0 Oscar Actors: Best Actress Winners (79)–Career Beginnings 

Oscar Actors: Best Actress Winners (79)–Career Start 

Dec 1, 2024–15,740

Yeoh, Michelle–Missing Info

BIOS (Chronologically)

Gaynor, Janet, 1928

Gaynor won her first professional acting job on December 26, 1924, as extra in a Hal Roach comedy short. This led to extra work in features and shorts for Film Booking Offices of America and Universal. Universal hired her as stock player for $50 a week. Six weeks later, an exec at Fox Film Corporation offered her a screen test for a supporting role in the film The Johnstown Flood (1926). Her performance caught the attention of Fox executives, who signed her to a five-year contract and began to cast her in leading roles. Later that year, Gaynor was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars (along with Joan Crawford, Dolores del Río, Mary Astor, and others).

By 1927, Gaynor was one of Hollywood’s leading ladies, cultivating the image of a sweet, wholesome, and pure young woman. Her performances in 7th Heaven, the first of 12 films she would make with actor Charles Farrell; Sunrise, directed by F. W. Murnau; and Street Angel, also with Charles Farrell, earned her the first Best Actress Oscar in 1929, when for the first and only time the award was granted for multiple roles, for  total recent work rather than for one particular performance. This practice was prohibited three years later by a new AMPAS rule. Gaynor was not only the first actress to win the award, but at 22, she was also the youngest until 1986.

Pickford, Mary, 1929

On April 19, 1909, the Biograph Company director D. W. Griffith screen-tested her at the company’s New York studio for a role in the nickelodeon film Pippa Passes. The role went to someone else but Griffith was taken with Pickford, who grasped that movie acting was simpler than the stylized stage acting. She made 51 films in 1909, almost one a week–her first starring role was in The Violin Maker of Cremona opposite future husband Owen Moore.

Dressler, Marie, 1930

Dressler’s first role in a feature was in 1914 at the age of 44.  In 1902, she had met fellow Canadian Mack Sennett and helped him get a job in the theater. After Sennett became the owner of his namesake studio, he convinced Dressler to star in his 1914 silent Tillie’s Punctured Romance.

In 1925, Dressler filmed two-reel short movies in Europe for producer Harry Reichenbach, but they were a failure, and Dressler announced retirement from showbusiness. Allan Dwan offered her a small part in The Joy Girl. Then Frances Marion, a screenwriter for MGM, used her influence with production chief Irving Thalberg to return Dressler to the screen. Her first MGM feature was The Callahans and the Murphys (1927), a rowdy silent comedy co-starring Dressler and Polly Moran, written by Marion.

While the film brought Dressler to Hollywood, it did not reestablish her career. Her next appearance was a minor part in the First National film Breakfast at Sunrise. She appeared again with Moran in Bringing Up Father, also written by Marion. Dressler returned to MGM in 1928’s The Patsy as the mother of the characters played by Marion Davies and Jane Winton.

The “talkies” presented no problems for Dressler, whose rumbling voice could handle both sympathetic scenes and snappy comebacks. Marion persuaded Thalberg to give Dressler the role of Marthy in the 1930 Anna Christie, Garbo’s first talkie. MGM then signed her to a $500-per-week contract. Dressler acted in comedic films which were popular with movie-goers. She became Hollywood’s number-one box-office attraction, and stayed on top until her death in 1934. For Min and Bill, with Wallace Beery, she won the 1930 Best Actress Oscar.

Norma Shearer, 1931

Aa year after her arrival in New York, Shearer received a break in film, fourth billing in a B-movie titled The Stealers (1921).

In January 1923, Shearer received an offer from Louis B. Mayer Pictures. Irving Thalberg had moved to Louis B. Mayer Pictures as vice president on February 15, 1923, but had already sent a telegram to Shearer’s agent, inviting her to the studio.

After 3 years of hardship, she signed a contract, calling for $250 a week for 6 months, with options for renewal and test for a leading role in The Wanters.

Shearer left New York around February 17, accompanied by her mother. She was less impressed, however, with her first screen test; Mayer and Thalberg, cameraman Ernest Palmer found Shearer frantic and trembling in the hallway. The lead in The Wanters seemed hers, until the director objected, finding her “unphotogenic.” Again, Shearer was relegated to a minor role, in Pleasure Mad–the director complained to Mayer that he could get nothing out of the young actress.

As a reward, Thalberg cast her in six films in eight months. The apprenticeship served Shearer well. On April 26, 1924, Louis B. Mayer Pictures was merged with Metro Pictures and the Samuel Goldwyn Company to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Shearer was cast with Lon Chaney and John Gilbert in the studio’s first official production, He Who Gets Slapped. The film was a success and helped the meteoric rise of the new company, and Shearer’s visibility. By late 1925, she was carrying her own films, and was one of MGM’s biggest attractions, a bona fide star. She signed a new contract, which paid $1,000 a week and would rise to $5,000 over the next five years.

Having become a star, Shearer’s challenge was to remain one, based on the competition from other major actresses. Shearer was attracted to her boss, Thalberg, his commanding presence and steely grace. In spite of his youth–he was only 26–Thalberg became a father figure to the 23-year-old actress.

By 1927, Shearer had made a total of 13 silent films for MGM. Each had been produced for under $200,000, and had been a box-office hit, often making a $200,000+ profit for the studio. She was rewarded for this consistent success by being cast in Lubitsch’s The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, her first prestige production, with a budget over $1,000,000. On September 29, 1927, Shearer and Talberg were married; she converted to Judaism in order to marry Thalberg.

Hayes, Helen (Child Actress), 1932

Hayes began a stage career at an early age. Her stage debut was as 5-year-old singer at Washington’s Belasco Theatre, on Lafayette Square, across from the White House.

By the age of 10, she had made a short film, Jean and the Calico Doll (1910), but moved to Hollywood when her husband, playwright Charles MacArthur, signed a Hollywood deal.

Hayes attended Dominican Academy’s prestigious primary school, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, from 1910 to 1912, appearing there in The Old Dutch, Little Lord Fauntleroy, and other shows. She attended the Academy of the Sacred Heart Convent in Washington and graduated in 1917.

Her sound film debut was The Sin of Madelon Claudet, for which she won the Best Actress.

She followed that with starring roles in Arrowsmith (with Ronald Colman), A Farewell to Arms (with Gary Cooper), The White Sister (opposite Clark Gable), Another Language (opposite Robert Montgomery), What Every Woman Knows (a reprise of her Broadway hit), and Vanessa: Her Love Story also with Robert Montgomery. But Hayes did not prefer film to the stage.

Hepburn, Katharine, 1933

A scout for the Hollywood agent Leland Hayward spotted Katharine Hepburn’s appearance in The Warrior’s Husband, and asked her to test for the part of Sydney Fairfield in the upcoming RKO film A Bill of Divorcement.

Director George Cukor was impressed by what he saw: “There was this odd creature”, he recalled, “she was unlike anybody I’d ever heard.” He particularly liked the manner in which she picked up a glass: “I thought she was very talented in that action.” Offered the role, Hepburn demanded $1,500 a week, a large amount for an unknown actress. Cukor encouraged the studio to accept her demands and they signed Hepburn to a temporary contract with a three-week guarantee. RKO head David O. Selznick recounted that he took a “tremendous chance” in casting the unusual actress.

Hepburn arrived in California in July 1932, at age 25. She starred in A Bill of Divorcement opposite John Barrymore, but showed no sign of intimidation. Hepburn was fascinated by the industry from the start. The picture was a success and Hepburn received positive reviews. On the strength of A Bill of Divorcement, RKO signed her to a long-term contract. Cukor became a lifetime friend and colleague—he and Hepburn made 10 films together.

Hepburn’s second film was Christopher Strong (1933), the story of an aviator and her affair with a married man. The picture was not commercially successful, but Hepburn’s reviews were good.

Hepburn’s third picture confirmed her as a major actress, playing aspiring actress Eva Lovelace—a role intended for Constance Bennett—in Morning Glory, for which she won the Best Actress Oscar. She had seen the script on the desk of producer Pandro S. Berman and, convinced that she was born to play the part, insisted that the role be hers. Hepburn chose not to attend the awards ceremony—as she would not for the duration of her career—but was thrilled with the win. Her success continued with the role of Jo in the film Little Women (1933). The picture was a hit, one of the film industry’s biggest successes to date, and Hepburn won the Best Actress at the Venice Film Fest.

Colbert, Claudette, 1934

She received critical acclaim as a carnival snake charmer in the Broadway production of The Barker (1927), and reprised the role in London’s West End.

Spotted

She was noticed by theatrical producer Leland Hayward, who suggested her for the heroine in the silent film For the Love of Mike (1927); now believed to be lost, the film didn’t fare well at the box office.

In 1928, Colbert signed a contract with Paramount Pictures. There was a demand for stage actors who could handle dialogue in the new “talkies,” and Colbert’s elegance and musical voice were assets. Her beauty drew attention in The Hole in the Wall (1929), but at first she did not like film acting. Her earliest films were in New York. During the shoot of The Lady Lies (also 1929), she also appeared nightly in the play See Naples and Die. The Lady Lies was a box-office success. In 1930, she starred opposite Maurice Chevalier in The Big Pond, filmed in both English and French. She co-starred with Fredric March in Manslaughter (1930), receiving critical acclaim as a woman charged with vehicular manslaughter. She was paired with March again in Honor Among Lovers (1931). She also starred in Mysterious Mr. Parkes (1931), a French-language version of Slightly Scarlet for the European market, although it was also screened in the US. She sang and played piano in the Lubitsch musical The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), which was nominated for the Best Picture. Colbert’s ability to “hold her man” (Chevalier again) surpassed “Queen” Miriam Hopkins. Colbert also made the modestly successful His Woman (1931) with Gary Cooper.

Colbert’s career got further boost when Cecil B. DeMille cast her as femme fatale Poppaea in the historical epic The Sign of the Cross (1932), opposite Fredric March and Charles Laughton. In one of the best remembered scenes of her film career, she bathes nude in a marble pool filled with asses’ milk. The film was one of her biggest box-office hits.

In 1933, Colbert renegotiated her contract with Paramount to allow her to appear in films for other studios. Her musical voice, a contralto, was also featured in Torch Singer (1933), co-starring Ricardo Cortez and David Manners.

In 1933, she was ranked as the year’s 13th box-office star. By 1935, she had appeared in 28 films, averaging 4 per year. Many early films were commercial successes, and her performances were admired. Her leading roles were down-to-earth and diverse, highlighting her versatility.

