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Mikey Madison is the current Best Actress Oscar frontrunner for her heartbreaking performance in the title role of Sean Baker‘s “Anora.” Her likeliest competitors are two past Oscar winners — Nicole Kidman, 57, for “Babygirl” and Angelina Jolie, 49, for “Maria” — plus six-time nominee Amy Adams, 50, for “Nightbitch” and Karla Sofia Gascon, 52, for “Emilia Pérez.”

At age 25, Madison has one advantage over her main rivals for the award: her youth. Of the 97 winners of this race, almost one-third (32) were in their 20s.

Among those ingenues to take to the stage to collect this coveted prize was Emma Stone, who was 28 when she won for “La La Land” in 2017. Stone was 35 when she picked up a bookend Oscar earlier this year for “Poor Things,” which made her the 35th Best Actress winner in her thirties.

Bracketing Stone’s two wins were five women who defied this bias toward youth: 60-year-old Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once...

Since the inception of the Academy Awards, the U.S.-based organization behind them has always strived to honor worldwide film achievements. Their extensive roster of competitive acting winners alone consists of artists from 30 unique countries, three of which first gained representation during the 2020s. The last full decade’s worth of triumphant performers hail from eight countries, while 42.1% of the individual actors nominated during that time originate from outside of America.

The academy’s history of recognizing acting talent on a global scale dates all the way back to the inaugural Oscars ceremony in 1929, when Swiss-born Emil Jannings (who was of German and American parentage) won Best Actor for his work in both “The Last Command” and “The Way of All Flesh.” Over the next three years, the Best Actress prize was exclusively awarded to Canadians: Mary Pickford (“Coquette”), Norma Shearer (“The Divorcee”), and Marie Dressler (“Min and Bill...

Of the 272 films that have earned lone acting Oscar nominations – meaning they were each recognized in one performance category and nowhere else – a whopping 101 (or 37.1%) accomplished the feat thanks to lead actresses. Whereas just 60 examples have occurred in the Best Actor category, the corresponding female one reached that benchmark in 1991 and is on track to double it less than two decades from now. Its triple digit total has now been intact for one full year, having directly resulted from the simultaneous nominations of Ana de Armas (“Blonde”) and Andrea Riseborough (“To Leslie”).

Although an Oscar bid was generally expected to follow de Armas’s 2023 BAFTA, Golden Globe, and SAG Award nominations, Riseborough very memorably came out of nowhere, having defied precedent by benefiting from an enthusiastic grassroots campaign. While most of the earlier lone Best Actress contenders belong in de Armas’s camp, many align with Riseborough in having pulled off major surprises.

The motion picture academy has handed out Oscars for leading performances since the first ceremony in 1929. While the Best Actor prize is typically taken by a veteran, the Best Actress Oscar has tended to go to an ingenue. However, those age biases could be changing.

While a whopping 32 of the 96 Best Actress champs were in their 20s when they picked up their Oscars, the last five women to win were: 60-year-old Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”); 45-year old Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”); double champ Frances McDormand, 45-year-old Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”) and 50-year-old Renee Zellweger (“Judy”). Yeoh’s closest rival last year was Cate Blanchett, 53, for “Tar.” (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2024 Oscar predictions for Best Actress.)

Besides Zellweger, the only other Best Actress champs in their 50s were both 54 when they won: Julianne Moore, who finally prevailed after four losses for “Still Alice...

Every year, a lot of actors win awards on Oscar night, but the ones who most often win the evening are the young stars and starlets who get to walk the red carpet. Sometimes they even win Oscar gold too. With any luck, the young star of “The Florida Project” Brooklynn Prince will make a splash at this year’s ceremony, but here are some of the cutest kids of years’ past:

Jackie Cooper – “Skippy” (1930)

Jackie Cooper was nominated for Best Actor for his role in 1930’s “Skippy.” To date, he’s the youngest boy to ever be nominated in the Best Actor category. He lost to Lionel Barrymore, who thanked Cooper in his acceptance speech. But Cooper didn’t hear it: he fell asleep on Marie Dressler’s arm during the ceremony (which started after midnight) and no one wanted to wake him.

Shirley Temple – (1934)

Shirley Temple was the...

In a rare occurrence, three of the four acting categories are still up in the air as we inch closer to Oscar Sunday. And depending on the permutation of the victorious quartet, we could have one of the oldest groups of winners ever.

Most of the top contenders in each category are over the age of 50. Ke Huy Quan, the closest thing to a lock in Best Supporting Actor, is 51. His “Everything Everywhere All at Once” co-stars and fellow Screen Actors Guild Awards winners Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis are 60 and 64, respectively. Yeoh’s been neck and neck this whole time in Best Actress with Cate Blanchett (“TÁR”), who is 53. Curtis pulled off her supporting actress SAG upset over fellow 64-year-old veteran Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”). And in lead actor, SAG-AFTRA crowned 54-year-old Brendan Fraser for “The Whale.”

If any combination of these people prevail, it...

