AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars

Part of the AFI 100 Years... series, AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars is a list of the top 50 stars of American cinema. They were presented by 50 stars of today, adding up to the total of 100 stars. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute on June 16 1999.

The list was revealed on a CBS special hosted by Shirley Temple Black.

According to the AFI's rules, the stars on the list had to have made their film debuts in or before 1950, or have died prior to the creation of the list, that is why actors such as Shirley Maclaine, Jack Lemmon, Clint Eastwood, and Paul Newman did not qualify as nominees for the list. The list is thus heavily weighted toward actors of Classical Hollywood cinema, and many more recent stars are not included. Of the 50 stars listed below, only Kirk Douglas, Sidney Poitier, Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley Temple, Lauren Bacall and Sophia Loren are still alive, as of 2008. At the time that the list was compiled, Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck and Katharine Hepburn were also living. James Dean is the only actor in the list whose career started after 1950.

	Men	Women
1.	Humphrey Bogart	Katharine Hepburn
2.	Cary Grant	Bette Davis
3.	James Stewart	Audrey Hepburn
4.	Marlon Brando	Ingrid Bergman
5.	Fred Astaire	Greta Garbo
6.	Henry Fonda	Marilyn Monroe
7.	Clark Gable	Elizabeth Taylor
8.	James Cagney	Judy Garland
9.	Spencer Tracy	Marlene Dietrich
10.	Charles Chaplin	Joan Crawford
11.	Gary Cooper	Barbara Stanwyck
12.	Gregory Peck	Claudette Colbert
13.	John Wayne	Grace Kelly
14.	Laurence Olivier	Ginger Rogers
15.	Gene Kelly	Mae West
16.	Orson Welles	Vivien Leigh
17.	Kirk Douglas	Lillian Gish
18.	James Dean	Shirley Temple
19.	Burt Lancaster	Rita Hayworth
20.	The Marx Brothers	Lauren Bacall
21.	Buster Keaton	Sophia Loren
22.	Sidney Poitier	Jean Harlow
23.	Robert Mitchum	Carole Lombard
24.	Edward G. Robinson	Mary Pickford
25.	William Holden	Ava Gardner

External links and references

• The list of stars at afi.com