Barbara Stanwyck (Double Indemnity)
A backstabbing blonde
Rita Hayworth (Gilda)
Best known for her role in Gilda (1946) as a conniving woman caught between two men, Rita Hayworth found plenty of success in the film noir genre throughout her time in Hollywood. Starring in The Lady From Shanghai (1947) and Affair In Trinidad (1952),
Hayworth frequently took on roles that had her playing some sort of performer in far away places. Due to her singing and dancing abilities, studios and directors wanted to take full advantage of Hayworth’s many talents. Each one of the women she portrays is just as unafraid to use their gifts to take advantage of the men around them.
John Garfield (Postman Always Rings Twice)
Original bad boy
A theater actor scooped up by Hollywood, John Garfield played moody, brooding characters left and right in the movies he graced. This made him suitable for the anti-hero leading man of film noir.
The Breaking Point (1950) and Force Of Evil (1948) both highlight these qualities in roles of a fishing boat captain and a small-time gangster, respectively. His performances were sympathetic to audiences that could see themselves in Garfield’s every-man demeanor. While other leading men might come off too suave and calculated, Garfield was in touch with the reality of life at the time. Among Garfield’s other notable noirs are The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) and Nobody Lives Forever (1940).
Robert Mitchum
Dangerous predator.
Robert Mitchum has earned a place in history for being among the best actors in Westerns, boxing films, and many more, but his work in noir cannot be overlooked. His range in all of his work cannot be overstated as he goes from normal men to killers at the drop of a hat. Out of the 110 screen appearances he made throughout his career, some of his noirs include Undercurrent (1946), Crossfire (1947), and Out of the Past (1947).
Mitchum costars in Out of the Past with Jane Greer, and it is considered one of his best, as well as one of the best of the genre. He plays a man being haunted by his sordid past who gets intertwined in danger once again with Greer’s femme fatale. Over the course of his career, he would go on to play heroes, villains, and everything in between with equal measure and success.
Ava Gardner (The Killers)
Real-life femme fatale
Gardner is best known in the noir arena for her role as Kitty Collins in The Killers (1946), based on the short story by Ernest Hemingway. Although her career, and Gardner’s famously scandalous personal life, would go on to be larger than just the noir genre, she still made a significant mark. Her other noir pictures comprise The Bribe (1949) and East Side, West Side (1949). Gardner could never fully escape the femme fatale moniker as her multiple high-profile marriages, like that to singer Frank Sinatra, always kept her in the public eye. This, however, never detracted from her excellent work on screen and chilling portrayals of morally corrupt characters.
Alan Ladd (1913-1964)
Quiet, confident man’s man.
A popular pair in film noir, Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.
Ladd headed up This Gun For Hire (1942), The Blue Dahlia (1946), and The Glass Key (1942), all opposite Veronica Lake, which carved out quite a niche for the duo. Known both on and off-screen for his serious demeanor, Ladd eventually would move into Westerns and other genre films after his early success in noir, like many actors of a similar type and trajectory of the time. The characters he played and their more subtle, quiet charisma turned out to be quite popular among audiences, and turned him into a star.
Veronica Lake (1922-1973)
Tragic beauty
While Ladd may have been the strong, silent type, Veronica Lake was the ice-cold beauty who kept him on his toes. Partnering with him for most of her noirs, Lake’s performances always broke through the screen. As the femme fatale, with her iconic long blonde hair, her noir roles were defined by playing tragic lovers rather than cold-blooded killing femme fatales.
In many of their films together, Ladd’s character was the dangerous one, while Lake tried to make him see the light.
Despite Lake’s career not reaching the heights of some of her contemporaries, Lake’s every performance, including the iconic movie I Married a Witch, stuns.
Sterling Hayden (1916-1986)
The every man.
Sterling Hayden was an early collaborator with director Kubrick in his 1956 noir, The Killing, after starring in a few other genre entries, including The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and Crime Wave (1954).
Although not a noir, Hayden’s most well-known films today are in Dr. Strangelove (1964), where he played Gen. Jack Ripper, and The Godfather (1972) as Captain McCluskey.
However, none of this later notoriety could have come without his early work in noir.
His characters ranged from an innocent man caught up in a world of crime to a hardened detective, showing the range that he would exercise throughout his career.
