star power

1. Lily Tomlin

Lily Tomlin was born September 1, 1939 in Detroit, Michigan, to Lillie Mae (Ford) and Guy Tomlin, who moved to Michigan from Paducah, Kentucky, during the Great Depression. Her mother was a nurse's aide and her father was a factory worker. She graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1957, and ...

2. Diana Ross

Soundtrack | The Wiz

Best known as the the lead singer of the popular 1960s singing group The Supremes, Diana Ernestine Earle Ross was born on March 26, 1944, in Detroit, Michigan, the second of six children of African-American parents Ernestine Lillian (Moten), a schoolteacher, and Fred Earl Ross, who served in the ...

3. Nancy Allen

Actress | Dressed to Kill

Nancy Anne Allen was born and raised in the Bronx borough of New York City, the youngest of three children. Her father, Eugene Allen, was a New York police lieutenant. At a young age, she trained for a dancing career at the High School of Performing Arts, and then attended Jose Quintano's School ...

4. Kim Basinger

Actress | L.A. Confidential

Kim Basinger was born December 8, 1953, in Athens, Georgia, the third of five children. Both her parents had been in entertainment, her dad had played big-band jazz, and her mother had performed water ballet in several Esther Williams movies. Kim was introspective, from her father's side. As a ...

5. Geena Davis

Actress | Thelma & Louise

As a child, Geena dreamed of being an actress. While in high school, she felt left out and had low self-esteem because, at 6 feet, she was the tallest girl in school. After high school graduation, Geena entered New England College in New Hampshire and then transferred the next year to Boston ...

6. Melanie Griffith

Actress | Working Girl

Melanie Griffith was born on August 9, 1957 in New York City, to then model/future actress Tippi Hedren and former child actor turned advertising executive Peter Griffith. Her parents' marriage ended when she was four years old and Tippi brought Melanie to Los Angeles to get a new start. Tippi ...

7. Madonna

Soundtrack | A League of Their Own

The remarkable, hyper-ambitious Material Girl who never stops re-inventing herself, Madonna has sold over three hundred million records and CDs to adoring fans worldwide. Her film career, however, is another story. Her performances have consistently drawn scathing or laughable reviews from film ...

8. Jamie Lee Curtis

Actress | Halloween

Jamie Lee Curtis was born on November 22, 1958 in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of legendary actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. She got her big break at acting in 1978 when she won the role of Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978). After that, she became famous for roles in movies like Trading...

9. Rosanna Arquette

Actress | Pulp Fiction

Rosanna Arquette has acted extensively in film and television, and has come to be acknowledged as an actress of rare depth and scope.

Arquette was born in New York City, New York. Her parents, Lewis Arquette, an actor, and Brenda Denaut (née Nowak), an acting teacher and therapist, had 4 other ...

10. Demi Moore

Actress | G.I. Jane

Demi Moore was born 1962 in Roswell, New Mexico. Her father Charles Harmon left her mother Virginia Guynes (née King) before Demi was born. Her stepfather Danny Guynes didn't add much stability to her life either. He frequently changed jobs and made the family move a total of 40 times. The parents ...

11. Brigitte Nielsen

Actress | Red Sonja

Actress, model, presenter and singer Brigitte Nielsen was born July 15, 1963 in Rødovre, a little place near Copenhagen in Denmark. At the end of high school when she was sixteen, Gitte (her given name) left her family to begin her modeling career. She worked for top fashion designers like Giorgio ...

12. Lori Petty

Actress | Tank Girl

After this feisty, highly offbeat actress from Chattanooga, Tennessee, broke into TV in the 1980s, she immediately set herself apart from the norm with a prime role as new owner Bud Cort's female friend in the bizarre mini-movie Bates Motel (1987). This rather inauspicious beginning would also set ...

13. Sandra Bullock

Producer | The Proposal

Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Her mother, Helga Bullock (née Helga Mathilde Meyer), was a German opera singer. Her father, John W. Bullock, was an American voice teacher, who was born in Alabama, of German descent. Sandra grew up on the road ...

14. Halle Berry

Actress | Catwoman

Halle Maria Berry was born Maria Halle Berry on August 14, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Oakwood, Ohio to Judith Ann Berry (née Hawkins), a psychiatric nurse & Jerome Jesse Berry, a hospital attendant. Her father was African-American and her mother is of mostly English and German descent. ...

