Favourite Actresses

1. Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Kate Paltrow was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of noted producer and director Bruce Paltrow and Tony Award-winning actress Blythe Danner. Her father was from a Jewish family, while her mother is of mostly German descent. When Gwyneth was eleven, the family moved to Massachusetts, where ...

2. Anne Bancroft

Actress | The Graduate

Anne Bancroft was born on September 17, 1931 in The Bronx, NY, the middle daughter of Michael Italiano (1905-2001), a dress pattern maker, and Mildred DiNapoli (1907-2010), a telephone operator. She made her cinema debut in Don't Bother to Knock (1952) in 1952, and over the next five years appeared...

3. Kate Winslet

Actress | Titanic

Ask Kate Winslet what she likes about any of her characters, and the word "ballsy" is bound to pop up at least once. The British actress has made a point of eschewing straightforward pretty-girl parts in favor of more devilish damsels; as a result, she's built an eclectic resume that runs the gamut...

4. Natalie Portman

Actress | Black Swan

Natalie Portman is the first person born in the 1980s to have won the Academy Award for Best Actress (for Black Swan (2010)).

Natalie was born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, Israel. She is the only child of Avner Hershlag, an Israeli-born doctor, and Shelley Stevens, an ...

5. Mila Kunis

Actress | Black Swan

Milena Markovna "Mila" Kunis is a Ukrainian-American actress born to a Jewish family in Chernivtsi, Ukraine.

Her mother, Elvira, is a physics teacher, her father, Mark Kunis, is a mechanical engineer, and she has an older brother named Michael. Her family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1991. ...

6. Joan Collins

Actress | Dynasty

Joan Collins is an English actress from Paddington, London. She is most famous for playing the role of vengeful schemer Alexis Carrington Colby in the soap opera "Dynasty" (1981-1989). In 1997, She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama. In 2015, She...

7. Shannen Doherty

Actress | Beverly Hills, 90210

Shannen Doherty was born in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, on April 12, 1971, to Rosa Doherty (Wright) and Tom Doherty. Her father worked in a bank, while her mother owned a beauty parlor. She has an older brother, Sean B. Doherty. Her ancestry includes Irish, English, Scottish, and French. In 1978, at ...

8. Vera Farmiga

Actress | Up in the Air

Vera Farmiga is an American actress who has received an Academy Award nomination for her role in Up in the Air (2009) and Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her roles in Bates Motel (2013) and When They See Us (2019).

She was born Vera Ann Farmiga, the second of seven children, on August 6, 1973, ...

9. Michelle Williams

Actress | Blue Valentine

A small-town girl born and raised in rural Kalispell, Montana, Michelle Ingrid Williams is the daughter of Carla Ingrid (Swenson), a homemaker, and Larry Richard Williams, a commodity trader and author. Her ancestry is Norwegian, as well as German, British Isles, and other Scandinavian. She was ...

10. Taylor Schilling

Actress | The Lucky One

Taylor Schilling (born July 27, 1984) is an American actress. She is known for her role as "Piper Chapman" on the Netflix original comedy-drama series, Orange Is the New Black (2013) (2013-present), for which she won the 2013 Satellite Award for Best Actress in a Television Series - Musical or ...

11. Reese Witherspoon

Producer | Wild

Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon was born on March 22, 1976 in New Orleans, Louisiana to Betty Witherspoon, a registered nurse & John Draper Witherspoon, a military surgeon. Reese spent the first 4 years of her life in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany, where her father served as a lieutenant colonel in the ...

12. Whoopi Goldberg

Actress | Ghost

Whoopi Goldberg was born Caryn Elaine Johnson in the Chelsea section of Manhattan on November 13, 1955. Her mother, Emma (Harris), was a teacher and a nurse, and her father, Robert James Johnson, Jr., was a clergyman. Whoopi's recent ancestors were from Georgia, Florida, and Virginia. She worked in...

13. Jennifer Morrison

Actress | House M.D.