Colbert was initially reluctant to appear in the screwball comedy It Happened One Night (1934). The studio agreed to pay her $50,000 for the role, and guaranteed filming would be done within 4 weeks so she could take a planned vacation. She won the Best Actress for the film.

Cleopatra (1934), in which Colbert played the title role opposite Warren William and Henry Wilcoxon, was the highest-grossing picture of that year. Thereafter, Colbert did not wish to be portrayed as overtly sexual, and refused such roles. Imitation of Life, on loan to Universal, was another box office success. Those three films were nominated for the Best Picture–Colbert is the only actress to date to star in three films nominated for Best Picture in the same year.

Bette Davis, 1935, 1938

In 1930, 22-year-old Davis moved to Hollywood to screen test for Universal Studios. Davis and her mother travelled by train to Hollywood. She failed her first screen test, but was used in several screen tests for other actors. A second test was arranged for Davis, for the 1931 film A House Divided. Carl Laemmle, the head of Universal Studios, considered terminating Davis’ employment, but cinematographer Karl Freund told him she had “lovely eyes” and would be suitable for Bad Sister (1931), in which she subsequently made her film debut. Her nervousness was compounded when she overheard the chief of production, Carl Laemmle Jr., comment to another executive that she had “about as much sex appeal as Slim Summerville”, one of the film’s co-stars. The film was not a success, and her next role in Seed (1931) was too brief to attract attention.

Universal renewed her contract for three months, and she appeared in a small role in Waterloo Bridge (1931), before being lent to Columbia Pictures for The Menace, and to Capital Films for Hell’s House (all 1932). After one year, and 6 unsuccessful films, Laemmle elected not to renew her contract.

Davis was preparing to return to New York when actor George Arliss chose Davis for the lead female role in the Warner Bros. picture The Man Who Played God (1932), and for the rest of her life, Davis credited him with helping her achieve her “break” in Hollywood.

After more than 20 film roles, the role of the vicious and slatternly Mildred Rogers in the RKO Radio production of Of Human Bondage (1934), a film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s novel, earned Davis her first major critical acclaim. The film was a success, and Davis’ characterization earned praise from critics.

She was disappointed when Jack L. Warner refused to lend her to Columbia Studios to appear in It Happened One Night, and instead cast her in the melodrama Housewife. When Davis was not nominated for an Oscar in Of Human Bondage, The Hollywood Citizen News questioned the omission, and Norma Shearer, herself a nominee, joined a campaign to have Davis nominated. This prompted an announcement from the Academy president, Howard Estabrook, who said that under the circumstances, “any voter … may write on the ballot his or her personal choice for the winners”, thus allowing, for the only time in history, of a candidate not officially nominated for an award. The uproar led, however, to a change in academy voting procedures the following year, wherein nominations were determined by votes from all eligible members of a particular branch rather than by a smaller committee, with results independently tabulated by the accounting firm Price Waterhouse. Davis appeared in Dangerous (1935) as a troubled actress, and received very good reviews.

 

Rainer, Luise (1936, 1937)

Rainer moved to Hollywood in 1935 as a hopeful new star. MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer and story editor Samuel Marx had seen footage of Rainer before she came to Hollywood, and both felt she had the looks, charm, and a “certain tender vulnerability” that Mayer admired in female stars. Because of poor command of English, Mayer assigned actress Constance Collier to train her in correct speech and dramatic modulation, and Rainer’s English improved rapidly.

Her first film role in Hollywood was in Escapade (1935), a remake of her Austrian film, co-starring William Powell. She received the part after Myrna Loy gave up her role halfway through filming. After seeing the preview, Rainer was displeased with how she appeared: “On the screen, I looked so big and full of face, it was awful.” The film generated immense publicity for Rainer, hailed as “Hollywood’s next sensation.”

Stars are not important, only what they do as a part of their work is important. Artists need quiet in which to grow. It seems Hollywood does not like to give them this quiet. Stardom is bad because Hollywood makes too much of it, there is too much ‘bowing down’ before stars. Stardom is weight pressing down over the head — and one must grow upward or not at all.

Rainer’s next performance was as the real-life character Anna Held in the musical biography The Great Ziegfeld, again co-starring William Powell.

Leigh, Vivien, 1939, 1951

Leigh’s friends suggested she take a small role as a schoolgirl in the film Things Are Looking Up, which was her film debut, albeit uncredited as an extra. She engaged an agent, John Gliddon, who believed that “Vivian Holman” was not a suitable name for an actress. After rejecting his many suggestions, she took “Vivian Leigh” as her professional name.

Gliddon recommended her to Alexander Korda as a possible film actress, but Korda rejected her as lacking potential. She was cast in the play The Mask of Virtue, directed by Sidney Carroll in 1935, and received excellent reviews. Korda admitted his error, and signed her to a film contract.

Leigh appeared with Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore and Maureen O’Sullivan in A Yank at Oxford (1938), which was the first of her films to receive attention in the US. Hollywood was in the midst of a widely publicized search to find an actress to portray Scarlett O’Hara in David O. Selznick’s production of Gone with the Wind (1939). At the time, Myron Selznick—David’s brother and Leigh’s American theatrical agent—was the London representative of the Myron Selznick Agency. In February 1938, Leigh made a request to Myron  to be considered for the part of Scarlett O’Hara.

Actress Vs. Star

David O. Selznick watched her performances in Fire Over England and A Yank at Oxford and thought she was excellent but in no way a possible Scarlett because she was “too British.” Gone with the Wind brought Leigh immediate attention and fame, but she was quoted as saying, “I’m not a film star—I’m an actress. Being a film star—just a film star—is such a false life, lived for fake values and for publicity. Actresses go on for a long time and there are always marvelous parts to play.” The film won 10 Awards including a Best Actress award for Leigh, who also won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.

Rogers, Ginger, 1940

Rogers’ first movie roles were in a trio of shorts made in 1929—Night in the Dormitory, A Day of a Man of Affairs, and Campus Sweethearts. In 1930, Paramount Pictures signed her to a seven-year contract.

Rogers got herself out of the Paramount contract—under which she had made five feature films at Astoria Studios in Astoria, Queens—and moved with her mother to Hollywood. When she got to California, she signed a three-picture deal with Pathé Exchange. Two of her pictures at Pathé were Suicide Fleet (1931) and Carnival Boat (1932) in which she played opposite future Hopalong Cassidy star, William Boyd. Rogers also made features for Warner, Monogram, and Fox in 1932, and was named one of 15 WAMPAS Baby Stars. She then made a significant breakthrough as Anytime Annie in the Warner Bros. film 42nd Street (1933). She went on to make a series of films at Warner most notably in Gold Diggers of 1933 where her solo, “We’re In The Money”, included a verse in Pig Latin. She then moved to RKO Studios, was put under contract and started work on “Flying Down To Rio”, a picture starring Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond but it was soon stolen by Rogers and Broadway star Fred Astaire.

Fontaine, Joan, 1941

Fontaine signed a contract with RKO Pictures, and her first film for the studio was Quality Street (1937) starring Katharine Hepburn, in which Fontaine had a small unbilled role.

The studio considered her a rising star, and touted The Man Who Found Himself (1937) with John Beal as her first starring role, placing a special introduction, billed as the “new RKO screen personality” after the end credit. Fontaine later said it had “an A budget but a Z story.” RKO put her in You Can’t Beat Love (1937) with Preston Foster and Music for Madame (1937) with Nino Martini.

She next appeared in a major role alongside Fred Astaire in his first RKO film without Ginger Rogers, A Damsel in Distress (1937). Despite being directed by George Stevens, audiences were disappointed and the film flopped. She was top billed in the comedies Maid’s Night Out (1938) and Blond Cheat (1938) then was Richard Dix’s leading lady in Sky Giant (1938).

Edward Small borrowed her to play Louis Hayward’s love interest in The Duke of West Point (1938), then Stevens used her at RKO in Gunga Din (1939) as Douglas Fairbanks Jr.’s love interest. The film was a huge hit, but Fontaine’s part was relatively small. Republic borrowed her to support Dix in Man of Conquest (1939) but her part was small. George Cukor gave her a small role in MGM’s The Women (1939).

Fontaine’s luck changed one night at a dinner party when she found herself seated next to producer David O. Selznick and he asked her to audition for the part of the unnamed heroine. She endured a grueling six-month series of film tests, along with hundreds of other actresses, before securing the part before her 22nd birthday.

Rebecca (1940 film), starring Laurence Olivier alongside Fontaine, marked the American debut of British director Hitchcock. The film was released to glowing reviews, and Fontaine was nominated for for Best Actress. Fontaine did not win that year (Ginger Rogers took home the award for Kitty Foyle), but she did win the following year for Best Actress in Suspicion, which co-starred Cary Grant and was also directed by Hitchcock. This was the only Award-winning acting performance to have been directed by Hitchcock. Fontaine was now one of the biggest female stars in Hollywood, although she was typecast in female melodrama. “They seemed to want to make me cry the whole Atlantic”, she later said.

 

Garson, Greer, 1942 (late bloomer)

Garson’s early professional appearances were on stage, starting at Birmingham Repertory Theatre in January 1932, when she was 27 years old. (rather old)

She appeared on TV during its earliest years (the late 1930s), most notably starring in a 30-minute production of an excerpt of Twelfth Night in May 1937, with Dorothy Black. These live transmissions were part of the BBC’s experimental service from Alexandra Palace, and this is the first known instance of a Shakespeare play performed on television In 1936, she appeared in the West End in Charles Bennett’s play Page From a Diary.

Louis B. Mayer discovered Garson while he was in London looking for new talent. Garson was signed to a contract with MGM in late 1937, but did not begin work on her first film, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, until late 1938. She received her first Oscar nomination for the role but lost to Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind. She received critical acclaim the next year for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1940 film Pride and Prejudice.

Garson starred with Joan Crawford in When Ladies Meet, a 1941 poorly received and sanitized re-make of a Pre-Code version of the same name, which had starred Ann Harding and Myrna Loy. That same year, she became a major box-office star with the sentimental Technicolor drama Blossoms in the Dust, which brought her the second of five consecutive Best Actress nominations, tying Bette Davis’s 1938–1942 record, which still stands.

Garson starred in two Oscar nominated films in 1942: Mrs. Miniver and Random Harvest. She won the Best Actress for her performance as a strong British wife and mother protecting the Homefront during World War II in Mrs. Miniver, which co-starred Walter Pidgeon.

Jones, Jennifer, 1943

While husband Robert Walker found steady work in radio, Jones worked part-time modeling hats for the Powers Agency, and posing for Harper’s Bazaar while looking for possible acting jobs. When she learned of auditions for the lead in Claudia, Rose Franken’s hit play, in the summer of 1941, she presented herself to David O. Selznick’s New York office but fled in tears after what she thought was a bad reading. However, Selznick had overheard her audition and was impressed enough to have his secretary call her back. Following an interview, she was signed to a seven-year contract.

