Most popular actor?

[fraud]

Will Smith is nowadays the most popular actor. But who is the most popular actor of all time?:smallconfused:
Marlon Brando?
Heath Ledger?
Rick Blaine?
William Shatner?
George Lopez?:smallconfused:
Please give your personal opinion on the best actor of all time and why

[Don Julio Anejo]

William Shatner shouldn't be on that list no matter what. He didn't do anything outside of Star Trek. Heath Ledger may have become a great actor but with what he has right now he doesn't make the list either. Rick Blaine I've plain never heard of.

My vote goes to Humphrey Bogart.

There's also Sean Connery. And just for the hell of it - Harrison Ford and Samuel L. Jackson, if only for the fact that these two combined starred in EVERYTHING. Even in Snakes on a Plane.

[kamikasei]

William Shatner shouldn't be on that list no matter what. He didn't do anything outside of Star Trek.

TJ Hooker and Boston Legal.

OP: Please, be more specific. Do you want to know who posters here consider their favourite actor? Who they think is the best actor (not the same thing)? Do you want a discussion about who, in some objective sense, could be named the best actor ever? Or do you want to run a worldwide survey on which actor is the most popular?

[Dallas-Dakota]

Ian Mckellen, no contest there.

[Tengu_temp]

Most popular and famous? Charlie Chaplin, Marylin Monroe. Show me someone who hasn't heard about them.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Most popular and famous? Charlie Chaplin, Marylin Monroe. Show me someone who hasn't heard about them.
While we're talking actresses, there's also Audrey Hepburn.

[Closet_Skeleton]

My vote goes to Humphrey Bogart.

For some reason, whenever I hear the word "clone" I think "why haven't we cloned Humphrey Bogart yet?"

[Tengu_temp]

While we're talking actresses, there's also Audrey Hepburn.

Who?

...

I think I've just proven you wrong.

[Setra]

<.< >.>

Robin Williams
Most popular and famous? Charlie Chaplin, Marylin Monroe. Show me someone who hasn't heard about them.

Who is Charlie Chaplin?

[Obrysii]

Who is Charlie Chaplin?

Are you serious?

[Setra]

Are you serious?

Somewhat, I've heard the name... that's about it though.

Edit: To be honest I've never really cared about Actors or Actor names. I know the really famous recent people, and even then not all of them.

For example

While we're talking actresses, there's also Audrey Hepburn.
Dunno her

Ian Mckellen, no contest there.
Or him

TJ Hooker
I presume TJ Hooker is a person, and if so I don't know him.

Will Smith is nowadays the most popular actor. But who is the most popular actor of all time?:smallconfused:
Marlon Brando?
Heath Ledger?
Rick Blaine?
William Shatner?
George Lopez?:smallconfused:
Please give your personal opinion on the best actor of all time and why
Who?
Who?
Who?
I know William Shatner
Who?

[Bryn]

Somewhat, I've heard the name... that's about it though.

This is the Internet. You can find things out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin). :smallamused:

But Charlie Chaplin died before I was born, and even I know a fair bit about him; he was that influential.

[Setra]

This is the Internet. You can find things out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin). :smallamused:
Oh he's that guy, the face is familiar.

Edit: On another note I am more likely to recognize a face than a name.

I'm even more likely to recognize a "He was this guy in this movie"

[kamikasei]

Edit: To be honest I've never really cared about Actors or Actor names. I know the really famous recent people, and even then not all of them.

Assuming you do watch movies, it's a bit strange not to pick up on the names of their stars. I'm genuinely baffled how you could not recognize some of these below - memory's a funny thing, I guess.


I presume TJ Hooker is a person, and if so I don't know him.

TJ Hooker and Boston Legal are/were both shows starring William Shatner, cited as refutation of the claim he'd only been in Star Trek.

Ian McKellan played Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies and Magneto in the X-Men films, not to mention various others.

Marlon Brando was in a bunch of classic movies, probably most famously Don Corleone in The Godfather (he was the "make him an offer he can't refuse" guy).

Heath Ledger was, most recently and famously, the Joker in The Dark Knight.

[Setra]

Assuming you do watch movies, it's a bit strange not to pick up on the names of their stars. I'm genuinely baffled how you could not recognize some of these below - memory's a funny thing, I guess. I don't read the credits? I dunno, I'm also pretty bad with names too. Not to mention I don't watch many movies.


TJ Hooker and Boston Legal are/were both shows starring William Shatner, cited as refutation of the claim he'd only been in Star Trek. Oh, lol


Ian McKellan played Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies and Magneto in the X-Men films, not to mention various others. Oh yeah! Him! I like him. Wasn't he Knighted?


Marlon Brando was in a bunch of classic movies, probably most famously Don Corleone in The Godfather (he was the "make him an offer he can't refuse" guy). Ohh


Heath Ledger was, most recently and famously, the Joker in The Dark Knight. I haven't seen Dark Knight yet, I want to though.

Actually I haven't seen Batman Begins yet..

[Telonius]

Most famous? My guess is Jet Li.

A billion people in China know him, and so does a big chunk of the US. Don't know how famous he is elsewhere, though.

Probably somebody from Bollywood would take second. They'd still have a billion people in India, but not much outside.

