History Short: Who is America’s Greatest Male Actor?

A Brief History

On February 1, 1901, Clark Gable was born in Cadiz, Ohio, and would go on to movie greatness earning the nickname, “The King of Hollywood.” Despite winning 2 Best Actor Academy Awards and being nominated for another pair, Gable was listed as only the 6^th greatest American-born male movie star by the American Film Institute in 1999.

Digging Deeper

The stars listed ahead of Gable are:

Humphrey Bogart, with 1 Academy Award and 3 nominations.
James Stewart, with 1 Academy Award and 5 nominations.
Marlon Brando, with 2 Academy Awards and 8 nominations.
Fred Astaire, with 1 nomination for an Academy Award.
Henry Fonda, with 1 Academy Award and 4 nominations.

Oddly enough, John Wayne, the actor that played more leading man roles than any other, earning 1 Academy Award and being nominated for 3 others, finished lower on the list.

Who would you consider America’s greatest male actor?

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Historical Evidence

For more information, please see…

Charles Rivers Editors. Hollywood’s 10 Greatest Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Marlon Brando, Fred Astaire, Henry Fonda, Clark Gable, James Cagney, Spencer Tracy, and Charlie Chaplin. CreateSpace, 2013.

Harris, Warren. Clark Gable: A Biography. Crown, 2005.

The featured image in this article, a cropped screenshot of Clark Gable from the trailer for the film Gone with the Wind, is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in the United States between 1927 and 1977, inclusive, without a copyright notice. For further explanation, see Commons:Hirtle chart as well as a detailed definition of “publication” for public art.

You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.