She was carefully groomed for stardom and given a new name: Jennifer Jones. Director Henry King was impressed by her screen test as Bernadette Soubirous for The Song of Bernadette (1943) and she won the coveted role over hundreds of applicants. In 1944, on her 25th birthday, Jones won the Best Actress for her performance as Bernadette Soubirous, her third screen role.

Jones began an affair with producer Selznick. She separated from Walker in November 1943, co-starred with him in Since You Went Away (1944), and divorced him in June 1945. For her performance in Since You Went Away, she was nominated for her second Oscar, this time for Best Supporting Actress. She earned a third successive Oscar nomination for her performance opposite Joseph Cotten in the film noir Love Letters (1945).

Ingrid Bergman, 1944, 1956

Bergman’s first film was as an extra in the 1932 film Landskamp, an experience she described as “walking on holy ground.” Her first speaking role was a small part in Munkbrogreven (1934). Bergman played Elsa, a maid in a seedy hotel, being pursued by the leading man, Edvin Adolphson. Soon after Bergman was offered a studio contract and placed under director Gustaf Molander.

She left the Royal Dramatic Theater to pursue acting full time. Bergman starred in Ocean Breakers in which she played a fisherman’s daughter, and then in Swedenhielms, where she had the opportunity to work alongside her idol Gösta Ekman. Next, she starred in Walpurgis Night (1935). She plays Lena, a secretary in love with her boss, Johan who is unhappily married. Throughout, Lena and the wife vie for Johan’s affection with the wife losing her husband to Lena at the end.

In 1936, she appeared in Intermezzo, her first lead performance, where she was reunited with Gösta Ekman. This was a pivotal film for the young actress, and allowed her to demonstrate her talent.  In 1938, she starred in Only One Night and played a manor house girl, an upper-class woman living on a country estate. She didn’t like the part, calling it ‘a piece of rubbish.’ She only agreed to appear if only she could star in the studio’s next film project En kvinnas ansikte. She later acted in Dollar (1938), a Scandinivian screwball comedy. Bergman had just been voted Sweden’s most admired movie star in the previous year, and received top-billing.

In her next film, a role created especially for her, En kvinnas ansikte (A Woman’s Face), she played against her usual casting, as a bitter, unsympathetic character, whose face had been hideously burned. The film required Bergman to wear heavy makeup, as well as glue, to simulate a burned face. A brace was put in place to distort the shape of one cheek. In her diary, she called the film “my own picture, my very own. I have fought for it.” The film was awarded a Special Recommendation at the 1938 Venice Film Festival for its “overall artistic contribution.”

Bergman signed a three-picture contract with UFA, the German film company, although she only made one picture.  She was pregnant but nonetheless, she arrived in Berlin to begin filming The Four Companions (Die vier Gesellen)(1938), directed by Carl Froelich. The film was intended as a star vehicle to launch Bergman’s career in Germany. In the film she played one of four ambitious young women, attempting to set up a graphic design agency. The film was a lighthearted combination of comedy and romance. At first, she did not comprehend the political and social situation in Germany. By September, she was back in Sweden, and gave birth to her daughter, Pia. She was never to work in Germany again.

Bergman appeared in 11 films in her native Sweden before the age of 25. Her characters were plagued with uncertainty, fear and anxiety. The early Swedish films were not masterpieces, but she worked with some of the biggest talents in the Swedish film industry such as Gösta Ekman, Karin Swanström, Victor Sjöström, and Lars Hanson. It showcased her immense acting talent, as a young woman with a bright future.

Bergman’s first acting role in the US was in Intermezzo: A Love Story by Gregory Ratoff which premiered on September 22, 1939. Hollywood producer David O. Selznick offered her to star in the English-language remake of her earlier Swedish film Intermezzo (1936). Unable to speak English, and uncertain about her acceptance by the American audience, she expected to complete this one film and return home to Sweden. Her husband, Dr. Petter Aron Lindström, remained in Sweden with their daughter Pia (born 1938). In Intermezzo, she played the role of a young piano accompanist, opposite Leslie Howard, who played a famous violin virtuoso. Bergman arrived in LA 6 May 6, 1939, and stayed at the Selznick home until she could find another residence.

Selznick understood her fear of Hollywood make-up artists, who might turn her into someone she wouldn’t recognize, and “instructed them to lay off.” He was aware that her natural good looks would compete successfully with Hollywood’s “synthetic razzle-dazzle.”

Joan Crawford, 1945

Joan Crawford’s poor and instable family life meant lack of formal education beyond elementary school.  But her ambition from young age was to become a dancer.

When her stepfather Cassin was accused of embezzlement, he was blacklisted in Lawton, and the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri around 1916.

After her mother and stepfather broke up, she was sent by her mother to St. Agnes as a work student. She then went to Rockingham Academy, also as a work student.

In 1922, she registered at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, which she attended for 4 months before withdrawing.  She gave her birth year as 1906, but she was actually born in 1904.

Crawford began dancing in the choruses of traveling revues and was spotted in Detroit by producer Jacob J. Shubert, who put her in the chorus line of his 1924 show, Innocent Eyes, at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway.

Loews Theaters publicist Nils Granlund arranged for a screen test, which he then sent to producer Harry Rapfin.  MGM offered Crawford a contract at $75 a week on December 24, 1924, and she arrived in California on January 1, 1925, borrowing money for the travel.

As Lucille LeSueur, her first film was The Circle in 1925, followed by Pretty Ladies, starring ZaSu Pitts. She also appeared in small roles in The Only Thing, Old Clothes and other films.

It was MGM publicity executive Pete Smith who suggested to change her name, because it sounded like “Le Sewer.”  A contest in the fan magazine Movie Weekly asked readers to select a name.  Initially, “Joan Arden” was selected, but as another actress claimed it, they went for the second choice, “Crawford.”

Crawford wanted her first name to be pronounced “Jo-Anne,” and said she hated the name Crawford because it sounded like “craw fish,” but she “liked the security” that went with the name.

Her first film, credited as Lucille LeSueur, was Lady of the Night in 1925, as a body double for MGM’s most popular star, Norma Shearer.  In the same year, she also appeared in The Circle and Pretty Ladies, starring comedian Zasu Pitts, followed with two unbilled roles in the silent films, The Only Thing and The Merry Widow.

Crawford then embarked on a campaign of self-promotion. MGM screenwriter Frederica Sagor Mass recalled, “No one decided to make Joan Crawford a star. Joan Crawford became a star because Joan Crawford decided to become a star.”

She attended dances at hotels around Hollywood, where she often won competitions, performing the Charleston and the Black Bottom.

Crawford competed with Norma Shearer, the studio’s most-popular actress, who was married to MGM Head of Production, Irving Thalberg, and had first choice of scripts and greater control over her career.

In 1926, Crawford was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars, along with Mary Astor, Dolores del Rio, Janet Gaynor, Fay Wray, and others.

Within few years, she became the romantic lead to many of MGM’s male stars, including Ramon Novarro, John Gilbert, William Haines, and Tim McCoy.

In 1927, Crawford appeared in The Unknown, starring Lon Chaney, Sr. as a carnival knife thrower with no arms. Crawford played his skimpily-clad young assistant. She learned more about acting from watching Chaney work than from anyone else in her career: “It was then that I became aware for the first time of the difference between standing in front of a camera, and acting.”

In 1927, she appeared alongside William Haines in Spring Fever, the first of three movies they made together.

In 1928, Crawford starred opposite Ramon Novarro in Across to Singapore, but it was her role as Diana Medford in Our Dancing Daughters (1928) that catapulted her to stardom. The film established her as a symbol of 1920s-style femininity, which rivaled Clara Bow, the It girl and Hollywood’s foremost flapper.

Several hits followed Our Dancing Daughters, including two more flapper movies, in which Crawford embodied an idealized vision of the free-spirited, all-American girl.

The novelist Scott Fitzgerald once wrote: “Joan Crawford is doubtless the best example of the flapper, the girl you see in smart night clubs, gowned to the apex of sophistication, toying iced glasses with a remote, faintly bitter expression, dancing deliciously, laughing a great deal, with wide, hurt eyes. Young things with a talent for living.

On June 3, 1929, Crawford married Douglas Fairbanks Jr. the son of Douglas Fairbanks, who was married to Mary Pickford, then Hollywood royalty. Fairbanks, Sr. and Pickford were opposed to the marriage, and did not invite the couple to their home for months.

In order to rid herself of her Southwestern accent, Crawford practiced diction and elocution, as she later recalled: “If I were to speak lines, it would be a good idea, I thought, to read aloud to myself, listen carefully to my voice quality and enunciation, and try to learn in that manner. I would lock myself in my room and read newspapers, magazines and books aloud. At my elbow, I kept a dictionary. When I came to a word I did not know how to pronounce, I looked it up and repeated it correctly.”

De Havilland, Olivia, 1946, 1949

Lilian and Walter met in Japan in 1913 and married the following year; the marriage was not a happy one due in part to Walter’s infidelities. Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916.[2] They moved into a large house in Tokyo City, where Lilian gave informal singing recitals.[6] Olivia’s younger sister Joan (Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland)‍—‌later known as actress Joan Fontaine‍—‌was born 15 months later, on October 22, 1917. Both sisters became British subjects automatically by birthright.[8]

In February 1919, Lilian persuaded her husband to take the family back to England for a climate better suited to their ailing daughters. They sailed aboard the SS Siberia Maru to San Francisco,[8] where the family stopped to treat Olivia’s tonsillitis. After Joan developed pneumonia, Lilian decided to remain with her daughters in California, where they eventually settled in the village of Saratoga, 50 miles (80 km) south of San Francisco. Her father abandoned the family and returned to his Japanese housekeeper, who eventually became his second wife.

Olivia was raised to appreciate the arts, beginning with ballet lessons at the age of four and piano lessons a year later. She learned to read before she was six,[15] and her mother, who occasionally taught drama, music, and elocution,[16] had her recite passages from Shakespeare to strengthen her diction.[14][Note 2] During this period, her younger sister Joan first started calling her “Livvie”, a nickname that would last throughout her life.[14] De Havilland entered Saratoga Grammar School in 1922 and did well in her studies.[12] She enjoyed reading, writing poetry, and drawing, and once represented her grammar school in a county spelling bee, coming in second place.[12] In 1923, Lilian had a new Tudor-style house built,[12] where the family resided until the early 1930s.[18] In April 1925, after her divorce was finalised, Lilian married George Milan Fontaine, a department store manager for O. A. Hale & Co. in San Jose.[19] Fontaine was a good provider and respectable businessman, but his strict parenting style generated animosity and later rebellion in both of his new stepdaughters.

