Big Hollywood’s Top 100 Screen Legends

by John Nolte

The American Film Institute went a little list-crazy a few years back. Most of their surveys were fun and about the pure pleasure of movie watching (top 100 chills, quotes, songs, laughs… ), but 1999’s “100 Years…100 Stars” definitely caught my eye because it was less about fun, more about creating something defining and just that bad.

For starters, the list was a bit of a cheat. There weren’t 100 stars, there were 50; 25 men and 25 women. But in order to get to the number 100, the AFI counted the 50 stars and celebrities who acted as on-camera hosts and presenters. In other words, the television show produced around the list was more important than creating a serious, comprehensive list.

Then there’s the actual lists, both awful, most especially the men:

1. Humphrey Bogart
2. Cary Grant
3. James Stewart
4. Marlon Brando
5. Fred Astaire
6. Henry Fonda
7. Clark Gable
8. James Cagney
9. Spencer Tracy
10. Charlie Chaplin
11. Gary Cooper
12. Gregory Peck
13. John Wayne
14. Laurence Olivier
15. Gene Kelly
16. Orson Welles
17. Kirk Douglas
18. James Dean
19. Burt Lancaster
20. The Marx Brothers
21. Buster Keaton
22. Sidney Poitier
23. Robert Mitchum
24. Edward G. Robinson
25. William Holden

First reaction: John Wayne doesn’t make the top ten? And where the hell are Errol Flynn, Charlton Heston and Bob Hope? All three were nominated, didn’t make the final cut, and spotting who they could replace isn’t terribly difficult:

Sidney Poitier, a passable actor without much depth whose films, with a few notable exceptions, haven’t aged well. (Someone has to say it.)

James Dean, who starred in only three films!

Orson Welles, a giant of a director, a splendid actor, but a bigger on screen legend than Heston, Hope and Flynn? Please.

You get the idea… The list not only requires a more comprehensive approach but some everyday, down to earth, living in the real world, apolitical common sense, which the AFI wasn’t going to find in this herding of the usual suspects:

The list was selected by leaders from the American film community, including artists, historians, critics and other cultural leaders, all of whom have never set foot in a Wal-Mart and who chose from a list of 250 nominees in each gender category, as compiled by AFI historians.

Okay, I added the Wal-Mart part, but definitely a bunch of eggheads and leftist elitists, most of whom probably voted for John Wayne while holding their nose and then prayed to the red string around their wrist that no one would notice the absence of the “gun nut.”

So here’s the plan…

Every other day or so, counting backwards and starting with the fellas, Big Hollywood will post one of the Top 100 Screen Legends (50 men and 50 women) using the following AFI criteria:

AFI defines an “American screen legend” as an actor or a team of actors with a significant screen presence in American feature-length films whose screen debut occurred in or before 1950, or whose screen debut occurred after 1950 but whose death has marked a completed body of work.

The rules will be nudged just a bit to include those over the age of 75, because any list with the words “greatest” and “movie star” is automatically ridiculous without Gene Hackman.

Along with the name of the star will be a list of their five best films because after two years of Top 5 posts the idea-well’s gone dry and this buys me a few months.

And after we’re done with the boys, we’ll move in on the ladies … so to speak.

The list is still in the development stage. Comments and suggestions are welcome.


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Posted Mar 26th 2009 at 1:33 pm in Entertainment, Top 5 | 132 Comments