1. Spencer Tracy
He's got it all: a beautiful/ugly face, capable of rage and tenderness, moves
from comedy to heartbreak in a breath, a manly man with a big bear's soul.
2. Amitabh Bachchan
India's number one Bollywood hero, who started off as a white-suited action hero and matured with his audience. suave, long-limbed, always unflappable and still going strong.
3. Laurel and Hardy
I know, there are two of them but they always count as one. The best ever comic
team who make me laugh and weep in equal measure.
4. Louis Armstrong
Yes, we know he has got the best voice and makes magic on the trumpet but he has acted too. His version of Dream a Little Dream is what I think heaven sounds like.
5. Woody Allen
No one has made neuroses funnier, and every time I watch one of his films I
feel I'm in an Indian family. We have so much in common: mothers, guilt,
food, marrying nice doctors. I hope he reads this. I would pay him if he
ever wanted to work with me.
6. Nargis
Now some of you may not know her but she is the best actress India has ever
produced. Luminously beautiful, achingly truthful, died tragically young and
brought dignity and strength to the Indian woman on screen.
7. Sidney Poitier
Being a fabulous actor was one talent, surviving with dignity in Hollywood as
a black performer was quite another. Shame on the industry that he was not
given the range of roles he should have played.
8. Homer Simpson
Yes, he is a cartoon but the fat yellow guy and his family say more about life
than a lot of other programmes do using human beings.
9. Meryl Streep
Not conventionally beautiful, not a stick insect with fluff for brains, is a
mother of four as well. How does she do it? Shame Hollywood cannot come up with decent work for women over 40, just when they are at their most vibrant too.
10. Dame Judi Dench
A woman who is all woman, no face lifts or girdles here. She is earthy and
truthful and the kind of female who ought to be on screen reminding everyone
what real women are really like.
