Every person on this list was once a household name, better known in his or her day than Shia LaBeouf or Katherine Heigl is now. Harry Langdon, for example, briefly rivaled Charlie Chaplin as the most popular film comedian in America; and Constance Talmadge was the star of one of D.W. Griffith's biggest films. And yet if you walked down the street today and talked to a thousand people, unless you chanced to bump into a film historian, not one of these faces is recognizable today.
Something to keep in mind as you sacrifice everything to bed the bitch goddess, Fame ...
Mae Marsh Charley Chase Colleen Moore William Haines Mabel Normand Harry Langdon Constance Talmadge
Named for Katie-Bar-The-Door, the Katies are "alternate Oscars"—who should have been nominated, who should have won—but really they're just an excuse to write a history of the movies from the Silent Era to the present day.
To see a list of nominees and winners by decade, as well as links to my essays about them, click the highlighted links:
Remember: There are no wrong answers, only movies you haven't seen yet.
The Silent Oscars
And don't forget to check out the Silent Oscars—my year-by-year choices for best picture, director and all four acting categories for the pre-Oscar years, 1902-1927.
Look at me—Joe College, with a touch of arthritis. Are my eyes really brown? Uh, no, they're green. Would we have the nerve to dive into the icy water and save a person from drowning? That's a key question. I, of course, can't swim, so I never have to face it. Say, haven't you anything better to do than to keep popping in here early every morning and asking a lot of fool questions?