De Havilland continued her education at Los Gatos High School near her home in Saratoga.[20] There she excelled in oratory and field hockey and participated in school plays and the school drama club, eventually becoming the club’s secretary.[22] With plans of becoming a schoolteacher of English and speech,[20] she also attended Notre Dame Convent in Belmont.

In 1933, a teenage de Havilland made her debut in amateur theatre in Alice in Wonderland, a production of the Saratoga Community Players based on the novel by Lewis Carroll. She also appeared in several school plays, including The Merchant of Venice and Hansel and Gretel. Her passion for drama eventually led to a confrontation with her stepfather, who forbade her from participating in further extracurricular activities.[25] When he learned that she had won the lead role of Elizabeth Bennet in a school fund-raising production of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, he told her that she had to choose between staying at home, or appearing in the production and not being allowed home.[25] Not wanting to let her school and classmates down, she left home, moving in with a family friend.[25]

After graduating from high school in 1934, de Havilland was offered scholarship to Mills College in Oakland to pursue her chosen career as an English teacher. She was also offered the role of Puck in the Saratoga Community Theater production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That summer, Austrian director Max Reinhardt came to California for a major new production of the same play to premiere at the Hollywood Bowl.[26] After one of Reinhardt’s assistants saw her perform in Saratoga, he offered her the second understudy position for the role of Hermia. One week before the premiere, the understudy Jean Rouverol and lead actress Gloria Stuart both left the project, leaving 18-year-old de Havilland to play Hermia. Impressed with her performance, Reinhardt offered her the part in the four-week autumn tour that followed.

During that tour, Reinhardt was assigned to direct the Warner film version of his stage production, and he offered her the role of Hermia. With her mind still set on becoming a teacher, de Havilland initially wavered, but eventually, Reinhardt and executive producer Henry Blanke persuaded her to sign contract.

She signed a five-year contract with Warner on November 12, 1934, with a starting salary of $200 a week, marking the beginning of a professional acting career which would span more than 50 years.

De Havilland made her screen debut in Reinhardt’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was filmed at Warner Brothers studios from December 19, 1934, to March 9, 1935. During the production, de Havilland picked up film acting techniques from the film’s co-director William Dieterle and camera techniques from cinematographer Hal Mohr, who was impressed with her questions about his work. By the end of filming, she had learned the effect of lighting and camera angles on how she appeared on screen and how to find her best lighting.[30] Following premieres in New York City and Beverly Hills, the film was released on October 30, 1935.[29] Despite the publicity campaign, the film generated little enthusiasm with audiences.[28]

Two minor comedies followed, Alibi Ike with Joe E. Brown and The Irish in Us (both 1935) with James Cagney. In both films, she played the sweetly charming love interest‍—‌a role into which she would later become typecast. After the experience of being a Reinhardt player, de Havilland felt disappointed being assigned these routine heroine roles. In March, de Havilland and her mother moved into an apartment at the Chateau des Fleurs at 6626 Franklin Avenue in Hollywood.

 

Young, Loretta, 1947

Young was billed as Gretchen Young in the silent film Sirens of the Sea (1917). She was first billed as Loretta Young in 1928, in The Whip Woman. That same year, she co-starred with Lon Chaney in the MGM film Laugh, Clown, Laugh. The next year, she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars.

In 1934 she co-starred with Cary Grant in Born to be Bad, and in 1935 was billed with Clark Gable and Jack Oakie in the film version of Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, directed by William Wellman.

In 1947, she won an Oscar for her performance in The Farmer’s Daughter. That same year, she co-starred with Cary Grant and David Niven in The Bishop’s Wife, a perennial favorite, which was remade in 1996 as The Preacher’s Wife starring Denzel Washington, Whitney Houston & Courtney B. Vance.

Wyman, Jane, 1948

Wyman obtained small parts in such films as The Kid from Spain (as a “Goldwyn Girl”; 1932), Elmer, the Great (1933), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Harold Teen (1934), College Rhythm (1934), Rumba (1935), All the King’s Horses (1935), George White’s 1935 Scandals (1935), Stolen Harmony (1935), Broadway Hostess (1935), King of Burlesque (1936) and Anything Goes (1936). She signed a contract with Warner Brothers in 1936.

At Warners she was in Freshman Love (1936) and Bengal Tiger (1936) then went to Universal for My Man Godfrey (1936), Stage Struck (1936), Cain and Mabel (1936), and Here Comes Carter (1936).

Wyman had her first big role in a Dick Foran Western The Sunday Round-Up (1936). Wyman had small parts in Polo Joe (1936), and Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936) but a bigger one in Smart Blonde (1936), the first of the Torchy Blane series.

Wyman was in Ready, Willing and Able (1937), The King and the Chorus Girl (1937), and Slim (1937). She had the lead in Little Pioneer (1937), a short, and parts in The Singing Marine (1937). She had a support part in Mr. Dodd Takes the Air (1937) and the female lead in some “B” The Spy Ring (1938) (at Universal), He Couldn’t Say No (1938) with Frank McHugh and Wide Open Faces (1938) with Joe E. Brown.

At Warners she had the lead in Brother Rat (1938), a “B” which proved popular. It co starred Ronald Reagan, Priscilla Lane, Wayne Morris and Eddie Albert.

Wyman was borrowed by Fox for a support part in Tail Spin (1939), then did The Kid from Kokomo (1939) with Pat O’Brien and Morris. She played the title role in Torchy Blane. Playing with Dynamite (1939), but it was the last in the series.

Wyman was established as a leading lady, albeit of Bs – she did Kid Nightingale (1939) with John Payne, Private Detective (1939) with Foran, Brother Rat and a Baby (1940) with Reagan, An Angel from Texas (1940) with Albert, Flight Angels (1940), and Gambling on the High Seas (1940) with Wayne Morris.

She supported in “A”s such as My Love Came Back (1940), starring Olivia de Havilland and Jeffrey Lynn. She and Reagan were in Tugboat Annie Sails Again (1940). Wyman supported Ann Sheridan in Honeymoon for Three (1941) and was Dennis Morgan’s leading lady in Bad Men of Missouri (1941).

Wyman made The Body Disappears (1941) with Jeffrey Lynn and You’re in the Army Now (1941) with Jimmy Durante; in the latter she and Regis Toomey had the longest screen kiss in cinema history: 3 minutes and 5 seconds. Wyman did Larceny, Inc. (1942) with Edward G. Robinson, and My Favorite Spy (1942) with Kay Kyser.

At Fox she supported Betty Grable in Footlight Serenade (1942) then back at Warners supported Olivia de Havilland in Princess O’Rourke (1943). Warners teamed her with Jack Carson in Make Your Own Bed (1944) and The Doughgirls (1944), then she was top billed in Crime by Night (1944). She was one of many stars to cameo in Hollywood Canteen (1944).

Wyman finally gained critical notice in the film noir The Lost Weekend (1945) made by the team of Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, who had been impressed by her performance in Princess O’Rourke. It was only a supporting role–Ray Milland was the lead–but was the second biggest part. Wyman called it “a small miracle.”

Wyman remained a supporting actor in One More Tomorrow (1946), and Night and Day (1946). However Wyman was borrowed by MGM for the female lead in The Yearling (1946), and was nominated for the 1946 Best Actress. She was leading lady for Dennis Morgan in Cheyenne (1947) and James Stewart in RKO’s Magic Town (1947).

Her breakthrough role was playing a deaf-mute rape victim in Johnny Belinda (1948). Wyman spent over six months preparing for the film which was an enormous hit and won Wyman a Best Actress Oscar. She was the first person in the sound era to win an acting Oscar without speaking a line of dialogue.

Holliday, Judy, 1950

Holliday’s first film role, Holliday played an airman’s wife in Twentieth Century Fox’s version of the U.S. Army Air Forces’ play Winged Victory (1944).

Holliday made her Broadway debut on March 20, 1945 at the Belasco Theatre in Kiss Them for Me and was one of the recipients that year of the Clarence Derwent Award.

In 1946, she returned to Broadway as the scatterbrained Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday. Author Garson Kanin wrote the play for Jean Arthur, who played the role of Billie but left out-of-town for personal reasons. Kanin then selected Holliday, two decades Arthur’s junior, as her replacement.

She received rave reviews for her performance in Born Yesterday on Broadway, and Cohn offered her the chance to repeat her role for the film version, but only after she did a screen test (which at first was used only as a “benchmark against which to evaluate” other actresses being considered for the role.

Leigh, Vivien, 1951

Booth, Shirley, 1952

When she was 7, Booth’s family moved to Philadelphia where she first became interested in acting after seeing a stage performance. When Booth was a teenager, her family moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where she became involved in summer stock. She made her stage debut in a production of Mother Carey’s Chickens. Against her father’s protests, she dropped out of school and traveled to New York to further pursue a career. She initially used the name “Thelma Booth” when her father forbade her to use the family name professionally. She eventually changed her name to Shirley Booth.

Booth began her career onstage as a teenager, acting in stock company productions. She was a prominent actress in Pittsburgh theatre for a time, performing with the Sharp Company.

Her debut on Broadway was in the play, Hell’s Bells, opposite Humphrey Bogart on January 26, 1925.

Booth first attracted major notice as the female lead in the comedy hit Three Men on a Horse, which ran almost two years from 1935 to 1937. During the 1930s and 1940s, she achieved popularity in dramas, comedies and, later, musicals.

She acted with Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story (1939), originated the role of Ruth Sherwood in the 1940 Broadway production of My Sister Eileen, and performed with Ralph Bellamy in Tomorrow the World (1943).

Booth also starred on the popular radio series Duffy’s Tavern, playing the lighthearted, wisecracking, man-crazy daughter of the unseen tavern owner on CBS radio from 1941 to 1942 and on NBC Blue from 1942 to 1943. Her then-husband, Ed Gardner, created and wrote the show, as well as played its lead character, Archie, the malapropping manager of the tavern; Booth left the show not long after the couple divorced. She auditioned unsuccessfully for the title role of Our Miss Brooks in 1948; she had been recommended by Harry Ackerman, who was to produce the show, but Ackerman told radio historian Gerald Nachman that he felt Booth was too conscious of a high school teacher’s struggles to have full fun with the character’s comic possibilities. Our Miss Brooks became a radio and television hit when the title role went to Eve Arden.