15. Salma Hayek

Actress | Frida

Salma Hayek was born on September 2, 1966 in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico. Her father is of Lebanese descent and her mother is of Mexican/Spanish ancestry. After having seen Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) in a local movie theater, she decided she wanted to become an actress. At age 12, she...

16. Nicole Kidman

Actress | Moulin Rouge!

Elegant Nicole Kidman, known as one of Hollywood's top Australian imports, was actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii, while her Australian parents were there on educational visas.

Kidman is the daughter of Janelle Ann (Glenny), a nursing instructor, and Antony David Kidman, a biochemist and clinical ...

17. Lucy Liu

Actress | Kill Bill: Vol. 1

Born to immigrants in New York City, Lucy Liu has always tried to balance an interest in her cultural heritage with a desire to move beyond a strictly Asian-American experience. Her mother, Cecilia, a biochemist, is from Beijing & her father, Tom Liu, a civil engineer, is from Shanghai. Once ...

18. Kristy Swanson

Actress | Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Kristy Swanson is an American actress from California. She has had an active acting career since the 1980s. Her most memorable role was playing the original version of Buffy Summers in the horror comedy "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1992).

Swanson was born in Mission Viejo, California, a planned ...

19. Jennifer Garner

Actress | Alias

Jennifer Garner, who catapulted into stardom with her lead role on the television series Alias (2001), has come a long way from her birthplace of Houston, Texas. Raised in Charleston, West Virginia by her mother Patricia Ann (née English), a retired English teacher, and her father, Billy Jack ...

20. Elizabeth Berkley

Actress | Showgirls

Elizabeth Berkley was born in Farmington Hills, Michigan, to Jere, a gift basket business owner and Fred Berkley, a lawyer. She has an older brother, Jason (b. 1969). Her family is Jewish. By five, she was taking tap and jazz classes with Barbara Fink and ballet classes at Detroit Dance Company. ...

21. Cameron Diaz

Actress | Vanilla Sky

Cameron Diaz, an American actress, was born in 1972 in San Diego, the daughter of a Cuban-American father and a German mother. Self described as "adventurous, independent and a tough kid," Cameron left home at 16 and for the next 5 years lived in such varied locales as Japan, Australia, Mexico, ...

22. Melanie C

Actress | Spice World

Born on the 12th January 1974 in Merseyside, England, Melanie Chisholm became a member of Spice Girls in 1994. Their three albums sold more than 40 million copies worldwide and they had nine singles at number 1 in the UK.

"Northern Star" was her first solo album. On the back of the first single "...

23. Penélope Cruz

Actress | Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Known outside her native country as the "Spanish enchantress," Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born in Madrid to Eduardo Cruz, a retailer, and Encarna Sánchez, a hairdresser. As a toddler, she was already a compulsive performer, re-enacting TV commercials for her family's amusement, but she decided to ...

24. Hilary Swank

Actress | Million Dollar Baby

Hilary was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, to Judith Kay (Clough), a secretary, and Stephen Michael Swank, who served in the National Guard and was also a traveling salesman. Her maternal grandmother, Frances Martha Dominguez, was of Mexican descent, and her other roots include German, English, and ...

25. Drew Barrymore

Producer | Charlie's Angels

Since melting audiences' hearts at the age of just six in E.T. (1982), Drew Barrymore has emerged as one of the most beloved and singularly gifted actresses of her generation. Born in Culver City, California to John Drew Barrymore and Jaid Barrymore, the clutches of fame were near inescapable for ...

26. Mel B

Actress | Spice World

Born on May 29, 1975 in Leeds, England, Melanie Brown became a member of Spice Girls in 1994. Their three albums sold more than 40 million copies worldwide and they had nine singles at number 1 in the UK.

"Hot" was her first solo album, released on 9th October 2000. It entered the UK charts at #28. ...

27. Angelina Jolie

Actress | Maleficent

Angelina Jolie is an Academy Award-winning actress who rose to fame after her role in Girl, Interrupted (1999), playing the title role in the "Lara Croft" blockbuster movies, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), Salt (2010) and Maleficent (2014). Off-screen, Jolie has become ...

28. Charlize Theron

Producer | Monster

Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, a city in the greater Johannesburg area, in South Africa, the only child of Gerda Theron (née Maritz) and Charles Theron. She was raised on a farm outside the city. Theron is of Afrikaner (Dutch, with some French Huguenot and German) descent, and Afrikaner ...

