Playing (20) Favorites
Well, no one asked, but after seeing these “20 Favorite Actresses” meme posts at most of my favorite blogspots over the last couple of weeks, I started pondering what my own choices might be. Without double-checking to discover whom I might have overlooked, here are the 20 ladies and their performances (in order of preference) I’d most want to be stuck on a desert island with:
Vivien Leigh (A Streetcar Named Desire, Gone With the Wind, Waterloo Bridge)
Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl, The Owl and the Pussycat, Hello Dolly)
Bette Davis (All About Eve, Jezebel, The Old Maid)
Barbara Stanwyck (Double Indemnity, The Lady Eve, Stella Dallas)
Katharine Hepburn (Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The African Queen, Pat and Mike)
Audrey Hepburn (The Nun’s Story, Roman Holiday, Two for the Road)
Tuesday Weld (Soldier in the Rain, Lord Love a Duck, Pretty Poison)
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Dorothy Malone (The Tarnished Angels, Written on the Wind, The Big Sleep)
Judy Garland (The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, The Clock)
Faye Dunaway (Mommie Dearest, Network, Chinatown)
Ann-Margret (Bye Bye Birdie, Carnal Knowledge, Tommy)
Deborah Kerr (The Innocents, The Sundowners, Black Narcissus)
Lillian Gish (The Wind, The Night of the Hunter, The Whales of August)
Anna Magnani (The Rose Tattoo, Open City, The Golden Coach)
Madeline Kahn (Paper Moon, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles)
Elizabeth Taylor (National Velvet, A Place in the Sun, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)
Jan Sterling (Ace in the Hole, Caged, The High and the Mighty)
Sophia Loren (Two Women, El Cid, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow)
Shelley Winters (Lolita, Next Stop, Greenwich Village, Executive Suite)
Janet Leigh (Psycho, The Manchurian Candidate, Little Women)
A couple of lower-profile ladies might not be among the likely suspects for this kind of a list, but I’ve been hooked on Malone and Sterling ever since I first saw them in Wind and Caged, and most of the classic movie posters I have feature Malone. Sterling was a supreme tramp in a class of her own, and in Malone’s best roles she memorably combines sensuality with an intense emotionalism.
posted by Vertigo's Psycho @ 2:57 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Sterling was a supreme tramp in a class of her own
Well, it's good to know I'm not the only person on the Internet who appreciates Jan Sterling.
I like Jan in anything -- even non-tramp roles like Rhubarb and The Harder They Fall.
Great list!
Thanks for the recent message. Much as i admire Linda Darnell, she wouldn't make my list of 20.
For a partial list of the ladies who DID, see my latest (December 29th) blog entry.
I like Douglas Sirk's movies and Dorothy Malone esp. in Written on the Wind. And Lillian Gish's autobiography is an engrossing read. I wish the best to you. And thanks for posting the classics.
Ivan, thanks for commenting. Sterling was good in a variety of roles, but I enjoy her the most as a lowbrow
Ken, glad to see you putting a list together with interesting choices- I love Arelene Dahl in Journey to the Center of the Earth, too.
Michelle, I read Gish's book too, and it increased my admiration for her significantly- what a fasciniating life, and what a healthy outlook Gish had.
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