Jennifer Marie Morrison was born in Chicago, Illinois, the oldest child of teachers David and Judy Morrison. She was raised in Arlington Heights, IL, with a younger sister and brother. She attended the same school her parents taught at, Prospect High School. As a child, she did some work as a model...

14. Julia Roberts

Actress | Pretty Woman

Julia Fiona Roberts never dreamed she would become the most popular actress in America. She was born in Smyrna, Georgia, to Betty Lou (Bredemus) and Walter Grady Roberts, one-time actors and playwrights, and is of English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, and Swedish descent. As a child, due to her ...

15. Holly Marie Combs

Actress | Charmed

Holly moved to New York at the tender age of 7. Already her stunning looks had turned heads, resulting in jobs in print ads and commercials. Soon these experiences lead to a desire to act, a dream shared by Holly's mother, who herself was only 24. After a few bit parts, Holly landed a leading role ...

16. Courteney Cox

Actress | Friends

Courteney Cox was born on June 15th, 1964 in Birmingham, Alabama, into an affluent Southern family. She is the daughter of Courteney (Bass) and Richard Lewis Cox (1930-2001), a businessman. She was the baby of the family with two older sisters (Virginia and Dottie) and an older brother, Richard, Jr...

17. Catherine Zeta-Jones

Actress | Chicago

Catherine Zeta-Jones was born September 25, 1969 in Swansea, Wales (and raised in the nearby town of Mumbles), the only daughter of Patricia (nee Fair) and David James "Dai" Jones, who formerly owned a sweet factory. She attended Dumbarton House School (Swansea). Her father (the son of Bertram (...

18. Maggie Smith

Actress | Gosford Park

One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her Scottish mother, Margaret (Hutton), worked as a secretary, and her English father, Nathaniel Smith, was a teacher at Oxford University. Smith has been married twice: to actor ...

19. Anne Hathaway

Actress | Les Misérables

Anne Jacqueline Hathaway was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Kate McCauley Hathaway, an actress, and Gerald T. Hathaway, a lawyer, both originally from Philadelphia. She is of mostly Irish descent, along with English, German, and French. Her first major role came in the short-lived television series ...

20. Meryl Streep

Actress | Out of Africa

Considered by many critics to be the greatest living actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 21 times, and has won it three times. Meryl was born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf (Wilkinson), a commercial artist, and Harry William ...

21. Laura Prepon

Actress | Orange Is the New Black

Laura Helene Prepon was born on March 7, 1980, in Watchung, New Jersey. She is the daughter of Marjorie (Coll) and Michael Prepon. Her father died in 1993, when she was 13 years old. Laura is the youngest of five children--she has a brother named Brad and three sisters: Danielle, Jocelyn, and ...

22. Lori Loughlin

Actress | Summerland

Lori Loughlin was born on July 28, 1964 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Summerland (2004), When Calls the Heart (2014) and Full House (1987). She has been married to Mossimo Giannulli since November 27, 1997. They have two children. She was previously ...

23. Taylor Momsen

Actress | How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Taylor Michel Momsen is an American actress, singer and director from St. Louis, Missouri. She is known for playing Cindy Lou Who from How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Alexandra Anami in Spy Kids 2 and Jenny Humphrey from Gossip Girl. She is the leader of a punk rock band called The Pretty Reckless....

24. Christine Baranski

Actress | Mamma Mia!

Christine Baranski is an American actress from Buffalo, New York. She has had a relatively lengthy career in both film and television. She has been nominated for 15 Emmy Awards, winning once. One of her most popular roles was that of neuroscientist Dr. Beverly Hofstadter in the sitcom " The Big ...

25. Ali MacGraw

Actress | Love Story

Ali was educated at Wellesley College, where she studied art history. After graduating, she worked on fashion magazines. Her interest in fashion photography led her to become a top model, a profession she carried on until 1968, when she made a late start in what was to be a sporadic film career, ...

