Birth Date between 1916-01-01 and 1916-12-31 (Sorted by Popularity Ascending)
1. Gregory Peck
Actor | To Kill a Mockingbird
Eldred Gregory Peck was born on April 5, 1916 in La Jolla, California, to Bernice Mae (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist and druggist in San Diego. He had Irish (from his paternal grandmother), English, and some German, ancestry. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child...
2. Peter Whitney
Actor | The Big Heat
Peter Whitney's over-powering frame, swarthy looks, bushy brows and maniacal look in his eye made him one of the most fearsome character actors to lump around in 1940s-60s film and TV.
Born on May 24, 1916 in New Jersey of German ancestry, Peter King Engle was educated at Exeter Academy. He ...
3. Kirk Douglas
Actor | Spartacus
Cleft-chinned, steely-eyed and virile star of international cinema who rose from being "the ragman's son" (the name of his best-selling 1988 autobiography) to become a bona fide superstar, Kirk Douglas, also known as Issur Danielovitch Demsky, was born on December 9, 1916 in Amsterdam, New York. ...
4. Sterling Hayden
Actor | Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Born to George & Frances Simonson Walter, and named Sterling Relyea Walter. Father died in 1925. Adopted by stepfather 'James Hayden' renamed Sterling Walter Hayden. Grew up in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., and Maine. Though very poor, attended prep school at ...
5. Olivia de Havilland
Actress | The Heiress
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916 in Tokyo, Japan to British parents, Lilian Augusta (Ruse), a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, an English professor and patent attorney. Her sister Joan, later to become famous as Joan Fontaine, was born the following year. Her ...
6. 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...
7. Ken Curtis
Actor | Gunsmoke
Considering the kind of scruffy, backwoods, uneducated, Deep-South hillbilly types he played, many people would be surprised to hear that Ken Curtis wasn't actually born in the south but in the small town of Las Animas, Colorado, the son of the town sheriff. They would probably be even more ...
8. Jackie Gleason
Actor | The Hustler
Comedian, actor, composer and conductor, educated in New York public schools. He was a master of ceremonies in amateur shows, a carnival barker, daredevil driver and a disc jockey, and later a comedian in night clubs. By the mid-1950s he had turned to writing original music and recording a series ...
9. Evelyn Keyes
Actress | The Seven Year Itch
No shrinking violet this one, but despite her talent, vivacity and sheer drive, lovely and alluring blonde Evelyn Keyes would remain for the most part typed as a "B" girl on the silver screen. In spite of her ripe contributions to such superior pictures as Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), The Jolson ...
10. Keenan Wynn
Actor | Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
The talented scion of a show-business family, Keenan Wynn's father was the great burlesque and television buffoon Ed Wynn while his maternal grandfather, Frank Keenan, earned distinction on the other side of the entertainment ladder as a Shakespearean tragedian. Mother Hilda Keenan was also a minor...
11. Michael Gough
Actor | Batman & Robin
Tony Award-winning English actor Michael Gough, best known for playing the butler Alfred Pennyworth in the first four Batman (1989, 1992, 1995 & 1997) movies and for playing the arch-criminal Dr. Clement Armstrong in The Avengers (1961) episode "The Cybernauts", was an accomplished performer on ...
12. Virginia Gregg
Actress | Operation Petticoat
Virginia Gregg was born on March 6, 1916 in Harrisburg, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Operation Petticoat (1959), Emergency! (1972) and Two on a Guillotine (1965). She was previously married to Jaime Del Valle. She died on September 15, 1986 in Encino, Los Angeles, California, USA.
13. Richard Ney
Actor | Mrs. Miniver
A Columbia University grad with an economics degree, Richard Ney was sidetracked into stage and films. For his movie debut, Ney was cast as Greer Garson's eldest son in the Oscar-winning Mrs. Miniver (1942). He later married Garson, twelve years his senior and drawing criticism during their 1947 ...
14. Edward Platt
Actor | North by Northwest
Forever and fondly remembered as Don Adams' foil on the popular Mel Brooks/Buck Henry spy series Get Smart (1965), character actor Ed Platt (also billed as Edward C. Platt) had been around for two decades prior to copping that rare comedy role. Born in Staten Island, New York, on Valentine's Day, ...
15. Dorothy McGuire
Actress | Gentleman's Agreement
A genuine model of sincerity, practicality and dignity in most of the roles she inhabited, actress Dorothy McGuire offered Tinseltown more talent than it probably knew what to do with. A quiet, passive beauty, she had a soothing quality to her open-faced looks and voice. She was a natural when he ...
16. Hal Smith
Actor | The Great Race
Hal Smith was born on August 24, 1916 in Petoskey, Michigan, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Great Race (1965), The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) and The Andy Griffith Show (1960). He was previously married to Vivian M. Angstadt. He died on January 28, 1994 in Woodland ...
17. Mercedes McCambridge
Actress | Giant
Mercedes McCambridge was a highly talented radio performer who won a best supporting Actress Oscar for her film debut.
Mercedes McCambridge was born in Joliet, Illinois, to Marie (Mahaffry) and John Patrick McCambridge, a farmer. She was of mostly Irish (with a small amount of English and German) ...
