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Over the decades, our biggest stars and their agents have been forced to navigate yet another fascinating and frustrating aspect of the movie business: which parts to choose.

These pictures remind us of her special radiance, a distinctive, fresh-faced beauty lit from within that required only the bare minimum of make-up.  Impossibly versatile, she could project strength and vulnerability, warmth and remoteness, sexuality and poise.  At a womanly 5’10”, she always made one hell of an entrance, and you always regretted her exits.

It’s a familiar story: a hugely talented performer — actor, comedian, musician- rockets to fame and discovers that their on-stage life is the only time they feel totally happy, totally free.

 He might not like to hear it, but it’s hard to think of anyone who was more of a Hollywood natural than Warren Beatty. He was born Henry Warren Beaty in 1937. He exemplified that old saying: women wanted him, and men wanted to be him. And what made him so appealing what that he wasn't the least bit self-conscious about who he was or what he had.

Amidst all the discussion about the lack of Oscar nominations for African-Americans this year, it seems opportune to consider the one black actor who’s actually won two Academy Awards: Denzel Washington. His enduring career proves that if you create great roles for African-Americans, there will be great actors to play them. The problem in Hollywood is less about recognition of black stars, more about creating roles that command recognition.

I vividly recall seeing Robert Redford on the streets of New York City at the height of his stardom in the early seventies, moving quickly but unfettered by security. I called to him once from across the street (what did I have to lose?). He looked over, waved at me and said: “Hello!” My week was made.

With Halloween approaching, we’re saluting one of the great horror movie icons, Boris Karloff, originator of the Frankenstein monster. Reminding us again of how far removed the illusion of movies can be from reality, Karloff the man was the total opposite of the characters he immortalized on screen.

Over a decade after her death, Katharine Hepburn still holds the record for number of Best Actress Oscar wins. She is in fact the only person ever to have won four Academy Awards in the acting category.

Henry Fonda once confided that the characters he played on-screen bore little resemblance to himself.  Rather, they were who he’d like to be, if he could.