Booth received her first Tony Award, for Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic), for her performance as Grace Woods in Goodbye, My Fancy (1948). Her second Tony was for Best Actress in a Play, which she received for her widely acclaimed performance as the tortured wife Lola Delaney in the poignant drama Come Back, Little Sheba (1950). Her leading man, Sidney Blackmer, received the Tony for Best Actor in a Play for his performance as her husband, Doc.

Hepburn, Audrey, 1953

Hepburn was offered a small role in a film being shot in both English and French, Monte Carlo Baby (French: Nous Irons à Monte Carlo, 1952). Coincidentally, French novelist Colette was at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo during the filming, and decided to cast Hepburn in the title role in the Broadway play Gigi. Hepburn went into rehearsals having never spoken on stage, and required private coaching.[49] When Gigi opened at the Fulton Theatre on 24 November 1951, she received praise for her performance, despite criticism that the stage version was inferior to the French film adaptation. The play ran for 219 performances, closing on 31 May 1952, before going on tour, which began 13 October 1952 in Pittsburgh and visited Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Washington, D. C., and Los Angeles, before closing on 16 May 1953 in San Francisco.

Hepburn had her first starring role in Roman Holiday (1953), playing Princess Ann, a European princess who escapes the reins of royalty and has a wild night out with an American newsman (Gregory Peck). The producers initially wanted Elizabeth Taylor for the role, but director William Wyler was so impressed by Hepburn’s screen test that he cast her instead. Wyler later commented, “She had everything I was looking for: charm, innocence, and talent. She also was very funny. She was absolutely enchanting, and we said, ‘That’s the girl!'” Originally, the film was to have had only Gregory Peck’s name above its title, with “Introducing Audrey Hepburn” beneath in smaller font. However, Peck suggested to Wyler that he elevate her to equal billing so that her name appeared before the title, and in type as large as his: “You’ve got to change that because she’ll be a big star, and I’ll look like a big jerk.”

The film was a box-office success, and Hepburn gained critical acclaim for her portrayal, unexpectedly winning the Best Actress Oscar, a BAFTA Award for Best British Actress in a Leading Role.

 

Kelly, Grace, 1954

Showbiz Family

His brother Walter C. Kelly was a vaudeville star, who made films for MGM and Paramount, and another named George was a Pulitzer Prize–winning dramatist, screenwriter, and director.

Kelly’s mother, Margaret Majer, of German descent, had taught physical education at the University of Pennsylvania and had been the first woman to coach women’s athletics at Penn. She also modeled for a time in her youth. After marrying John B. Kelly in 1924, Margaret focused on being a housewife until all her children were of school age, after which she began actively participating in various civic organizations.

Kelly had two older siblings, Margaret and John Jr., and a younger sister, Elizabeth. The children were raised in the Catholic faith.

Kelly grew up in a small, close-knit Catholic community. She was baptized and received her elementary education in the parish of Saint Bridget’s in East Falls. Founded in 1853 by Saint John Neumann, the fourth Bishop of Philadelphia, Saint Bridget’s was a relatively young parish, with families very familiar with one another. While attending Ravenhill Academy, a reputable Catholic girls’ school, Kelly modeled fashions at local charity events with her mother and sisters. In 1942, at the age of 12, she played the lead in Don’t Feed the Animals, a play produced by the East Falls Old Academy Players.

In May 1947, she graduated from Stevens School, a socially prominent private institution in nearby Chestnut Hill, where she participated in drama and dance programs. Her graduation yearbook listed her favorite actress as Ingrid Bergman and her favorite actor as Joseph Cotten. Written in the “Stevens’ Prophecy” section was: “Miss Grace P. Kelly – a famous star of stage and screen”. Owing to her low mathematics scores, Kelly was rejected by Bennington College in July 1947. Despite her parents’ initial disapproval, Kelly decided to pursue her dreams of becoming an actress. John was particularly displeased with her decision, as he viewed acting as “a slim cut above streetwalker” at the time.

To start her career, she auditioned for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, using a scene from her uncle George Kelly’s The Torch-Bearers (1923). Although the school had already met its semester quota, she obtained an interview with the admissions department, and was admitted through George’s influence.

Kelly worked diligently, and practiced speech by using tape recorder. Her early acting pursuits led her to the stage, and she made her Broadway debut in Strindberg’s “The Father,” alongside Raymond Massey. At 19, her graduation performance was as Tracy Lord in “The Philadelphia Story.” George would continue to advise and mentor Kelly throughout her acting career.

TV producer Delbert Mann cast Kelly as Bethel Merriday in an adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel of the same name; this was her first of nearly sixty live TV programs. As a theater personality, she was mentioned in Theatre World magazine as: “most promising personality of the Broadway stage of 1950.” Some of her well-known works as a theater actress were: The Father, The Rockingham Tea Set, The Apple Tree, The Mirror of Delusion, Episode (for Somerset Maugham’s tele-serial), among others.

Impressed by her work in The Father, Henry Hathaway, director of the Twentieth Century-Fox film Fourteen Hours (1951), offered her a small role in the film. Kelly had a minor role, opposite Paul Douglas, Richard Basehart, and Barbara Bel Geddes, as young woman contemplating divorce. Kelly’s costar, Paul Douglas, commented of her acting in this film: “In two senses, she did not have a bad side– you could film her from any angle, and she was one of the most untemperamental, cooperative people in the business.”

After the release of this film, the “Grace Kelly Fan Club” was established, gaining popularity across the country with local chapters springing up and attracting many members. Kelly referred to her fan club as “terrifically amusing”. Kelly was noticed during a visit to the set of Fourteen Hours by Gary Cooper, who was charmed by her, and later stated that she had been “different from all these sexballs we’ve been seeing so much of.” However, Kelly’s performance in Fourteen Hours went unnoticed by critics, and did not contribute to her film career’s momentum. She continued her work in the theater and on TV, though she lacked “vocal horsepower,” and it was regarded she would likely not have had a lengthy stage career.

 

Magnani, Anna, 1955

Magnani’s parentage and birthplace are uncertain. Some sources suggest she was born in Rome, others in Egypt. Her mother was Marina Magnani. Film director Zeffirelli states in his autobiography that she was born in Alexandria, Egypt, to an Italian-Jewish mother and Egyptian father, and that “only later did she become Roman when her grandmother brought her over and raised her in one of the Roman slum districts.”

Magnani herself stated that her mother was married in Egypt but returned to Rome before giving birth to her at Porta Pia, and did not know how the rumor of her Egyptian birth got started. She was enrolled in a French convent school in Rome where she learned to speak French and play the piano. She also developed passion for acting from watching the nuns stage their Christmas plays. This period of formal education lasted until the age of 14.

She was a “plain, frail child with a forlornness of spirit.” Her grandparents compensated by pampering her with food and clothes. Yet while growing up, she was more at ease around “more earthly” companions, often befriending the “toughest kid on the block.” This trait carried over into her adult life: “I hate respectability. Give me the life of the streets, of common people.”

At age 17, she went on to study at the Eleonora Duse Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome for two years. To support herself, Magnani sang in nightclubs and cabarets; leading to her being dubbed “the Italian Édith Piaf.”  An actor friend, Micky Knox, writes that she “never studied acting formally” and started her career in Italian music halls singing traditional Roman Folk songs. “She was instinctive” he writes. “She had the ability to call up emotions at will, to move an audience, to convince them that life on the stage was as real and natural as life in their own kitchen.”

Magnani was considered an “outstanding theatre actress” in productions of Anna Christie and The Petrified Forest.

Discovered by Director Alessandrini

In 1933, Magnani was acting in experimental plays in Rome when she was discovered by Italian filmmaker Goffredo Alessandrini. The couple married the same year, and Alessandrini directed her in her first major film role in The Blind Woman of Sorrento (La Cieca di Sorrento, 1934). For director Vittorio De Sica, Magnani starred in Teresa Venerdì (Friday Theresa, 1941). De Sica called this Magnani’s “first true film”. She plays Loletta Prima, the girlfriend of De Sica’s character, Pietro Vignali. De Sica described Magnani’s laugh as “loud, overwhelming, and tragic”.

Magnani gained international renown as Pina in Roberto Rossellini’s neorealist Rome, Open City (Roma, città aperta, 1945). In a film about Italy’s final days under German occupation during World War II, Magnani’s character dies fighting to protect her husband, an underground fighter against the Nazis.

 

Bergman, Ingrid, 1956 (see 1944)

 

Woodward, Joanne, 1957

Woodward lived in Thomasville until she was in the second grade, then lived in Blakely and Thomaston before her family relocated to Marietta, Georgia, where she attended Marietta High School. She remains a booster of Marietta High School and of the city’s Strand Theater.

They moved once again when she was a junior in high school after her parents divorced. She graduated from Greenville High School in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1947. Woodward won many beauty contests as a teenager.

She appeared in theatrical productions at Greenville High and in Greenville’s Little Theatre, playing Laura Wingfield in the staging of The Glass Menagerie. (She returned to Greenville in 1976 to play Amanda Wingfield in another Little Theatre production of The Glass Menagerie. She also returned in 1955 for the première of Count Three And Pray, her debut movie, at the Paris Theatre on North Main Street.)

Training:

Woodward majored in drama at Louisiana State University, where she was an initiate of Chi Omega sorority, then headed to New York City to perform on the stage.

She also studied acting under Sanford Meisner in the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre.

Woodward managed to get roles on TV shows such as Tales of Tomorrow, Goodyear Playhouse, Danger, The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse, You Are There, The Web, The Ford Television Theatre, The Elgin Hour, Robert Montgomery Presents, Armstrong Circle Theatre, The Star and the Story, Omnibus, Star Tonight, and Ponds Theater.

In 1953–1954, she understudied in the New York production of Picnic, which featured her future husband Paul Newman.

Woodward’s first film was a post-Civil War Western, Count Three and Pray (1955), in which she was billed second.

She was signed to a long-term contract by 20th Century Fox in January 1956.

Woodward guest starred on The 20th Century-Fox Hour, The United States Steel Hour, General Electric Theater, Four Star Playhouse, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Kraft Theatre, The Alcoa Hour, Studio One in Hollywood, and Climax!.

Woodward’s second feature film was A Kiss Before Dying (1956) with Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter, all under contract to Fox and loaned out to United Artists.

In 1956, Woodward returned to Broadway to star in The Lovers which only had a brief run (but was later filmed as The War Lord (1965).

Woodward was given the lead in her third feature, The Three Faces of Eve (1957), a commercial and critical success,  for which she won the Best Actress Oscar.

Hayward, Susan, 1958

Hayward was born Edythe Marrenner on June 30, 1917, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, the youngest of three children to Ellen (née Pearson; 1888–1958) and Walter Marrenner (1879–1938). Her paternal grandmother, Katherine Harrigan, was an actress from County Cork, Ireland. Her mother was of Swedish descent. She had an older sister, Florence, and an older brother, Walter, Jr.

