Hollywood's greatest actresses

While I cheered Kate Winslet’s Best Actress triumph (for The Reader) in last week’s Academy Awards, my heart bled for the nth time for Meryl Streep (nominated for Doubt). Goodness — 15 nominations and only two wins. Her other award isn’t even for Best Actress, but for supporting (in Kramer vs. Kramer).

In this column, allow me to pay tribute to Ms. Streep and other actresses who — at least, in my book — are the greatest in Hollywood.

Meryl Streep — She is the greatest Hollywood actress of all time in my opinion. She can do drama, comedy (I love her in She-Devil), musical (everyone in Manila has seen her in Mama Mia!) and even go bold (although she turned off a lot of her fans when she did frontal nudity in The Bridges of Madison County). The first time I became a Meryl Streep fan was when I watched her in The French Lieutenant’s Woman. After that came Sophie’s Choice where she got her one and only Best Actress Oscar. Although she and the film had been criticized as “too studied and calculating,” I still think it is the best performance given by any actress in Hollywood. Hail to the Queen of Tongues!

Katharine Hepburn — For somebody who never attended the Oscars, save for one time when she presented the honorary Thalberg award in 1974, it is a marvel that she has four Academy wins (in an industry where there is so much politicking). People in Hollywood apparently respected her that much — and for good reason: She truly overflowed with talent. After all, wasn’t she the Great Kate?

Bette Davis — Next to Meryl, she is the one with the most number of nominations — 11 in all if I am not mistaken. She won two Best Actress trophies — for Dangerous and Jezebel — but could have won more. She should have been voted Best Actress for Of Human Bondage, but studio politics reared its ugly head that time. Aside from being great, there is another adjective to describe her performances: Colorful. Even when she camps out her roles, she is still a delight to watch. Try to get a DVD copy of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and I swear you’ll turn into an instant Bette Davis fan.

Ingrid Bergman — This Swedish import isn’t only lovely and statuesque, she is also one of Hollywood’s greatest actresses — winner of three Academy Awards (two for Best Actress and one for supporting). I like her best in Gaslight and in Casablanca. As an actress I have to say that her screen presence is overpowering.

Greta Garbo — Another great glacial beauty in Hollywood. Although she never won an Oscar, I consider her among Hollywood’s greatest actresses. Renowned for her dramatic performances (Camille is still my favorite among her dramas, never mind if she was too theatrical at times), she was just as effective in Ninotchka where she plays a Russian commissar deployed in Paris to check on a couple of diplomats who had enjoyed the good life of free societies. It’s a pity she eventually became reclusive because she could have made even greater movies later in life.

Olivia de Havilland — Rewarded with two Oscar Best Actress trophies — for To Each His Own and The Heiress — I like her better in the latter. Playing a spinsterish role in The Heiress, her grip on her character is truly admirable. And she gets to display a wide range of emotions here, too — from being naïve and vulnerable to that of a strong and hardened woman who decides to seal her fate and chose to become an old maid all her life.

In time, I also got to see her in The Snake Pit. Before that I kept reading how she gave the greatest performance of her life in this drama about this patient kept in a mental institution. When I finally saw the movie, I realized that the reviews on her were absolutely correct. She was at her best in The Snake Pit.

Vivien Leigh — She made only 12 films and yet she won two Oscar Best Actress awards from this short list. Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With the Wind was the role of a lifetime and every pre-World War II actress coveted it. And it had to go this British actress, who fittingly went home with the Oscar a year after the film’s release.

In her second Academy Award-winning role (in A Streetcar Named Desire), she played another Southern belle (an over-the-hill one this time) opposite another one of Hollywood’s greatest performers, Marlon Brando. Even if the film was stagy (it came straight from its Broadway success), I still enjoyed her performance as Blanche DuBois, a woman who has lost her emotional balance.

It is said that she was also that way off-screen and there were occasions when husband Laurence Olivier (another acting great) would come home to find her balancing herself on the banister. Obviously in this life, you really can’t have everything — even if you are one of the greatest.

Jane Fonda — Talent runs in her family — and in large doses. I like the way she immerses herself in every character she plays in the movies. To me, she is one actress who can never go wrong as far as acting is concerned.

Elizabeth Taylor — I’m not really much of a Taylor fan, but I’m including her in this list for sheer star power. But she did make great movies and even won two Oscar Best Actress awards. The first one was for Butterfield 8 and she only got it because she became very ill prior to the Oscars and Academy voters thought she was going to die. (“Hell, even I voted for her,” quipped Debbie Reynolds, who was dumped by husband Eddie Fischer for Liz.) In Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?, where she won her second award, she finally gave a truly deserving Oscar performance — although heaven knows how bored I was with this film (a must-see, but boring). But she nevertheless should still be considered among Hollywood’s greatest.

Hilary Swank — While she is not a great beauty, I still admire her for her immense talent and discipline. Look at how she prepared for her role in Million Dollar Baby, where she received her second Best Actress Oscar (the first was for Boys Don’t Cry and I salute her there for just doing the part). Kate Winslet may now be the toast of Hollywood, but I still think Hilary Swank is the greatest actress of her generation.