The motion picture academy has handed out Oscars for leading performances since the first ceremony in 1929. While the Best Actor prize is typically taken by a veteran, the Best Actress Oscar has tended to go to an ingenue. However, those age biases could be changing. While a whopping 32 of the 95 Best Actress champs have been in their 20s when they picked up their Oscars, the last four women to win were Frances McDormand, 45-year-old Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”), 50-year-old Renee Zellweger (“Judy”) and 45-year old Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”). Chastain’s closest rival last year were Colman, now 48, for “The Lost Daughter” and 47-year-old Penelope Cruz for “Parallel Mothers”. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2023 Oscars Best Actress predictions.)

Besides Zellweger, the only other Best Actress champs in their 50s were both 54 when they won: Julianne Moore, who finally prevailed after four losses for “Still Alice” in 2015, and theater veteran Shirley Booth,...

The motion picture academy has handed out Oscars for leading performances since the first ceremony in 1929. While the Best Actor prize is typically taken by a veteran, the Best Actress Oscar has tended to go to an ingenue. However, those age biases could be changing. While a whopping 32 of the 95 Best Actress champs have been in their 20s when they picked up their Oscars, the last three women to win were Frances McDormand, 45-year-old Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”), 50-year-old Renee Zellweger (“Judy”) and 45-year old Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”). Chastain’s closest rival last year were Colman, now 48, for “The Lost Daughter” and 47-year-old Penelope Cruz for “Parallel Mothers”. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2023 Oscars Best Actress predictions.)

Besides Zellweger, the only other Best Actress champs in their 50s were both 54 when they won: Julianne Moore, who finally prevailed after four losses for “Still Alice” in 2015, and theater veteran Shirley Booth,...

When Shirley Booth (54) won the 1953 Best Actress Oscar for her screen debut in “Come Back, Little Sheba,” she became one of the 12 oldest champs in any acting category and the second oldest in hers after Marie Dressler. In 1962, she made history as the oldest winner of the Best Comedy Actress Emmy for her role on “Hazel” and further solidified that position when she triumphed again one year later. She starred as the titular housemaid for a total of five seasons and received a third bid in 1964 at age 65.

Booth’s final nomination for “Hazel” made her the second oldest nominee in her category up to that point, and she would continue to rank within the top five for over two decades. She now sits at 10th place, with four women over 65 having added their names to the list in the last five years.

The television academy has recognized the work...

When Shirley Booth (54) won the 1953 Best Actress Oscar for her screen debut in “Come Back, Little Sheba,” she became one of the 12 oldest champs in any acting category and the second oldest in hers after Marie Dressler. In 1962, she made history as the oldest winner of the Best Comedy Actress Emmy for her role on “Hazel” and further solidified that position when she triumphed again one year later. She starred as the titular housemaid for a total of five seasons and received a third bid in 1964 at age 65.

Booth’s final nomination for “Hazel” made her the second oldest nominee in her category up to that point, and she would continue to rank within the top five for over two decades. She now sits at 10th place, with four women over 65 having added their names to the list in the last five years.

The television academy has recognized the work...

It’s been a roller-coaster of an Oscar run for Kristen Stewart. A runaway Best Actress frontrunner for much of the season, the “Spencer” star took a tumble in recent weeks as her film got completely blanked by the guilds. Nevertheless, Stewart survived the madness and earned a nomination on Tuesday — the only one for “Spencer.” If she prevails, she’ll become the 13th Best Actress champ as the sole nominee for her film.

The first 12 were:

1. Mary Pickford, “Coquette” (1928/29)

2. Marie Dressler, “Min and Bill” (1930/31)

3. Helen Hayes, “The Sin of Madelon Claudet” (1931/32)

4. Katharine Hepburn, “Morning Glory” (1932/33)

5. Bette Davis, “Dangerous” (1935)

6. Joanne Woodward, “The Three Faces of Eve” (1957)

7. Sophia Loren, “Two Women” (1961)

8. Jodie Foster, “The Accused” (1988)

9. Kathy Bates, “Misery” (1990)

10. Jessica Lange, “Blue Sky” (1994)

11. Charlize Theron, “Monster” (2003)

12. Julianne Moore, “Still Alice” (2014)

See None of the Best Actress Oscar nominees are in Best Picture contenders for the first time in the preferential era

Stewart...

” I never could understand why it has to be just even, male and female. They’re invited for dinner, not for mating.”

Jean Harlow and John Barrymore in Dinner At Eight (1935) will be available on Blu-ray October 26th from Warner Archive

Dinner at Eight, a vastly entertaining behind-closed-doors glimpse into the lives of the troubled and troublemaking who’s who of people invited to a posh Manhattan party, is served with ample helpings of humor and melodrama. Buoyed by the success of the studio’s multistarred, multistoried Grand Hotel the year before, producer David O. Selznick aspired to something grander – and found it in this George Cukor-directed adaptation of the George S. Kaufman/Edna Ferber stage hit. Highlights include Jean Harlow and Wallace Beery’s bitter battle of the sexes, hostess Billie Burke’s hissy fit and Marie Dressler’s grande dame worldliness. Of course, there’s only one...

