Greatest
Film Star Legends

Part 1



Greatest Film Star Legends
Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Nominees


AFI's 50 Greatest Film Star Legends
Actor or Actress
Definitive Screen Role Other Great Film Roles


#5 star
Fred Astaire
(1899-1987)


With Ginger Rogers

Tony Hunter in The Band Wagon (1953)

10 Films with Ginger Rogers (1933-1949):

  • Fred Ayres and Honey Hale in Flying Down to Rio (1933)
  • Guy Holden and Mimi Glossop in The Gay Divorcee (1934)
  • Huckleberry 'Huck' Haines and Tanka Scharwenka (aka Lizzie Gatz) in Roberta (1935)
  • Jerry Travers and Dale Tremont in Top Hat (1935)
  • Bake Baker and Sherry Martin in Follow the Fleet (1936)
  • John (Lucky) Garnett and Penelope (Penny) Carroll in Swing Time (1936)
  • Peter P. Peters (aka Petrov) and Linda Keene in Shall We Dance (1937)
  • Dr. Tony Flagg and Amanda Cooper in Carefree (1938)
  • Vernon Castle and Irene Castle in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939)
  • Josh Barkley and Dinah Barkley in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)
Jerry Halliday in A Damsel in Distress (1937)
Johnny Brett in Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)
Bob Curtis in You'll Never Get Rich (1941)
Ted Hanover in Holiday Inn (1942)
Robert Davis in You Were Never Lovelier (1942)
Johnny Parkson Riggs in Yolanda and the Thief (1945)
Fred Astaire/Raffles/Tai Long in Ziegfeld Follies (1946)
Jed Potter in Blue Skies (1946)
Don Hewes in Easter Parade (1948)
Bert Kalmer in Three Little Words (1950)
Tom Bowen in Royal Wedding (1951)
Dick Avery in Funny Face (1957)
Steve Canfield in Silk Stockings (1957)
Julian Osborne in On the Beach (1959)
Finian McLonergan in Finian's Rainbow (1968)
Harlee Claiborne in The Towering Inferno (1974)

#20 star
Lauren Bacall
(1924- 2014)
Marie "Slim" Browning in To Have and Have Not (1944) Vivian Sternwood Rutledge in The Big Sleep (1946)
Irene Jansen in Dark Passage (1947)
Nora Temple in Key Largo (1948)
Amy North in Young Man With a Horn (1950)
Schatze Page in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
Meg Faversen Rinehart in The Cobweb (1955)
Lucy Moore Hadley in Written on the Wind (1956)
Marilla Hagen in Designing Woman (1957)
Elaine Sampson in Harper (1966)
Mrs. Hubbard in Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Bond Rogers in The Shootist (1976)
Marcia Sindell in Misery (1990)
Hannah Morgan in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996)
Sonia in Le Jour et La Nuit (1997)
Countess Camilla Volta in The Venice Project (1999)
Mado Remei in Presence of Mind (1999)
May in The Limit (2003)
Ma Ginger in Dogville (2003)
Eleanor in Birth (2004)

#4 star
Ingrid Bergman
(1915-1982)
Ilsa Lund Laszlo in Casablanca (1942) Anita Hoffman in Intermezzo: A Love Story (1936) and (1939)
Stella Bergen in Rage in Heaven (1941)
Ivy Peterson in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Maria in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
Paula Alquist in Gaslight (1944)
Sister Benedict in The Bells of St. Mary's (1945)
Clio Dulaine in Saratoga Trunk (1945)
Dr. Constance Peterson in Spellbound (1945)
Alicia Huberman in Notorious (1946)
Joan Madou in Arch of Triumph (1948)
Joan of Arc in Joan of Arc (1948)
Lady Henrietta Flusky in Under Capricorn (1949)
Karin in Stromboli (1950)
Irene Girard in Europe '51 (1952)
Katherine Joyce in Journey to Italy (1954) (aka Viaggio in Italia)
Anastasia in Anastasia (1956)
Anna Kalman in Indiscreet (1958)
Gladys Aylward in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958)
Gerda Millett in The Yellow Rolls Royce (1964)
Stephanie Dickinson in Cactus Flower (1969)
Greta Ohlsson in Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Charlotte in Autumn Sonata (1978) (aka Höstsonaten)

#1 star
Humphrey Bogart
(1899-1957)
Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941)
and
Richard "Rick" Blaine in Casablanca (1942)
Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936)
David Graham in Marked Woman (1937)
'Baby Face' Martin in Dead End (1937)
James Frazier in Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)
Whip McCord in The Oklahoma Kid (1939)
Michael O'Leary in Dark Victory (1939)
George Hally in The Roaring Twenties (1939)
Paul Fabrini in They Drive By Night (1940)
Roy "Mad Dog" Earle in High Sierra (1941)
Richard Lomas Leland in Across the Pacific (1942)
Joseph "Duke" Berne in The Big Shot (1942)
Lt. Joe Rossi in Action in the North Atlantic (1943)
Sgt. Joe Gunn in Sahara (1943)
Jean Matrac in Passage to Marseille (1944)
Harry Morgan in To Have and Have Not (1944)
Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep (1946)
Capt. Warren 'Rip' Murdock/Narrator in Dead Reckoning (1947)
Vincent Parry in Dark Passage (1947)
Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Frank McCloud in Key Largo (1948)
Dixon Steele in In a Lonely Place (1950)
Charlie Allnut in The African Queen (1952)
Billy Dannreuther in Beat the Devil (1953)
Captain Philip Francis Queeg in The Caine Mutiny (1954)
Linus Larrabee in Sabrina (1954)
Harry Dawes in The Barefoot Contessa (1954)
Joseph in We're No Angels (1955)
Jim Carmody in The Left Hand of God (1955)
Glenn Griffin in The Desperate Hours (1955)
Eddie Willis in The Harder They Fall (1956)