[DomaDoma]

Rick Blaine?


Humphrey Bogart, you mean? Quite possibly.

(I like Marlon Brando better, but believe it or not, he was utterly lousy when he first got into film - see the film version of Streetcar, where he plays Stanley as incoherently, mumblingly drunk throughout the entire performance, even when he's breaking things.)

[Tirian]

If you judge popularity by career inflation-adjusted worldwide box office receipts, then it would probably go to either Harrison Ford or Tom Hanks.

[Leigh]

Wow...
I find it sad that I know at least the basics on every single person mentioned in this thread.:smallsigh: I really have no life. Or I'm just super-obsessed with pop-culture...
I prefer to think of myself as all-knowing:smallbiggrin:
Anyway, Fraud, in your first post, I personally wouldn't vote for any of them as most popular. Recently popular, funny, some of the best, and pretty well known, yes, but not most popular. I'd probably go with Johnny Depp, or the earlier mentioned Marilyn Monroe. Assuming females are included, of course.

[Setra]

Wow...
I find it sad that I know at least the basics on every single person mentioned in this thread.:smallsigh: I really have no life. Or I'm just super-obsessed with pop-culture...
I dunno, I figure it's expected for most people (obviously not myself :smalltongue: ) to know at least a little about the people mentioned, as they are all supposed to be candidates for "Most popular".

I still stand by Robin Williams.

[kamikasei]

I haven't seen Dark Knight yet, I want to though.

You don't have to see the Dark Knight. You just have to hear the Dark Knight mentioned in the media and a quick "starring the late Heath Ledger who may get a posthumous Oscar blah blah" is sure to be nearby. (Hence my surprise.)

[valadil]

I think Marlon Brando is considered the best actor. Can't remember where I read that though.

Heath Ledger could have been great if had lived longer.

In my circle of friends Johnny Depp is pretty damn popular.

The other big names that come to mind that I haven't seen posted yet are DeNiro and Nicholson.

[Joran]

I agree with everyone who did point out that this is a particularly ill-defined topic.

That said... How about Tom Cruise? He's been in a bunch of big name movies and went off the deep end, so people will know him from either of those two issues.

[snoopy13a]

My vote goes to Paul Newman: Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Slapshot among others. Plus, he's done some cool things outside of acting. He's a former race car driver and coowns a current racing team. He starting a company that sells food products (Newman's Best) and donates the profits to charity. He also started a summer camp for seriously ill children (Hole in Wall camp named after Butch Cassidy's gang).

[Sneak]

I have to say, Paul Newman gets my vote too. I don't know that much about him, but the guy seems great.

[DraPrime]

Yeah Paul Newman kinda wins. And the food company just gives him a ton more publicity and popularity.

[Sneak]

Er, just to clear things up...when I said I don't know that much about him, I meant I don't know that much about him as a person. But I do know he's a very talented actor (Cool Hand Luke and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are two of my favorite movies).

Plus his lemonade tastes pretty good. :smalltongue:

[Rare Pink Leech]

I don't think you can really answer this. The way I see it, you could be asking one of three things: who is the best actor, who is the most widely known, and who is the most popular. Each question has its own problems, and all contain at least some degree of subjectivity. The best way to answer any of the questions, the way I see it, is to look at numbers. You can look at major awards won/nominated for, lists of the best/most popular actors, media coverage, box office totals for films they starred in, fan polls, etc. Eventually, if you look over enough data, I'm sure you would start to see trends about who is most popular, but even this idea has its problems (how do you decide what information to look at? How do you choose which organizations and publications to include in your data? How do you account for the fact that actors from previous generations didn't get as much media coverage?).

[kpenguin]

I vote Charlie Chaplin... or Buster Keaton... or something like that.

EDIT: Ronald Reagan? He was an actor and he's pretty famous, right?:smalltongue:

[Rare Pink Leech]

That's a very good point, but it brings up a whole new question: are we talking about the most famous actor for their acting, or the most famous person who is also an actor?

[kpenguin]

John Wilkes Booth is also a famous actor, I believe.

Again, not for his acting career, though.

[Setra]

What about John Wayne?

[comicshorse]

Never seen Robert Caryle of Daniel Day-Lewis do a bad performance.
And Sir Ben Kingsley is fantastic in 'Sexy Beast'

[Gavin Sage]

There is a quasi-semi-official list for this by the way. (click (http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/stars.aspx))

[Jorkens]

Never seen Robert Caryle of Daniel Day-Lewis do a bad performance.
And Sir Ben Kingsley is fantastic in 'Sexy Beast'
He's utterly brilliant - I'll never look at Ghandi the same way again.

OTOH he's not popular in the SUPER MEGA STAR sense that this thread seems to be after.

I think that if you take into account that the film industry then wasn't the multinational publicity machine it is today, that some of the original silent comedy stars were probably even bigger by the standards of their time than the likes of Will Smith and Ben Stiller are now...

[GeeVee]

Most popular actor? Or most famous? Or most famed?

Um... Robert DeNiro? John Wayne? Johnny Depp has the most results on Google (hah) out of the men I bothered to google, although that's more indication of recent media coverage than anything else.

And Setra, you need to read the papers once in a while. Seriously.