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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.

 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.

Any list of the twentieth century’s finest actors is incomplete without Alec Guinness. Yet it’s a name some might overlook because there was never anything remotely showy — or even particularly magnetic — about him.

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.

In 1962, Bette Davis received her last Best Actress Oscar nomination for the deliciously campy “Whatever Happened To Baby Jane,” and decided to size up her competition. On seeing Lee Remick’s performance as a fresh-faced young woman turned full-blown alcoholic in “Days Of Wine And Roses,” the veteran star, not known for gushing, was heard to say:  “Miss Remick's performance astonished me, and I thought, if I lose the Oscar, it will be to her."

Myrna Loy is one of those stars whose appeal is timeless. Across the decades, her beautiful eyes project a keen intelligence and self-assurance. It was no illusion.

One of the more fascinating aspects of cinema history lies in identifying those films (and filmmakers) whose true quality and contribution only get recognized well after the fact.

The old quip goes that we and our English cousins are separated by a common language, but there's little doubt that the movies have actually brought us together.

Any serious, discriminating film fan should know the work of Elia Kazan, a brilliant director of stage and screen who helped transform acting — and the movies themselves — in the mid-twentieth century.