Friday, October 21, 2005

Top 100 entertainment icons

Variety, the entertainment trade publication, has come out with their list of the top 100 entertainment icons of the 20th Century.
They ranked the Top 10 as:

The Beatles
Louis Armstrong
Lucille Ball
Humphrey Bogart
Marlon Brando
Charlie Chaplin
James Dean
Marilyn Monroe
Mickey Mouse
Elvis Presley

I think it is cute putting Mickey Mouse in the list, but I also think it kind of slights Walt Disney who should probably merit inclusion on the list in his own right.

The rest of the 100 in alphabetical order is listed below:

Woody Allen
Pedro Almodovar
Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers
Josephine Baker
Brigitte Bardot
Jack Benny
Irving Berlin
Chuck Berry
Lenny Bruce
James Cagney
Maria Callas
Johnny Carson
Johnny Cash
Ray Charles
Kurt Cobain
Gary Cooper
Bill Cosby
Walter Cronkite
Bette Davis
Miles Davis
Marlene Dietrich
Kirk Douglas
Bob Dylan
Clint Eastwood
Duke Ellington
Federico Fellini
Aretha Franklin
Clark Gable
Greta Garbo
Judy Garland
Cary Grant
D.W. Griffith
Woody Guthrie
Vaclav Havel
Edith Head
Jimi Hendrix
Katharine Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Alfred Hitchcock
Billie Holiday
Bob Hope & Bing Crosby
Harry Houdini
Michael Jackson
Robert Johnson
Al Jolson
Janis Joplin
Gene Kelly
Grace Kelly
Lassie
Laurel & Hardy
Bruce Lee
Jerry Lewis
Little Richard
Sophia Loren
Madonna
Bob Marley
Marcello Mastroianni
Steve McQueen
Edward R. Murrow
The Marx Brothers
Paul Newman
Jack Nicholson
Laurence Olivier
Pac Man
Edith Piaf
Mary Pickford
Sidney Poitier
Robert Redford
Rodgers & Hammerstein
Will Rogers
The Rolling Stones
Mickey Rooney
The Sex Pistols
Tupac Shakur
Frank Sinatra
Steven Spielberg
Jimmy Stewart
Igor Stravinsky
Barbara Streisand
The Supremes
Quentin Tarantino
Elizabeth Taylor
Shirley Temple
Rudolph Valentino
John Wayne
Orson Welles
Mae West
Hank Williams
Oprah Winfrey
Stevie Wonder

I was upset at first when it looked like Bing Crosby had once again been snubbed until I saw that they had grouped him with Bob Hope. Still, that makes it seem like the only reason he is included is because of the popular Road movies he did with Bob. I would argue that Bing should have made the top 10 based on the fact that he was one of the most popular entertainers of the 1930s and ‘40s. But I’m still happy that he at least made the list.

One big omission in my opinion is Bruce Springsteen. How many others are there?

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