REAL men!

by jordanclewans | created - 11 months ago | updated - 3 weeks ago | Public

Men who have inspired me, in no particular order

1. Christopher Lee

Actor | Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was perhaps the only actor of his generation to have starred in so many films and cult saga. Although most notable for personifying bloodsucking vampire, Dracula, on screen, he portrayed other varied characters on screen, most of which were villains, whether it ...

2. Toshirô Mifune

Actor | Yôjinbô

Toshiro Mifune achieved more worldwide fame than any other Japanese actor of his century. He was born in Tsingtao, China, to Japanese parents and grew up in Dalian. He did not set foot in Japan until he was 21. His father was an importer and a commercial photographer, and young Toshiro worked in ...

3. Clint Eastwood

Actor | Million Dollar Baby

Clint Eastwood was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in ...

4. Lee Van Cleef

Actor | Escape from New York

One of the great movie villains, Clarence Leroy Van Cleef, Jr. was born in Somerville, New Jersey, to Marion Lavinia (Van Fleet) and Clarence LeRoy Van Cleef, Sr. His parents were of Dutch ancestry. Van Cleef started out as an accountant. He served in the U.S. Navy aboard minesweepers and sub ...

5. Al Pacino

Actor | Serpico

Alfredo James "Al" 'Pacino established himself as a film actor during one of cinema's most vibrant decades, the 1970s, and has become an enduring and iconic figure in the world of American movies.

He was born April 25, 1940 in Manhattan, New York City, to Italian-American parents, Rose (nee Gerardi)...

6. Richard Dean Anderson

Actor | Stargate SG-1

The original MacGyver (1985) and Stargate SG-1 (1997) star was born on January 23, 1950, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His father, Stuart Anderson, was a teacher at a local high school and his mother, Jocelyn, was an artist who was talented in both sculpting and painting. He and his three younger ...

7. Patrick Macnee

Actor | The Avengers

British actor Patrick Macnee was born on February 6, 1922 in London, England into a wealthy and eccentric family. His father, Daniel Macnee, was a race horse trainer, who drank and gambled away the family fortune, leaving young Patrick to be raised by his lesbian mother, Dorothea Mary, and her ...

8. Nigel Hawthorne

Actor | The Madness of King George

Widely regarded as one of the greatest stage and screen actors both in his native UK and internationally, the unparalleled Nigel Hawthorne was born in Coventry, England on 5 April 1929, raised in South Africa and returned to the UK in the 1950s with his extensive work as a great gentleman of acting...

9. Richard Harris

Actor | Unforgiven

Richard St John Harris was born on October 1, 1930 in Limerick, Ireland, to a farming family, one of nine children born to Mildred (Harty) and Ivan Harris. He attended Crescent College, a Jesuit school, and was an excellent rugby player, with a strong passion for literature. Unfortunately, a bout ...

10. Donald Pleasence

Actor | Halloween II

Balding, quietly spoken, of slight build and possessed of piercing blue eyes -- often peering out from behind round, steel-rimmed glasses -- Donald Pleasence had the essential physical attributes which make a great screen villain. In the course of his lengthy career, he relished playing the ...

11. James Stewart

Actor | Vertigo

James Maitland Stewart was born on May 20, 1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, to Elizabeth Ruth (Johnson) and Alexander Maitland Stewart, who owned a hardware store. He was of Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and some English descent. Stewart was educated at a local prep school, Mercersburg Academy, where he ...

12. Michael Biehn

Actor | Aliens

Michael Connell Biehn was born on July 31, 1956 in Anniston, Alabama, to Marcia (Connell) and Don Biehn, a lawyer. He grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, and at age 14 moved with his family to Lake Havasu, Arizona, where he won a drama scholarship to the University of Arizona. He left prematurely two ...

13. Keye Luke

Actor | Gremlins 2: The New Batch

Keye Luke was born in Canton, China. He grew up in Seattle, Washington, and entered the film business as a commercial artist and a designer of movie posters. He was hired as a technical advisor on several Asian-themed films, and made his film debut in The Painted Veil (1934). It seemed that he ...

