Ten Best Actresses of All Time Relay Race

I didn't thought that my name would come up in this superb relay race. But I must say that I am very glad to have been chosen to put a little bit of myself into it.

Originally conceived by the genius Nostra of My Filmviews, and passed on to me by Bonjour Tristesse, the concept of this blog-a-thon is as follows:

“I’ve created a list of what I think are the best actresses of all time. At the end of the post I, just like in a real relay race, hand over the baton to another blogger who will write his own post. This blogger will have to remove one actress (that is an obligation) and add his/her own choice and describe why he/she did this. At the end the blogger chooses another blogger to do the same. The idea is to make this a long race, so that enough bloggers get a chance to remove and add an actress. We will end up with a list (not ranked in order) which represents a common agreement of the best actresses. It will also mean that those who follow this relay race will get to know new blogs as well!”

Here is a list of the blogs that have participated thus far:

• My Filmviews [Original List]
• The Velvet Café [-Marilyn Monroe +Liv Ullmann]
• Martin Teller [-Natalie Portman +Barbara Stanwyck]
• The Movie Review Warehouse [-Tilda Swinton +Emma Thompson]
• Benefits of a Classical Education [-Julie Delpy +Viola Davis]
• Just Another Movie Blog [-Emma Thompson +Juliette Binoche]
• Film Actually [-Liv Ullmann +Judy Garland]
• Public Transportation Snob [-Frances McDormand +Ingrid Bergman]
• FlixChatter [-Judy Garland +Judi Dench]
• Defiant Success [-Viola Davis +Audrey Hepburn]
• And So It Begins… [-Judi Dench +Gena Rowlands]
• Southern Vision [-Kate Winslet +Isabelle Huppert]
• The Film Emporium [-Gena Rowlands +Kate Winslet]
• Bonjour Tristesse  [-Kate Winslet +Maggie Cheung]

And the current line-up:

Audrey Hepburn

Barbara Stanwyck

Cate Blanchett

Ingrid Bergman

Isabelle Huppert

Julianne Moore

Juliette Binoche

Maggie Cheung

Katherine Hepburn

Meryl Streep

My Removal:

Well, this is a very difficult task because the obvious non-sensical names have been removed and we have the cream on the top of the cream here. All these women deserve their place amongst those ranks. But I had to narrow the perspectives and removed the actress I thought that she can still do even more important roles than what she has done in the past. While impersonating Bob Dylan with so much rightness that the other outstanding performances in I'm Not There seemed pale.

Goodbye! Cate Blanchett

So I remove Cate Blanchett. One of the top names of today. And i stand behind my choices because I think she is probably just a little bit under the other nine actresses here.


My Addition:




Now with my pick, I would say that it was such a head scratcher because I'm not an actor/actress person at first. However, like Bonjour Tristesse mentionned before me I could replace names that were removed previously Marylin Monroe, Liv Ullmann, or Gena Rowlands.



The fun in this exercise is to include fresh names and challenge them with everyone's opinion.


I've decided to go with a great actress and probably one of the most important woman in Cinema History:

Lillian Gish

Here are my reasons why:

First because she was one of the most important leading ladies of Cinema. Having starred in more than a hundred films since 1912 with a career that spread until 1987. Starring in important Silent films of D.W. Griffith like Way Down East, The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Broken Blossoms just to name a few and Victor Sjöström's The Wind, Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter,

My love of Silent and Classic Films leaded me to Gish's monument of acting and her superb screen presence.

Well there you have it, I now pass the baton over to Kevyn Knox from The Most Beautiful Fraud In The World. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

What do you think of my choices?