Winning an Oscar is impressive in and of itself, but triumphing as the sole nominee for one’s film takes winning to a whole new level. Both Andra Day of “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” and Vanessa Kirby of “Pieces of a Woman” picked up their first Best Actress Oscar nominations this year, and both were the only nominees for their respective films in the category. So should either woman walk away a winner on April 25, they’ll join the relatively short list of women who’ve accomplished the feat.

But just how rare of an occurrence is this? Well, only 12 women have managed to achieve it in the 92-year history of the Academy Awards (it’s unsurprisingly more rare for the men — just five Best Actor champs have done so). Those women were, in order, Mary Pickford, Marie Dressler, Helen Hayes, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Joanne Woodward, Sophia Loren,...

The motion picture academy has handed out Oscars for leading performances since the first ceremony in 1929. While the Best Actor prize is typically taken by a veteran, the Best Actress Oscar has tended to go to an ingenue. However, those age biases could be changing. While a whopping 32 of the 94 Best Actress champs have been in their 20s when they picked up their Oscars, the last three women to win were 60-year-old Frances McDormand, 45-year-old Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”) and 50-year-old Renee Zellweger (“Judy”). And Zellweger’s closest rival was 44-year-old Charlize Theron (“Bombshell”). (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2021 Oscars predictions for Best Actress.)

Besides Zellweger, the only other Best Actress champs in their 50s were both 54 when they won: Julianne Moore, who finally prevailed after four losses for “Still Alice” in 2015, and theater veteran Shirley Booth, who won for reprising her Tony-winning role in 1952’s “Come Back, Little Sheba.

Viola Davis has skyrocketed to the top of our Best Actress Oscar chart for her critically acclaimed performance in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” If Davis prevails at the Oscars on April 25, she’ll be just under 4 months shy of her 56th birthday. In youth-obsessed Hollywood, that will make her the 8th oldest Best Actress winner in the 93-year history of the Academy Awards. By comparison, 12 of the Best Actor winners have been over 55.

Only two other women were in in their 50s when they collected Oscars for their leading role but they were a year younger than Davis. Shirley Booth and Julianne Moore (“Still Alice”) were each 54 when they won. Booth was the older of the two by 120 days when she added an Oscar in 1953 to go with the Tony she had taken home for creating this role.

Another Tony champ, Jessica Tandy, ranks as the oldest-ever winner of the Best Actress Oscars.

Who is your favourite from each year in the 1930s? My current votes go like so though there are always more films to see so one must always reserve the right to change one's mind.

1930 Norma Shearer, The Divorcee 1931 Marie Dressler, Min & Bill 1932 Marlene Dietrich, Blonde Venus 1933 Greta Garbo, Queen Christina 1934 Claudette Colbert, It Happened One Night 1935 Katharine Hepburn, Alice Adams 1936 Carole Lombard, My Man Godfrey 1937 Irene Dunne, The Awful Truth 1938 Bette Davis, Jezebel 1939 Vivien Leigh, Gone With the Wind (though I'll admit to being somewhat torn because Dark Victory is my favourite pre 1950s Bette Davis performance)...

Vidor Retrospective is a Hot Alternate Reality at Berlin 70 — by Alex DeleonWith the pickings slim this year in the Competition section, and not much better in the other main sidebars, the nearly complete King Vidor retrospective covering some 33 films from the magnificent silent war saga ‘The Big Parade’, 1925, to ‘War and Peace’, 1956. Vidor’s career spanned some four decades and is a canny choice for a solid retrospective at Berlin 70. All films are in the category “The don’t make ’em like this anymore” and are nearly all daily sellouts.

Nota Bene: King Vidor is Not to be confused with another Vidor in Hollywood, the Hungarian born director Charles (Károly) Vidor,. Vidor is a fairly common Hungarian surname. King Vidor was the son of a 19th-century Hungarian immigrant who settled in Texas.

The King Vidor retrospective is so rich in new discoveries that it is practically a festival within the festival on its own.

The end of the year and the start of the next often brings about a flood of books about cinema–many of them timed to tie in with the Oscars. This column features a few of those, a bit of Star Wars, some classic Hollywood talk, weighty biographies, and more. Let’s start with Marty and company.

The Irishman: The Making of the Movie by Tom Shone (Assouline)

Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman may not have had the awards season impact many predicted, but it was still something of a cultural sensation. It was also one of the director’s late-period greats. If you enjoyed the film—and don’t mind spending $175—The Irishman: The Making of the Movie is well worth picking up. Full of insightful interviews and stories, author Tom Shone’s text also serves to highlight the film’s wondrous costumes and production design. It’s a...

Renee Zellweger is all but certain to win the Best Actress Oscar for “Judy.” She is slated to be feted for her portrayal of the mercurial talent that was Judy Garland. If Zellweger prevails as we predict at the Oscars on February 9, she’ll be 11 weeks shy of her 51st birthday.

In youth-obsessed Hollywood, that will make her the 10th oldest Best Actress winner in the 92-year history of the Academy Awards. She will bump Shirley Maclaine, who was just two weeks from turning 50 when she won in 1984 for “Terms of Endearment,” out of the Top 10.