In 1924 Marrenner was hit by a car, suffering a fractured hip and broken legs that put her in a partial body cast with the resulting bone setting leaving her with distinctive hip swivel later in life.

Hayward was educated at Public School 181 and graduated from the Girls’ Commercial High School in June 1935 (later renamed Prospect Heights High School). Hayward attended that school in the mid-1930s, although she only recollects swimming for a dime during hot summers in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

During her high school years, she acted in various school plays, and was named “Most Dramatic” by her class.

She began her career as a model, traveling to Hollywood in 1937 to try out for the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. Though Hayward did not get the part, she was used for other actors’ screen tests by David Selznick and received a contract at Warner.

Talent agent Max Arnow changed Marrenner’s name to Susan Hayward once she started her six-month contract for $50 a week with Warner’s. Hayward had bit parts in Hollywood Hotel (1937), The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) (her part was edited out), and The Sisters (1938), as well as in a short, Campus Cinderella (1938).

Hayward’s first sizeable role was with Ronald Reagan in Girls on Probation (1938), where she was 10th in billing. She was also in Comet Over Broadway (1938), but returned to unbilled and began posing for pinup “cheesecake” publicity photos, something she and most actresses despised, but under her contract she had no choice. With Hayward’s contract at Warner Bros. finished, she moved on to Paramount Studios.

In 1939 Paramount signed her to a $250 per week contract. Hayward had her first breakthrough in the part of Isobel in Beau Geste (1939) opposite Gary Cooper and Ray Milland. She held the small, but important, haunting love of youth role as recalled by the Geste brothers while they searched for a valuable sapphire known as “the blue water” during desert service in the Foreign Legion; the film was hugely successful.

Paramount put Hayward as the second lead in Our Leading Citizen (1939) with Bob Burns and she then supported Joe E. Brown in $1000 a Touchdown (1939).

Hayward went to Columbia for a supporting role alongside Ingrid Bergman in Adam Had Four Sons (1941), then to Republic Pictures for Sis Hopkins (1941) with Judy Canova and Bob Crosby. Back at Paramount, she had the lead in a “B” film, Among the Living (1941).

Cecil B. De Mille gave her a supporting role in Reap the Wild Wind (1942), to costar with Milland, John Wayne and Paulette Goddard.

She was in the short A Letter from Bataan (1942) and supported Goddard and Fred MacMurray in The Forest Rangers (1942).

Hayward costarred in I Married a Witch (1942) with Fredric March and Veronica Lake, as the fiancé of Wallace Wooly (March) before Lake’s witch appears in the 1940s from a Puritanical stake burning 300 years prior. The film served as inspiration for the 1960s TV series Bewitched and was based on an unfinished novel by Thorne Smith; it was made for Paramount but sold to United Artists. She was next in Paramount’s all-star musical review Star Spangled Rhythm (1943) that featured its nonmusical contract players as well.

 

Signoret, Simone, 1959

Signoret was born Simone Henriette Charlotte Kaminker in Wiesbaden, Germany, to André and Georgette (née Signoret) Kaminker, as the eldest of three children, with two younger brothers.

Her father, a pioneering interpreter who worked in the League of Nations, was a French-born army officer from a Polish Jewish family, who brought the family to Neuilly-sur-Seine on the outskirts of Paris. Her mother, Georgette, from whom she acquired her stage name, was a French Catholic.

Signoret grew up in Paris in an intellectual atmosphere and studied English, German and Latin.

After completing secondary school during the Nazi occupation, Simone was responsible for supporting her family. She was forced to take work as a typist for a French collaborationist newspaper, Les nouveaux temps, run by Jean Luchaire.

During the occupation, Signoret mixed with artistic group of writers and actors who met at the Café de Flore in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter.

When she developed an interest in acting, she was encouraged by friends, including her lover, Daniel Gélin, to follow her ambition.

In 1942, she began appearing in bit parts and was able to earn enough money to support her mother and two brothers. Her father, who was a French patriot, had fled the country in 1940 to join General De Gaulle in England. She took her mother’s maiden name for the screen to help hide her Jewish roots.

Typecast as Prostitute

Signoret’s sensual features and earthy nature led to typecasting–she was often seen in roles as a prostitute. She won considerable attention in La Ronde (1950), a film which was banned briefly in New York as immoral.

She won further acclaim, including acting award from the British Film Academy, for her portrayal of another prostitute in Jacques Becker’s Casque d’or (1951).

She appeared in many French films during the 1950s, including Thérèse Raquin (1953), directed by Marcel Carné; Les Diaboliques (1954) by Clouzot; and The Crucible (Les Sorcières de Salem; 1956), based on Arthur Miller’s The Crucible

Taylor, Elizabeth, 1960, 1966

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born on February 27, 1932, at Heathwood, her family’s home on 8 Wildwood Road in Hampstead Garden Suburb, London.[1]:3–10 She received dual British-American citizenship at birth, as her parents, art dealer Francis Lenn Taylor (1897–1968) and retired stage actress Sara Sothern (née Sara Viola Warmbrodt, 1895–1994), were United States citizens, both originally from Arkansas City, Kansas.[1]:3–10[a] They moved to London in 1929 and opened an art gallery on Bond Street; their first child, a son named Howard, was born the same year.[5]:61[1]:3–11

The family lived in London during Taylor’s childhood.[1]:11–19 Their social circle included artists such as Augustus John and Laura Knight, and politicians such as Colonel Victor Cazalet.[1]:11–19 Cazalet was Taylor’s unofficial godfather, and an important influence in her early life.[1]:11–19 She was enrolled in Byron House, a Montessori school in Highgate, and was raised according to the teachings of Christian Science, the religion of her mother and Cazalet.[1]:3,11–19,20–23

In early 1939, the Taylors decided to return to the United States due to fear of impending war in Europe.[1]:22–26 United States ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy contacted her father, urging him to return to the US with his family.[6] Sara and the children left first in April 1939 aboard the ocean liner SS Manhattan, and moved in with Taylor’s maternal grandfather in Pasadena, California.[1]:22–28[7] Francis stayed behind to close the London gallery, and joined them in December.[1]:22–28 In early 1940, he opened a new gallery in Los Angeles. After briefly living in Pacific Palisades with the Chapman family, the Taylor family settled in Beverly Hills, where the two children were enrolled in Hawthorne School.[1]:27–34

In California, Taylor’s mother was frequently told that her daughter should audition for films.[1]:27–30 Taylor’s eyes in particular drew attention; they were blue, to the extent of appearing violet, and were rimmed by dark double eyelashes caused by a genetic mutation.[8][1]:9 Sara was initially opposed to Taylor appearing in films, but after the outbreak of war in Europe made return there unlikely, she began to view the film industry as a way of assimilating to American society.[1]:27–30 Francis Taylor’s Beverly Hills gallery had gained clients from the film industry soon after opening, helped by the endorsement of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, a friend of the Cazalets.[1]:27–31 Through a client and a school friend’s father, Taylor auditioned for both Universal Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in early 1941.[5]:27–37 Both studios offered Taylor contracts, and Sara Taylor chose to accept Universal’s offer.[5]:27–37

Taylor began her contract in April 1941 and was cast in a small role in There’s One Born Every Minute (1942).[5]:27–37 She did not receive other roles, and her contract was terminated after a year.[5]:27–37 Universal’s casting director explained her dislike of Taylor, stating that “the kid has nothing … her eyes are too old, she doesn’t have the face of a child”.[5]:27–37 Biographer Alexander Walker agrees that Taylor looked different from the child stars of the era, such as Shirley Temple and Judy Garland.[5]:32 Taylor later said that, “apparently, I used to frighten grown ups, because I was totally direct”.[9]

Taylor received another opportunity in late 1942, when her father’s acquaintance, MGM producer Samuel Marx, arranged for her to audition for a minor role in Lassie Come Home (1943), which required a child actress with an English accent .[1]:22–23,27–37 After a trial contract of three months, she was given a standard seven-year contract in January 1943.[1]:38–41 Following Lassie, she appeared in minor uncredited roles in two other films set in England – Jane Eyre (1943), and The White Cliffs of Dover (1944).[1]:38–41

 

Loren, Sophia, 1961

 

Bancroft, Anne, 1962

 

Neal, Patricia, 1963

Andrews Julie, 1964

Elizabeth Wells was born on 1 October 1935 in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England.[4][5] Her mother, Barbara Ward Wells (née Morris; 1910–1984) was born in Chertsey[6] and married Edward Charles “Ted” Wells (1908–1990), a teacher of metalwork and woodwork, in 1932. Andrews was conceived as a result of an affair her mother had with a family friend. Andrews discovered her true parentage from her mother in 1950, although it was not publicly disclosed until her 2008 autobiography.

With the outbreak of World War II, Barbara and Ted Wells went their separate ways and were soon divorced. Each remarried: Barbara to Ted Andrews, in 1943, and Ted Wells in 1944 to Winifred Maud (Hyde) Birkhead, a war widow and former hairstylist working a lathe at a war work factory that employed them both in Hinchley Wood, Surrey. Ted Wells assisted with evacuating children to Surrey during the Blitz, while Barbara joined Ted Andrews in entertaining the troops through the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA).

Andrews lived briefly with Ted Wells and her brother John in Surrey. In 1940, Ted Wells sent young Julia to live with her mother and stepfather, whom the elder Wells thought would be better able to provide for his talented daughter’s artistic training. According to Julie Andrews’ 2008 autobiography Home, while Julie had been used to calling Ted Andrews “Uncle Ted”, her mother suggested it would be more appropriate to refer to her stepfather as “Pop”, while her father remained “Dad” or “Daddy” to her. Julie disliked this change.

The Andrews family was “very poor” and they “lived in a bad slum area of London,” Andrews recalled, adding, “That was a very black period in my life.” According to Andrews, her stepfather was violent and an alcoholic. Ted Andrews twice, while drunk, tried to get into bed with his stepdaughter, resulting in Andrews fitting a lock on her door.[10] As the stage career of Ted and Barbara Andrews improved, they were able to afford better surroundings, first to Beckenham and then, as the war ended, back to the Andrews’ hometown of Hersham. The Andrews family took up residence at the Old Meuse, in West Grove, Hersham, a house (now demolished) where Andrews’ maternal grandmother had served as a maid.