14. Charlton Heston

Actor | Ben-Hur

With features chiseled in stone, and renowned for playing a long list of historical figures, particularly in Biblical epics, the tall, well-built and ruggedly handsome Charlton Heston was one of Hollywood's top leading men of his prime and remained active in front of movie cameras for over sixty ...

15. James Shigeta

Actor | Die Hard

Hawaiian-born James Shigeta was, for a time, the biggest East Asian U.S. star the country had known for decades. His up-and-down career reflected the country's changing interest in films with East Asian themes, but, when called upon, he filled both A-movie starring roles and minor T.V. guest ...

16. Glenn Ford

Actor | Gilda

Legendary actor Glenn Ford was born Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford in Sainte-Christine-d'Auvergne, Quebec, Canada, to Hannah Wood (Mitchell) and Newton Ford, a railroad executive. His family moved to Santa Monica, California when he was eight years old. His acting career began with plays at high school...

17. James Coburn

Actor | The Great Escape

Lanky, charismatic and versatile actor with an amazing grin that put everyone at ease, James Coburn studied acting at UCLA, and then moved to New York to study under noted acting coach Stella Adler. After being noticed in several stage productions, Coburn appeared in a handful of minor westerns ...

18. Robert Mitchum

Actor | Out of the Past

Robert Mitchum was an underrated American leading man of enormous ability, who sublimated his talents beneath an air of disinterest. He was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Ann Harriet (Gunderson), a Norwegian immigrant, and James Thomas Mitchum, a shipyard/railroad worker. His father died in a ...

19. Alastair Sim

Actor | Scrooge

The son of Alexander Sim JP and Isabella McIntyre, Alastair Sim was educated in Edinburgh. Always interested in language (especially the spoken word) he became the Fulton Lecturer in Elocution at New College, Edinburgh University from 1925 until 1930. He was invited back and became the Rector of ...

20. Wes Studi

Actor | The Last of the Mohicans

From small-town Oklahoma native to internationally acclaimed actor and musician, Wes Studi credits his passion and multi-faceted background for his powerful character portrayals that forever changed a Hollywood stereotype. Within a few years of his arrival in Hollywood, Studi caught the attention ...

21. Raul Julia

Actor | Street Fighter

Raul Julia was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Olga Arcelay, a mezzo-soprano singer, and Raúl Juliá, an electrical engineer. He graduated from Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola High School in San Juan. Here he studied the rigorous classical curriculum of the Jesuits and was always active ...

22. August Schellenberg

Actor | Black Robe

August Schellenberg was born on July 25, 1936 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was an actor, known for Black Robe (1991), The New World (2005) and Free Willy (1993). He was married to Joan Karasevich. He died on August 15, 2013 in Dallas, Texas, USA.

23. Burt Reynolds

Actor | Boogie Nights

Enduring, strong-featured, and genial star of US cinema, Burt Reynolds started off in T.V. westerns in the 1960s and then carved his name into 1970s/1980s popular culture, as a sex symbol (posing nearly naked for "Cosmopolitan" magazine), and on-screen as both a rugged action figure and then as a ...

24. James Gleason

Actor | The Night of the Hunter

James Gleason was born in New York City to William Gleason and Mina Crolius, who were both in the theatre. He was married to Lucile Gleason (born Lucile Webster), and had a son, Russell Gleason. As a young man James fought in the Spanish-American War. After the war he joined the stock company at ...

25. Tommy Lee Jones

Actor | The Fugitive

Tommy Lee Jones was born in San Saba, Texas, the son of Lucille Marie (Scott), a police officer and beauty shop owner, and Clyde C. Jones, who worked on oil fields. Tommy himself worked in underwater construction and on an oil rig. He attended St. Mark's School of Texas, a prestigious prep school ...

26. David Strathairn

Actor | Good Night, and Good Luck.

