The Best 20 Underrated Actresses
Log in to copy items to your own lists.
2.
Marilyn Monroe
Soundtrack, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Probably the most celebrated of all actresses, Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson on Tuesday, June 1st, 1926, in Los Angeles General Hospital. Prior to her birth, Marilyn's father bought a motorcycle and headed north to San Francisco, abandoning the family in Los Angeles. Marilyn grew up not knowing for sure who her father really was...
3.
Elizabeth Montgomery
Actress, The Legend of Lizzie Borden
Elizabeth Montgomery was born into show business. Her parents were screen actor Robert Montgomery and Broadway actress Elizabeth Allen. Elizabeth graduated from the Spence School in New York City and attended the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. After three years intensive training, she made her...
5.
Mimi Rogers
It's fair to say that after 30 years and over 80 film, TV movie and TV series appearances, Mimi Rogers should be praised for her variety of roles and acting capabilities not for a brief marriage to a Hollywood star. In the early 1980s, she began to carve a niche for herself in Hollywood, appearing on television and in films...
6.
Sandra Dee
Actress, Imitation of Life
Sandra Dee was born Alexandria Zuck on April 23, 1942 in Bayonne, New Jersey. Her mother envisioned a show business career for her daughter and would often lie about her age in order to get Sandy where she wanted to go. For example, her mother enrolled her in school early so she could have a head start...
7.
Faye Dunaway
Actress, Chinatown
Faye Dunaway was born on a farm in Bascom, Florida in 1941, the daughter of an army officer and a housewife. After high school she majored in education at the University of Florida, but switched to theatre arts and transferred to Boston University, earning her degree in 1962. She joined the American National Theatre and Academy in 1961 and did four plays on Broadway over the next three years...
8.
Irene Dunne
Actress, Penny Serenade
Irene Marie Dunne was born on December 20, 1898, in Louisville, Kentucky. She was the daughter of Joseph Dunne, who inspected steamships, and Adelaide Henry, a musician who prompted Irene in the arts. Her first production was in Louisville when she appeared in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the age of five...
9.
Ava Gardner
Actress, The Killers
Born on a tobacco farm, where she got her lifelong love of earthy language and going barefoot, Ava grew up in the rural South. At age 18, her picture in the window of her brother-in- law's New York photo studio brought her to the attention of MGM, leading quickly to Hollywood and a film contract based strictly on her beauty...
10.
Shelley Long
Actress, The Brady Bunch Movie
Shelley Long was born at 7:15 am on Tuesday August 23, 1949 in Indian Village, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA. She is the daughter and only child to Evandine and Leland Long. Her mother was a school teacher and her father worked in the rubber industry before becoming a teacher. Shelley Long attended school at Kekionga Junior High for grades 6-9 and at South Side High School for grades 10-12...
11.
Carole Lombard
Actress, To Be or Not to Be
Carole Lombard, the 5' 2" beauty was a comedy hit during the 30s and 40s. Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on October 6, 1908 under the name of Jane Alice Peters. Young Jane Alice loved the Friday night movie night with her family and would perform the night before's show in the morning. Her mother and her father divorced in October of 1914...
12.
Debra Winger
Actress, Terms of Endearment
Mary Debra Winger was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1955 to a Jewish family. Her maternal grandparents called her Mary, while her parents called her Debra. (Her father named her Debra after his favorite actress, Debra Paget). The family moved to California when Debra was five. She fell in love with acting in high school but kept it a secret from her family...
13.
Susan Hayward
Actress, I Want to Live!
The youngest of three children, Edythe Marrenner was born in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York. Her father and mother, who were of Irish and Swedish descent respectively, endowed her with the milky complexion and ruby mane that would become her trademark. She grew up in poverty in the shadow of her older sister Florence who was her mother's favorite...
14.
Anne Baxter
Actress, All About Eve
Anne Baxter was born in Michigan City, Indiana, on May 7, 1923. She was the daughter of a salesman and his wife, Catherine, who herself was the daughter of Frank Lloyd Wright, the world-renowned architect. Anne was a young girl of 11 when her parents moved to New York City, which at that time was still the hub of the entertainment industry even though the film colony was moving west...
15.
Eleanor Parker
Actress, The Sound of Music
Eleanor Jean Parker was born on June 26, 1922, in Cedarville, Ohio, the last of three children born to a mathematics teacher and his wife. Eleanor caught the acting bug early and began performing in school plays. She was was so serious about becoming a thespian, she attended the Rice Summer Theatre on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts beginning when she was 15 years old...
16.
Rosalind Russell
Actress, His Girl Friday
The middle of seven children, she was named after the S.S. Rosalind at the suggestion of her father, a successful lawyer. After receiving a Catholic school education, she went to the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York, having convinced her mother that she intended to teach acting. In 1934...
17.
Virginia Madsen
Actress, Sideways
One of the hottest stars of the mid-1980s, Virginia Madsen is one of Hollywood's most talented actresses. Voted as one of the most beautiful actresses in 1986, Virginia has had several excellent performances in her career thus far. Audiences first caught a glimpse of her as "Princess Irulan" in the 1984 science fiction epic Dune...
18.
Sharon Stone
Actress, Casino
Sharon Stone was born and raised in Meadville, a small town in Pennsylvania. Her strict father was a factory worker and her mother was a homemaker. She was the second of four children. At the age of 15, she studied in Saegertown High School, Pennsylvania and, at that same age, entered Edinboro State University of Pennsylvania...
19.
Ann Sheridan
Actress, Another World
Clara Lou Sheridan was born February 21, 1915, in Denton, Texas, to an automobile mechanic and his homemaker wife. The youngest of five children, she grew up in a normal childhood environment. She was a self-described tomboy and was very athletic, and played on the girls basketball team for North Texas State Teacher's College...
20.
Mira Sorvino
Actress, Mimic
Mira Katherine Sorvino was born on September 28, 1967 in Tenafly, an affluent northern New Jersey suburb. She is the daughter of veteran character actor Paul Sorvino, who discouraged her from becoming an actor, as he knew how the industry often chews up young stars. The young Sorvino was intelligent...
company.