Cogerson – PhilHOF17’s comment and list was so awesome ….we decided to share his comment via our daily post.
Hi AFI Revisionist Gang,
Lots of interesting lists of peoples’ favorite actors. I’ll be working on mine, but before we leave off the original topic of this page, I thought it would be interesting to have a consolidated ranking of the top classic male stars based on all the lists in the chart above. Hence, I have assigned weighted scores to all the stars above by allotting points to each actor on the following basis: if someone ranked the actor as first, the actor received 25 points; if someone ranked the actor as #2, the actor received 24 points…and so on, up to one point for a #25 ranking. As Steve did not provide us with a ranking for his selection, I was not quite sure what weight to place on the actors on his list. Arbitrarily, I just gave every-one on his list 3 points. I have included the AFI ranking in this exercise, but Joel’s scores were excluded as I think it has been mentioned that he is maybe using very different criteria than the rest due to his odd exclusions of John Wayne, Marlon Brando and Gary Cooper (also, as Joel no longer exists, he is not able to complain about being excluded – sorry Joel).
The resulting list contains 31 actors plus the Marx Bros, as the rest had relatively negligible scores. I have indicated the number of points calculated for each actor, so that someone may want to check my math in case I made a mistake.
So this is now the ultimate Classic Male Legend list, the one that brings together the ones from AFI, Bob, Bob Cox, Flora, Steve, Bruce/UMR and myself. Again, these lists were not supposed to represent our favorite actors, but those that we objectively feel are the greatest film legends who began their careers by 1950 at the latest (as per the AFI cut-off date). If others wish to provide their own lists, this consolidated ranking can of course be revised.
1. Cary Grant (143)
2. Humphrey Bogart and James Stewart (tied at 141)
4. John Wayne (120)
5. Clark Gable (119)
6. Marlon Brando and Gary Cooper (tied at 104)
8. Gregory Peck (97)
9. Spencer Tracy (90)
10. Fred Astaire (83)
11. Charlie Chaplin (80)
12. Henry Fonda (77)
13. James Cagney (58)
14. Laurence Olivier (54)
15. Burt Lancaster (49)
16. Bing Crosby (45)
17. Gene Kelly and Errol Flynn (tied at 35)
19. Kirk Douglas (33)
20. Bob Hope (30)
21. William Holden, Robert Mitchum and Tyrone Power (tied at 29)
24. Frank Sinatra (27)
25. Charlton Heston and William Powell (tied at 26)
27. Buster Keaton (25)
28. Sidney Poitier (23)
29. Richard Burton (22)
30. Fredrich March (20)
31. James Dean and The Marx Brothers (tied at 18)
PhilHOF17
Hi Bruce,
That is extremely cool how you created a page out of that list. Very well done, with the Cary Grant collage, and Welles and Robinson sitting together, smiling, apparently oblivious to the fact that they didn’t make the list. Unfortunately, upon reading your comment, I realized that I forgot about Welles. He actually had 19 points, which would put him at #31, ahead of James Dean and the Marx Bros. If we wanted to include a few a little bit lower down, the next spot would be for Douglas Fairbanks Sr with 9 points, and then Robinson tied with Richard Widmark at 8 points. This may be worth doing to avoid an AFI legend feeling left out, and given that the top 3 commenters on this site (next to you) are die-hard Widmark fans. So then, it would be a top 35 list with the last spots being:
31. Orson Welles (19 points)
32. James Dean and the Marx Brothers (tied at 18 points)
33. Douglas Fairbank Sr. (9 points)
34. Edward G. Robinson and Richard Widmark (tied at 8 points)
Thank you Phil for putting g together this comprehensive UMR Commentator legends list. This was a lot of work. Thanks Cogerson for sharing Phil’s chart about OUR legends list.
Very nicely done PhilHoF17….you are proving why you are a member of our Hall of Fame. I like how you put this together….and the list looks pretty good to me. Funny line about Joel…..as you say he can not complain…lol.
When looking at the Top 25….19 or 78% of the AFI list is included…..with Keaton, Poitier, Dean and Marx Brothers in the Top 31….only leaving out two of the AFI legends….Edward G. Robinson and Orson Welles…..I guess Orson, Edward and Joel can got to the same bar in heaven and talk about how they get no respect…lol.
Cary Grant on the Top works for me…..though his lack of Oscar wins and few nominations leave those opposed to the rankings….a great place to start arguing against his ranking.
All of these lists are making me feel I need to make a page versus a post……as well as a way to get all the information in an easy to read format.
Once again…..thanks for doing this…..it is greatly appreciated….and lots of fun to dissect and study. A big round of applause for you.
Awesome, thanks PhilHoF17, no problems with any of the top 32. I understand each and every inclusion. some for bringing laughter, some for singing, some for dancing, some for long life, some for short life, some for acting, some for being silent. all for enriching our lives through the movies. yea Cogerson, yea UMR, yea WoC, yea PhilHoF17, yea Steve, yea Bob, yea Flora, yea AFI, yea all UMR contributors. thanks so very much, bob cox.