Only two women were in in their 50s when they collected Oscars for their leading roles. Both Shirley Booth and Julianne Moore (“Still Alice”) were 54 when they won. Booth was the older of the two by 120 days when she added an Oscar in 1953 to go with the Tony she had taken home for creating this role.

Historically the Best Actress Oscar has usually been awarded to an ingenue while the Best Actor prize is typically taken by a veteran. But these age biases could be changing. While a whopping 32 of the 92 Best Actress champs have been in their 20s when they picked up their Oscars, the last two women to win were 60-year-old Frances McDormand and 45-year-old Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”). And Colman’s closest rival was Glenn Close (“The Wife”), who was hoping for her first win at age 71. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2020 Oscars predictions for Best Actress.)

Fifteen of the 92 Best Actress winners, including Colman, were in their 40s when they took to the stage while 34 were thirtysomething. Julianne Moore was 54 when she finally won after four losses for “Still Alice” in 2015. The only other Best Actress winner in her 50s was theater veteran Shirley Booth who won for reprising her Tony...

Renee Zellweger has skyrocketed to the top of our Best Actress Oscar chart for a critically acclaimed performance in “Judy.” She is being hailed for her nuanced portrayal of the mercurial talent that was Judy Garland. If Zellweger prevails at the Oscars next February 9, she’ll be 11 weeks shy of her 51st birthday. In youth-obsessed Hollywood, that would make her the 10th oldest Best Actress winner in the 91-year history of the Academy Awards. Zellweger would bump Shirley Maclaine, who was just two weeks from turning 50 when she won in 1984 for “Terms of Endearment,” out of the Top 10.

Only two women were in in their 50s when they collected Oscars for their leading roles. Both Shirley Booth and Julianne Moore (“Still Alice”) were 54 when they won. Booth was the older of the two by 120 days when she added an Oscar in 1953 to go with the Tony she had taken home for creating this role.

It could be lucky No. 7 and 13 for Glenn Close. She picked up her seventh Oscar nomination on Tuesday, for Best Actress for “The Wife,” which did not get any other nominations. If Close’s name is finally in the envelope on Oscar day, she’d be the 13th winner in the category as the only nominee for her film.

The first 12 were:

1. Mary Pickford, “Coquette” (1928/29)

2. Marie Dressler, “Min and Bill” (1930/31)

3. Helen Hayes, “The Sin of Madelon Claudet” (1931/32)

4. Katharine Hepburn, “Morning Glory” (1932/33)

5. Bette Davis, “Dangerous” (1935)

6. Joanne Woodward, “The Three Faces of Eve” (1957)

7. Sophia Loren, “Two Women” (1961)

8. Jodie Foster, “The Accused” (1988)

9. Kathy Bates, “Misery” (1990)

10. Jessica Lange, “Blue Sky” (1994)

11. Charlize Theron, “Monster” (2003)

12. Julianne Moore, “Still Alice” (2014)

Twelve times in the Oscars’ 90-year history doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is when you look at Best Actor, which only has five solo nominee winners: Emil Jannings, Jose Ferrer, Cliff Robertson, Michael Douglas and Forest Whitaker.

After her wins at the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice Awards, Glenn Close has skyrocketed to the top of our Best Actress Oscar chart. If she prevails on February 24, she would make history as the first woman with six losses to finally win an Academy Award for acting. And, at age 71 years and 342 days as of the ceremony date, she’d land in third place on the list of the 10 oldest Best Actress winners. Close would supplant Marie Dressler, who was just a day over 63 when she won this award at the 4th Oscars way back in 1931 for “Min and Bill.”

The only two women to win that were older than Dressler as of the date of their respective Academy Awards were: Jessica Tandy, who was 80 years and 292 days when she took home the Oscar in 1990 for “Driving Miss Daisy”; and Katharine Hepburn, who was 74 years and 321 days when she...

This article marks Part 3 of the Gold Derby series reflecting on films that contended for the Big Five Oscars – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay (Original or Adapted). With “A Star Is Born” this year on the cusp of joining this exclusive group of Oscar favorites, join us as we look back at the 43 extraordinary pictures that earned Academy Awards nominations in each of the Big Five categories, including the following 11 films that scored a pair of prizes among the top races.

At the 4th Academy Awards ceremony, “Cimarron” (1931) made Oscar history as the first motion picture to ever score nominations in the Big Five categories. On the big night, the western took home the top prize in Best Picture, as well as the Oscar in Best Adapted Screenplay (Howard Estabrook). Not as successful were the picture’s director, Wesley Ruggles, topped by Norman Taurog (“Skippy”), and the leads,...

In March, Frances McDormand became the ninth oldest Best Actress Oscar champ at 60 years old. Come February, we could have another winner for the ages: At 71, Glenn Close (“The Wife”) would be the category’s third oldest winner.

Close is in first place, with 11/4 odds, in our predictions to finally take home a little gold man for her turn as Joan Castleman, the loyal, neglected wife of the narcissistic Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce), who’s about to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. The six-time nominee is still seeking her first win, so she could definitely ride the overdue narrative on her hopefully lucky seventh nomination. Close is currently tied with Thelma Ritter and Deborah Kerr for the most losses among actresses. Obviously if she gets nominated and loses for “The Wife,” she’d be the solo holder of that dubious record.

