List: American silent film actors

by likeorhate

•  Fay Wray

  Fay Wray (born Vina Fay Wray; September 15, 1907 – August 8, 2004) was a Canadian-American actress. Through an acting career that spanned 57 years, Wray attained international stardom as an actress in horror film roles, leading to many considering her as the first "scream queen". After appearing in minor film roles, Wray gained media attention being selected as one of the "WAMPAS Baby Stars". This led to Wray being signed to Paramount Pictures as a teenager.

  

  22.2%
  

  52.8%
  

  25.0%
  
•  John Wayne

  Marion Mitchell Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), born Marion Robert Morrison and better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and has become an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive voice, walk and height. He was also known for his conservative political views and his support from the 1950s for anti-communist positions.

  

  33.8%
  

  37.8%
  

  28.4%
  
•  Mary Pickford

  Mary Pickford (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979) was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Known as "America's Sweetheart," "Little Mary" and "The girl with the curls," she was one of the Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood. Her influence in the development of film acting was enormous.

  

  33.9%
  

  30.4%
  

  35.7%
  
•  Mack Sennett

  Mack Sennett (January 17, 1880 – November 5, 1960) was a Canadian-born director and was known as the innovator of slapstick comedy in film. During his lifetime he was known at times as the "King of Comedy". His short "Wrestling Swordfish" was awarded the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 1932 and he earned an Academy Honorary Award in 1937.

  

  18.5%
  

  33.3%
  

  48.1%
  
•  Paul Robeson

  Paul LeRoy Bustill Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an internationally renowned American bass-baritone concert singer, scholar, actor of film and stage, All-American and professional athlete, writer, multi-lingual orator and lawyer who was also noted for his wide-ranging social justice activism.

  

  36.0%
  

  36.0%
  

  28.0%
  
•  Tod Browning

  Tod Browning (12 July 1880 – 6 October 1962) was an American motion picture actor, director and screenwriter. Browning's career spanned the silent and talkie eras. Best-known as the director of Dracula, the cult classic Freaks, and classic silent film collaborations with Lon Chaney, Sr. , Browning directed many movies in a wide range of genres.

  

  33.3%
  

  40.0%
  

  26.7%
  
•  Clark Gable

  William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901 – November 16, 1960) was an American film actor, nicknamed "The King of Hollywood" in his heyday. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Gable seventh among the greatest male stars of all time. Gable's most famous role was Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh.

  

  16.7%
  

  0.0%
  

  83.3%
  
•  Buster Keaton

  Joseph Frank Keaton, known professionally as Buster Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966), was an American comic actor and filmmaker. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face". Keaton was recognized as the seventh-greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

  

  50.0%
  

  33.3%
  

  16.7%
  
•  Carole Lombard

  Carole Lombard (October 6, 1908 – January 16, 1942) was an American actress. She was particularly noted for her comedic roles in several classic films of the 1930s, most notably in the 1936 film My Man Godfrey. She is listed as one of the American Film Institute's greatest stars of all time and was the highest-paid star in Hollywood in the late 1930s, earning around US$500,000 per year (more than five times the salary of the US President).

  

  33.3%
  

  33.3%
  

  33.3%
  
•  Gary Cooper

  Frank James “Gary” Cooper (May 7, 1901 – May 13, 1961) was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, individualistic, emotionally restrained, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made. His career spanned from 1925 until shortly before his death, and comprised more than one hundred films.

  

  16.7%
  

  16.7%
  

  66.7%
  
•  Richard Barthelmess

  Richard "Dick" Semler Barthelmess (May 9, 1895 – August 17, 1963) was an Oscar-nominated silent film star. The son of an actress, Barthelmess began acting in college, doing amateur productions. Convinced by a family friend, actress Alla Nazimova, to try acting professionally, he made his first film appearance in 1916 in the serial Gloria's Romance as an extra. His next role, in War Brides opposite Alla Nazimova, attracted the attention of legendary director D. W.

  

  0.0%
  

  25.0%
  

  75.0%
  
•  Janet Gaynor

  Janet Gaynor (October 6, 1906 – September 14, 1984) was an American actress. One of the most popular actresses of the silent film era, in 1928 Gaynor became the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in three films: Seventh Heaven (1927), ' (1927) and Street Angel (1928). This was the only occasion on which an actress has won for multiple roles. This rule would be changed three years later by AMPAS.

