20 Actresses Who Inspire

Following Kari who started this and then Roxie, I am naming twenty favorite actresses who have inspired me to be me.

Obvs, there's Angela Lansbury. Forget about her four Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Broadway Musical. When it comes to movies, versatility is her name: comical, bitch, mother, coquette, supporting, brilliant. From Gaslight to Nanny McPhee, she has 60 plus years in movies. Especially The Manchurian Candidate. She's unbelievably good. And of course, there's Bedknobs and Broomsticks, even if she did hate making that movie.






















Myrna Loy. She makes me laugh and laugh: all of those The Thin Man movies, Love Crazy, The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer. Then she makes cry in The Best Years of Our Lives. She's the epitomy of class.

















Irene Dunne. Come on, have you seen her? Show Boat, Love Affair, White Cliffs of Dover, My Favorite Wife, I Remember Mama, The Awful Truth, Penny Serenade, Anna and the King of Siam. Brilliant.

















Deborah Kerr. She was pure elegance. And she made three movies each with Cary Grant, Robert Mitchum, Burt Lancaster and David Niven. What a lucky girl. I LOVE her movies: The Sundowners, An Affair to Remember, Heaven Knows Mr. Allison, The Chalk Garden, I See a Dark Stranger, The Night of the Iguana, Separate Tables, The Journey, The King and I, Tea and Sympathy, King Solomon's Mines, Black Narcissus, If Winter Comes, From Here to Eternity. It's possible that I own 95% of her movies on vhs and dvd.





















Sigourney Weaver. I don't love her for Alien. But I do for Ghost Busters, Working Girl, Dave, Heartbreakers and especially Tadpole.
















Helen Mirren. Oh yes, she's The Queen. She's also Gosford Park, Elizabeth I, Calendar Girls, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and especially Prime Suspect.





















Nicole Kidman. She reminds me of Deborah Kerr. Except she hasn't been as lucky. Still, I do love Moulin Rouge. And Cold Mountain and Far and Away. Shut up, I like an epic.





















Diane Wiest. She was the mom in Footloose which I watched a bazillion trazillion times. But I love her most of all for Hannah and Her Sisters. She and that movie made me want to be a New Yorker and go to the opera and sit in a box with Sam Waterston and then go to Cafe Carlyle and listen to Bobby Short.














Lily Tomlin. I love her for Nine to Five, Tea with Mussolini, Big Business, Prairie Home Companion, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, Short Cuts, All of Me and Pret a Porter.











Whoopi Goldberg. She made me cry for The Color Purple more than anybody ever made me cry at a movie. I also love Jumpin' Jack Flash.
















Meryl Streep. How many times did I watch Out of Africa? I can't count that high. Plus she's sometimes funny.






















Katharine Hepburn. She's in The Philadelphia Story - my all time favorite movie. Plus she's in three movies with Cary Grant too. And The Lion in Winter.
















Anne Hathaway. She's my favorite of the new young stars, I think. I'm a sucker for princess movies.






















Julie Andrews. Mary Poppins! The Sound of Music! Victor/Victoria! Movies with James Garner!




















Queen Latifah. There's something about her - regal but just an ordinary fun girl. She was the best thing about Chicago and I liked Last Holiday too.












Rosalind Russell. Are you kidding me? She's Auntie Mame! Plus, there's His Girl Friday and Gypsy!













Maggie Smith. Judi Dench. I love them together. I love them separately. A Room with a View was the first foreign film I ever saw on a big screen. I was 18 years old and was a freshman at Univ. of Texas. I saw it an old movie theatre on the Drag across from campus. I went back more than once.















Helena Bonham Carter. See above re A Room with a View. Plus, she was Mrs. Lovett.

















Alfre Woodard. She's so real. She got to kiss Danny Glover in Grand Canyon. And she was in Passion Fish and Heart and Soul.













Mary McDonnell. She's even more real than Alfre Woodard - Grand Canyon and Passion Fish. And sometimes they act together. She was the reason to love Dances with Wolves.