# Who is the greatest classic Hollywood actress 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?

*By YPB Team · Published June 2, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/who-is-the-greatest-classic-hollywood-actress-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Katharine Hepburn** — score 1000/1000
   AFI's #1 female screen legend and four-time Academy Award winner, defining independent womanhood in Hollywood for five decades.
2. **Audrey Hepburn** — score 504/1000
   Oscar, Tony, Emmy, and Grammy winner whose elegance in Breakfast at Tiffany's and Roman Holiday made her a timeless style and screen icon.
3. **Marilyn Monroe** — score 480/1000
   The most iconic sex symbol of the 20th century, whose magnetic comedic timing and screen presence defined an era of Hollywood glamour.
4. **Barbara Stanwyck** — score 360/1000
   AFI's #11 female legend whose mastery of noir and melodrama in Double Indemnity and Stella Dallas earned four Oscar nominations.
5. **Jean Harlow** — score 360/1000
   The original Platinum Blonde whose brash, comedic charisma in the early 1930s made her the decade's most electrifying sex symbol.
6. **Grace Kelly** — score 360/1000
   Oscar-winning actress who starred in three Hitchcock films before becoming Princess of Monaco and representing Hollywood royalty literally.
7. **Bette Davis** — score 360/1000
   AFI's #2 female star and two-time Oscar winner who transformed American acting with raw intensity in films like All About Eve.
8. **Vivien Leigh** — score 180/1000
   Two-time Oscar winner best remembered as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
9. **Claudette Colbert** — score 180/1000
   Oscar-winning comedic actress whose screwball timing in It Happened One Night and The Palm Beach Story set the standard for the genre.
10. **Greta Garbo** — score 180/1000
   Mysterious Swedish-born icon whose sphinx-like persona and luminous screen presence in Anna Karenina made her Hollywood's greatest enigma.
11. **Rita Hayworth** — score 51/1000
   The 'Love Goddess' of the 1940s whose dancing, beauty, and charisma in Gilda made her one of Hollywood's defining pin-up stars.
12. **Ingrid Bergman** — score 51/1000
   Two-time Best Actress and one-time Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner, celebrated for Casablanca and Notorious.
13. **Judy Garland** — score 1/1000
   The inimitable star of The Wizard of Oz whose heartbreaking vulnerability and soaring voice made her one of Hollywood's most beloved figures.
14. **Joan Crawford** — score 1/1000
   Ruthlessly ambitious Oscar winner who reinvented herself multiple times across four decades, peaking with her comeback in Mildred Pierce.

Tags: historical-figures, 20th-century, movies, women, actors, classics, 50s, legends