See Glenn Close (‘The Wife’): Will 7th...

This year’s quartet of Oscar acting winners is one for the ages. With an average age of 56.5, 59-year-old Gary Oldman (“Darkest Hour”), 60-year-old Frances McDormand (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), 49-year-old Sam Rockwell (“Three Billboards”) and 58-year-old Allison Janney (“I, Tonya”) are the second oldest foursome to take home Oscars.

They only trail the Class of 1981, which featured three septuagenarians — 76-year-old Best Actor Henry Fonda (“On Golden Pond”), 74-year-old Best Actress Katharine Hepburn (“On Golden Pond”) and 77-year-old Best Supporting Actor John Gielgud (“Arthur”) — and 56-year-old Maureen Stapleton (“Reds”) for an average age of 70.75, which may never be surpassed. Since the supporting races weren’t added until the ninth ceremony, Oldman, McDormand, Rockwell and Janney aren’t the second oldest set of winners overall; that belongs to then-53-year-old Lionel Barrymore (“A Free Soul”) and then-63-year-old Marie Dressler (“Min and Bill”), whose average age was 58 at the fourth Oscars.

There have been 342 Oscars given out to actors, but only one of them has won on their birthday. Jennifer Jones scored Best Actress for “The Song of Bernadette” on her 25th birthday at the 16th ceremony on March 2, 1944.

Jones received the award from reigning champ Greer Garson (“Mrs. Miniver”), which you can watch in the academy’s recap video above. It was the actress’ only win from five nominations, but none of the other ceremonies fell on her birthday.

See Oscar Best Actress gallery: See every winner in history

Several people have won close to their birthdays: Marie Dressler (1930’s “Min and Bill”), Peter Ustinov (1960’s “Spartacus”), Holly Hunter (1993’s “The Piano”) and Lupita Nyong’o (2013’s “12 Years a Slave”) all got a belated birthday gift from the academy the next day. Dianne Wiest (1994’s “Bullets Over Broadway”) received an early birthday present, winning her second Best Supporting Actress...

Comedy actress Alice Howell on the cover of film historian Anthony Slide's latest book: Pioneering funky-haired performer 'could have been Chaplin' – or at the very least another Louise Fazenda. Rediscovering comedy actress Alice Howell: Female performer in movie field dominated by men Early comedy actress Alice Howell is an obscure entity even for silent film aficionados. With luck, only a handful of them will be able to name one of her more than 100 movies, mostly shorts – among them Sin on the Sabbath, A Busted Honeymoon, How Stars Are Made – released between 1914 and 1920. Yet Alice Howell holds (what should be) an important – or at the very least an interesting – place in film history. After all, she was one of the American cinema's relatively few pioneering “funny actresses,” along with the likes of the better-known Flora Finch, Louise Fazenda, and, a top star in her day, Mabel Normand.[1] Also of note,...

Isabelle Huppert in ‘Elle’ (Courtesy: Sbs Productions)

By: Carson Blackwelder

Managing Editor

With the 89th Academy Awards right around the corner, it seems that the best actress category contains one of the tightest races with Emma Stone going head to head against Isabelle Huppert. While the La La Land ingénue is considered the favorite to take home the trophy, it’s the esteemed legend from Elle who would be the one making history. At 63 years of age — just shy of her 64th birthday — the French thespian would become the category’s third-oldest winner at the Oscars.

Come the night of the ceremony — this Sunday, February 26 — Huppert will be exactly 63 years, 11 months, and 10 days old. When looking at the history of the best actress category, there are only two other women who were older than this hypothetical outcome when they took home their statuettes: Katharine Hepburn and Jessica Tandy. Hepburn won...

The recent box office success of The Boss firmly establishes Melissa McCarthy as the current queen of movie comedies (Amy Schumer could be a new contender after an impressive debut last Summer with Trainwreck), but let us think back about those other funny ladies of filmdom. So while we’re enjoying the female reboot/re-imagining of Ghostbusters and those Bad Moms, here’s a top ten list that will hopefully inspire lots of laughter and cause you to search out some classic comedies. It’s tough to narrow them down to ten, but we’ll do our best, beginning with… 10. Eve Arden The droll Ms. Arden represents the comic sidekicks who will attempt to puncture the pomposity of the leading ladies with a well-placed wisecrack (see also the great Thelma Ritter in Rear Window). Her career began in the early 1930’s with great bit roles in Stage Door and Dancing Lady.

Though Melissa McCarthy's star went supernova just five years ago in a role so popular that she won both an Oscar nomination and an Emmy statue (Bridesmaids... oh please, you know the Emmy wasn't actually for Mike and Molly!) she's wasted approximately zero days since in cementing her unlikely place as a box office titan with star vehicles emerging annually since. Right now that means her new capitalist diva comedy The Boss and if it isn't Spy (2015) or The Heat (2013) level funny (sorry... but few things are) it's not bad. It sure as hell runs rings around Identity Thief (2013) and Tammy (2014) so it's firmly middle of the pack, if you ask me. (It's weird that the reviews so far are the worst of any of her solo vehicles.)

