Was wondering where this thread went after I posted...
quote:
Bold move, bioprof. DDL is gone for good now.
and
quote:
Wow. Some DDL non believers. If he wasn't the best on the list, he was solidly in the top half. IMHO
It wasn't so much anti-DDL as not wanting to bump anyone else. It's a pretty elite list, after all. After revisiting this thread, I looked at DDL on IMDB, and he's got an impressive resume. But so do the others. I'm curious about who you'd put him above.
I admit to a bias toward the older guys because a) I'm old myself and b) I figure they've stood the test of time against wave after wave of quality actors. The newer ones might or might not. I thought about many of the names on AGnBCS's list as well as Bogart, plus others like: Lionel Barrymore or Alec Guinness.
To me, to make this list an actor has to be both a great actor and culturally iconic. Bogart is so iconic that
- he's a verb (Don't Bogart that joint my friend)
- you see scripts where characters riff on characters he played. Play it Again Sam is all about Woody Allen's character's relationship with an imaginary Bogart. Brando falls into that group too. Diane Keaton doing Stanley Kowalski in Sleeper is, IMO, a particularly funny example.
John Wayne qualifies on the iconic scale, but isn't in the same league for acting. DDL is a great actor, but not as much of an icon (yet).
Regarding Peter O'Toole
quote:
I'll take the Lion in Winter over Outbreak for 1 million Alex.
Not to mention Lawrence of Arabia