Top 20 performance of 1933
by Aunt-Peg | created - 25 Dec 2018 | updated - 26 Dec 2018 | PublicThese are my top 20 performances listed in order for each category (lead actor, lead actress, supporting actor & supporting actress).
1. Claude Rains
Actor | Casablanca
William Claude Rains, born in the Clapham area of London, was the son of the British stage actor Frederick Rains. The younger Rains followed, making his stage debut at the age of eleven in "Nell of Old Drury." Growing up in the world of theater, he saw not only acting up close but the down-to-earth...
in The Invisible Man (best performance by an actor in a leading role 1933)
2. Groucho Marx
Actor | A Night at the Opera
The bushy-browed, cigar-smoking wise-cracker with the painted-on moustache and stooped walk was the leader of The Marx Brothers. With one-liners that were often double entendres, Groucho never cursed in any of his performances and said he never wanted to be known as a dirty comic. With a great love...
in Duck Soup (2nd choice)
3. George Bancroft
Actor | Stagecoach
George Bancroft was raised in Philadelphia and attended high school at Tomes Institute (Philadelphia). He won an impressive appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and graduated as a commissioned officer. He served in the Navy for the prescribed period of required service but no...
in Blood Money (3rd choice)
4. Edward G. Robinson
Actor | Double Indemnity
Emanuel Goldenberg arrived in the United States from Romania at age ten, and his family moved into New York's Lower East Side. He took up acting while attending City College, abandoning plans to become a rabbi or lawyer. The American Academy of Dramatic Arts awarded him a scholarship, and he began ...
in The Little Giant (4th choice)
5. Wallace Beery
Actor | A Date with Judy
In 1902, 16-year-old Wallace Beery joined the Ringling Brothers Circus as an assistant to the elephant trainer. He left two years later after a leopard clawed his arm. Beery next went to New York, where he found work in musical variety shows. He became a leading man in musicals and appeared on ...
in The Bowery (5th choice)
6. Henrietta Crosman
Actress | Charlie Chan's Secret
Henrietta Crosman was born on September 2, 1861 in Wheeling, West Virginia, USA. She was an actress, known for Charlie Chan's Secret (1935), The Right to Live (1935) and The Royal Family of Broadway (1930). She was married to Maurice Campbell and Sedley Brown. She died on October 31, 1944 in Pelham...
in Pilgrimage (best performance by an actress in a leading role 1933)
7. Greta Garbo
Actress | Ninotchka
Greta Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson on September 18, 1905, in Stockholm, Sweden, to Anna Lovisa (Johansdotter), who worked at a jam factory, and Karl Alfred Gustafsson, a laborer. She was fourteen when her father died, which left the family destitute. Greta was forced to leave school and ...
in Queen Christina (2nd choice)
8. Marie Dressler
Actress | Dinner at Eight
Once you saw her, you would not forget her. Despite her age and weight, she became one of the top box office draws of the sound era. She was 14 when she joined a theater group and she went on to work on stage and in light opera. By 1892, she was on Broadway and she later became a star comedienne on...
in Dinner at Eight (3rd choice)
9. Jean Harlow
Actress | China Seas
Harlean Carpenter, who later became Jean Harlow, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 3, 1911. She was the daughter of a successful dentist and his wife. In 1927, at the age of 16, she ran away from home to marry a young businessman named Charles McGrew, who was 23. The couple pulled up ...
in Dinner at Eight (4th choice)
10. Loretta Young
Actress | The Stranger
Sweet, sweeter, sweetest. No combination of terms better describes the screen persona of lovely Loretta Young. A&E's Biography (1987) has stated that Young "remains a symbol of beauty, serenity, and grace. But behind the glamour and stardom is a woman of substance whose true beauty lies in her ...
in Zoo in Budapest (5th choice)
11. Chick Chandler
Actor | It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
American film character actor who appeared in primarily comedic roles from the 1920s through the 1950s. Born Fehmer Christy Chandler (named after his uncle, well-known architect Carl Fehmer), in Kingston, New York to Colonel George F. Chandler and the former Martha Schultze (a sportswriter and ...
in Blood Money (best performance by an actress in a supporting role 1933)
12. Norman Foster
Director | Letter to Loretta
Norman Foster was born on December 13, 1903 in Richmond, Indiana, USA. He was a director and actor, known for The Loretta Young Show (1953), I Cover Chinatown (1936) and Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1938). He was married to Sally Blane and Claudette Colbert. He died on July 7, 1976 in Santa Monica, ...
in Pilgrimage (2nd choice)
13. Harpo Marx
Actor | A Night at the Opera
With poofy, curly red hair, a top hat and a horn, the lovable mute was the favorite of the Marx Brothers. Though chasing women was a favorite routine of his in the movies, Harpo was a devoted father and husband. He adopted the mute routine in vaudeville and carried it over to the films. Harpo was ...
in Duck Soup (3rd choice)
14. Chico Marx
Actor | Duck Soup
As a kid trying to negotiate his way through various gang territories to a floating crap game or a new pool hall where he was not yet known as a hustler, Leonard (Chico) Marx learned to fake several accents. Because he later employed an Italian accent in the Marx Brothers' act, people assumed his ...
in Duck Soup (4th choice)
15. Lionel Barrymore
Actor | You Can't Take It with You
Famed actor, composer, artist, author and director. His talents extended to the authoring of the novel "Mr. Cartonwine: A Moral Tale" as well as his autobiography. In 1944, he joined ASCAP, and composed "Russian Dances", "Partita", "Ballet Viennois", "The Woodman and the Elves", "Behind the Horizon...
in Dinner at Eight (5th choice)
16. Margaret Dumont
Actress | A Night at the Opera
Margaret Dumont would not consider it a tragedy that she is best-known for her performances as the ultimate straight woman in seven of the Marx Brothers' films (including most of their best). It is a popular myth that she never understood their jokes (offscreen and on); restored footage of ...
in Duck Soup (best performance by an actress in a supporting role 1933)
17. Judith Anderson
Actress | Rebecca
Dame Judith Anderson was born Frances Margaret Anderson on February 10, 1897 in Adelaide, South Australia. She began her acting career in Australia before moving to New York in 1918. There she established herself as one of the greatest theatrical actresses and was a major star on Broadway ...
in Blood Money (2nd choice)
18. Mary Astor
Actress | The Maltese Falcon
Mary Astor was born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke on May 3, 1906 in Quincy, Illinois to Helen Marie Vasconcellos, an American of Portuguese and Irish ancestry from Illinois, and Otto Ludwig Langhanke, a German immigrant. Mary's parents were very ambitious for her and wanted something better for her...
in The Little Giant (3rd choice)
19. Billie Burke
Actress | The Wizard of Oz
Billie Burke was born Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke on August 7, 1885 in Washington, D.C. Her father was a circus clown, and as a child she toured the United States and Europe with the circus (before motion pictures and after the stage, circuses were the biggest form of entertainment in the...
in Dinner at Eight (4th choice)
20. Edna May Oliver
Actress | Penguin Pool Murder
She was born Edna May Nutter, a child of solid New England stock, on 9th November 1883 in Malden, Massachusetts. The daughter of Ida May and Charles Edward Nutter, Edna was a descendant of the 2nd American president John Adams and his son, the 6th American president John Quincy Adams. In addition, ...
in Little Women (5th choice)
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