Here are five of the best actresses to appear in film. Years later their legacy lives on …
What distinguishes the best actresses of all time? It is not just purely their acting skills or their undeniable beauty. Iconic Hollywood actresses are defined by their charisma and personality and the undefinable ‘X factor’. Here are five of the most iconic actresses in the industry who have touched our hearts beyond the silver screen and are remembered both for their dramatic onscreen and off-screen lives.
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was born Audrey Kathleen Ruston in 1929. With her petite frame and elfin features, she was not your quintessential Hollywood actress. However, long after her death in 1993, she remains one of the best actresses of all time. The movie star appeared in classics such as Breakfast at Tiffanys, Roman Holiday and Sabrina. Hepburn remains one of few entertainers who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards.
Katherine Hepburn
“I’m a personality as well as an actress,” Katharine Hepburn once declared. “Show me an actress who isn’t a personality, and you’ll show me a woman who isn’t a star.” The feisty actress was born in 1907 and passed away in 2003. Katherine Hepburn, a star of film, stage and television won three Academy Awards for Best Actress for movies In a Golden Pond, The Lion in Winter and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
Vivian Leigh
Who could forget the English actress in the epic role of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire for which she won an Academy Award for Best Actress and the portrayal of southern belle Scarlett O’Hara in the iconic movie Gone with the Wind. Vivian Leigh (5 November 1913 – 8 July 1996) made fewer than a dozen movies but those two roles cemented her place in history as one of the best actresses of all time.
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe born Norma Jeane Baker in 1926. The blonde bombshell and sex siren appeared in iconic movies such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Some Like It Hot, How to Marry a Millionaire and The Seven Year Itch. The final years of her career were marred by marked by illness, personal problems, and a reputation for being unreliable and difficult to work with. The actress tragically passed away in 1962.
Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor was one of the stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age but her string of failed marriages was almost as notable as her long acting career. Taylor was born in 1932 and sadly died in 2011. She won two Academy Awards; one for best actress for Butterfield 8 and again for best actress for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Later in life she become well known for her humanitarian work raising money for AIDS research.
There are many well known actresses today such as Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett, Angelina Jolie and Natalie Portman who are lauded for their acting ability but one wonders whether they will reach the heights of these five dazzling beauties. Only time will tell. Thankfully due to modern technology, we can watch the movies of these five best actresses forever immortalised in time onscreen and within our hearts.