18. Margaret Lockwood
Actress | The Lady Vanishes
Karachi-born Margaret Lockwood, daughter of a British colonial railway clerk, was educated in London and studied to be an actress at the Italia Conti Drama School. Her first moment on stage came at the age of 12, when she played a fairy in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in 1928. She had a bit part in ...
19. Van Johnson
Actor | The Caine Mutiny
Van Johnson was the fresh-faced, well-mannered nice guy on screen you always wanted your daughter to marry! This fair, freckled and invariably friendly-looking MGM song-and-dance star of the 40s emerged a box office favorite (1944-1946) and second only to heartthrob Frank Sinatra during what gossip...
20. Betty Grable
Actress | How to Marry a Millionaire
Elizabeth Ruth Grable was born on December 18, 1916 in St. Louis, Missouri, to Lillian Rose (Hofmann) and John Conn Grable, a stockbroker. She had German, English, Irish, and Dutch ancestry. Her mother was a stubborn and materialistic woman determined to make her daughter a star. Elizabeth, who ...
21. Martha Raye
Actress | Billy Rose's Jumbo
Known as "The Big Mouth" and considered the female equivalent to Bob Hope, Martha Raye was an American icon in her own right.
She was born Margy Reed in Butte, Montana, to Maybelle Hazel (Hooper) and Peter Reed, Jr., vaudeville performers. She had Irish, German, and English ancestry. Raye made her ...
22. Dinah Shore
Soundtrack | The Dinah Shore Chevy Show
Her real name was Frances "Fanny" Rose Shore, and she was born in Winchester, Tennessee. Stricken with polio at 18 months of age, she recovered after receiving the Sister Kenny treatment. She became a cheerleader at Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville and went on to graduate from Vanderbilt ...
23. Willie Best
Actor | The Hidden Hand
One of the hard-working, unappreciated African-American actors of Hollywood's "Golden Era" who produced good work with what he was given. He starred alongside some of film's great comedians including the Marx Brothers, Bob Hope, Laurel and Hardy and three films with Shirley Temple. Best is ...
24. Peter Finch
Actor | Network
Despite being one of the finest actors of his generation, Peter Finch will be remembered as much for his reputation as a hard-drinking, hell-raising womanizer as for his performances on the screen. He was born in London in 1916 and went to live in Sydney, Australia, at the age of ten. There, he ...
25. Phil Leeds
Actor | Ghost
Phil Leeds is one of those for whom the phrase "character actor" was invented. A slight, wizened man with a rubbery face, bulging eyes and a Jimmy Durante-like nose, he excelled at playing weaselly little snitches, con artists, or just a neighborhood eccentric who always had something up his sleeve...
26. Fran Ryan
Actress | Stripes
As an American character actress, Fran Ryan was a familiar face on stage, screen and television from her theatrical stage debut in the 1950s and continuing for nearly three decades. Ryan's similarity to actress Marjorie Main was soon noticed in the late 1960s, and she frequently played tough, ...
27. David White
Actor | Bewitched
American stage actor who appeared frequently on television and occasionally but impressively in films. A Marine Corps veteran of the Second World War, he worked on Broadway and on tour in stage productions after the war. In the late 1950s, he became an increasingly familiar face on American ...
28. Roald Dahl
Writer | The Witches
Dahl was born in Wales in 1916. He served as a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II. He made a forced landing in the Libyan Desert and was severely injured. As a result, he spent five months in a Royal Navy hospital in Alexandria. Dahl is noted for how he relates suspenseful and...
29. Richard Fleischer
Director | Soylent Green
Richard firmly established his credentials with such epics as The Vikings (1958) , 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and Barabbas (1961) and also proved to be a master of intimate drama with Compulsion (1959) , which won Cannes Festival awards for it's male stars. He won an Academy Award for one ...
30. Rossano Brazzi
Actor | The Barefoot Contessa
Rossano Brazzi was an Italian stage and film actor. He was married to Lydia Brazzi until her death, and to Ilse Fischer, his second wife, until his death.
He's most familiar to English-speaking audiences for his role as Emile De Becque in South Pacific (1958), playing opposite Mitzi Gaynor.
He died ...
31. Mark Stevens
Actor | The Dark Corner
Mark Stevens, a good-looking, second-tier star during the 1940s and 1950s, was born Richard William Stevens in Cleveland, Ohio, on December 13, 1916 (the dates in reference books seem to vary between 1915-20). Of Scottish and English heritage, the freckle-faced boy with the reddish hair had a ...
32. Anthony Caruso
Actor | The Asphalt Jungle
For more than three decades Hollywood defaulted to a small core group of actors when it came to casting convincing mobsters, gamblers and racketeers. These often typecast individuals included Joseph Ruskin, Bruce Gordon, Neville Brand, Robert Loggia and...Anthony Caruso. Square-jawed, ...
33. Margaret Hayes
Actress | Sullivan's Travels
Titian-haired Margaret 'Maggie' Hayes was born Florette Regina Ottenheimer in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of Jacob 'Jack' Louis Ottenheimer (1992-1943) and Clara Bussy (1877-1966). While still at high school she worked with a local stock company to get into acting. She then studied for two ...
