Which popular Old Hollywood stars have faded in popularity?

Mary Miles Minter

Burt Lancaster

[quote] Old Hollywood

Define your terms, OP. What years are 'old'.

John Hodiak

Van Johnson

June "Depends" Allyson

Ann Sheridan

Alice Faye

Sonja Henie

[quote] Which popular ..... faded in popularity?

I ignore popular taste. Most movie-goers are sheep.

R3 1930’s through 1960’s

Joan Crawford and Lana Turner

This list has "Legendary Old Hollywood Actors" rather than " popular Old Hollywood stars"

Douglas Fairbanks and Rex Harrison

Me, of course! I won a Tony in 1949.

Marlon Brando and I had a liaison in the dressing room at the Tony ceremony.

Ava Gardner

Gary Cooper

Janet Gaynor, Nelson Eddy, Charles Farrell, Barry Fitzgerald - pretty much most of the classic era actors are mostly forgotten these days. But not by ME!

Oh, R13. You are a true devotee!

Let their names never be forgotten.

Zaau Pitts.

Estelle Winwood

Marie Dressler

June Allyson

Norma Shearer

Kay Francis

Charles Farrell

Fredric March

Joel McCrea

Constance Bennett

Miriam Hopkins

George Raft

Deanna Durbin

Gabrielle Carteris.

Kay Francis

Ann Dvorak

Jeannette MacDonald

Helen Twelvetrees

Ruth Chatterton

Wallace Beery

David Manners

Colin Clive

Zita Johann

Garbo.

Dietrich is still very relevant. Her name might not be as famous as it once was but millenials and Gen Z still reference her face, photos, and makeup style. Even if they don’t watch her movies. She’s always on Pinterest and social media as inspiration.

Whereas Garbo is not.

Betty Grable.

John Fuking Wayne

Faye Dunaway

Lauren Bacall

Sondra Locke

with the advent of the internet they all live on

Where is our resident Marie-Dressler-devotee?

Where is our John Payne fanatic? Our Joel McCrea fanboy?

Wallace Reid

Clara Bow

Anita Page

Bessie Love

William S Hart

Francis X Bushman

Theda Bara.

Um, all of them?

R31 Marilyn is the only who’s maintained popularity.

only one*

I think you're right, R32.

R34 Actually I think a few others have. Like Audrey Hepburn and Paul Newman. But Marilyn is far above them obviously.

Miriam Hopkins.

Celeste Holm.

Faye Dunaway.

Lillian Gish.

Miss Crawford is still remembered in certain circles, thanks to that dreadful film.

Merle Oberon

KiNG VIDOR !!!

[quote] Merle Oberon

I'm not convinced that audiences liked Estelle.

She was pushed into starring roles by Goldwyn and Korda. She didn't have a contract in the early 50s and then she was forced to marry millionaires to finance her.

R20, Colin Clive will never fade into obscurity not because he uttered the classic line "It's Alive..." in Frankenstein, and he was also Henry Frankenstein in Bride of Frankenstein. And for what it's worth, the classic horror movies of the thirties are probably watched a lot more often than many other films of the era. Same for Manners and Johan. People may not know them by name, but every time Dracula and The Mummy are viewed, these two old timers get some exposure.

But what else did Colin Clive do?

Was he handsome underneath the melodrama?

Lilyan Taschman

Elissa Landi

Paul Lukas

Charlotte Henry

Ricardo Cortez

Jack Holt

Lee Tracy

Preston Foster

Elizabeth Allen

Jean Peters

R41, he actually did a lot of other good work, including Christopher Strong with Kate. As.far as his looks, that's a matter of.taste. But Jane Wyatt.worked with him on One More River(another outstanding film) in which he played a sado masochist.. Wyatt commented on how macho and handsome Clive was on the set compared to leading man Frank Lawton. So apparently he had something going for him.

An outstanding biography of the actor was released last year.

[quote] Frank Lawton

He looked boyish and feckless until he reached his 40s.

He made no impression in La-La-Land so he returned home and took those roles rejected by John Mills.

His only high-quality film was the excellent 'Winslow Boy'

Sessue Hayakawa

From wiki:

[quote] He was one of the most popular stars in Hollywood during the silent film era of the 1910s and early 1920s. Hayakawa was the first actor of Asian descent to achieve stardom as a leading man in the United States and Europe. His "broodingly handsome" good looks and typecasting as a sexually dominant villain made him a heartthrob among American women during a time of racial discrimination, and he became one of the first male sex symbols of Hollywood.

Delilah-Judith

[quote] Delilah-Judith

I've never heard of this person. Are they like 'Terry-Thomas'?

Barbra Streisand. Sally Field.

Oh, look. George his discarded his old pair of shorts with no elastic and now wearing proper shorts with elastic

R30 I’m going to dispute Theda Bara. While she may not be known anymore, her photos are still popular.

Just as I said about Dietrich in this thread, it’s not uncommon to see Theda Bara pop up on Pinterest. Her photos were very much of the Tumblr era.

So while it’s unlikely younger people know her name, the tumblr generation would recognize her face.

R40 I’m young and I associate “it’s alive” with Gene Wilder cause of “Young Frankenstein” lol

Mary Miles Minter's mother was a motherfucking moose.

Luise Rainer.

Jeff Bridges

Meryl Streep

Al Pacino

Gene Hackman

Barbara Streisand

Liza Minnelli

Robert Redford

June Haver

Linda Darnell

Though Gene Tierney is remembered, if only for LAURA.

Grable is the standard for faded stars. She was the biggest Hollywood star of the '40s, though very few of her movies have aged well. She died only in her 50s in 1973, right when the "nostalgia" boom was in full flower. She is never included in todays lists of "The Great Movie Stars".

Grable is known today only from her over the shoulder pin-up photo.

Alice Faye was once the Queen of 20th Century Fox, back in the late '30s, early '40s, and was frequently paired with Tyrone Power and Don Ameche (another one whose star has faded over time). She was such a bankable star that Fox put her in film after film knowing she'll draw in the crowds no matter how lousy the script.

This popularity, however, would not last. Nipping at her heels was that other blonde musical star at Fox, Betty Grable, whose fame would eclipse hers by the end of the decade. Betty would replace Alice in "Down Argentine Way" (1940) after Alice became ill and could not do the picture. The film made Grable a star. The two blondes were then cast as sisters in "Tin Pan Alley" (also 1940), and the press had a field day reporting on alleged friction and animosity between the two stars.