David Russell Strathairn was born on January 26, 1949 in San Francisco, California. He is the son of Mary Frances (Frazier), a nurse, and Thomas Scott Strathairn, Jr., a physician. He has two siblings, Tom and Anne. His ancestry includes English, Scottish, Irish, Portuguese, Hawaiian, and one ...

27. Phil Davis

Actor | Vera Drake

Phil Davis was born on July 30, 1953 in Grays, Essex, England, UK. He is an actor and director, known for Vera Drake (2004), Bleak House (2005) and Alien³ (1992). He has been married to Eve Matheson since 2002. They have one child.

28. Sam Elliott

Actor | A Star Is Born

Tall, thin, wiry Sam Elliott is the classic picture of the American cowboy. Elliott began his acting career on the stage and his film debut was in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Although his future wife, Katharine Ross co-starred in the film, the two did not meet until they filmed The ...

29. Bob Hoskins

Actor | The Long Good Friday

Bob Hoskins was described by the director John Mackenzie as "an actor from the British tradition but with an almost American approach, an instinctive approach to acting and knowing how to work with the camera". He was born on October 26, 1942, in Bury St. Edmund's, Suffolk, where his mother was ...

30. Peter van Eyck

Actor | The Longest Day

With his whitish blond crew-cut, slow, menacing drawl and Germanic manner, Van Eyck was destined to be typecast as stereotypically scowling, arrogant Nazi officers. This was ironic, because he was an avowed anti-fascist who had left Germany in 1931 -- two years before Adolf Hitler came to power. ...

31. Wolf Kahler

Actor | Raiders of the Lost Ark

Wolf Kahler is a German born character actor who, thanks to his height (6'2") and blue eyes was often cast as a Nazi or unsympathetic German characters in his career. He has appeared in several successful franchises (Indiana Jones, The Dirty Dozen), both playing a Nazi officer named Dietrich, and ...

32. Mark Wahlberg

Producer | The Fighter

American actor Mark Wahlberg is one of a handful of respected entertainers who successfully made the transition from teen pop idol to acclaimed actor. A Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee for The Departed (2006) who went on to receive positive critical reviews for his performance in The Fighter (...

33. Liam Neeson

Actor | Kinsey

Liam Neeson was born on June 7, 1952 in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, to Katherine (Brown), a cook, and Bernard Neeson, a school caretaker. He was raised in a Catholic household. During his early years, Liam worked as a forklift operator for Guinness, a truck driver, an assistant architect and an ...

34. Roy Scheider

Actor | Jaws

Lean, angular-faced and authoritatively spoken lead / supporting actor Roy Scheider obviously never heard the old actor's axiom about "never appearing with kids or animals" lest they overshadow your performance. Breaking that rule did him no harm, though, as he achieved pop cult status by finding, ...

35. Robert Alda

Actor | Rhapsody in Blue

Robert Alda's career began in vaudeville, as a singer-dancer. Graduating to performing on radio and in burlesque, he made a splashy film debut as George Gershwin in Rhapsody in Blue (1945). His film career faltered somewhat after that, but he had much greater success on the Broadway stage in such ...

36. Greg Cruttwell

Actor | Naked

Cruttwell attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art from 1978-1981. Before branching out as a writer, director and producer, Cruttwell performed in many theatre productions throughout Great Britain. In 1990, he wrote and starred in the play Waiting for Sir Larry, which won a Fringe ...

37. Roscoe Lee Browne

Actor | The Cowboys

He was a master class in cerebral eloquence and audience command...and although his dominant playing card in the realm of acting was quite serious and stately, nobody cut a more delightfully dry edge in sitcoms than this gentleman, whose calm yet blistering put-downs often eluded his lesser victims.

...

38. Jon Voight

Actor | Midnight Cowboy

Jon Voight is an American actor of German and Slovak descent. He has won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his role as paraplegic Vietnam War veteran Luke Martin in the war film "Coming Home" (1978). He has also been nominated for the same award other two times. He was first ...

39. Frank Lovejoy

Actor | In a Lonely Place

Square-jawed, intense, no-nonsense Frank Lovejoy played a succession of detectives, street cops, reporters, soldiers and such over his career. Born in the Bronx, New York, in 1912, he worked on Wall Street as a teenager, but the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929 cost him his job, and to make ends ...