26. Sandra Bullock

Producer | The Proposal

Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Her mother, Helga Bullock (née Helga Mathilde Meyer), was a German opera singer. Her father, John W. Bullock, was an American voice teacher, who was born in Alabama, of German descent. Sandra grew up on the road ...

27. Cate Blanchett

Actress | Carol

Cate Blanchett was born on May 14, 1969 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, to June (Gamble), an Australian teacher and property developer, and Robert DeWitt Blanchett, Jr., an American advertising executive, originally from Texas. She has an older brother and a younger sister. When she was ten ...

28. Helena Bonham Carter

Actress | Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Helena Bonham Carter is an actress of great versatility, one of the UK's finest and most successful.

Bonham Carter was born May 26, 1966 in Golders Green, London, England, the youngest of three children of Elena (née Propper de Callejón), a psychotherapist, and Raymond Bonham Carter, a merchant ...

29. Mary Steenburgen

Actress | Last Vegas

Mary Steenburgen is an Academy Award-winning American actress.

She was born in Newport, Arkansas, USA. Her mother, Nellie May (Wall) Steenburgen, was a school-board secretary, and her father, Maurice H. Steenburgen, was a freight-train conductor. Her surname comes from distant Dutch ancestry, and ...

30. Charlize Theron

Producer | Monster

Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, a city in the greater Johannesburg area, in South Africa, the only child of Gerda Theron (née Maritz) and Charles Theron. She was raised on a farm outside the city. Theron is of Afrikaner (Dutch, with some French Huguenot and German) descent, and Afrikaner ...

31. Renée Zellweger

Actress | Chicago

Renée Kathleen Zellweger was born on April 25, 1969, in Katy, Texas, Her mother, Kjellfrid Irene (Andreassen), is a Norwegian-born former nurse and midwife, of Norwegian, Kven (Finnish), and Swedish descent. Her father, Emil Erich Zellweger, is a Swiss-born engineer. The two married in 1963. Renée ...

32. Rachel McAdams

Actress | The Notebook

Rachel Anne McAdams was born on November 17, 1978 in London, Ontario, Canada, to Sandra Kay (Gale), a nurse, and Lance Frederick McAdams, a truck driver and furniture mover. She is of English, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish descent. Rachel became involved with acting as a teenager and by the age of 13 ...

33. Emma Stone

Actress | La La Land

Emily Jean "Emma" Stone was born on November 6, 1988 in Scottsdale, Arizona to Krista Jean Stone (née Yeager), a homemaker & Jeffrey Charles "Jeff" Stone, a contracting company founder and CEO. She is of Swedish, German & British Isles descent. Stone began acting as a child as a member of the ...

34. Meg Ryan

Actress | When Harry Met Sally...

Blonde-haired, blue-eyed with an effervescent personality, Meg Ryan was born Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra in Fairfield, Connecticut, to Susan (Duggan), an English teacher and one-time actress, and Harry Hyra, a math teacher. She is of Ruthenian, Polish, Irish, and German ancestry ("Hyra" is a ...

35. Kirsten Dunst

Actress | Spider-Man

Kirsten Caroline Dunst is an American actress, who also holds German citizenship. She was born on April 30, 1982 in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, to parents Inez (née Rupprecht), who owned an art gallery, and Klaus Dunst, a medical services executive. She has a younger brother named Christian Dunst, ...

36. Elizabeth Banks

Actress | The Hunger Games

Elizabeth Banks was born Elizabeth Mitchell in Pittsfield, a small city in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts near the New York border, on February 10, 1974. She is the daughter of Anne Marie (Wallace), who worked in a bank, and Mark Phineas Mitchell, a factory worker. Elizabeth describes ...

37. Lily Rabe

Actress | Miss Stevens

Lily Rabe was born in New York, New York, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Miss Stevens (2016), No Reservations (2007) and Fractured (2019).

38. Lady Gaga

Soundtrack | A Star Is Born

Lady Gaga, born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, is an American songwriter, singer, actress, philanthropist, dancer and fashion designer.

