Top 10 Era Defining Actresses: Classic

Our first actress found fame by playing the ‘exotic foreigner’ at the beginning of her career, before landing lead roles aplenty in the 1940s. Rita Hayworth was a real Second World War sweetheart! With “Cover Girl” in ‘44 she covered herself in glory, and with “Gilda” in ‘46 she garnered yet more praise. She played the scale between sweetness and seduction with apparent ease, and when she married Prince Aly Khan in ‘49 she became Hollywood’s first ever princess! She really was acting royalty!

A star of the stage who swiftly and sensationally became a star of the screen, Julie Andrews cemented her spot in cinematic history in the early ‘60s! She declined the offer to star as Mary Poppins originally due to pregnancy, but so perfect for the part did Disney believe her to be, they waited until she was available to make the movie! The rest is record-breaking history that earned Andrews an Oscar! With “The Sound of Music” the following year, here was a woman who really knew how to act!

Sometimes child stardom doesn’t lead to adult success... But sometimes it does, and for Judy Garland it did big time! Known in Hollywood as ‘the greatest entertainer who ever lived’, Garland’s gift lay in her versatility. She could sing, she could dance, she could act... Which led to her winning a Golden Globe and two Grammys as well as her nominations for Oscars and Emmys! A one hit wonder she certainly wasn’t, but she will forever be remembered for one film in particular! ‘There’s no place like home’, and there’s no¬-one like Ms. Garland!

One of the most glamorous girls to ever appear on screen, Liz Taylor triumphed relentlessly when it came to making movies! With “National Velvet” in 1944, the style icon scored her first big success, and with “BUtterfield 8” in 1960, she secured her first Academy Award. A second statuette would follow, for a role that Taylor herself was especially proud of in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” A legendary love-life and a liking for jewels add to her lasting legacy, as Taylor proved a great actress, and a great character!

One of England’s greatest ever exports; Vivien Leigh was destined for the camera by the age of three! She first took to the stage to recite “Little Bo Peep” for her mother’s amateur theatre group – a little over twenty years later, she was Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind”! Famous for playing the ‘Southern Belle’, she won an Oscar as O’Hara, and as Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire”! Off-screen, she battled illness and depression, as a sometimes-tragic personal life ran parallel to an always terrific professional one!

An icon if ever there was one, Marilyn Monroe was also a mighty fine actress! Her playful nature and flirtatious behavior translated to film fantastically! The original ‘Blonde Bombshell’, her first especially big break came with “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ and her singing ‘Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend’! Then followed “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Some Like It Hot”! Like Leigh, Monroe’s personal difficulties matched her onscreen dominance... But class is permanent, and this lady had a lot of that!

A prolific performer, Bette Davis notched up over one hundred film, theater and TV credits within her career, and is quite rightly regarded as one of the best actresses to have ever lived! In terms of Academy Awards, she won two and was nominated for ten! The first person to reach double-figured nominations, Davis was never too far away from the top of her game! An actress who continued working into her old age, with no sense of hyperbole do we remember Davis as a legend!

This Swedish superstar scooped almost every award possible within her career. Three Oscars, Four Golden Globes, Two Emmys and a Tony... Ingrid Bergman was simply brilliant! A notably conscientious performer, she is perhaps most well known for her role as Ilsa Lund in “Casablanca”... However, it was for “Gaslight”, “Anastasia” and “Murder on the Orient Express” that she secured Oscar wins! One of the most successful actresses of all time, she’s one of the most well remembered and well-respected as well!

The actress to win more Academy Awards than Bergman is our runner-up, Katharine Hepburn! An opinionated, independent and ambitious woman, Hepburn proved a leading lady in Hollywood for over sixty years! And her ambitions were fantastically fulfilled! With successes too lengthy to list effectively, Hepburn’s career is especially impressive because of the versatility that she demonstrated. Comedy, drama, history or mystery - Katharine could do them all! Only one could come close to her talent... Our number one!

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
- Joan Crawford
- Shirley Temple
- Marlene Dietrich
- Lauren Bacall
- Greta Garbo
- Jean Harlow

Boasting a back-catalogue of iconic films such as she does, Audrey Hepburn has narrowly defeated Katharine! One of the most naturally beautiful women of all time, roles in “Roman Holiday”, “Charade”, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “My Fair Lady” - among many others - have Hepburn placed at the top of this tree! With an accent at once sweet, sexy and sophisticated, and a manner at once commanding and cute, Audrey Hepburn was the perfect combination! Hollywood has seen no one like her since, nor are we ever likely to in the future!

Do you agree with our list? Which actress from the 1930s to 1960s is your favorite? For more classic Top 10s published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.