by Christyl Rivers

Created on: July 29, 2011

The best actors of all time will include those who have undisputed numbers of Academy Award nominations, performances, and wins. Here is a top ten list, which could never begin without Marlon Brando in the number one spot.

In fact, he usually does not need the first name at all.  Brando, almost any actor will tell you, is undeniably the Zeus of a rich, Hollywood Pantheon. One may argue whether it is the audience for whom films are made, or for actors themselves. Either way, Brando, who sizzles even now in A Streetcar Named Desire, awkwardly swaggers believingly  in On the Waterfront, and is both  ruthless and grandfatherly in The Godfather, wins every time.  Brando, if one watches his face, body, and motion, is a force far beyond the screen. We imagine his characters are out there in the streets somewhere. We  shudder to realize his humanity, or lack of it, is really an accurate reflection of ourselves.

It is difficult to choose the second best actor, it suddenly becomes debatable as soon as one can tear their gaze off Brando, but I would argue for Katherine Hepburn. Winning a record number of Oscars and filling a lifetime of films, Hepburn has run the spotlights ragged from the early days of cinema, right up into the late 20th century.

She was once labeled as box office poison, and still recuperated her image, career, and legend reinventing her self over and over again. Watch Hepburn opposite Gary Grant in A Philadelphia Story, or as an acid tongued queen in The Lion in Winter, as a wit, rattled tormented mother in Suddenly Last Summer, or even as a devoted wife in Guess Who is Coming to Dinner?  Hepburn is clearly more than just one person.

Third would have to go to Elizabeth Taylor.  From child star in National Velvet to a spitting and slurring lush in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe? Taylor has had a life so much larger than film, that she is often overlooked as having created lives on film.  She also seems to be underrated, ironically, due to her devastating beauty. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and in Giant, Butterfield Eight, and A Place in the Sun, Taylor effectively conveys real characters in unreal, human form.

Tom Hanks is my pick for number four.  He was great in Castaway, Saving Private Ryan and Forrest Gump.  He is convincing in Philadelphia, and we forget for a moment that he is Tom Hanks. He may not have the full range of reality of a Brando, but his reach is pretty good toward those golden

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