Gaga was born on March 28, 1986 in Manhattan, New York City, to Cynthia Louise (Bissett), a philanthropist and business executive, and Joseph Anthony ...

39. Sally Field

Actress | Forrest Gump

Sally Margaret Field was born November 6, 1946 in Pasadena, California, to actress Margaret Field (née Morlan) and salesman Richard Dryden Field. Her parents divorced in 1950 and her mother then married stuntman Jock Mahoney, and they had a daughter, Princess O'Mahoney. She also has a brother, ...

40. Juliette Lewis

Actress | Natural Born Killers

Juliette Lewis has been recognized as one of Hollywood's most talented and versatile actors of her generation since she first stunned audiences and critics alike with her Oscar-nominated performance as "Danielle Bowden" in Cape Fear (1991). To date, she has worked with some of the most revered ...

41. Michelle Forbes

Actress | Kalifornia

Michelle Renee Forbes Guajardo is an American actress who has appeared on television and in independent films. Forbes first gained attention for her dual role in daytime soap opera Guiding Light (1952), for which she received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination. She is also a Saturn Award winner with ...

42. Helen Mirren

Actress | The Queen

Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in West London. Her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (Rogers), was from a working-class English family, and her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov, was a Russian-born civil servant, from Kuryanovo, whose own father was a diplomat. ...

43. Anna Paquin

Actress | The Piano

Anna Paquin is the first millennial to have received an Academy Award nomination for acting, and the first to win.

She was born on July 24, 1982 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Mary (Brophy), an English teacher from Wellington, New Zealand, and Brian Paquin, a Canadian phys-ed teacher. Anna moved ...

44. Jennifer Lawrence

Actress | The Hunger Games

As the highest-paid actress in the world in 2015 and 2016, and with her films grossing over $5.5 billion worldwide, Jennifer Lawrence is often cited as the most successful actress of her generation. She is also the first person born in the 1990s to have won an acting Oscar.

Jennifer Shrader Lawrence...

45. Elisabeth Shue

Actress | Leaving Las Vegas

Elisabeth Shue was born in Wilmington, Delaware, to Anne Brewster (Wells), who worked for the Chemical Banking Corporation, and James William Shue, a lawyer and real estate developer. She is of German and English ancestry, including descent from Mayflower passengers. Shue's parents divorced while ...

46. Lucy Hale

Actress | Truth or Dare

Lucy Hale has captured the attention of millions through her dynamic on-screen performances in some of the most buzzed about projects in film and television. Hale recently starred as the lead, DC Lake Edmunds, in the new series, Ragdoll, which is streaming on AMC and Alibi. Last year, she finished ...

47. Leighton Meester

Actress | The Roommate

Leighton Marissa Meester was born in Fort Worth, Texas, to Constance Lynn (Haas) and Douglas Jay Meester. Although born in Texas, Meester spent her early years in Marco Island, Florida with her grandparents. There, she became involved with the local playhouse and made her stage debut in a ...

48. Kelly Rutherford

Actress | The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.

Best-known to television audiences as Lily van der Woodsen on the hit show Gossip Girl, Kelly played the sophisticated, fashionable matriarch on the Upper East Side of Manhattan for all six seasons. Kelly is also known for her former roles in television shows Melrose Place, Homefront, and Brisco ...

49. Lisa Kudrow

Actress | Friends

Hardly the dumb blonde of Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997), Lisa was born in Encino, California on July 30, 1963. Her mother, Nedra S. (Stern), worked as a travel agent, and her father, Lee N. Kudrow, is a physician. Her parents are both from Jewish families (from Belarus, Russia, and ...

50. Kathy Bates

Actress | Misery

Multi-talented, multi-award-winning actress Kathleen (Doyle) Bates was born on June 28, 1948, and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. She is the youngest of three girls born to Bertye Kathleen (Talbot), a homemaker, and Langdon Doyle Bates, a mechanical engineer. Her grandfather was author Finis L. Bates...