We call her place as a truly bankable actress 'unlikely' because it's just that. Guess how long it's been since audiences...

Norma Shearer: The Boss' wife was cast in 'The Divorcee.' Norma Shearer movies on TCM: Early talkies and Best Actress Oscar Note: This Norma Shearer article is currently being revised and expanded. Please Check back later. Norma Shearer, one of the top stars in Hollywood history and known as the Queen of MGM back in the 1930s, is Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month of Nov. 2015. That's the good news. The not-so-good news is that even though its parent company, Time Warner, owns most of Shearer's movies, TCM isn't airing any premieres. So, if you were expecting to check out a very young Norma Shearer in The Devil's Circus, Upstage, or After Midnight, you're out of luck. (I've seen all three; they're all worth a look.) It's a crime that, music score or no, restored print or no, TCM/Time Warner don't make available for viewing the...

Greta Garbo movie 'The Kiss.' Greta Garbo movies on TCM Greta Garbo, a rarity among silent era movie stars, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” performer today, Aug. 26, '15. Now, why would Garbo be considered a silent era rarity? Well, certainly not because she easily made the transition to sound, remaining a major star for another decade. Think Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, William Powell, Fay Wray, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Warner Baxter, Janet Gaynor, Constance Bennett, etc. And so much for all the stories about actors with foreign accents being unable to maintain their Hollywood stardom following the advent of sound motion pictures. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer star, Garbo was no major exception to the supposed rule. Mexican Ramon Novarro, another MGM star, also made an easy transition to sound, and so did fellow Mexicans Lupe Velez and Dolores del Rio, in addition to the very British...

Vivien Leigh ca. late 1940s. Vivien Leigh movies: now controversial 'Gone with the Wind,' little-seen '21 Days Together' on TCM Vivien Leigh is Turner Classic Movies' star today, Aug. 18, '15, as TCM's “Summer Under the Stars” series continues. Mostly a stage actress, Leigh was seen in only 19 films – in about 15 of which as a leading lady or star – in a movie career spanning three decades. Good for the relatively few who saw her on stage; bad for all those who have access to only a few performances of one of the most remarkable acting talents of the 20th century. This evening, TCM is showing three Vivien Leigh movies: Gone with the Wind (1939), 21 Days Together (1940), and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Leigh won Best Actress Academy Awards for the first and the third title. The little-remembered film in-between is a TCM premiere. 'Gone with the Wind' Seemingly all...

Olivia de Havilland on Turner Classic Movies: Your chance to watch 'The Adventures of Robin Hood' for the 384th time Olivia de Havilland is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 2, '15. The two-time Best Actress Oscar winner (To Each His Own, 1946; The Heiress, 1949) whose steely determination helped to change the way studios handled their contract players turned 99 last July 1. Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing any de Havilland movie rarities, e.g., Universal's cool thriller The Dark Mirror (1946), the Paramount comedy The Well-Groomed Bride (1947), or Terence Young's British-made That Lady (1955), with de Havilland as eye-patch-wearing Spanish princess Ana de Mendoza. On the other hand, you'll be able to catch for the 384th time a demure Olivia de Havilland being romanced by a dashing Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood, as TCM shows this 1938 period adventure classic just about every month. But who's complaining? One the...

Every woman I know who is even slightly skinny-disabled adores Melissa McCarthy, and why not? She comes off as warm, joyful, and totally comfortable with her poundage in all of her print and TV interviews. Off-screen she’s a role model and an inspiration. And on-screen, she has perfect comic timing, a puppy dog’s smile that emerges now and then from her gruffest characters, plus a huge dose of self-respect. Hollywood probably hasn’t had a box office star like her since Marie Dressler in the Thirties, one who has so upended what a star should be. McCarthy might just be the anti-Julia Roberts.

Now first the good news: In the trailer for the forthcoming October release St. Vincent, which stars Bill Murray, we see glimpses of McCarthy playing a genuine human being. Yes, there’s much more to Melissa than a few bravura comic performances and a...

Classic Hollywood films like Grand Hotel and Dinner at Eight had huge casts filled with movie stars and character actors whose personas were so sharply drawn and instantly familiar that the moment the performers appeared onscreen, audiences knew what type of role to expect, and could rest assured the character would be well-portrayed. These films were glorious showcases for actresses now largely forgotten (Marie Dressler, Billie Burke) and still iconic (Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford).

Trust Me, a sometimes sharp-toothed look at the Machiavellian machinations of the modern film industry, calls those films to mind (as well as Altman's The Player) with its supporting cast of scene-stealing actresses (Molly Shannon, Allison Janney, Amanda Peet, Felicity Huffma...

In search of flickering reminders of Chaplin's La, Kira Cochrane follows in the footsteps of The Little Tramp, on the centenary of his arrival in Hollywood

Charlie Chaplin slept here: La hotels

The footprints and signature on the doorstep have faded, but there's no confusion about who built these studios: Charlie Chaplin, dressed as the Little Tramp, is painted on the door. Time-lapse footage of the construction of this mock Tudor village – now owned by the Jim Henson Company and identified by a 12ft statue of Kermit above the entrance – appears in How To Make Movies, a film directed by Chaplin in 1918. It shows the small hamlet emerging among the lemon groves that once undulated here, a city rising from the dust.

