Dear Edna May Oliver, a formidable talent, and clearly fearless and unrepentant in her poses, is one of my favorite Massachusetts girls.
How about a game to start off the new year? Name any 10 actors and actress from your state (or country, or Canadian province as the case may be). Either list them in the comments below, or post them to your own blogs and come back and give me the link to your post so I can share it here.
I'm from Massachusetts, so here's my picks from my home state:
Edna May Oliver
Bette Davis
Eleanor Powell
Thelma Todd
Agnes Moorehead
Charles Bickford
Wendell Corey
Charles Farrell
Jack Lemmon
Lewis Stone
*******************
Here's a roster from New Jersey over at Kate Gabrielle's place.
A team of greats from Missouri over at Terence's A Shroud of Thoughts blog.
Here at Hamlette's Soliloquy you'll find a top-notch gang from Iowa.
Update: So far we have...
Massachusetts
New Jersey
West Virginia
Georgia
New York
(and specifically, Queens, and NYC)
Ontario, Canada
Kansas
Missouri
Alaska
Iowa
So far that's 9 U.S. states, and 1 Canadian province. Keep them coming!
20 comments:
I had a bit of a dilemma here; I live in Georgia, but I'm a native West Virginian. I figure someone else can handle the Peach State list so I'll enumerate a number of famous Mountain State thespians:
Jean Carson
Ted Cassidy
Joanne Dru
Virginia Fox
Allison Hayes
Fuzzy Knight
Don Knotts
Rex Lease
Peter Marshall
Soupy Sales
And honorable mention, Virginia "Dagmar" Egnor.
I was born and lived in NYC for half my life but doing New York is too easy. Here's Florida
Faye Dunaway
Andrew Prine
William H. Macy
Diana Canova
Sidney Poitier
Butterfly McQueen
Catherine Keener
Elizabeth Ashley
Stepin Fetchit
Wesley Snipes
Dagmar came from West Virginia?! Good old Dagmar.
I had forgotten that Sidney Poitier was born in Miami (though I read his book), I usually think of his family from the Bahamas.
Buster Keaton, Louise Brooks, Zasu Pitts, “Fatty” Roscoe Arbuckle, Hattie McDaniel, Charles “Buddy” Rogers, Max Showalter, Madge Blake, Steve Brodie, and Dennis Hopper all hail from Kansas.
I agree that New York would be too easy, so I'll narrow it down to my home borough, Queens:
Christopher Walken
Martin Scorsese (he's done a little acting here and there)
Cyndi Lauper (she was in VIBES)
Fran Drescher
Ray Romano
Hank Azaria
Ethel Merman (didn't know that)
Jon Favreau
Patty Duke (didn't know that either)
Idina Menzel
My fellow Georgians either fell asleep in class or didn't get the assignment from a friend. So here we go...
Edward Andrews
Charles Coburn
Ossie Davis
Melvyn Douglas
Oliver Norvell Hardy (tie twiddle)
Sterling Holloway
Miriam Hopkins
Burt Reynolds
Scott Wilson
Joanne Woodward
Honorable mentions: DeForest Kelley, Maidie Norman, Monroe Owsley, Pernell Roberts
The Province of Ontario can boost of these classic film actors:
Marie Dressler
Maude Eburne
Andy Hardy's sister, Cecilia Parker
Andy Hardy's girlfriend, Ann Rutherford
Alexander Knox
Hume Cronyn
Gene Lockhart
Walter Huston
Lorne Greene
Your Hit Parade's Dorothy Collins was an Ontario gal.
Your Hit Parade's Gisele MacKenzie was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, as was Deanna Durbin.
I'd be here all night if I started to list the comics! However, I may come back tomorrow with Canada-at-Large if no one gets here ahead of me.
Whoa, Kansas has some great ones. I think we should be ZaSu Pitts on a coin.
Rich, great choices, but too many newbies. There weren't enough classic film actors to go around? I'll take Ethel Merman and Patty Duke for $300, Alex.
Way to pitch in, Ivan. Charles Coburn and Ollie, be still my heart.
James Arness and Peter Graves, Jane Russell, Judy Garland, Jessica Lange, Walter Abel, Lew Ayres, Tippi Hedren, E. G. Marshall, Gale Sondergaard, and many more.
This is such a fun idea!! I posted my New Jersey list here: https://www.thefilmsinmylife.com/2019/01/ten-classic-film-actors-and-actresses.html
The talented Irene Bedard is the only multiple-job/at one time primarily film actor I can recall who was born in my birth-state of Alaska. Theutterly dignified subject of a notable film, Valerie Plame, is as close as we come otherwise as far as I can see. (That both are intelligent and gorgeous should encouragement more recruitment from Alaska, I would think.)
I have been in a student film or two, in the raw footage of at least one documentary, and have been on television in various obscure ways, but That Don't Count. (I might not be intelligent nor gorgeous nor, certainly, particularly talented as an actor.)
Ah, hey, Annie Parisse, whom I did know was also an Alaskan at birth, and Michelle Johnson, whom I wasn't aware of thus, are cheerfully provided by an IMDb Advanced Search. But No One active in the earlier decades of the US industry. Remarkable.
CW, as most classic film buffs know, Canada was (and is) the source of a huge army of talent which the U.S. has enjoyed for decades. Our entertainment industry is really "our," meaning North American, entertainment industry. Ontario has a great team.
Brightchild, those are terrific names, and I'm guessing your state is Minnesota!
Thanks for joining in, Kate. I'm posting your link in an update on this post.
Todd, I have to admire your perseverance. Go Alaska!
This is a wonderful idea for a game! I will be doing this on my blog. Of course, I have to point out that given her family moved to St. Louis while she was still young and her career essentially began there, Missouri lays claim to Agnes Moorehead as well! That having been said, I will restrict my list to people who were born here (which means I can't include Agnes, or Steve McQueen for that matter).
New York City:
Barbara Stanwyck
Humphrey Bogart
James Cagney
Tony Curtis
Ann Dvorak
Joan Blondell
Robert Vaughn
Lena Horne
Celeste Holm
Anita Louise
Terence, I know what you mean about when stars were born in one place, but later moved to another state. I ran in to that with Harold Russell, who, as anyone can tell by his speech, is a Massachusetts boy (and lived his later years here), but who was actually born in Nova Scotia, so I decided to leave him off on a technicality.
Patricia, NYC has got the bushel basket full of greats, doesn't it?
I have my list up at https://mercurie.blogspot.com/2019/01/ten-classic-actors-from-missouri.html
Thanks, Terence. Updating this post.
Love this idea! Posted a list of ten actors & actresses born in my homestate of Iowa on my blog just now :-)
Welcome Hemlette! Great choices you've got listed for Iowa. I'll update this post.
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