The Sweetest Thing
by peterdi315 | created - 20 Aug 2012 | updated - 25 Aug 2012 | PublicActors and actresses who have played some of the sweetest, most innocent, naive (sometimes wise) and appealing characters. At their best they tug at your heartstrings. All-Time. Alphabetically.
Note; Just beginning.
1. Amy Adams
Actress | Arrival
Amy Lou Adams was born in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy, to American parents, Kathryn (Hicken) and Richard Kent Adams, a U.S. serviceman who was stationed at Caserma Ederle in Italy at the time. She was raised in a Mormon family of seven children in Castle Rock, Colorado, and has English, as well as ...
Giselle (Enchanted)
2. Drew Barrymore
Producer | Charlie's Angels
Since melting audiences' hearts at the tender age of six - in Steven Spielberg's beloved sci-fi blockbuster, E.T. (1982) - Drew Barrymore has emerged as one of the most endearing and talented actresses of her generation. Born in Culver City, California to actors John Drew Barrymore and Jaid ...
Gertie (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestial), Josie Geller (Never Been Kissed), Lucy Whitmore (50 First Dates), Sophie Fisher (Music and Lyrics)
3. Ruby Bentall
Actress | Robin Hood
Ruby Bentall was born on April 3, 1988 in London, England, UK. She is an actress and writer, known for Robin Hood (2010), Lark Rise to Candleford (2008) and Operation Mincemeat (2021).
Minnie (Lark Rise to Candleford)
4. Patrick Breen
Actor | Galaxy Quest
Patrick Breen was born on October 26, 1960 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Galaxy Quest (1999), Men in Black (1997) and Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009). He has been married to Nadine Van der Velde since 1992. They have two children.
Queliek (Galaxy Quest)
5. Chris Burke
Actor | Life Goes On
Chris Burke was born on August 26, 1965 in Point Lookout, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for Life Goes On (1989), Mona Lisa Smile (2003) and Heaven & Hell: North & South, Book III (1994).
Corky (Life Goes On)
6. Spring Byington
Actress | You Can't Take It with You
The possessor of one of Hollywood's gentlest faces and warmest voices, and about as sweet as Tupelo honey both on-and-off camera, character actress Spring Byington was seldom called upon to play callous or unsympathetic (she did once play a half-crazed housekeeper in Dragonwyck (1946)). Although ...
Lily Ruskin (December Bride)
7. Enrico Colantoni
Actor | Veronica Mars
Enrico Colantoni was born on February 14, 1963 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is an actor and producer, known for Veronica Mars (2004), Galaxy Quest (1999) and Contagion (2011). He has been married to Rosanna Francioni since November 11, 2011. They have four children. He was previously married to ...
Mathesar (Galaxy Quest)
8. Gary Cooper
Actor | High Noon
Born to Alice Cooper and Charles Cooper. Gary attended school at Dunstable school England, Helena Montana and Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa (then called Iowa College). His first stage experience was during high school and college. Afterwards, he worked as an extra for one year before getting a ...
Longfellow Deeds (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town), John Doe (Meet John Doe), Prof Bertram Potts (Ball of Fire), Melody Jones (Along Came Jones)
9. Claire Danes
Actress | My So-Called Life
New Yorker Claire Catherine Danes was born in Manhattan, the daughter of Carla (Hall), a day-care provider and artist, and Christopher Danes, a computer consultant and photographer. She has an older brother, Asa. Her paternal grandfather, Gibson Andrew Danes, was a Dean of the Yale School of Art ...
Yvaine (Stardust)
10. Harry Davenport
Actor | Gone with the Wind
Character fame on film came quite late for long-time stage actor Harry Davenport at age 70, but he made up for lost time in very quick fashion with well over a hundred film roles registered from the advent of sound to the time of his death in 1949. Beloved for his twinkle-eyed avuncular and/or ...
Old John (The Enchanted Forest)
11. Olivia de Havilland
Actress | Gone with the Wind
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916 in Tokyo, Japan to British parents, Lilian Augusta (Ruse), a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, an English professor and patent attorney. Her sister Joan, later to become famous as Joan Fontaine, was born the following year. Her ...
Melanie (Gone with the Wind)
12. Johnny Depp
Actor | Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II was born on June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Betty Sue Palmer (née Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, a civil engineer. He was raised in Florida. He dropped out of school when he was 15, and fronted a series of music-garage bands, including one ...
Edward Scissorhands, Sam (Benny and Joon)
13. Leonardo DiCaprio
Actor | Inception
Few actors in the world have had a career quite as diverse as Leonardo DiCaprio's. DiCaprio has gone from relatively humble beginnings, as a supporting cast member of the sitcom Growing Pains (1985) and low budget horror movies, such as Critters 3 (1991), to a major teenage heartthrob in the 1990s,...