I wonder how much of Hollywood would exist if Chaplin had never arrived. If the manager of his touring vaudeville troupe had never received that abrupt, misspelled...

‘Hollywood Hero’ John Dewar remembered (photo: Anthony Slide wearing Tom Mix’s hat in 1976) Perhaps I have been around too long, but as I grow older I grow despondent that those who contributed so much to film history in the past are forgotten, with others often coming along and taking claim for their achievements. One such Hollywood hero is John Dewar, whom I met when I first came to Los Angeles in 1971. He was a curator in the history department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History and introduced me to the museum’s treasures relating to film history, acquired before the creation of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art — at a time when both institutions were housed together simply as the Los Angeles County Museum. Back in the mid-1930s, it was Ransom Matthews, head of industrial technology at the Museum, who had started collecting such materials.

Wallace Beery from Pancho Villa to Long John Silver: TCM schedule (Pt) on August 17, 2013 (photo: Fay Wray, Wallace Beery as Pancho Villa in ‘Viva Villa!’) See previous post: “Wallace Beery: Best Actor Oscar Winner — and Runner-Up.” 3:00 Am The Last Of The Mohicans (1920). Director: Maurice Tourneur. Cast: Barbara Bedford, Albert Roscoe, Wallace Beery, Lillian Hall, Henry Woodward, James Gordon, George Hackathorne, Nelson McDowell, Harry Lorraine, Theodore Lorch, Jack McDonald, Sydney Deane, Boris Karloff. Bw-76 mins. 4:30 Am The Big House (1930). Director: George W. Hill. Cast: Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, Robert Montgomery, Leila Hyams, George F. Marion, J.C. Nugent, DeWitt Jennings, Matthew Betz, Claire McDowell, Robert Emmett O’Connor, Tom Wilson, Eddie Foyer, Roscoe Ates, Fletcher Norton, Noah Beery Jr, Chris-Pin Martin, Eddie Lambert, Harry Wilson. Bw-87 mins. 6:00 Am Bad Man Of Brimstone (1937). Director: J. Walter Ruben. Cast: Wallace Beery, Virginia Bruce, Dennis O’Keefe. Bw-89 mins.

Wallace Beery: Best Actor Academy Award winner and Best Actor Academy Award runner-up in the same year (photo: Jackie Cooper and Wallace Beery in ‘The Champ’) (See previous post: “Wallace Beery Movies: Anomalous Hollywood Star.”) In the Academy’s 1931-32 season, Wallace Beery took home the Best Actor Academy Award — I mean, one of them. In the King Vidor-directed melodrama The Champ (1931), Beery plays a down-on-his-luck boxer and caring Dad to tearduct-challenged Jackie Cooper, while veteran Irene Rich is Beery’s cool former wife and Cooper’s mother. Will daddy and son remain together forever and ever? Audiences the world over were drowned in tears — theirs and Jackie Cooper’s. Now, regarding Wallace Beery’s Best Actor Academy Award, he was actually a runner-up: Fredric March, initially announced as the sole winner for his performance in Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, turned out to have...

Wallace Beery movies: TCM offers a glimpse into Beery’s extensive filmography (photo: Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery in ‘Min and Bill’) According to the IMDb, the Wallace Beery Filmography features nearly 240 movie titles, including shorts and features, spanning more than three decades, from 1913 to 1949 — the year of his death at age 64. You’ll be able to catch about a dozen of these Wallace Beery movies on Saturday, August 17, 2013, as Turner Classic Movies continues with its "Summer Under the Stars" series. (See “TCM movie schedule: Wallace Beery from Pancho Villa to Long John Silver.”) Wallace Beery, much like fellow veteran Marie Dressler, with whom he co-starred in Min and Bill and its sequel, Tugboat Annie, was a Hollywood anomaly. At age 45, the ugly, coarse-looking actor became a top box-office draw in the United States after languishing in supporting roles, usually playing villains, throughout most of the silent era. Beery and Dressler,...

It's nothing new -- Canadians have been prominent on the big screen for decades. In fact, for three consecutive years from 1929-1931, the winners of the Best Actress Oscar were Canadian: Mary Pickford, Norma Shearer and Marie Dressler. This trend has not dissipated, with several other Canucks hitting the ultimate film jackpot since then (ahem, James Cameron).

So in hono(u)r of Canada's 145th birthday on July 1, we present to you our very favo(u)rite Canadian movie actors.

(We couldn't possibly name every single Canadian film actor out there, so we just chose a few of our favourites. If there is a very glaring omission, please let us know and we might include!)...

