“…. very interesting book…… if you want to know the biggest movie star in the history, just read this book.” – Laurent
“Bruce Cogerson has written an excellent resource on top movie stars for film lovers. This book is jam packed with statistics on 50 top movie stars on their highest ranked movies by award recognition, top 25 box office hits, critical review scores and overall UMR scores. This takes out bias by personal preference. I have put stars next to my favourite titles and check marks next to other titles I have seen and will use it to keep track of films I love and need to see. This guide will have a treasured spot in my library.” – Flora
Buy The Book On This Amazon Link
Our paperback book is now available for sale. The Amazon link is on the right of the page.
Attention UMR Hall of Fame contributors. We know many of you bought the e-book……we (WoC and I) would like to send you a free copy of this book. Send your address to cogersonmoviescore@gmail.com and we will send you a copy. Thanks for all of your support over the years.
Hey Bruce,
To follow up on my comment yesterday on the Tim Robbins page, I very much enjoyed going through the book and found it a credible, well-presented and very informative ranking of movie stars based on their overall career accomplishments. Of course, as an avid UMR follower and purchaser of the first on-line book of Top 50 to Movie Stars, I am already familiar with many the statistics and the methodology, but I’m glad that with this book, this wealth of information reaches a wider audience. In addition, I think the book is an effective way to capture in a concise and elegant manner the essential elements and approach of UMR in a way that should be interesting to a wide range of movie-goers.
In terms of ranking approach and the key information, I’m not sure that I found a big difference with the first book, although of course I noticed many stars moved up or down, some new ones made the cut while a few ones dropped off, Spencer Tracy replaced James Stewart in first spot, etc. Every-one is of course bound to have their opinions on this, but it looks like you have been fair and consistent in applying your approach. I would, however, be interested to understand how the parameters you selected resulted in a few major changes (i.e. yes, Steve McQueen alarmingly going from #22 to dropping off completely – not even making the top 75 if I understand correctly). Unless I’m missing something, I don’t see that the parameters were that different than the ones in the first book.
Finally, the explanation you provide upfront on how you build your ranking using Bruce Willis as an example (you just had to get him in there somewhere) is quite useful and significantly elaborated as compared to the first book. There’s just one element of the score I’ve never quite grasped, which is the Awards Recognition part of the equation. I get that stars get a certain number of points based on the both the number of awards and nominations their movies received, but I just don’t understand how you add it up. If it’s not too complicated, I would appreciate a more detailed explanation at some point (no hurry).
Thanks again for a wonderful read and a reference book that I’m sure I will continue to consult for a long time to come!
Hey PhilHoF17. Thanks for the kind words about our book. I think it is a fun book to look at…..so far….the selling results have been pretty good. Ok…..so let’s talk about some of the changes from the e-book (like Harry Potter’s Voldemort….that is the book we do not mention by name…lol) to the paperback. When I was putting that e-book together….I was lone wolfing it…..as I was trying to surprise WoC as a Christmas present. Not having my “tech help” had me doing some of the calculations the old fashioned way…..pen, paper and a calculator.
One of the many problems with doing the totals manually and without the help of the database…were some human errors on my point. Another issue was the amount of movies I used kept changing ….at one point I was just using the Top 15 UMR movies, then the Top 24, then the Top 20…..and for the paperback it finally came to a rest at the Top 25 UMR movies. McQueen’s high ranking had him using one of the lower totals…..when he did the final book……his movies 16 through 25 really hurt his rankings……they have an average UMR score of 51.08….which is not too impressive. Especially compared to his 87.86 average UMR score of his Top 15.
As for the “extra” performance points for awards…..if a thespian won the Golden Globe and Oscars they would earn an additional 10 points (that total is not shown in the current UMR score….but in the original score it was in the total…when we went to being a “dynamic” website…that option had to be dropped. Getting nominations also earned points….for McQueen he had 4 Golden Globe nominations and one Oscar nomination..he did not win…..that earned him an additional only a few extra points….which really hurt him when being compared to these movie legends.