34. Robert Rockwell
Actor | Our Miss Brooks
As heartthrob "Mr. Boynton" on "Our Miss Brooks", Robert Rockwell was so identified with the role that other, dramatic roles were often denied him. Still, after beginning his career as a contract player for Republic Studios he appeared in over 350 television shows over fifty years, and on stage ...
35. Edward Binns
Actor | 12 Angry Men
Gravel-voiced, authoritative American character actor, a reliable presence on screen for more than four decades.
Edward Thomas Binns was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Esther (Bracken) and Edward Thoms Binns. His family were Quakers. He was a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and ...
36. Liam Dunn
Actor | Blazing Saddles
Liam Dunn was born in New Jersey in 1916, went to regular high school and entered a small acting school where he constantly acted in plays. Dunn was considered for his first movie role in 1968, but turned it down to work on T.V. Dunn's first big break came in 1972 for his character Judge Maxwell in...
37. Vic Perrin
Soundtrack | Watchmen
Vic Perrin was born on April 26, 1916 in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Watchmen (2009), Mission: Impossible (1966) and Gunsmoke (1955). He was previously married to Rita Singer and Evelyn Held. He died on July 4, 1989 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
38. James Griffith
Actor | The Amazing Transparent Man
Ideal for playing swarthy villains, James Griffith's tall, dark and gaunt features and shady countenance invaded hundreds of film and TV dramas (and a few comedies) throughout his career on-camera. Highlighted by his arched brows, hooded eyes and prominent proboscis, heavy character work would be ...
39. George Montgomery
Actor | Samar
George Montgomery was boxing champion at the University of Montana where he majored in architecture and interior design. Dropping out a year later he decided to take up boxing more seriously. He moved to California where he was coached by ex-heavyweight world champion James J. Jeffries. While in ...
40. Benson Fong
Actor | The Keys of the Kingdom
Benson Fong was born on October 10, 1916 in Sacramento, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), The Shanghai Cobra (1945) and The Scarlet Clue (1945). He was previously married to Maylia. He died on August 1, 1987 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
41. Betty Field
Actress | Of Mice and Men
Thespian Betty Field was born in Boston on February 8, 1916, the daughter of a salesman and his wife. Ancestors on her father's side were Mayflower colonists Priscilla and John Alden. Her parents divorced while she was still young and Betty eventually learned to speak Spanish while traveling with ...
42. Sandra Gould
Actress | Bewitched
While she may have been a small-part character actress most her career, Sandra Gould possessed an unmistakable look and voice that she called her own and separated her from the rest of the pack, contributing to four types of entertainment mediums (stage, screen, TV and radio) for over five decades.
...
43. Masaki Kobayashi
Director | Seppuku
Masaki Kobayashi was born on February 14, 1916 in Hokkaido, Japan. He was a director and writer, known for Harakiri (1962), Samurai Rebellion (1967) and The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959). He died on October 4, 1996 in Tokyo, Japan.
44. Joe Cobb
Actor | Uncle Tom's Uncle
Joe Cobb was born on November 7, 1916 in Shawnee, Oklahoma, USA. He was an actor, known for Uncle Tom's Uncle (1926), Good Cheer (1926) and The Buccaneers (1924). He died on May 21, 2002 in Santa Ana, California, USA.
45. Eric Christmas
Actor | Porky's
Christmas trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, gained experience in English repertory theatre in 1936, and had a principal role in the London production of Noël Coward's "Bitter Sweet" in the 1930s. During the Second World War, he was a member of Royal Air Force production units and ...
46. Raf Vallone
Actor | The Italian Job
Raf Vallone was an internationally acclaimed Italian movie star known for his rugged good looks. The athletic Vallone, a former soccer player who often was compared to Burt Lancaster, was born Raffaele Vallone in 1916 in Tropea in Calabria, Italy, the son of a prominent lawyer and his aristocratic ...
47. Anton Diffring
Actor | Where Eagles Dare
Anton Diffring was a character actor who worked continuously in motion pictures due to his aristocratic face and cool, clipped diction, making him ideal for typecasting in British and later American motion pictures as Nazis and other vile, despicable characters. What was ironic about his ...
48. Don Keefer
Actor | Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Don Keefer was born on August 18, 1916 in Highspire, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Twilight Zone (1959) and Death of a Salesman (1951). He was previously married to Catherine McLeod. He died on September 7, 2014 in Sherman Oaks, ...
49. David Lewis
Actor | The Apartment
David Lewis was born on October 19, 1916 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for The Apartment (1960), General Hospital (1963) and Batman (1966). He died on December 11, 2000 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
50. Ruth Warrick
Actress | Citizen Kane
Reedy and regal actress Ruth Warrick will be remembered for two names and two names alone. In films, she will indelibly be referred to as the castoff first "Mrs. Citizen Kane," and on TV she will forever be synonymous with her character of Phoebe Tyler Wallingford, the obnoxiously wealthy, ...