Andrews’ stepfather sponsored lessons for her, first at the independent arts educational school Cone-Ripman School (now known commonly as ArtsEd) in London, and thereafter with concert soprano and voice instructor Madame Lilian Stiles-Allen. “She had an enormous influence on me,” Andrews said of Stiles-Allen, adding, “She was my third mother – I’ve got more mothers and fathers than anyone in the world.” In her memoir Julie Andrews – My Star Pupil, Stiles-Allen records, “The range, accuracy and tone of Julie’s voice amazed me … she had possessed the rare gift of absolute pitch”,[15]:22 though Andrews herself refutes this in her 2008 autobiography Home.[8][16] According to Andrews, “Madame was sure that I could do Mozart and Rossini, but, to be honest, I never was”.[15]:24 Of her own voice, she says, “I had a very pure, white, thin voice, a four-octave range – dogs would come from miles around.”[15]:24 After Cone-Ripman School, Andrews continued her academic education at the nearby Woodbrook School, a local state school in Beckenham.

Beginning in 1945, and for the next two years, Julie Andrews performed spontaneously and unbilled on stage with her parents. “Then came the day when I was told I must go to bed in the afternoon because I was going to be allowed to sing with Mummy and Pop in the evening,” Andrews explained. She would stand on a beer crate to sing into the microphone, sometimes a solo or as a duet with her stepfather, while her mother played piano. “It must have been ghastly, but it seemed to go down all right.”

Christie, Julie, 1965

MacLaine, Shirley, 1983

As a toddler, she had weak ankles and would fall over with the slightest misstep, so her mother decided to enroll her in ballet class at the Washington School of Ballet at the age of 3. This was the beginning of her interest in performing. Strongly motivated by ballet, she never missed a class. In classical romantic pieces like Romeo and Juliet and The Sleeping Beauty, she played the boys’ roles due to being the tallest and the absence of males in the class. Eventually, she had a substantial female role as the fairy godmother in Cinderella; while warming up backstage, she broke her ankle, but then tightened the ribbons on her toe shoes and proceeded to dance the role all the way through before calling for an ambulance. Ultimately she decided against making a career of professional ballet because she had grown too tall and was unable to acquire perfect technique. She didn’t have the ideal body type, lacking the requisite “beautifully constructed feet” of high arches, high insteps and a flexible ankle. Also slowly realizing ballet’s propensity to be too all-consuming, and ultimately limiting, she moved on to other forms of dancing, acting and musical theater.

She attended Washington-Lee High School, where she was on the cheerleading squad and acted in school theatrical productions.

The summer before senior year of high school, MacLaine went to New York City to try acting on Broadway, having minor success in the chorus of Oklahoma! After she graduated, she returned and was in the dancing ensemble of the Broadway production of Me and Juliet (1953–1954). She became an understudy to actress Carol Haney in The Pajama Game; in May 1954 Haney injured her ankle during a matinee, and MacLaine replaced her. A few months later, with Haney still injured, film producer Hal B. Wallis saw MacLaine’s performance, and signed her to work for Paramount Pictures.

MacLaine made her film debut in Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry (1955), for which she won the Golden Globe for New Star of the Year. This was followed by her role in the Martin and Lewis film Artists and Models (also 1955). Soon afterwards, she had a role in Around the World in 80 Days (1956). This was followed by Hot Spell and leading role in Some Came Running (both 1958), for which she gained her first Oscar nomination and Golden Globe nomination.

 

Page, Geraldine, 1985

At age 5, Page relocated with her family to Chicago, Illinois. Raised a Methodist, Page and her family were active parishioners of the Englewood Methodist Church in Chicago, where she had her first foray into acting within the church’s theatre group, playing Jo March in a 1941 production of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.

After graduating from Chicago’s Englewood Technical Prep Academy, she attended the Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago (now at DePaul University), with the intention of becoming a visual artist or pianist.  After graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1945, Page studied acting at the Herbert Berghof School and the American Theatre Wing in New York City, studying with Uta Hagen for seven years, and then at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg.

During this time, Page would return to Chicago in the summers to perform in repertory theatre in Lake Zurich, Illinois, where she and fellow actors had established their own theater company. While attempting to establish her career, she worked various odd jobs, including as a hat-check girl, theater usher, lingerie model, and  factory laborer.

Sarandon, Susan, 1995

In 1969, Sarandon went to a casting call for the picture Joe (1970) with her then-husband Chris Sarandon. Although he did not get a part, she was cast in a major role of a disaffected teen who disappears into the seedy underworld.

Between 1970 and 1972, she appeared in the soap operas A World Apart and Search for Tomorrow, playing Patrice Kahlman and Sarah Fairbanks, respectively. She appeared in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and played the female lead in The Great Waldo Pepper (also 1975), opposite Robert Redford. She was twice directed by Louis Malle, in Pretty Baby (1978) and Atlantic City (1981), for which she earned her first Oscar Award nomination

 

Hunt, Helen. 1997

Hunt appeared as a marijuana-smoking classmate on an episode of The Facts of Life. In 1982, Hunt played a young woman who, while on PCP, jumps out of a second-story window, in a made-for-TV film called Desperate Lives (a scene which she mocked during a Saturday Night Live monologue in 1994), and she was cast on the ABC sitcom It Takes Two, which lasted only one season. In 1983, she starred in Bill: On His Own, with Mickey Rooney and played Tami Maida in the fact-based production Quarterback Princess; both were made-for television films. She also had a recurring role on St. Elsewhere as Colleen Williams, the girlfriend of Jack “Boomer” Morrison, and had a notable guest appearance as a cancer-stricken mother-to-be in a two-part episode of Highway to Heaven.

By the late 1980s, Hunt had begun appearing in studio films for teenage audience. Her first major film role was that of a punk rock girl in the sci-fi film Trancers (1984). She played the friend of an army brat in the comedy Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985), with Sarah Jessica Parker and Shannen Doherty, and appeared as the daughter of a woman on the verge of divorce in Coppola’s Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), alongside Kathleen Turner. In 1987, Hunt starred with Matthew Broderick in Project X, as a graduate student assigned to care for chimpanzees used in a secret Air Force project. In 1988, she appeared in Stealing Home, as Hope Wyatt, the sister of Billy Wyatt, played by Mark Harmon and a cast featuring Jodie Foster and Harold Ramis. Next of Kin (1989) featured her as the pregnant wife of a respectable lawman, opposite Patrick Swayze and Liam Neeson.

 

Roberts. Julia, 2000

Roberts made her first big screen appearance at age 21 in the film Satisfaction (1988), alongside Liam Neeson and Justine Bateman, as a band member looking for a summer gig. She had previously performed a small role opposite her brother Eric, in Blood Red (she has two words of dialogue), filmed in 1987, although it was not released until 1989.

Her first TV appearance was as a juvenile rape victim in the initial season of the series Crime Story with Dennis Farina, in the episode titled “The Survivor,” broadcast on February 13, 1987.

Her first critical success with moviegoers was her performance in the independent film Mystic Pizza in 1988; that same year, she had a role in the fourth-season finale of Miami Vice. In 1989, she was featured in Steel Magnolias, as a young bride with diabetes, and received both her first Oscar nomination (as Best Supporting Actress) and first Golden Globe Award win for her performance.

Luck: Roberts became known to worldwide audiences when she starred with Richard Gere in the Cinderella–Pygmalionesque story, Pretty Woman, in 1990, playing an assertive freelance hooker with a heart of gold. Roberts won the role after Michelle Pfeiffer, Molly Ringwald, Meg Ryan, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Karen Allen, and Daryl Hannah (co-star in Steel Magnolias) turned it down.

The role also earned her a second Oscar nomination, this time as Best Actress, and second Golden Globe Award win, as Motion Picture Best Actress. Pretty Woman saw the highest number of ticket sales in the U.S. ever for a romantic comedy, and made $463.4 million worldwide.

Theron, Charlize, 2003

At age 16 Theron won a one-year modelling contract at a local competition in Salerno and moved with her mother to Milan, Italy.

After Theron spent a year modelling throughout Europe, she and her mother moved to the US, both New York City and Miami. In New York, she attended the Joffrey Ballet School, where she trained as a ballet dancer until a knee injury closed this career path.

As Theron recalled: “I went to New York for three days to model, and then I spent a winter in New York in a friend’s windowless basement apartment. I was broke, I was taking class at the Joffrey Ballet, and my knees gave out. I realized I couldn’t dance anymore, and I went into a major depression. My mom came over from South Africa and said, “Either you figure out what to do next or you come home, because you can sulk in South Africa”.

In 1994, Theron flew to Los Angeles, on a one-way ticket her mother bought for her, intending to work in the film industry. During the initial months there, she lived in a motel with the $300 budget her mother had given her; she continued receiving checks from New York and lived “from paycheck to paycheck”[26] to the point of stealing bread from a basket in a restaurant to survive.

One day, she went to a Hollywood Boulevard bank to cash a check, including one her mother had sent to help with the rent, but it was rejected because it was out-of-state and she was not an American citizen.

Theron argued and pleaded with the bank teller until talent agent John Crosby, who was the next customer behind her, cashed it for her and gave her his business card.

Spotting

Crosby introduced Theron to an acting school, and in 1995 she played her first non-speaking role in the horror film Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest.[8]

Her first speaking role was Helga Svelgen the hitwoman in 2 Days in the Valley (1996), but despite the movie’s mixed reviews, attention drew to Theron due to her beauty and the scene where she fought Teri Hatcher’s character.[6][28][29] Theron feared being typecast as characters similar to Helga and recalled being asked to repeat her performance in the movie during auditions:[6] “A lot of people were saying, ‘You should just hit while the iron’s hot'[…] But playing the same part over and over doesn’t leave you with any longevity. And I knew it was going to be harder for me, because of what I look like, to branch out to different kinds of roles”.[28]

When auditioning for Showgirls, Theron was introduced to talent agent J. J. Harris by the co-casting director Johanna Ray.[6][22] She recalled being surprised at how much faith Harris had in her potential and referred to Harris as her mentor.[6][22] Harris would find scripts and movies for Theron in a variety of genres and encouraged her to become a producer.[6][22] She would be Theron’s agent for over 15 years until Harris’s death.[6][22]

 

Mirren, Helen, 2006

Aged 18, Mirren auditioned for the National Youth Theatre (NYT) and was accepted. Aged 20, she played Cleopatra in the NYT production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Old Vic, a role which Mirren says “launched my career,” and led to her signing with the agent Al Parker.

After the National Youth Theatre, Mirren was invited to join the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), where she played Castiza in Trevor Nunn’s 1966 staging of The Revenger’s Tragedy, Diana in All’s Well That Ends Well (1967), Cressida in Troilus and Cressida (1968), Rosalind in As You Like It (1968), Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1970), Tatiana in Gorky’s Enemies at the Aldwych (1971), and the title role in Miss Julie at The Other Place (1971). In 1972 and 1973, Mirren worked with Peter Brook’s International Centre for Theatre Research, and joined the group’s tour in North Africa and the US, during which they created The Conference of the Birds. She then rejoined the RSC, playing Lady Macbeth at Stratford in 1974 and at the Aldwych Theatre in 1975.