#4 star
Marlon Brando
(1924-2004)
Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
and

Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954)
and

Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972)
Ken in The Men (1950)
Emiliano Zapata in Viva Zapata! (1952)
Mark Antony in Julius Caesar (1953)
Johnny Strabler in The Wild One (1953)
Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls (1955)
Sakini in The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956)
Major Lloyd Gruver in Sayonara (1957)
Lt. Christian Diestl in The Young Lions (1958)
Valentine "Snakeskin" Xavier in The Fugitive Kind (1960)
Rio in One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
1st Lt. Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
Ambassador Harrison Carter MacWhite in The Ugly American (1963)
Sheriff Calder in The Chase (1966)
Ogden Mears in A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)
Maj. Penderton in Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)
Grindl in Candy (1968)
Sir William Walker in Burn! (1970)
Paul in Last Tango in Paris (1972)
Robert E. Lee Clayton in The Missouri Breaks (1976)
Jor-El in Superman: The Movie (1978)
Col. Walter E. Kurtz in Apocalpyse Now (1979)
Ian McKenzie in A Dry White Season (1989)
Carmine Sabatini in The Freshman (1990)
Dr. Jack Mickler in Don Juan DeMarco (1995)
Dr. Moreau in The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)
Max in The Score (2001)

#8 star
James Cagney
(1899-1986)
Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931)
and
Cody Jarrett in White Heat (1949)
Jack in Smart Money (1931)
Bert Harris in Blonde Crazy (1931)
Joe Greer in The Crowd Roars (1932)
Lefty Merrill in Hard to Handle (1933)
Danny Kean in Picture Snatcher (1933)
Chester Kent in Footlight Parade (1933)
Dan Quigley in Lady Killer (1933)
James 'Brick' Davis in G-Men (1935)
Bottom (The Weaver) in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)
Bat Morgan in Frisco Kid (1935)
Dizzy Davis in Ceiling Zero (1936)
Rocky Sullivan in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
The Oklahoma Kid (Jim Kincaid) in The Oklahoma Kid (1939)
Frank Ross in Each Dawn I Die (1939)
Eddie Bartlett in The Roaring Twenties (1939)
"Nicky" Butler in Torrid Zone (1940)
Danny Kenny in City For Conquest (1940)
T. L. "Biff" Grimes in The Strawberry Blonde (1941)
Steve Collins in The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941)
George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
Nick Condon in Blood on the Sun (1945)
Robert Emmett 'Bob' Sharkey in 13 Rue Madeleine (1946)
Ralph Cotter in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950)
Capt. Flagg in What Price Glory (1952)
Martin (Marty the Gimp) Snyder in Love Me or Leave Me (1955)
The Captain in Mister Roberts (1955)
Lon Chaney in Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)
C. R. MacNamara in One, Two, Three (1961)
NY Police Commissioner Rheinlander Waldo in Ragtime (1981)

#10 star
Charles Chaplin
(1889-1977)
The Tramp (Lone Prospector) in The City Slicker in Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914)
The Tramp in The Tramp (1915)
The Derelict in Easy Street (1917)
The Immigrant in The Immigrant (1917)
The Tramp in A Dog's Life (1918)
The Tramp in The Kid (1921)
The Pilgrim / Lefty Lombard in The Pilgrim (1923)
The Tramp in The Circus (1928)
The Tramp (Factory Worker) in Modern Times (1936)
Hynkel (Dictator of Tomainia)/A Jewish Barber in The Great Dictator (1940)
Henri Verdoux/Varney/Bonheur/Floray/Narrator in Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
Calvero in Limelight (1952)
King Shahdov in A King in New York (1957)

#12 star
Claudette Colbert
(1905-1996)
Ellie Andrews in It Happened One Night (1934) Franzi in The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)
Poppaea in The Sign of the Cross (1932)
Cleopatra in Cleopatra (1934)
Beatrice "Bea" Pullman in Imitation of Life (1934)
Dr. Jane Everest in Private Worlds (1935)
Nicole de Loiselle in Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938)
Lana Borst Martin in Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)
Eve Peabody in Midnight (1939)
Augusta Nash in Arise, My Love (1940)
Betsy Bartlett in Boom Town (1940)
Gerry Jeffers in The Palm Beach Story (1942)
Lieutenant Janet Davidson in So Proudly We Hail! (1943)
Anne Hilton in Since You Went Away (1944)
Christopher 'Kit' Madden in Without Reservations (1946)
Betty MacDonald in The Egg and I (1947)
Alison Courtland in Sleep, My Love (1948)
Agnes Newton Keith in Three Came Home (1950)
Ellen McLean in Parrish (1961)