51. Iris Berben

Actress | Triangle of Sadness

After her parents divorced, she moved to Hamburg with her mother. There she attended elementary school and then several boarding schools. She stopped her school education before graduating from high school. Berben was active in the Hamburg protest scene and came to film in the late 1960s. She took ...

52. Goldie Hawn

Actress | Private Benjamin

Goldie Jeanne Hawn was born November 21, 1945 in Washington, D.C. and raised in Takoma Park, Maryland to Laura Hawn, a jewelry shop/dance school owner & Rut Hawn, a band musician. She has a sister, Patti Hawn, and a brother, Edward, who died in infancy before her birth. She was raised in the Jewish...

53. Diane Keaton

Actress | Annie Hall

Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Deanne (Keaton), an amateur photographer, and John Newton Ignatius "Jack" Hall, a civil engineer and real estate broker. She studied Drama at Santa Ana College, before dropping out in favor of the Neighborhood Playhouse in New ...

54. Sarah Jessica Parker

Actress | Sex and the City

Sarah Jessica Parker was born March 25, 1965, in Nelsonville, Ohio, to Barbra Forste (née Keck), a teacher who ran a nursery school, and Stephen Parker, a journalist. Her parents divorced, and her mother later remarried to Paul Forste and had four more children, bringing the total to eight. Sarah ...

55. Cameron Diaz

Actress | Vanilla Sky

Cameron Diaz, an American actress, was born in 1972 in San Diego, the daughter of a Cuban-American father and a German mother. Self described as "adventurous, independent and a tough kid," Cameron left home at 16 and for the next 5 years lived in such varied locales as Japan, Australia, Mexico, ...

56. Viola Davis

Actress | Fences

Viola Davis is a critically revered actress of film, television, and theater and has won rave reviews for her multitude of substantial and intriguingly diverse roles. Audiences across the United States and internationally have admired her for her work- including her celebrated, Oscar-nominated ...

57. Toni Collette

Actress | About a Boy

Toni Collette is an Academy Award-nominated Australian actress, best known for her roles in The Sixth Sense (1999) and Little Miss Sunshine (2006).

Collette was born Toni Collett (she later added an "e") on November 1, 1972, in Blacktown, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. She is the first of three...

58. Ashley Benson

Actress | Spring Breakers

Ashley Victoria Benson was born on December 18, 1989 in Anaheim Hills, California, to Shannon (Harte) and Jeff Benson. She has Irish, English, and German ancestry. She has been dancing competitively since she was 2 with hip hop, jazz, ballet, tap and lyrical. She has been singing since she was ...

59. Laura Leighton

Actress | Melrose Place

Laura Leighton was born on July 24, 1968 in Iowa City, Iowa, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Melrose Place (1992), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) and Skin (2003). She has been married to Doug Savant since May 2, 1998. They have two children.

60. Janel Parrish

Actress | Pretty Little Liars

Janel Parrish is an American actress and singer who portrayed Mona Vanderwaal in Pretty Little Liars (2010).

She was born Janel Meilani Parrish on October 30, 1988 in Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, to parents Joanne (Mew) and Mark Phillip Parrish. Her mother is of Chinese descent and her father is ...

61. Amy Adams

Actress | Arrival

Amy Lou Adams was born in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy, to American parents, Kathryn (Hicken) and Richard Kent Adams, a U.S. serviceman who was stationed at Caserma Ederle in Italy at the time. She was raised in a Mormon family of seven children in Castle Rock, Colorado, and has English, as well as ...

62. Susan Sarandon

Actress | Thelma & Louise

It was after the 1968 Democratic convention and there was a casting call for a film with several roles for the kind of young people who had disrupted the convention. Two recent graduates of Catholic University in Washington DC, went to the audition in New York for Joe (1970). Chris Sarandon, who ...

63. Rebel Wilson

Actress | Senior Year

Rebel Wilson was born in Sydney, Australia, to a family of dog handlers and showers. She trained at the Australian Theatre for Young People and at Second City in the US. After a successful stage and television career in Australia, this writer/actress/producer now focuses on feature film projects in...

