WETA, one of our three local PBS stations, has gotten into the lovely habit of showing old movies on Saturday nights. This week we got Houseboat, starring Cary Grant and Sophia Loren. The movie, which I had seen the second half of many years ago, takes place in Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia and features a great scene of a floating band shell on the Potomac and fancily-dressed concert-goers sitting on the Watergate Steps.

Houseboat was my first exposure to Loren, despite the fact that in my final semester of grad school, I took a class on women in film (1910-1960). In it, I was introduced to a number of great films and wonderful actors, but Loren seems to have appeared in films mostly outside the date scope of the class.

This made me curious: what other great film stars have I missed out on?

I consulted the AFI’s list of 50 top stars and made notations of who was missing: Henry Fonda, James Cagney, Charlie Chaplin, John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, James Dean, Robert Mitchum, William Holden, Rita Hayworth, and Ava Gardner. They’ve all eluded my list. (more…)