 

Cotillard, Marion, 2007

Cotillard’s career as a film actress began in the mid-1990s, with minor roles in Philippe Harel’s The Story of a Boy Who Wanted to Be Kissed (1994), which was her feature film debut at the age of 18, and in Arnaud Desplechin’s My Sex Life… or How I Got into an Argument, and Coline Serreau’s La Belle Verte (both 1996). Also in 1996, Cotillard had her first leading role in the television film Chloé, directed by Dennis Berry, with Cotillard starring as a teenage runaway who is forced into prostitution, opposite Anna Karina.

In 1998, she appeared in Gérard Pirès’ action comedy Taxi, playing Lilly Bertineau, the girlfriend of delivery boy Daniel, played by Samy Naceri. The film was a hit in France and Cotillard was nominated for a César Award for Most Promising Actress.[14] She reprised the role in Taxi 2 (2000) and Taxi 3 (2003).

Cotillard ventured into science fiction with Alexandre Aja’s post-apocalyptic romantic drama, Furia, released in 1999, a year in which she also starred in the Swiss war drama War in the Highlands (La Guerre dans le Haut Pays), for which she won the Best Actress Award at the Autrans Film Festival in 1999.

In 2001, she appeared in Pierre Grimblat’s film Lisa, playing the title role and younger version of Jeanne Moreau’s character, alongside Benoît Magimel and Sagamore Stévenin. She also starred in Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s film Pretty Things (Les Jolies Choses), adapted from the work of feminist writer Virginie Despentes, portraying twins of completely opposite characters, Lucie and Marie; for that role, she was again nominated for a César Award for Most Promising Actress. In 2002, Cotillard starred in Guillaume Nicloux’s thriller A Private Affair (Une Affaire Privée), in which she portrayed the mysterious Clarisse.

Cotillard started the transition into Hollywood when she obtained a supporting role in Tim Burton’s film Big Fish playing Joséphine, the French wife of Billy Crudup’s character, William Bloom. The production was her first American film and gave her the chance to work with well-established actors such as Helena Bonham Carter, Albert Finney, Ewan McGregor, Jessica Lange and Allison Lohman.[1] Big Fish was a critical and commercial success.[17] She also starred in 2003 the French romantic comedy film Love Me If You Dare (Jeux d’enfants), as Sophie Kowalsky, the daughter of Polish immigrants. The film was directed by Yann Samuel and was a box office hit in France.

In 2004, she won the Chopard Trophy of Female Revelation at the Cannes Film Festival, and appeared in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s A Very Long Engagement, as the vengeful Tina Lombardi, for which she won César Award for Best Supporting Actress, and the mystery thriller Innocence, as Mademoiselle Éva; both films were acclaimed by critics.

In 2005, Cotillard starred in 6 films: Steve Suissa’s Cavalcade, Abel Ferrara’s Mary, Richard Berry’s The Black Box (La Boîte Noire); Love Is in the Air (Ma vie en l’air), Burnt Out (Sauf le respect que je vous dois), and Stéphan Guérin-Tillié’s Edy.

In 2006, she played significant roles in 4 features, including Ridley Scott’s romantic dramedy A Good Year, in which she portrayed Fanny Chenal, a French café owner in a small Provençal town, opposite Russell Crowe as a Londoner who inherits a local property. She played Nadine in the Belgian comedy Dikkenek, alongside Mélanie Laurent, and the role of Nicole in Fair Play.

Winslet, Kate, 2008

Winslet attended St Mary and All Saints’ Church of England primary school. Living in a family of actors inspired her to pursue acting from young age. She and her sisters participated in amateur stage shows at school and at local youth theatre named Foundations.

When she was 5, Winslet made her first stage appearance as Mary in her school’s production of the Nativity. She was as an overweight child; nicknamed “blubber” by her schoolmates and bullied for her looks; she did not let this defeat her. At 11, Winslet was accepted into the Redroofs Theatre School in Maidenhead. The school also functioned as agency and took students to London to audition for acting jobs.

She appeared in a Sugar Puffs commercial and dubbed for foreign films. At school, she was made head girl, took part in productions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and played the lead role of Wendy Darling in Peter Pan. She worked simultaneously with the Starmaker Theatre Company in Reading. She participated in over 20 stage productions, but was rarely the lead due to her weight. She played key roles as Miss Agatha Hannigan in Annie, the Mother Wolf in The Jungle Book, and Lena Marelli in Bugsy Malone.

In 1991, within two weeks of finishing her GCSE examinations, Winslet made her screen debut, age 16, as one of cast members of the BBC science fiction TV series Dark Season. Her part was that of Reet, a schoolgirl who helps her classmates fight against a sinister man distributing free computers to school. She did not earn much from the job, and a lack of funds forced Winslet to leave Redroofs. To support herself, she worked at a delicatessen. In 1992, she had small part in the TV film Anglo-Saxon Attitudes, an adaptation of Angus Wilson’s satirical novel. Winslet, who weighed 84 kg; 185 lb at the time, played the daughter of an obese woman. While filming, an off-hand comment from the director Diarmuid Lawrence about the likeness between her and the actress who played her mother prompted Winslet to lose weight.

She next played the young daughter of a bankrupt self-made man (played by Ray Winstone) in the TV sitcom Get Back (1992–93). She also had guest role in 1993 episode of the medical drama series Casualty.

 

Colman, Olivia, 2018

Sarah Caroline Colman was born in Norwich on January 30, 1974, the daughter of nurse Mary (née Leakey) and chartered surveyor Keith Colman.

She was privately educated at Norwich High School for Girls and Gresham’s School in Holt, Norfolk. Her first role was Jean Brodie in a school production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the age of 16. She cites her mother’s interrupted career as a ballet dancer as an inspiration to pursue acting professionally. Colman spent a term studying primary teaching at Homerton College, Cambridge before studying drama at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, from which she graduated in 1999.

During her time at Cambridge, she auditioned for the Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club and met future co-stars David Mitchell and Robert Webb.

Colman was a subject of the UK genealogy program Who Do You Think You Are? in July 2018. Although she expected that her family tree would mainly relate to Norfolk, it was discovered that her fourth great-grandfather, Richard Campbell Bazett, had been born on the island of Saint Helena and that he worked in London for the East India Company. Bazett’s son, Colman’s third great-grandfather Charles Bazett, married Harriot Slessor.

Researchers discovered that she was born in the Indian city of Kishanganj, lost her British father when she was aged three, and then made the journey to England alone. Slessor’s passage was paid for by her paternal grandmother. The episode speculated that Slessor’s mother might have been Indian, but did not present concrete proof; after the episode aired, the Berkshire Record Office published the will of Slessor’s mother, which proved that her name was Seraphina Donclere, evidently of European origin, and that she died in 1810.

Colman made her professional acting debut in 2000, at the age of 26, as part of the BBC2 comedy sketch show Bruiser. She has since appeared in roles in many BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 television series, such as People Like Us, Look Around You, Black Books, The Office, The Time of Your Life and provided the voice-over for Five’s poll for Britain’s Funniest Comedy Character.

Colman regularly featured in BBC Radio 4 comedies, such as Concrete Cow, Think the Unthinkable, The House of Milton Jones and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. She was also the voice of Minka, the Polish secretary in the Radio 4 comedy Hut 33, set in a fictional codebreaking hut of the real-life Bletchley Park during World War II. Colman appeared as Bev, alongside Mark Burdis as Kev, in a series of television adverts for AA car insurance. She provided voices for the Andrex “be kind to your behind” adverts and Glade fragrance adverts, where her character is a gorilla.

Chastain, Jessica, 2022

Jessica Michelle Chastain was born on March 24, 1977, in Sacramento, California to Jerri Renee Hastey (née Chastain) and rock musician Michael Monasterio. Her parents were both teenagers when she was born. Chastain is reluctant to publicly discuss her family background. She was estranged from Monasterio, who died in 2013, and has stated that no father is listed on her birth certificate.

Chastain has two sisters and two brothers. Her younger sister, Juliet, committed suicide in 2003 following years of drug addiction. Chastain was raised in Sacramento by her mother and stepfather, Michael Hastey, a firefighter. Her family struggled financially. Her stepfather was the first person to make her feel secure. She shares a close bond with her maternal grandmother, Marilyn, and credits her as someone who “always believed in me”.

Chastain developed an interest in acting at age 7, after her grandmother took her to a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. She would regularly put on amateur shows with other children, and considered herself to be their artistic director. As a student at the El Camino Fundamental High School in Sacramento, Chastain struggled academically.

She was a loner and considered herself a misfit in school, eventually finding an outlet in the performing arts. She has described how she used to miss school to read Shakespeare,[12] whose plays she became enamored with after attending the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with her classmates.

With too many absences during her senior year in school, Chastain did not qualify for graduation, but later obtained an adult diploma.[10] She later attended Sacramento City College from 1996 to 1997, during which she was a member of the institution’s debate team.

Describing her early childhood, she recalled: I grew up with a single mother who worked very hard to put food on our table. We did not have money. There were many nights when we had to go to sleep without eating. It was a very difficult upbringing. Things weren’t easy for me growing up.

In 1998, Chastain finished her education at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and made her professional debut, age 21, as Juliet in a production of Romeo and Juliet staged by TheatreWorks, a company in the San Francisco Bay Area. The production led her to audition for the Juilliard School in New York City, where she was accepted and granted scholarship funded by actor Robin Williams.

In her first year at the school, Chastain suffered from anxiety and was worried about being dropped from the program, spending time reading and watching films. Her participation in a successful production of The Seagull during her second year helped build her confidence. She graduated from the school with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2003.

Shortly before graduating from Juilliard, Chastain attended an event for final-year in Los Angeles, where she was signed to talent holding deal by the TV producer John Wells.

She relocated to Los Angeles and started auditioning for jobs. She initially found the process difficult, which she believed was due to other people finding her difficult to categorize as a redhead with an unconventional look.

TV came First

In her TV debut, The WB network’s 2004 pilot remake of the 1960s gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, she was cast as Carolyn Stoddard. The pilot was directed by P. J. Hogan, but the series was never picked up for broadcast.

She appeared as a guest performer on the medical drama series ER playing a woman “psychotic”, which led to her getting more unusual parts such as accident victims or characters with mental illness.

She went on to appear in such roles in a few other television series from 2004 to 2007, including Veronica Mars (2004), Close to Home (2006), Blackbeard (2006), and Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005–06).