Known for: The Fly , Beetlejuice and Thelma, and Louise
Net worth: $30 million
With wide dimpled smiles framed by tussles of curly locks and a sweet-as-pie nature on top, Geena Davis was the sweetheart of Eighties and Nineties cinema. She studied drama at the university, as she always wanted to be a movie star. After graduating, she became a fashion model. It was a perfect fit. With her beautiful face and stature that measures a full six feet in height, Victoria Secret was very happy to take her on as a model. It was lucky too. Tootsie Director Sydney Pollack, thumbing through pages of new models, discovered Davis. After the big break, she scored big roles in smash hits like Fletch and The Fly .
It’s hard to say whether Davis is more iconic in her Oscar-nominated roles of Beetlejuice or in Thelma and Louise. The Accidental Tourist won her an Academy Award for Best Actress. And, not to be forgotten, is A League of Their Own. A “10” on the adorable meter. Geena Davis has been a serious advocate of gender equality and female empowerment. She is the founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in the Media. It collaborates with the Industry to increase positivity in female character roles and to reduce old stereotypes.
Gena Rowlands
Known for: A Woman Under the Influence
Net worth: $10 million
Gena Rowlands made her stage debut in 1952 touring with The Seven Year Itch . Moving on up, she starred with Paul Stewart in the TV series Top Secret which ran for a year in the mid-1950s. She found her film debut in The High Cost of Loving (1958).
After various TV parts including The Alfred Hitchcock Hour , she nabbed a role as a socialite on ABC’s Primetime soap opera, Peyton Place . The bulk of her work happened alongside her husband, actor and director John Cassavetes. They created ten films together, from A Child is Waiting in 1963 to Tempest in 1982. Notably, Rowlands’ performance in their film A Woman Under the Influence is one of the greatest performances of all time. Her later career includes a Woody Allen movie called Another Woman and role-playing the former first lady in The Betty Ford Story .
Lee Grant
Known for: In the Heat of the Night and Shampoo
Net worth: $15 million
Before she was blacklisted from Hollywood in 1952 for refusing to testify against her husband, Lee Grant was a rising star. In 1951, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Detective Story starring Kirk Douglas and Eleanor Parker. The film also got her recognized at Cannes, winning the Best Actress Award at the 1952 film festival. The blacklist lasted 10 years. Returning to film, she starred in Valley of the Dolls , Shampoo , and In the Heat of the Night . On TV, she appeared regularly on Peyton Place . On stage, her performance in The Maids won her an Obie Award, and on the big screen, she won her first Oscar for her performance in Shampoo .
Grant started as a ballerina and stage performer. Most recently, she starred in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Politically, she was probably a little less vocal after delivering an impassioned eulogy in 1952 for J. Edward Bromberg whose sudden death, she suggested, was caused by the stress of being called to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. They called her next.
Susannah York
Known for: They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Net worth: $20 million
Susannah York was an English stage and film star who made it big in Hollywood during the 1960s. She’s known for her demure yet sensually inclined persona of the Swinging Sixties. Her remarkable performance in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? earned her a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and a nomination for an Oscar. In Images , she won the 1972 Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress.
York starred in the Oscar-winning film Tom Jones in 1973. She played Superman’s mother in Superman and its sequels. She was respected for breaking out of her 1960s mold with her later career. The well-loved actress was politically liberal and spoke out against nuclear proliferation. York died of multiple myeloma in 2011, she was 72.
Molly Ringwald
Known for: Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club
Net worth: $11 million
“Brat Pack” high priestess, Molly Ringwald, is an ’80s teen icon who is known for her extensive work with John Hughes, the director of epic Gen X films such as Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club . Ringwald starred in both films. She was the birthday girl in the former and the lead “cool” chick in the latter.
Writing for the New Yorker, Ringwald described the film saying, The Breakfast Club is “a movie about five high-school students who befriend one another during a Saturday detention session, with plenty of cursing, sex talk, and a now-famous scene of the students smoking pot.” She goes on to describe how awkward it was to view the film with her coming-of-age daughter, especially the scene in which her character smokes pot for the first time. She wasn’t the only pot-smoker. The all-star cast included Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, and Anthony Michael Hall. Today she’s the mother of Archie on the CW series Riverdale, and prior to becoming the queen of teen, she starred on the 1970s hit TV series The Facts of Life.