While accepting the award for Best Comedy for Bridesmaids at the 2012 Critics Choice Awards ceremony, Judd Apatow ended his speech with the following: "Jerry Lewis [photo] once said that he didn’t think women were funny. So I’d just like to say, with all respect, fuck you." Jerry Lewis' negative comment about female comedians was made at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen in 1998. During a Q&A session with Martin Short, Lewis said "I don't like any female comedians." What about Lucille Ball, Short asked? "No. A woman doing comedy doesn't offend me but sets me back a bit. I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world." This from the guy who grew up at a time when Carole Lombard, Irene Dunne, Katharine Hepburn, Jean Arthur, Claudette Colbert, Myrna Loy, Marie Dressler,...

HollywoodNews.com: Brad Pitt has been voted the Top Money-Making Star of 2011 in Quigley Publishing Company’s 80th Annual Poll of Motion Picture Exhibitors. This is Pitt’s sixth appearance in the Poll, but his first win. Exhibitors felt Pitt was responsible for more traffic to theatres than any other Hollywood star based on his performances this year in “Moneyball,” “The Tree of Life” and “Happy Feet Two.” (voice)

The Quigley Poll, conducted each year since 1932, is an annual survey of motion picture theatre owners and film buyers, which asks them to vote for the ten stars that they believe generated the most box-office revenue for their theatres during the year. It has been long regarded as one of the most reliable indicators of a Star’s real box-office draw because the selections are made by professionals whose livelihood depends on choosing the films and actors that will bring audiences to their theatres.

Joan Blondell. Those who have heard the name will most likely picture either a blowsy, older woman playing the worldwise but warm-hearted saloon owner in the late 1960s television series Here Come the Brides, or a lively, fast-talking, no-nonsense, and unconventionally sexy gold digger in numerous Pre-Code Warner Bros. comedies and musicals of the early 1930s. Matthew Kennedy's Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes (University Press of Mississippi, 2007) seeks to rectify that cultural memory lapse. Not that Blondell doesn't deserve to be remembered for Here Come the Brides or, say, Gold Diggers of 1933, Footlight Parade, Havana Widows, and Broadway Bad. It's just that her other work — from her immensely touching performance as a sexually liberated woman in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn to her invariably welcome (if brief) appearances in films as varied as The Blue Veil, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, and Grease — should be remembered as well.

Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Dames Joan Blondell has always been a favorite of mine, much like fellow wisecracking 1930s Warner Bros. players Aline MacMahon and Glenda Farrell. The fact that Blondell never became a top star says more about audiences — who preferred, say, Shirley Temple and Mickey Rooney — than about Blondell's screen presence and acting abilities. As part of its "Summer Under the Stars" film series, Turner Classic Movies is currently showing no less than 16 Joan Blondell movies today, including the TCM premiere of the 1968 crime drama Kona Coast. Directed by Lamont Johnson, Kona Coast stars Richard Boone and the capable Vera Miles. Blondell has a supporting role — one of two dozen from 1950 (For Heaven's Sake) to 1981 (The Woman Inside, released two years after Blondell's death from leukemia). [Joan Blondell Movie Schedule.] Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing the super-rare (apparently due to rights issues) The Blue Veil, Curtis Bernhardt's 1951 melodrama that earned Blondell her...

Elizabeth Taylor in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Suddenly Last Summer Elizabeth Taylor’s funeral was held — without the presence of Westboro Baptist Church anti-gay picketers — at around 2 p.m. on Thursday at Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial-Park. In accordance with her religion, Taylor, who had converted to Judaism in the late '50s, was buried within 24 hours of her death at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Hospital. According to the Los Angeles Times, Taylor's remains were placed near those of Michael Jackson. Among the other show business celebrities whose remains were laid to rest at Glendale's Forest Lawn (not to be confused with the Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn) are Oscar winners Marie Dressler, William Cameron Menzies, Norma Shearer, William Wyler, Warner Baxter, Wallace Beery, Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Borzage, Walt Disney, Edith Head, James Stewart, and Spencer Tracy. Other celebrities at Forest Lawn Glendale range from silent-film director Rex Ingram to entertainer...

Besides Alfred Hitchcock, the other important director of American films whose centenary arrived in the final year of the 20th Century was George Cukor, and during the first year (of several) in which he got nominated for a directing Oscar (for Katharine Hepburn’s Little Women), he also did a remarkable all-star movie that could nearly stand as a time capsule for the state of popular U.S. cinema circa 1933: Dinner At Eight (available on DVD). The nation’s number one box office attraction, for the fourth consecutive year, was the pug-faced, rotund and aging character actress Marie Dressler, here in her…...

1914, U, BFI

This important, instructive, hugely enjoyable four-disc set contains painstakingly restored and attractively scored prints of 34 of the 35 films Charlie Chaplin made at Mack Sennett's Keystone studio between January and December 1914. They introduced Chaplin to the cinema, turning him in the process from an admired music hall artist into an accomplished film-maker, who ended the year on the threshold of becoming the most famous man in the world and its highest-paid entertainer. In the course of this astonishing 12 months, he worked with silent stars Mabel Normand, Fatty Arbuckle and Chester Conklin, and we see a great artist evolve, appearing first as a silk-hatted pseudo-toff in his debut film, Making a Living, competing for work at a Los Angeles newspaper. In his second film, the seven-minute Kid Auto Races at Venice, he discovered his tramp persona complete with bowler and cane, delighting and puzzling the crowds at a children's...