64. Joan Cusack

Actress | In & Out

Actress Joan Cusack was born on October 11, 1962 in New York City and is the daughter of Nancy (née Carolan) and Dick Cusack. Her father was an advertising executive, writer and actor, and her mother was a mathematics teacher. Her siblings - Susie Cusack, John Cusack, Ann Cusack and Bill Cusack are...

65. Evangeline Lilly

Actress | The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Evangeline Lilly, born in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, in 1979, was discovered on the streets of Kelowna, British Columbia, by the famous Ford modeling agency. Although she initially decided to pass on a modeling career, she went ahead and signed with Ford anyway, to help pay for her University of ...

66. Julianne Moore

Actress | Far from Heaven

Julianne Moore was born Julie Anne Smith in Fort Bragg, North Carolina on December 3, 1960, the daughter of Anne (Love), a social worker, and Peter Moore Smith, a paratrooper, colonel, and later military judge. Her mother moved to the U.S. in 1951, from Greenock, Scotland. Her father, from ...

67. Kristen Stewart

Actress | Snow White and the Huntsman

Though most famous for her role as Isabella "Bella" Swan in The Twilight (2008) Saga, Kristen Stewart has been a working actor since her early years in Los Angeles, California. Her parents, John Stewart and Jules Stewart, both work in film and television. The family includes three boys, Kristen's ...

68. Catherine Keener

Actress | Being John Malkovich

Catherine Keener is an American actress, Oscar-nominated for her roles in the independent films Being John Malkovich (1999) and Capote (2005). Acclaimed in her community for her quirky roles in independent film and mainstream such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Keener got her start as a casting ...

69. Jennifer Aniston

Actress | Friends

Jennifer Aniston was born in Sherman Oaks, California, to actors John Aniston and Nancy Dow. Her father was Greek, and her mother was of English, Irish, Scottish, and Italian descent. Jennifer spent a year of her childhood living in Greece with her family. Her family then relocated to New York City...

70. Angela Bassett

Actress | Strange Days

Captivating, gifted, and sensational, Angela Bassett's presence has been felt in theaters and on stages and television screens throughout the world. Angela Evelyn Bassett was born on August 16, 1958 in New York City, to Betty Jane (Gilbert), a social worker, and Daniel Benjamin Bassett, a ...

71. Felicity Huffman

Actress | Transamerica

Felicity Huffman was born on December 9, 1962 in Bedford, New York, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Transamerica (2005), Desperate Housewives (2004) and Sports Night (1998). She has been married to William H. Macy since September 6, 1997. They have two children.

72. Margot Robbie

Actress | Suicide Squad

Margot Elise Robbie was born on July 2, 1990 in Dalby, Queensland, Australia to Scottish parents. Her mother, Sarie Kessler, is a physiotherapist, and her father, is Doug Robbie. She comes from a family of four children, having two brothers and one sister. She graduated from Somerset College in ...

73. Blake Lively

Actress | Gossip Girl

Blake Ellender Lively was born Blake Ellender Brown on August 25, 1987 in Los Angeles, California to Elaine Lively & Ernie Lively. Her brother is actor Eric Lively, and her half-siblings are actors Lori Lively, Robyn Lively and Jason Lively. She followed her parents' and siblings' steps. Her first ...

74. Abigail Breslin

Actress | Little Miss Sunshine

Academy Award-nominated actress Abigail Breslin is one of the most sought-after actors of her generation. Her unique and charismatic talents have contributed to her versatile roles in both comedy and drama.

Recently, Breslin headlined the first season of the horror-comedy series, Scream Queens (2015)...

75. Jennifer Lopez

Producer | Hustlers

Jennifer Lynn Lopez was born on July 24, 1969 in The Bronx, New York City, New York to teacher Lupe López and computer specialist David López. The two Puerto Ricans were brought to the continental United States during their childhoods and eventually met while living in New York City. Their ...

