her parents had been in entertainment, her dad had played big-band jazz, and her mother had performed water ballet in several Esther Williams movies. Kim was introspective, from her father's side. As a ...
59. Anna Marie Gutierrez
Actress | Takaw tukso
Anna Marie Gutierrez is known for Takaw tukso (1986) and W (1983).
60. Pam Grier
Actress | Jackie Brown
Pam Grier was born in Winston-Salem, NC, one of four children of Gwendolyn Sylvia (Samuels), a nurse, and Clarence Ransom Grier Jr., an Air Force mechanic. Pam has been a major African-American star from the early 1970s. Her career started in 1971, when Roger Corman of New World Pictures launched ...
61. Phoebe Cates
Actress | Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Phoebe Belle Cates was born on July 16, 1963 in New York City, New York, and raised there. She is the daughter of Lily and Joseph Cates, who was a Broadway producer and television pioneer. Her uncle was director/producer Gilbert Cates. Phoebe is of Russian Jewish, and one quarter Chinese, descent. ...
62. Lena Olin
Actress | The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Swedish-born Lena Olin already had a successful career as an actress before she came to Hollywood. She acted at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm and was directed by Ingmar Bergman. She was born in Stockholm, to actors Britta Holmberg and Stig Olin, who appeared in six of Bergman's films. Lena also ...
63. Jill Pierce
Actress | Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor
Jill Pierce is known for Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor (1994), Cyborg Cop II (1994) and Twin Peaks (1990).
64. Regina King
Actress | Ray
Regina King was born in Los Angeles, California, to Gloria, a special education teacher, and Thomas King, an electrician. She began her career in the television show 227 (1985), followed by a role in Boyz n the Hood (1991). She began to be recognized by a mainstream audience after her role as Cuba ...
65. Tawny Kitaen
Actress | Bachelor Party
Tawny Kitaen was born on August 5, 1961 in San Diego, California, USA. She was an actress and producer, known for Bachelor Party (1984), The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak (1984) and Witchboard (1986). She was married to Chuck Finley and David Coverdale. She died on May 7, 2021 in ...
66. Claudia Schiffer
Actress | Love Actually
Claudia Maria Schiffer is a German model, actress, and fashion designer, based in the United Kingdom. She rose to fame in the 1990s as one of the world's most successful models, cementing her supermodel status. In her early career, she was compared to Brigitte Bardot. She has appeared on more than ...
67. Elizabeth Peña
Actress | Rush Hour
As she inherited her love for the arts by her father, well-known playwright, actor, director and novelist Mario Peña, it is not hard to understand that actress Elizabeth Pena already had designs to become an actress by the time she was eight years old.
Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey on September 23, ...
68. Iman
Actress | Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Iman was born on July 25, 1955 in Mogadishu, Somalia. She is a producer and actress, known for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), L.A. Story (1991) and No Way Out (1987). She was previously married to David Bowie, Spencer Haywood and Hassan ?.
69. Kristy Swanson
Actress | Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Kristy Swanson is an American actress from California. She has had an active acting career since the 1980s. Her most memorable role was playing the original version of Buffy Summers in the horror comedy "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1992).
Swanson was born in Mission Viejo, California, a planned ...
70. Georgine Darcy
Actress | Rear Window
Georgine Darcy was born on January 14, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Rear Window (1954), Don't Knock the Twist (1962) and Mannix (1967). She was married to Byron Palmer, Edward Gelb and Jack Donohue. She died on July 18, 2004 in Malibu, California, USA.
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