Hope that helps. But once again….thanks for buying the book….you can still get a free copy if you want….especially since you bought the e-book as well. Good stuff.
Hey PhilHoF17, ran out of time before finishing this comment. Here are the points for individual awards.
Oscar nomination 2.50 points
Oscar win 5.00 points
GoldenGlobe nom. 0.65 points
GoldenGlobe win. 1.85 points
So McQueen’s total extra points earned was 5.10 points or about .20 per UMR movie average. Compared to Streep who got over 100 total points and a 2 plus increase to her UMR score average. Now back to work.
Thanks for all the clarifications Bruce. Very interesting and it all makes sense now.
Added some of your thoughts to the top of the page.
UMR Hall of Fame Roll Call – We Are Willing To Buy Our New Book For You. You are listed on page 278 of the book.
Steve Lensman – has the book
Flora – has the book
BERN1960 – has two books
BryRog57 – has the book
Soren – been absent for awhile
Chris – no word on if he wants the book or not
Helakoski – has the book
Laurent – has the book
KTCat95 – has two books
Bob – has the book
SteinHoF16 – has the book
John – Been silent for a couple of years now….not thinking he is going to get book
Dan – no word on if he wants the book or not
Lyle – been absent for awhile
PhilHoF17 – book on the way
Lupino – been absent for awhile
Pierre – been absent for awhile
bob cox – no word on if he wants the book or not
G. Vandross – has autographed copy
Sunshine – has the book
I have purchased book and hope to give it as Christmas presents. I am considering accepting the free copy just to get the autograph of the noteworthy author. great work.
Hey bob cox….I will be happy to send you an autographed book….just send your address to cogersonmoviescore@gmail.com ….and I will get one sent to you. Thanks for buying your first UMR book…it is greatly appreciated.
I like the way you have concentrated on just the top 25 movies in each actor’s career. Total CAREER grosses for example whilst of great importance don’t always tell the whole story. For instance Fonda and Astaire are more or less equal in legendary status on AFI’s lists but as Fred chose to make less than half the films that Hank did [39 to 83] there is no way Fred could ever have matched Hank’s s total gross unless Astaire had been signed for 3 GWTW’s!
Highlighting a star’s Top 25 most popular films as you have done in the book allows performers’ box office pull to be compared over a more level playing field. Also very lengthy lists of grosses might have resulted in newcomers to you work being unable to see the woods for the trees.
Based on each performer’s total gross ONLY for the 25 films listed for him/her in your book, I have ranked against each other MY personal favorite Top 15 stars among the overall 50 artists in the book. I knew I would get a lot of fun and great value for money out of the book given the large number of private stats exercises I conduct for my own amusement! I have hardly put the book down since its arrival. Just look how I have at last been able to wrangle Chuck to the top of a list!
1/Charlton Heston-$6.8 billion “Made it Ma! Top of the world!”
2/Gregory Peck-$6.1
3/James Stewart -$6.1
4/John Wayne-$5.8
5/Marlon Brando-$5.4
5/Morgan Freeman-$5.4
7/Bob Hope-$5.2
8/Humphrey Bogart-$5.1
9/Burt Lancaster-4.9
9/Jack Nicholson-$4.9
11/Michael Caine-$4.8
12/James Cagney-$4.3
13/Doris Day-$3.9
14/Joan Crawford $3.6
15/Denzel Washington $3.0
Hey Bob
1. ” I have hardly put the book down since its arrival.” that makes both me and WoC very happy to hear. Thanks for sharing that information.
2. In hindsight…I think a table that gave final numbers would have been a good addition….so far that is the biggest regret about the book that went out. Comparing career grosses sounds interesting to me. Might have to wait until the next book…lol.
3. Good comparison of Astaire and Fonda…..Fonda had over twice the amount of movies that Freddie did.
4. So Heston and Peck have the top two spots on your list….I find that very interesting…lol.
5. Good stuff as always.