76. Katherine Heigl

Actress | One for the Money

Katherine Marie Heigl was born on November 24, 1978 in Washington, D.C., to Nancy Heigl (née Engelhardt), a personnel manager, and Paul Heigl, an accountant and executive. Her father is of German/Swiss-German and Irish descent, and her mother is of German ancestry. A short time after her birth, the...

77. Amanda Seyfried

Actress | Les Misérables

Amanda Seyfried was born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Ann (Sander), an occupational therapist, and Jack Seyfried, a pharmacist. She is of German, and some English and Scottish, ancestry. She began modeling when she was eleven, and acted in high school productions as well as taking ...

78. Tiffani Thiessen

Actress | Alexa & Katie

Tiffani Amber Thiessen was born on January 23, 1974 in Long Beach, California to Robyn Ernest, a homemaker & Frank Thiessen, a park designer. She grew up in Long Beach with her parents and her brothers, professional cyclist Todd (born August 1, 1968) and Schyler (born May 10, 1977). When Tiffani ...

79. Liza Weil

Actress | Gilmore Girls

Liza Weil's childhood was spent traveling around the world with her parents, who were members of The Mad House of London, a prestigious comedy troupe known throughout Europe. At the age of 7, Liza's family settled in a small town in Pennsylvania, and soon after, she began performing in local ...

80. Vanessa Hudgens

Actress | High School Musical 3: Senior Year

Vanessa Anne Hudgens was born in Salinas, California. Her family moved to San Diego, California, while she was still a toddler. She has a younger sister, Stella Hudgens, who is also an actress. Her mother, Gina Hudgens (née Guangco), an office worker, is from the Philippines. Her father, Greg ...

81. Beverly D'Angelo

Actress | National Lampoon's Vacation

Intriguing, inspiring, and never less than interesting -- key adjectives in describing the career of Beverly D'Angelo, which has well passed the four-decade mark. Perhaps deserving better movies than she generally found herself in, she nevertheless was always an object of fascination and the one to...

82. Emma Thompson

Actress | Sense and Sensibility

Emma Thompson was born on April 15, 1959 in Paddington, London, into a family of actors - father Eric Thompson and mother Phyllida Law, who has co-starred with Thompson in several films. Her sister, Sophie Thompson, is an actor as well. Her father was English-born and her mother is Scottish-born. ...

83. Emilia Clarke

Actress | Game of Thrones

British actress Emilia Clarke was born in London and grew up in Oxfordshire, England. Her father was a theatre sound engineer and her mother is a businesswoman. Her father was working on a theatre production of "Show Boat" and her mother took her along to the performance. This is when, at the age ...

84. Kristin Davis

Actress | Sex and the City 2

Kristin Lee Davis was born on February 23, 1965 in Boulder, Colorado. An only child, her parents divorced when she was a baby. She was adopted by her stepfather, psychology professor Keith Davis, after he married her mother, Dorothy, a university data analyst, in 1968. Early in her childhood, ...

85. Kristen Bell

Actress | Frozen

Kristen Anne Bell (born 1980) is an American actress and singer. She was born and raised in Huntington Woods, Michigan, and is the daughter of Lorelei (Frygier), a nurse, and Tom Bell, a television news director. Her ancestry is Polish (mother) and German, English, Irish, and Scottish (father). ...

86. Winona Ryder

Actress | Little Women

Winona Ryder was born Winona Laura Horowitz in Olmsted County, Minnesota, and was named after a nearby town, Winona, Minnesota. She is the daughter of Cynthia (Istas), an author and video producer, and Michael Horowitz, a publisher and bookseller. Her father's family is Ukrainian Jewish and ...

87. Betty White

Actress | The Proposal

Betty White was born in Oak Park, Illinois, to Christine Tess (Cachikis), a homemaker, and Horace Logan White, a lighting company executive for the Crouse-Hinds Electric Company. She was of Danish, Greek, English, and Welsh descent.

Although she was best known as the devious Sue Ann Nivens on the ...

