Marilyn Monroe
You simply can not begin a list of the sexiest film stars without putting Marilyn at the top. Even if you personally do not think she is sexy, she belongs at the top due to her staying power.
Marilyn was born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, California.
For years, she was typecast as the dumb blonde, which parlayed into a dozen films that carried her to stardom. In 1957, she co-starred with Lawrence Olivier in The Prince and the Showgirl, which Olivier also produced. She received a much-deserved Golden Globe award for her performance in Some Like it Hot in 1959. Her final film matched her with Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift in The Misfits. Her husband at the time, Arthur Miller, wrote the screenplay.
Marilyn passed away from an overdose of barbiturates on August 5, 1962, in Los Angeles.
Carrol Baker
Carroll was born on May 28, 1931, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. She will always be remembered for her role in Baby Doll (1956), which brought her instant fame and a nomination for an Academy Award. She brought a Southern drawl to the screen as well as a timid, yet sexual, persona to the role of a teenage wife of a middle-aged man in Mississippi.
Her next big hit was as a Jean Harlow-type movie star in The Carpetbaggers (1964). She renewed her sexy ways from Baby Doll with a more sophisticated style. The movie was a huge success and was supposedly a new beginning for Carroll after dismal reviews of her recent films. However, her next few films did not perform very well, and she faded away once again.
She stayed active in film and television for 50 years. She ilives in Cathedral City, California.
Jean Peters
Jean was born on October 15, 1926, in Canton, Ohio. While attending Ohio State University, Jean entered the Miss Ohio State Pageant and won the title, which sent her to Hollywood for a screen test.
Her first film was as the female lead opposite of Tyrone Power in Captain From Castile in 1947, which was a huge success. The studios tried to make her a sex symbol with early roles like Pickup on South Street in 1953, but Jean was against that role and turned to roles of women that were more common and unglamorous.
Her first real success was portraying a female pirate captain in Anne of the Indies in 1951. The following year, she joined Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn in Viva Zapata as a common peasant Mexican woman. Brando and Quinn were phenomenal in this film.
Her earlier film, Pickup on South Street, had Jean beating out Marilyn Monroe for the part. In 1953, they would share a film together, Niagara with Joseph Cotton. This time, Marilyn had the bigger part.
In 1954, two films would rekindle the flame of Jean’s success, Apache and Broken Lance. She would receive critical acclaim for her role in Apache. The following year, she married Howard Hughes, the mysterious self-made millionaire who dabbled in producing Hollywood films. She had finished her final film, A Man Called Peter, in 1955.
She did return to acting for several television series in her 50s and 60s. She eventually retired to Carlsbad, California, where died of leukemia on October 13, 2000.
