# Among all of Hollywood's iconic superstars, who was the best actor? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 26, 2016, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946 "2016-07-26T15:53:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/21 "2016-07-27T02:46:03Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > **Lon Chaney, Jr.** Melodramas or not, the man was very good, very natural. Check out _The Wolfman_ (1941). That reminds me of James Cagney. He played Lon Chaney non-jr. in _Man of a Thousand Faces_– one of the best biopics ever, liberties or not-- and was just brilliant. This is a huge contrast to his gangster roles, as well as his turn as George M. Cohan. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/22 "2016-07-27T02:54:07Z")
Cary Grant? I mention him because if you gave me a dozen names of actors whose movies I could watch at any given time, I would pick him out of the dozen without even thinking about it. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/23 "2016-07-27T03:43:42Z")
It’s hard to beat Paul Newman. One of his early roles was _The Rack_, where he played a Korean War POW who caved under duress. Incidentally, it also starred Lee Marvin. The acting was early 50’s style, maybe a little stagey for contemporary tastes. But he was wonderful as a guy who “sold himself short” and had to admit that he could have held out a little longer. In addition to being quite possibly the most beautiful human ever (note: I am a straight dude), the guy could act. Re: James Stewart… > [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > He’s be on my short list. What do you think was his most out-of-character role? Was he ever an unambiguously bad guy? Spoiler for an 80-year-old whodunit: He was the killer in _After the Thin Man_ ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/24 "2016-07-27T03:55:52Z")
Kirk Douglas. See the underrated 1951 Billy Wilder film _Ace in the Hole_ and the underrated 1962 Western _Lonely Are the Brave_. Burt Lancaster also freaking brilliant…please see 1964 WWII movie _The Train_, where he holds his own against the formidable Paul Scofield, who gets to play an art-loving Nazi, a much richer role than Lancaster’s. Lancaster always got credit for being great, though…Douglas didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/25 "2016-07-27T04:00:40Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Burt Lancaster also freaking brilliant…please see 1964 WWII movie _The Train_, where he holds his own against the formidable Paul Scofield, who gets to play an art-loving Nazi, a much richer role than Lancaster’s. I love love love that movie! ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/26 "2016-07-27T04:14:46Z")
Jimmy Stewart is my choice. Very wide range. Comedies like Philadelphia Story with Hepburn. Harvey is a great sentimental fantasy. Then his Westerns showed his toughness. I really like Flight of the Phoenix. He’s a model maker that transforms a wrecked passenger plane into a functioning smaller one. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/27 "2016-07-27T04:45:15Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Which reminds me – I don’t recall Paul Newman in an unambiguously bad guy role either. Was there one? He was pretty much a stinker in _Hud._ ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/28 "2016-07-27T05:09:35Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > J > I really like Flight of the Phoenix. He’s a model maker that transforms a wrecked passenger plane into a functioning smaller one. He was the pilot, but I believe the little German guy was the model maker. Stewart had to start the engine so they could fly in a cleverly suspenseful scene. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/29 "2016-07-27T05:18:02Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > He is one of what I think are the three top American speaking actors. > > But I want to pick a nit that his persona didn’t change all that much. What about his no holds barred evil role of Josef Mengele? And he had to play that against Laurence Olivier! > > His Captain Ahab was grim too, and his King David was remarkably unsentimental. You’re right about those roles, about as far out as he went I think. What about William Holden? He did play much the same character often, but used it in a wide array of roles. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/30 "2016-07-27T05:22:51Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > He was the pilot, but I believe the little German guy was the model maker. Stewart had to start the engine so they could fly in a cleverly suspenseful scene. I got that movie mixed up. Thank you for the correction. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/31 "2016-07-27T07:04:15Z")