#11 star
Gary Cooper
(1901-1961)
Will Kane in High Noon (1952) Abe Lee in The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926)
Cadet White in Wings (1927)
The Virginian in The Virginian (1929)
Legionnaire Tom Brown in Morocco (1930)
Lieut. Frederick Henry in A Farewell to Arms (1932)
George Curtis in Design for Living (1933)
Lt. Alan McGregor in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935)
Peter Ibbetson in Peter Ibbetson (1935)
Tom Bradley in Desire (1936)
O'Hara in The General Died at Dawn (1936)
Longfellow Deeds in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
Wild Bill Hickok in The Plainsman (1936)
Michael Brandon in Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938)
Stretch in The Cowboy and the Lady (1938)
Michael "Beau" Geste in Beau Geste (1939)
Cole Hardin in The Westerner (1940)
Dusty Rivers in North West Mounted Police (1940)
Prof. Bertram Potts in Ball of Fire (1941)
Long John Willoughby or "John Doe" in Meet John Doe (1941)
Sergeant Alvin C. York in Sergeant York (1941)
Lou Gehrig in The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
Casanova (Cass) Brown in Casanova Brown (1944)
Melody Jones in Along Came Jones (1945)
Colonel Clint Maroon in Saratoga Trunk (1945)
Prof. Alvah Jesper in Cloak and Dagger (1946)
Capt. Christopher Holden in Unconquered (1947)
Howard Roark in The Fountainhead (1949)
Lt. John W. Harkness in You're in the Navy Now (1951)
Benjamin Trane in Vera Cruz (1954)
Hooker in Garden of Evil (1954)
Col. Billy Mitchell in The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955)
Jess Birdwell in Friendly Persuasion (1956)
Frank Flannagan in Love in the Afternoon (1957)
Link Jones in Man of the West (1958)

#10 star
Joan Crawford
(1904-1977)
Mildred Pierce in Mildred Pierce (1945) Diana Medford in Our Dancing Daughters (1928)
Alice 'Bingo' Dowling in Untamed (1929)
Bonnie Jordan in Dance, Fools, Dance (1931)
Marian Martin in Possessed (1931)
Flaemmchen (Miss Flaemm) in Grand Hotel (1932)
Sadie Thompson in Rain (1932)
Janie Barlow in Dancing Lady (1933)
Diane (Dinah) Lovering in Chained (1934)
Sadie McKee Brennan in Sadie McKee (1934)
Margaret 'Peggy' O'Neal Eaton in The Gorgeous Hussy (1936)
Anni Pavlovitch (aka Anne Vivaldi) in The Bride Wore Red (1937)
Crystal Allen in The Women (1939)
Julie in Strange Cargo (1940)
Helen Wright in Humoresque (1946)
Louise Howell in Possessed (1947)
Daisy Kenyon in Daisy Kenyon (1947)
Lane Bellamy in Flamingo Road (1949)
Ethel Whitehead in The Damned Don't Cry (1950)
Myra Hudson in Sudden Fear (1952)
Jenny Stewart in Torch Song (1953)
Vienna in Johnny Guitar (1954)
Eva Phillips in Queen Bee (1955)
Millicent "Milly" Wetherby in Autumn Leaves (1956)
Amanda Farrow in The Best of Everything (1959)
Blanche Hudson in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

#2 star
Bette Davis
(1908-1989)
Margo Channing in All About Eve (1950) Mildred Rogers in Of Human Bondage (1934)
Joyce Heath in Dangerous (1935)
Gabrielle Maple in The Petrified Forest (1936)
Mary Dwight Strauber in Marked Woman (1937)
Louise "Fluff" Phillips in Kid Galahad (1937)
Julie Marsden in Jezebel (1938)
Judith Traherne in Dark Victory (1939)
Empress Carlotta of Mexico in Juarez (1939)
Charlotte Lovell in The Old Maid (1939)
Queen Elizabeth in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)
Henriette Deluzy-Desportes in All This, and Heaven Too (1940)
Leslie Crosbie in The Letter (1940)
Regina Hubbard Giddens in The Little Foxes (1941)
Maggie Patterson Van Allen in The Great Lie (1941)
Joan Winfield in The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941)
Maggie Cutler in The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)
Charlotte Vale in Now, Voyager (1942)
Sara Muller in Watch on the Rhine (1943)
Katherine "Kit" Marlowe in Old Acquaintance (1943)
Fanny Trellis Skeffington in Mr. Skeffington (1944)
Rosa Moline in Beyond the Forest (1949)
Margaret Elliot in The Star (1952)
Apple Annie in Pocketful of Miracles (1961)
Baby Jane Hudson in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Margaret DeLorca / Edith Phillips in Dead Ringer (1964)
Charlotte Hollis in Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
Libby Strong in The Whales of August (1987)



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