40. Frank Morgan

Actor | The Wizard of Oz

Jovial, somewhat flamboyant Frank Morgan (born Francis Wuppermann) will forever be remembered as the title character in The Wizard of Oz (1939), but he was a veteran and respected actor long before he played that part, and turned in outstanding performances both before and after that film. One of ...

41. Criss Angel

Actor | CSI: NY

Criss Angel was born on December 19, 1967 and raised in East Meadow, New York. He grew up loving music, playing the drums and always having an interest in magic. Two of his biggest magic influences are Harry Houdini and Richiardi Jr.. His father was also a big influence on him, especially after a ...

42. Rick Gomez

Actor | Silo

Rick Gomez was born in Bayonne, New Jersey on June 1st. He is the first-born son and was born on his father's birthday. In 1987 the family moved to South Plainfield, New Jersey where Rick went to school. He graduated from South Plainfield High School and promptly moved to New York City to pursue ...

43. Don S. Davis

Actor | A League of Their Own

Don S. Davis was born on August 4, 1942 in Aurora, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for A League of Their Own (1992), The Fan (1996) and Twin Peaks (1990). He was married to Ruby Fleming-Davis and Sondra Sue Davis. He died on June 29, 2008 in Gibsons, British Columbia, Canada.

44. Tom Landry

Self | The NFL on CBS

Tom Landry was born on September 11, 1924 in Mission, Texas, USA. He was married to Alicia Mildred Wiggs. He died on February 12, 2000 in Dallas, Texas, USA.

45. Robin Olds

Self | Ultimate Dogfighting

Robin Olds was born on July 14, 1922 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. He was married to Ella Raines. He died on June 14, 2007 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, USA.

46. Robert Duvall

Actor | The Apostle

Veteran actor and director Robert Selden Duvall was born on January 5, 1931, in San Diego, CA, to Mildred Virginia (Hart), an amateur actress, and William Howard Duvall, a career military officer who later became an admiral. Duvall majored in drama at Principia College (Elsah, IL), then served a ...

47. Robert Morley

Actor | The African Queen

Bushy-browed, triple-chinned and plummy-voiced English actor and raconteur of wide girth and larger-than-life personality. The son of a career army officer, Morley was expected to join the diplomatic corps. As a 'compromise', he tried his hand as a beer salesman. However, bitten by the acting bug ...

48. Brian Connolly

Soundtrack | Dazed and Confused

Brian Connolly was born on October 5, 1945 in Govanhill, Glasgow, Scotland, UK. He was an actor and composer, known for Dazed and Confused (1993), Lords of Dogtown (2005) and Detroit Rock City (1999). He was married to Denise and Marilyn Walsh. He died on February 9, 1997 in Slough, Berkshire, ...

49. Bill Fletcher

Actor | The Devil's Brigade

Bill Fletcher was born on December 20, 1922. He was an actor, known for The Devil's Brigade (1968), 5 Card Stud (1968) and Black Sheep Squadron (1976). He died on August 29, 2013 in the USA.

50. Edward Winter

Actor | Porky's II: The Next Day

Edward Winter was born on June 3, 1937 in Ventura, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Porky's II: The Next Day (1983), M*A*S*H (1972) and The Greatest American Hero (1981). He was married to Linda Foster, Sandra Frances Ward and Ronda Faye Moe. He died on March 8, 2001 in Woodland Hills, ...

51. Ralph Cotterill

Actor | The Proposition

Ralph Cotterill was born in 1932 in Yorkshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Proposition (2005), Howling III (1987) and The Last Bastion (1984). He died on May 7, 2023 in Cairns, Queensland, Australia.

52. Fred Rogers

Actor | Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

Fred Rogers was the host of the popular long-running public television children's show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. The show debuted in Pittsburgh in 1967 and was picked up by PBS the next year, becoming a staple of public TV stations around the United States. Rogers' mild manner, cardigan sweaters...



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