The 05 Greatest Actors and Actresses in Hollywood History
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Sulaiman
- . June 4, 2024
- . Update: June 4, 2024 11:28 pm
Great actors leap off the screen and connect with the audience on an emotional level. There’s a reason why actors and actresses have been cultural icons since the dawn of fame.
Coming up with this list comes with some criteria simply because of how many great actors there really are. For this list, the actors chosen have made contributions to films with sound. That doesn’t mean they didn’t work in theatre, television, or silent films. Many of those on this list have made special appearances in theatre and television as well. However, all of these actors can be considered ‘film actors’.
The focus of this list is also on actors who have acted in films with English as the primary language. World cinema has many great actors, including names like Shah Rukh Khan, Toshiro Mifune, Dolores Del Rio, Brigitte Bardot, and many more. However, to keep the list focused, all of the actors selected have contributed to American and Hollywood cinema.
1. Bette Davis
Bette Davis was a classic Hollywood icon. During her 60-year long career, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice and was the first person to be nominated for an Academy Award for acting ten times. Davis is remembered for All About Eve, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, Now, Voyager, Jezebel, Master Skeffington and The Star. She was also the first woman to receive AFI’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1977.
2. Marlon Brando
He is remembered for many things, including his love affairs with everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Rita Moreno, his rebellious attitude, his controversial statements about Jews, his possible homosexuality, his involvement in the civil rights and indigenous rights movements and his activism against apartheid. However, his contributions to acting may be his greatest legacy.
3. Meryl Streep
The actress Meryl Streep is often credited as ‘the greatest actress of her generation’. Although she began her career in theatre in New York, she soon moved on to film, making her debut in the 1977 film Julia. By 1980, she had already been nominated for two Oscars and won her first award for Best Supporting Actress for Kramer vs. Kramer.
4. Sidney Poitier
More than just an actor, Sidney Poitier was a director, a diplomat and one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age. During a career spanning more than 60 years, he starred in films such as Porgy and Bess, A Raisin in the Sun, To Sir, With Love, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night.
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5. Anthony Hopkins
As one of Britain’s most prolific actors, Sir Anthony Hopkins began his career in the theatre in 1960. In 1965, Laurence Olivier chose Hopkins to be his understudy at the Royal National Theatre in London. Hopkins replaced Olivier when he contracted appendicitis in 1967 during a production of The Dance of Death. Hopkins won the Olivier Award for Pravda in 1985.
