The 38 Greatest Classic Hollywood Actresses of All Time

The golden age of Hollywood produced cinema's greatest female stars. Who stands above them all as the greatest classic Hollywood actress?

1. 1
   Katharine Hepburn

   AFI's #1 female screen legend and four-time Academy Award winner, defining independent womanhood in Hollywood for five decades.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Audrey Hepburn

   Oscar, Tony, Emmy, and Grammy winner whose elegance in Breakfast at Tiffany's and Roman Holiday made her a timeless style and screen icon.
   504pts
3. 3
   Marilyn Monroe

   The most iconic sex symbol of the 20th century, whose magnetic comedic timing and screen presence defined an era of Hollywood glamour.
   480pts
4. 4
   Barbara Stanwyck

   AFI's #11 female legend whose mastery of noir and melodrama in Double Indemnity and Stella Dallas earned four Oscar nominations.
   360pts
5. 5
   Jean Harlow

   The original Platinum Blonde whose brash, comedic charisma in the early 1930s made her the decade's most electrifying sex symbol.
   360pts
6. 6
   Grace Kelly

   Oscar-winning actress who starred in three Hitchcock films before becoming Princess of Monaco and representing Hollywood royalty literally.
   360pts
7. 7
   Bette Davis

   AFI's #2 female star and two-time Oscar winner who transformed American acting with raw intensity in films like All About Eve.
   360pts
8. 8
   Vivien Leigh

   Two-time Oscar winner best remembered as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
   180pts
9. 9
   Claudette Colbert

   Oscar-winning comedic actress whose screwball timing in It Happened One Night and The Palm Beach Story set the standard for the genre.
   180pts
10. 10
    Greta Garbo

    Mysterious Swedish-born icon whose sphinx-like persona and luminous screen presence in Anna Karenina made her Hollywood's greatest enigma.
    180pts
11. 11
    Rita Hayworth

    The 'Love Goddess' of the 1940s whose dancing, beauty, and charisma in Gilda made her one of Hollywood's defining pin-up stars.
    51pts
12. 12
    Ingrid Bergman

    Two-time Best Actress and one-time Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner, celebrated for Casablanca and Notorious.
    51pts
13. 13
    Judy Garland

    The inimitable star of The Wizard of Oz whose heartbreaking vulnerability and soaring voice made her one of Hollywood's most beloved figures.
    1pts
14. 14
    Joan Crawford

    Ruthlessly ambitious Oscar winner who reinvented herself multiple times across four decades, peaking with her comeback in Mildred Pierce.
    1pts
15. 15
    Elizabeth Taylor

    Child star of National Velvet who grew into a two-time Best Actress winner for BUtterfield 8 and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
16. 16
    Marlene Dietrich

    German-born star of The Blue Angel and Shanghai Express whose cool, androgynous glamour made her one of Paramount's biggest draws of the 1930s.
17. 17
    Ginger Rogers

    Fred Astaire's partner in ten musicals who also won the Best Actress Oscar for the drama Kitty Foyle.
18. 18
    Mae West

    Bawdy writer-star of She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel whose double entendres helped provoke the Production Code.
19. 19
    Shirley Temple

    America's top box-office draw from 1935 to 1938, a child star who received a special juvenile Academy Award at six.
20. 20
    Lauren Bacall

    Husky-voiced star who debuted opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not at 19 and paired with him again in The Big Sleep.
21. 21
    Carole Lombard

    Queen of screwball comedy in My Man Godfrey and To Be or Not to Be, and Hollywood's highest-paid star of the late 1930s.
22. 22
    Mary Pickford

    America's Sweetheart of the silent era who co-founded United Artists and the Academy and won Best Actress for Coquette.
23. 23
    Ava Gardner

    MGM star of The Killers, Mogambo and The Barefoot Contessa, nominated for Best Actress for Mogambo.
24. 24
    Olivia de Havilland

    Melanie in Gone with the Wind who won two Best Actress Oscars and a court case that freed actors from endless studio contracts.
25. 25
    Myrna Loy

    Nora Charles of The Thin Man films, crowned Queen of the Movies in a 1936 poll and later given an honorary Oscar.
26. 26
    Norma Shearer

    MGM's first lady of the 1930s who won Best Actress for The Divorcee and earned six nominations in total.
27. 27
    Deborah Kerr

    British-born star of From Here to Eternity and The King and I, nominated six times for Best Actress and given an honorary Oscar.
28. 28
    Doris Day

    Singer and actress who topped the box office with Pillow Talk and a run of 1960s comedies, earning an Oscar nomination for Pillow Talk.
29. 29
    Gene Tierney

    Star of Laura and Leave Her to Heaven, the second of which earned her a Best Actress nomination in 1946.
30. 30
    Lana Turner

    MGM star of The Postman Always Rings Twice who earned a Best Actress nomination for Peyton Place.
31. 31
    Joan Fontaine

    Won Best Actress for Hitchcock's Suspicion after starring in his Rebecca, the only Hitchcock performance to win an acting Oscar.
32. 32
    Kim Novak

    Columbia's top star of the late 1950s, remembered above all for her dual role in Hitchcock's Vertigo.
33. 33
    Jennifer Jones

    Won Best Actress for The Song of Bernadette in her first major role and earned four more nominations.
34. 34
    Irene Dunne

    Five-time Best Actress nominee who moved between musicals, melodrama and screwball comedy in The Awful Truth and Love Affair.
35. 35
    Greer Garson

    Won Best Actress for Mrs. Miniver and earned seven nominations, five of them in a row from 1941 to 1945.
36. 36
    Natalie Wood

    Earned three Oscar nominations before turning 26, for Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass and Love with the Proper Stranger.
37. 37
    Lillian Gish

    First Lady of American Cinema, star of D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, Broken Blossoms and Way Down East.
38. 38
    Loretta Young

    Won Best Actress for The Farmer's Daughter after two decades as a studio star, then hosted her own television anthology series.

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