Nobody has mentioned Joan Crawford, who played as wide an assortment of roles as anyone else. If she had never done another movie, she’d deserve to be on this list for _Rain._ ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/32 "2016-07-27T07:20:43Z")
No way I could pick one. Some favorites: Cagney in _One, Two, Three_ Bogey in _To Have and Have Not_, _The Treasure of the Sierra Madre_, or _Casablanca_ Welles in _The Third Man_ or _The Stranger_ Edward G. in _The Stranger_ or _Scarlet Street_ Joanne Woodward in _The Three Faces of Eve_ Elizabeth Taylor in _Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?_ Bette Davis in _All About Eve_ or _The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex_ Lee J. Cobb and Henry Fonda in _Twelve Angry Men_ Peter O’Toole in _Becket_, _The Lion in Winter_, or _Lawrence of Arabia_ ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/33 "2016-07-27T07:44:07Z")
And some other worthies: Ingrid Bergman in _Suspicion_ or _Gaslight_ Heath Ledger in _The Dark Knight_ Charles Laughton in _Advise and Consent_ or _Witness for the Prosecution_ or _Mutiny on the Bounty_ Marlene Dietrich in _Witness for the Prosecution_ or _Judgment at Nuremberg_ Katherine Hepburn in _The Lion in Winter_ Tracy and Hepburn in _Desk Set_ ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/34 "2016-07-27T09:07:28Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > He was the pilot, but I believe the little German guy was the model maker. Stewart had to start the engine so they could fly in a cleverly suspenseful scene. The in-joke being that Stewart was a real-life WW2 bomber pilot. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/35 "2016-07-27T09:22:22Z")
I thought about it for a second and glad to see Jimmy Stewart mentioned. Great minds and all. I was thinking how well he did on the realism scale on the old time radio show called _The Six Shooter_, of course radio is a totally different deal than film, but it’s difficult to pull off convincingly, to make it sound believable. Maybe it’s tougher in some ways than film, I dunno, Theater of the mind and all. A lot of shows of the era they sound really wooden and just like they are reading from the script for the first time. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/36 "2016-07-27T12:03:08Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Sorry. NEW RULE – he had to talk, and the audience had to hear him, not read his words off a board. In that case, the answer is still Charlie Chaplin. He made several sound films, the best among them probably _Monsieur Verdoux_ and _Limelight_ (in which he will break your heart). ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/37 "2016-07-27T12:43:23Z")
Anthony Hopkins. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/38 "2016-07-27T15:13:50Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Humphrey Bogart’s iconic role in CASABLANCA was miles away from what he showed in THE CAINE MUTINY – and what he did opposite Katharine Hepburn to win an Oscar for THE AFRICAN QUEEN was nothing like what he gave _Audrey_ Hepburn to play off for an Oscar nomination in a Billy Wilder comedy – and you couldn’t deduce any of that from back when he was a glowering heavy, before they realized the chemistry that ensues if you put the embodiment of a private eye in the same room as Lauren Bacall. Bogart was truly evil and brilliant in In a Lonely Place. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/39 "2016-07-27T16:04:36Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > Cary Grant? I mention him because if you gave me a dozen names of actors whose movies I could watch at any given time, I would pick him out of the dozen without even thinking about it. Cary Grant was a very “watchable” actor, but he played minor variations of himself in every movie. His mannerisms, voice tics, etc., were the same regardless of what character he was playing. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946/40 "2016-07-27T16:15:50Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > Cary Grant was a very “watchable” actor, but he played minor variations of himself in every movie. His mannerisms, voice tics, etc., were the same regardless of what character he was playing. That was true once he was established, but in some of his early work, like _Only Angels Have Wings_, he wasn’t Cary Grant yet, and he displays remarkable talent. He is also very scary in _Suspicion_. He also gets a mentsch award for telling the producer of _The Music Man_, who wanted Grant in the lead, because he wanted a big name, and not the unknown Robert Preston from the Broadway version, that he (the producer) was nuts if he used anyone other than Preston. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/among-all-of-hollywoods-iconic-superstars-who-was-the-best-actor/760946.md?page=3)