  

  20.0%
  

  40.0%
  

  40.0%
  
•  Joan Crawford

  Joan Crawford (March 23, 1905 – May 10, 1977) was an American actress in film, television and theatre. Starting as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway, Crawford was signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. Initially frustrated by the size and quality of her parts, Crawford began a campaign of self-publicity and became nationally known as a flapper by the end of the 1920s.

  

  62.5%
  

  25.0%
  

  12.5%
  
•  Norma Shearer

  Edith Norma Shearer (August 10, 1902 – June 12, 1983) was a Canadian-American actress. Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in the world from the mid-1920s until her retirement in 1942. Her early films cast her as the girl-next-door but after her 1930 film The Divorcee, she played sexually liberated women in sophisticated contemporary comedies and dramas, as well as several historical and period films.

  

  62.5%
  

  12.5%
  

  25.0%
  
•  Greta Garbo

  Greta Garbo (18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish actress during Hollywood's silent film period and part of its Golden Age. Regarded as one of the greatest and most inscrutable movie stars ever produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the Hollywood studio system, Garbo received a 1954 Honorary Academy Award "for her unforgettable screen performances" and in 1999 was ranked as the fifth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.

  

  25.0%
  

  25.0%
  

  50.0%
  
•  Fredric March

  Fredric March (August 31, 1897 – April 14, 1975) was an American stage and film actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and in 1946 for The Best Years of Our Lives.

  

  100.0%
  

  0.0%
  

  0.0%
  
•  Lionel Barrymore

  Lionel Barrymore (April 12, 1878 – November 15, 1954) was an American actor of stage, radio and film. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul (1931). He is well known for the role of the villainous Henry Potter in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life.

  

  60.0%
  

  0.0%
  

  40.0%
  
•  John Barrymore

  John Sidney Blyth Barrymore (February 15, 1882 – May 29, 1942) was an American actor, frequently called the greatest of his generation. He first gained fame as a stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III. His success continued with motion pictures in various genres in both the silent and sound eras. Barrymore's personal life has been the subject of much writing before and since his passing in 1942.

  

  0.0%
  

  0.0%
  

  100.0%
  
•  Roscoe Arbuckle

  Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle (March 24, 1887 – June 29, 1933) was an American illustrated song slide "model," silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. Starting at the Selig Polyscope Company he eventually moved to Keystone Studios where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd. He mentored Charlie Chaplin and discovered Buster Keaton and Bob Hope.

  

  20.0%
  

  60.0%
  

  20.0%
  
•  Lou Tellegen

  Lou Tellegen (November 26, 1881 – October 29, 1934) was a Dutch-born silent film and stage actor, director and screenwriter.

  

  50.0%
  

  25.0%
  

  25.0%
  
•  Oliver Hardy

  Oliver Hardy (born Norvell Hardy; January 18, 1892 – August 7, 1957) was an American comic actor famous as one half of Laurel and Hardy, the classic double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted over 31 years, from 1926 to 1957.

  

  0.0%
  

  0.0%
  

  100.0%
  
•  Mickey Rooney

  Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule, Jr. ; September 23, 1920) is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. During his career he has won multiple awards, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award. Best known for his work as the Andy Hardy character, Rooney has had one of the longest careers of any actor.

  

  0.0%
  

  100.0%
  

  0.0%
  
•  Clara Bow

  Clara Gordon Bow (July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom in the silent film era of the 1920s. Her acting artistry and high spirits made her the premier flapper and the film It (1927) made her world famous. Bow came to personify the "roaring twenties" and is described as its leading sex symbol.

  

  0.0%
  

  66.7%
  

  33.3%
  
•  Warner Baxter

  Warner Leroy Baxter (March 29, 1889 – May 7, 1951) was an American actor, known for his role as The Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona, for which he won the second Academy Award for Best Actor.

  

  0.0%
  

  0.0%
  

  100.0%
  
•  Chester Morris

  Chester Morris (February 16, 1901 – September 11, 1970) was an American actor, who starred in the Boston Blackie detective series of the 1940s.

  

  20.0%
  

  0.0%
  

  80.0%