The Best 20 Underrated Actors
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1.
Robert Mitchum
Actor, The Night of the Hunter
Underrated American leading man of enormous ability who sublimates his talents beneath an air of disinterest. Born to a railroad worker who died in a train accident when he was two, Robert Mitchum and his siblings (including brother John Mitchum, later also an actor) were raised by his mother and stepfather (a British army major) in Connecticut...
2.
Robert Ryan
Actor, The Wild Bunch
Chicago-born, distinguished U.S. actor and longtime civil rights campaigner, Robert Ryan served in the United States Marines as a drill sergeant (winning a boxing championship) and went on to become a key figure in post WWII American film noir and western productions. Ryan grabbed critical attention for his dynamic performances as an anti-Semitic bully in the superb Crossfire...
3.
Stephen Dorff
Actor, Blade
Stephen Dorff has become one of the most respected young actors in Hollywood. His recent credits include Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, Robert Ludlum's Covert One: The Hades Factor, .45 with Milla Jovovich, Shadowboxer with Cuba Gooding Jr. and Helen Mirren, and the Disney thriller, Cold Creek Manor, with Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone for director Mike Figgis...
4.
Mickey Rourke
Actor, The Wrestler
Mickey Rourke was born Phillip Andre Rourke, Jr., in Schenectady, New York in 1952. When he was 6 years old, his parents, Ann and Phillip divorced. A year later, his mother married Eugene Addis, a Miami Beach police officer, and moved to Miami Shores, Florida. After graduating from Horace Mann Junior High School...
5.
Jeff Bridges
Actor, The Big Lebowski
The son of well-known film and TV star Lloyd Bridges and his long-time wife Dorothy Dean Bridges, Jeffrey Leon Bridges was born on December 4, 1949 in Los Angeles, California, and grew up amid the happening Hollywood scene with big brother Beau Bridges. Both boys popped up, without billing, alongside their mother in the film The Company She Keeps...
6.
Bruce Dern
Actor, Monster
Bruce Dern had established himself as the movies' premier heavy, playing sociopaths, psychotics and just plain criminals by the time he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Coming Home. Some perceptive critics had noted that Dern was a finer actor than his roles generally allowed one to believe...
7.
Alan Ladd
Actor, Shane
Alan Ladd's mother emigrated from England age 19. His accountant father died when he was four. At age five he burned his apartment playing with matches, and his mother moved them to Oklahoma City. He was malnourished, undersized and nicknamed Tiny. His mother married a house painter who moved them to California--a la "The Grapes of Wrath"--when he was eight...
8.
Richard Dreyfuss
American leading man who has played his fair share of irritating pests and brash, ambitious hustlers, Richard Dreyfuss worked his way up through bit parts (The Graduate, for one) and TV before gaining attention with his portrayal of Baby Face Nelson in John Milius' Dillinger. He gained...
9.
Robert Shaw
Actor, Jaws
Robert Archibald Shaw was born on August 9, 1927 in Westhoughton, Lancashire, England. Robert was the eldest son of Doctor Thomas Archibald Shaw and Doreen Nora Avery. The former Miss Avery met Shaw's father while she was a nurse at the hospital in Truro, Cornwall. His father was an alcoholic and a manic depressive; he committed suicide when Robert was only 12...
10.
Kevin Kline
Actor, The Ice Storm
After attending Indiana University in Bloomington, Kline studied at the Juilliard School in New York. In 1972, Kline joined the Acting Company in New York which was run by John Houseman. With this company, Kline performed Shakespeare across the country. On the stage, Kline has won two Tony Awards for his work in the musicals "On the Twentieth Century" (1978) and "The Pirates of Penzance" (1981)...
11.
Randolph Scott
Actor, Ride the High Country
Handsome leading man who developed into one of Hollywood's greatest and most popular western stars. Born to George and Lucy Crane Scott during a visit to Virginia, Scott was raised in Charlotte, North Carolina in a wealthy family. He attended Georgia Institute of Technology but, after being injured playing football...
12.
Sterling Hayden
Actor, The Godfather
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 Wassookeag School in Dexter...
13.
Vic Morrow
Actor, Twilight Zone: The Movie
Born in the Bronx, Vic Morrow dropped out of high school at 17 to join the U.S. Navy. When he left the Navy, he used the G.I. Bill to study pre-law at Florida State. While Morrow was working on his degree in Law, he also took part in a school play and found that he preferred stage acting to courtroom acting...
14.
Leonardo DiCaprio
Actor, Inception
Leonardo DiCaprio is an American-born actor whose portrayal of doomed suitor Jack Dawson in Titanic made him a generation's definition of a heartthrob. Throughout his career, DiCaprio has demonstrated a high level of dramatic versatility, from his breakout film role as a mentally-challenged teenager in What's Eating Gilbert Grape...
15.
Warren Oates
Actor, In the Heat of the Night
American character actor of the 1960s and 1970s whose distinctive style and intensity brought him to offbeat leading roles. Oates was born in a very small Kentucky town and attended high school in Louisville, continuing on to the University of Louisville and military service with the U.S. Marines. In...
16.
Lee Van Cleef
One of the great movie villains, Lee Van Cleef started out as an accountant. He served in the U.S. Navy aboard minesweepers and subchasers during World War II. After the war he worked as an office administrator, becoming involved in amateur theatrics in his spare time. An audition for a professional role led to a touring company job in "Mr...
17.
Val Kilmer
Actor, Heat
Born in Los Angeles, California. Studied at Hollywood's Professional's School and, in his teens, entered Juilliard's drama program. His professional acting career began on stage, and he still participates in theater; he played Hamlet at the 1988 Colorado Shakespeare Festival. His film debut was in the 1984 spoof Top Secret!...
18.
Gene Wilder
Actor, Young Frankenstein
Gene Wilder caught his first big break playing a small role in the off-Broadway production of Arnold Wesker's "Roots" and followed quickly with his Broadway debut as the comic valet in "The Complaisant Lover" (both 1961), for which he won the Clement Derwent Award. His other Broadway credits included "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1963...
19.
Danny Kaye
Soundtrack, White Christmas
Danny Kaye left school at the age of 13 to work in the so-called Borscht Belt of Jewish resorts in the Catskill Mountains. It was there he learned the basics of show biz. From there he went through a series of jobs in and out of the business. In 1939, he made his Broadway debut in "Straw Hat Revue,"...
20.
Sam Shepard
Actor, The Notebook
As the eldest son of a US Army officer (and WWII bomber pilot), Sam Shepard spent his early childhood moving from base to base around the US until finally settling in Duarte, California. While at high school he began acting and writing and worked as a ranch hand in Chino. He graduated high school in 1961 and then spent a year studying agriculture at Mount Antonio Junior College...
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