88. Christina Ricci

Actress | Casper

Precocious, outspoken child-teen starlet of the 1990s, Christina Ricci was born on February 12, 1980 in Santa Monica, California, the youngest of four children of Sarah (Murdoch), a realtor, and Ralph Ricci, a lawyer and therapist. She is of Italian (from her paternal grandfather), Irish, and ...

89. Kate Walsh

Actress | The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Kate Walsh was born in San Jose, California, on October 13, 1967. She grew up partly in San Jose and partly in Tucson, Arizona, later attending the University of Arizona, where she got involved in regional theater. She later moved to Chicago where she began working with the Piven Theatre Workshop ...

90. Nina Dobrev

Actress | The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Nina Dobrev is a Bulgarian-born Canadian actress. Her best-known television roles are Mia Jones in Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001) and Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce on The Vampire Diaries (2009). Her film work includes The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), Let's Be Cops (2014), The ...

91. Emma Watson

Actress | The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson was born in Paris, France, to British parents, Jacqueline Luesby and Chris Watson, both lawyers. She moved to Oxfordshire when she was five, where she attended the Dragon School. From the age of six, Emma knew that she wanted to be an actress and, for a number of years,...

92. Judi Dench

Actress | Skyfall

Dame Judi Dench was born Judith Olivia Dench in York, England, to Eleanora Olive (Jones), who was from Dublin, Ireland, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor from Dorset, England. She attended Mount School in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed with the ...

93. Lucy Liu

Actress | Kill Bill: Vol. 1

Born to immigrants in New York City, Lucy Liu has always tried to balance an interest in her cultural heritage with a desire to move beyond a strictly Asian-American experience. Her mother, Cecilia, a biochemist, is from Beijing & her father, Tom Liu, a civil engineer, is from Shanghai. Once ...

94. Ginnifer Goodwin

Actress | Zootopia

Ginnifer Goodwin was born Jennifer Michelle Goodwin on May 22, 1978, in Memphis, Tennessee, to Linda (Kantor), a doctor of educational technology, and Tim Goodwin, a musician and the owner of Memphis Sound Productions recording studio. Ginnifer graduated from Lausanne Collegiate School in 1996 and ...

95. Michelle Dockery

Actress | Downton Abbey

Michelle Suzanne Dockery (born 15 December 1981) is an English actress and singer. She is best known for her role as Lady Mary Crawley in the ITV drama series Downton Abbey (2010-2015), for which she has been nominated for three consecutive Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. She made her ...

96. Drew Barrymore

Producer | Charlie's Angels

Since melting audiences' hearts at the tender age of six - in Steven Spielberg's beloved sci-fi blockbuster, E.T. (1982) - Drew Barrymore has emerged as one of the most endearing and talented actresses of her generation. Born in Culver City, California to actors John Drew Barrymore and Jaid ...

97. Candice Bergen

Actress | Miss Congeniality

One cool, eternally classy lady, Candice Bergen was elegantly poised for trendy "ice princess" stardom when she first arrived on the '60s screen, but she gradually reshaped that débutante image in the '70s, both on- and off-camera. A staunch, outspoken feminist with a decisive edge, she went on to ...

98. Uzo Aduba

Actress | Orange Is the New Black

Aduba began earning recognition for her work in 2003, with a performance in "Translations of Xhosa" at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts that won her a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Play. Her Broadway debut was in 2007 as Toby in "Coram Boy". She was...

99. Allison Janney

Actress | The Help

Allison Janney is an award-winning actress who has earned a solid reputation in stage productions and in many supporting roles on screen, and who more recently has become prominent by portraying one of the major characters in the popular TV series The West Wing (1999).

Entertainment Weekly magazine ...

100. Lauren Graham

Actress | Gilmore Girls

Lauren Graham was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Donna Grant and Lawrence Graham, a candy industry lobbyist. Her father was from New York and her mother was from the American South, and Lauren has Irish, English, and Scottish ancestry. She grew up in Northern Virginia, USA (Fairfax, Arlington, and ...