Movie Icons

A. Hepburn

Her beauty has proved timeless - should we be surprised? Equally graceful whether moving or standing still, blessed with a balletic poise, luminous dark eyes, and an exquisite profile a queen might envy, Audrey...

Bergman

Ingrid Bergman was born beautiful, but, unusually for one so blessed, she knew that beauty is never enough. She wanted to be great as well. Did any movie star of the classic era demonstrate more ambition? On the...

Bogart

Humphrey Bogart is a legend and an icon whose magic has not dissipated with time. The wounded tough guy image Bogart molded over the decades of his career still resonates. There is a truth to this image; audiences...

Brando

Had he not been an actor, Marlon Brando once wrote, he would have become a criminal-specifically, a con artist. Take him at his word. Too many complain that Brando, the greatest actor of his generation, wasted his...

Chaplin

Charles Chaplin`s Little Tramp is the supreme icon of motion pictures - still recognized and loved throughout the world, more than 90 years since he first burst on the screen. The shabby little figure - with derby...

Connery

Why is the only non-American winner of the AFI`s prestigious Life Achievement Award a Scotsman? Perhaps because Sean Connery`s career, though international in scope and global in appeal, made him a "genuine movie...

De Niro

Most moviegoers associate actor Robert De Niro with adjectives like intense, violent, streetwise, and brooding. It is an image that De Niro has carefully nurtured over the last fifty years of his career. He used...

Dean

James Dean died at the age of 24, yet half a century later his mystique is unfaded. Had luck favored him that fatal evening, he might still be with us, an actor in the same generation as Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood,...

Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich once said, "I am not a myth." But by referencing the term, Dietrich only reinforces the fact more emphatically. For, using almost any common dictionary definition of that word, Dietrich is a myth. Her...

Eastwood

Having starred in 44 films and directed 27, Clint Eastwood is a living legend. This book traces the evolution of his star persona from the mysterious gunslingers he played in such Westerns as the Dollars trilogy, High...

Grace Kelly

The top female box-office star of 1954, Grace Kelly`s status as icon takes in an 11-film, three-year, screen career and a glamorous later life as Princess of Monaco. More than any other star, she was in three...

Grant

He`s the most self-invented man in movies, this side of Charlie Chaplin. Like Chaplin, Cary Grant grew up poor, trained as an acrobat, and brims with confidence, romance, and a spirit of merry larceny - he just has a...

J. Depp

How do we even describe the alienated beauty of Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Ichabod Crane in "Sleepy Hollow", Donnie Brasco, Don Juan DeMarco, Captain Jack Sparrow and Sweeney Todd, apart from the prodigious gift of...

K. Hepburn

From birth, Katharine Hepburn seemed destined to become a symbol of the modern woman on stage, on screen, and in the world. Fiercely competitive, private, and independent, Hepburn was one part Olympic athlete Babe...

Mae West

In terms of celebrity icons, few attained the highest levels of fame and controversy as rapidly as Mae West. Labeled a "pornographer" by censorship boards, she was also one of 1930s Hollywood`s most lucrative...

Marx Bros

The Marx Brothers - Groucho, Chico, Harpo and sometimes Zeppo - spent over 2O years perfecting their comic timing in vaudeville routines and Broadway theatre revues before becoming one of cinema`s most successful...

McQueen

A few years before he was an actor, McQueen was a juvenile delinquent. A few years before he was a movie star, McQueen was a towel boy in a brothel. A few years before he commanded $3 million fees and gross points,...

Monroe

"Forget everything you think you know about this person," Elia Kazan cautioned, in his autobiography. The icon we cherish under the name Marilyn Monroe was in truth the inspired creation of a smart, voluptuous, star...

Nicholson

Jack Nicholson was over thirty, and more than a decade into his acting career, when Easy Rider finally made him a star. His reputation as a rebellious anti-hero was furthered by three notorious confrontations in films...

Pacino

American cinema, as we`ve known it since The Godfather, would be impossible to reimagine without Al Pacino. As Michael Corleone he breathes life into an American of epic dimension. His characters may explode (Tony...

Presley

Elvis Presley would have been the first to laugh at the mad, godlike status he attained after death, but he would have surely identified with the human, gospel-haunted need such adoration rises out of. He shared that...

Sinatra

Long before he was Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra was a child of the jazz age and its free-wheeling approach to life. In the course of a meteoric rise from singing waiter to the world`s first pop star, Sinatra...

Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor was a "diva" when that word still had meaning, before it was applied to every female celebrity with slightest bit of attitude and style. She was also one of the first actors to be raised to celebrity...

W. Allen

Woody Allen began his career writing jokes and scripts, then progressed to stand-up and acting, and finally wrote and directed his first film, Take the Money and Run, in 1969. This was a screwball comedy that starred...

Welles

A recognized prodigy at age 10, world famous by age 23, Orson Welles was a triple magician of theater, radio, and film-and by age 25 a promising figure in American politics. President Franklin Roosevelt encouraged him...