Considered by many movie reviewers to be the greatest living film actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 17 times, and has won it three times. Born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, Meryl's early performing ambitions leaned toward the opera....

Born May 12, 1907 in Hartford, Connecticut, she was the daughter of a doctor and a suffragette, both of whom always encouraged her to speak her mind, develop it fully, and exercise her body to its full potential. An athletic tomboy as a child, she was also very close to her brother, Tom, and was devastated at age 14 to find him dead...

Ingrid Bergman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on August 29, 1915. The woman who would be one of the top stars in Hollywood in the 1940s had decided to become an actress after finishing her formal schooling. She had had a taste of acting at age 17 when she played an uncredited role of a girl standing in line in the Swedish film Landskamp in 1932...

Vivian Mary Hartley was born on November 5, 1913, in Darjeeling, India, a strange place for one of the world's most celebrated actresses to be born. She was to live in this beautiful country for the next six years. Her parents wanted to go home to England but because of World War I they opted to stay in India...

Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on April 5, 1908. Her parents divorced when she was 10. Her early interests were in dance. To Bette, dancers led a glamorous life, but then she discovered the stage. She gave up dancing for acting. To her, it presented much more of a challenge...

Olivia Mary de Havilland was born to a British patent attorney and his wife on July 1, 1916, in Tokyo, Japan. Her sister, Joan, later to become famous as Joan Fontaine, was born the following year. Her parents divorced when Olivia was just three years old, and she moved with her mother and sister to Saratoga...

Hepburn was a cosmopolitan from birth as her father was an English banker and her mother a Dutch baroness. In the movies she appeared as a delicate adolescent, a look which remained until her last movie Always directed by Steven Spielberg. Her career as actress began in the English cinema and after having been selected for the Broadway play "Gigi" she debuted in Hollywood in 1953...

Greer Garson, Actress: Mrs. Miniver. Greer Garson was born in London, England, on September 29, 1904. Her childhood was a normal if not non-descript life. Greer showed no early signs of interest in becoming an actress. She was educated at the University of London with the intentions of becoming a teacher. Instead, she opted to work with an advertising agency...