29. Tara Reid

Actress | American Pie

Born in Wyckoff, New Jersey, USA on November 8, 1975. She got her career start at six, when she appeared on a children's game show called Child's Play (1982). Later, she appeared in commercials for Jell-O, McDonald's, and Crayola. She attended the Professional Children's School in New York City. Her...

30. Milla Jovovich

Actress | Le Cinquième Élément

Milla Jovovich is a Ukrainian-American actress, supermodel, fashion designer, singer and public figure, who was on the cover of more than a hundred magazines, and starred in such films as The Fifth Element (1997), Ultraviolet (2006), and the Resident Evil (2002) franchise.

Milica Bogdanovna Jovovich...

31. Sarah Michelle Gellar

Actress | Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Emmy Award-winning Sarah Michelle Gellar was born on April 14, 1977 in New York City, the daughter of Rosellen (Greenfield), who taught at a nursery school, and Arthur Gellar, who worked in the garment industry. She is of Russian Jewish and Hungarian Jewish descent.

Eating in a local restaurant, ...

32. Rachael Leigh Cook

Actress | She's All That

Minneapolis native Rachael Leigh Cook began her career as a model at the tender age of 10, gracing Milk-Bone boxes and Target ads nationwide in the USA. She also appeared in a now-famous (in the USA) anti-drug TV spot in which, armed with a frying pan, she bashed her way through a kitchen to show ...

33. Sarah Polley

Actress | My Life Without Me

Sarah Polley is an actress and director renowned in her native Canada for her political activism. Blessed with an extremely expressive face that enables directors to minimize dialog due to her uncanny ability to suggest a character's thoughts, Polley has become a favorite of critics for her ...

34. Aaliyah

Soundtrack | Romeo Must Die

Talented. Beautiful. Modest. These three words described R&B singer-turned-actress Aaliyah perfectly.

Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Diane (Hankerson) and Michael Haughton. Her uncle was music manager Barry Hankerson and her brother is director Rashad Haughton. Aaliyah was ...

35. Rosario Dawson

Actress | Rent

This stunning and resourceful actress has been primarily a film player thus far. Only recently has she been opening herself up more to doing television (the series Gemini Division (2008), which she executive-produced), and animated voice-overs. Dawson's powerhouse talent stands out the most in edgy...

36. Rachel Nichols

Actress | G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Rachel Emily Nichols was born in Augusta, Maine, the daughter of Alison and James Nichols, a schoolteacher. She has English, French Canadian, German, Irish, Italian and Scottish ancestry. She attended and graduated from Cony High School in Augusta, where she competed in the high jump. She attended ...

37. Mila Kunis

Actress | Black Swan

Milena Markovna "Mila" Kunis is a Ukrainian-American actress born to a Jewish family in Chernivtsi, Ukraine.

Her mother, Elvira, is a physics teacher, her father, Mark Kunis, is a mechanical engineer, and she has an older brother named Michael. Her family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1991. ...

38. Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Actress | 10 Cloverfield Lane

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is an actress known for her versatile work in a variety of film and television projects. Possibly most known for her role as Ramona Flowers in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), she has also starred in critically acclaimed independent films such as Smashed (2012), for which...

39. Tina Majorino

Actress | Napoleon Dynamite

Tina Majorino has been charming audiences on the silver screen from a young age. In 1994, she made her feature film debut in Touchstone's When A Man Loves a Woman playing Meg Ryan & Andy Garcia's daughter, followed quickly that same year by New Line's Corrina, Corinna (opposite Whoopi Goldberg and ...

40. Megan Fox

Actress | Transformers

Megan Denise Fox was born on May 16, 1986 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and raised in Rockwood, Tennessee to Gloria Darlene Tonachio (née Cisson), a real estate manager & Franklin Thomas Fox, a parole officer. She began her drama and dance training at age 5 and at age 10, she moved to Port St. Lucie, ...

41. Kristen Stewart

Actress | Snow White and the Huntsman

Though most famous for her role as Isabella "Bella" Swan in The Twilight (2008) Saga, Kristen Stewart has been a working actor since her early years in Los Angeles, California. Her parents, John Stewart and Jules Stewart, both work in film and television. The family includes three boys, Kristen's ...