Arnie Grape (What's Eating Gilbert Grape)
14. Georgia Engel
Actress | Everybody Loves Raymond
Georgia Engel was born on July 28, 1948 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. She was an actress, known for Everybody Loves Raymond (1996), The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) and Open Season (2006). She died on April 12, 2019 in Princeton, New Jersey, USA.
Georgette (Mary Tyler Moore)
15. Henry Fonda
Actor | 12 Angry Men
This remarkable, soft-spoken American began in films as a diffident juvenile. With passing years, he matured into a star character actor who exemplified not only integrity and strength, but an ideal of the common man fighting against social injustice and oppression. He was born in Grand Island, ...
Charles (The Lady Eve), Lt. "Doug" Roberts (Mr. Roberts)
16. Mel Gibson
Actor | Braveheart
Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson was born January 3, 1956 in Peekskill, New York, USA, as the sixth of eleven children of Hutton Gibson, a railroad brakeman, and Anne Patricia (Reilly) Gibson (who died in December of 1990). His mother was Irish, from County Longford, while his American-born father is ...
Tim
17. Edmund Gwenn
Actor | Miracle on 34th Street
There are very few character actors from the 1930s, '40s or '50s who rose to the rank of stardom. Only a rare man or woman reached the level of renown and admiration, and had enough audience appeal, to be the first name in a cast's billing, a name that got marquee posting. Charles Coburn comes to ...
Kris Kringle (Miracle on 34th Street)
18. Jack Haley
Actor | The Wizard of Oz
Jack Haley was a movie and vaudeville actor who is always remembered as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (1939). The Tin Man role was originally was going to Buddy Ebsen, but due to allergic reaction from the aluminum powder makeup, Ebsen was taken out of the casting and Haley replaced him. To avoid...
The Tin Man (The Wizard of Oz)
19. Tom Hanks
Producer | Cast Away
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, to Janet Marylyn (Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook. His mother's family, originally surnamed "Fraga", was entirely Portuguese, while his father was of mostly English ancestry. Tom grew up in what he has ...
Forest Gump
20. Audrey Hepburn
Actress | Breakfast at Tiffany's
Audrey Hepburn was born as Audrey Kathleen Ruston on May 4, 1929 in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium. Her mother, Baroness Ella Van Heemstra, was a Dutch noblewoman, while her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, was born in Úzice, Bohemia, to English and Austrian parents.
After her parents' divorce, ...
Princess Ann (Roman Holiday), Ariane Chavasse (Love in the Afternoon), Rima (Green Mansions)
21. Carol Kane
Actress | The Princess Bride
American stage, screen and television actress, and comedian Carol Kane (b. Carolyn Laurie Kane, June 18, 1952, in Cleveland, Ohio), was born to Elaine Joy (née Fetterman), a jazz singer and pianist, and Michael Myron Kane, an architect. Her family is Jewish (from Russia, Poland, and Austria). Due ...
Simka (Taxi)
22. Rob Lowe
Actor | St. Elmo's Fire
Rob Lowe was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, to Barbara Lynn (Hepler), a schoolteacher, and Charles Davis Lowe, a lawyer. His brother is actor Chad Lowe. He has German, as well as English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh ancestry. Lowe's family moved to Dayton, Ohio, when he was a child. Rob broke ...
Rory (Square Dance)
23. Harpo Marx
Actor | A Night at the Opera
With poofy, curly red hair, a top hat and a horn, the lovable mute was the favorite of the Marx Brothers. Though chasing women was a favorite routine of his in the movies, Harpo was a devoted father and husband. He adopted the mute routine in vaudeville and carried it over to the films. Harpo was ...
Harpo (The Cocoanuts, etc.)
24. Chuck McCann
Actor | DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp
A third-generation performer and the son of a singing band leader, Chuck McCann was already a show business veteran by age eleven. Born in Brooklyn, he began his career as a child actor on radio, and by the age of nineteen had appeared on The Steve Allen Show (1952). He performed on several ...
Spiros (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter)
25. Sophie McShera
Actress | Cinderella
Sophie McShera was born on May 17, 1985 in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Cinderella (2015), Downton Abbey (2010) and Galavant (2015).
Daisy (Downton Abbey)
26. Yvette Mimieux
Actress | The Time Machine
An intelligent, slender leading lady of the 1960s and 70s, Yvette Carmen Mimieux was born in Hollywood, California, to Maria (Montemayor) and René Mimieux, an occasional movie extra. Her father was born in England, of French and German descent, and her mother was Mexican. While she was first ...
Clara (Light in the Piazza)
27. Marilyn Monroe
Actress | Some Like It Hot
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, comedienne, singer, and model. She became one of the world's most enduring iconic figures and is remembered both for her winsome embodiment of the Hollywood sex symbol and her tragic personal and professional struggles within the film industry. Her life and ...
Cherie (Bus Stop)
28. Debra Paget
Actress | The Ten Commandments
An acting career was always in the cards for Debra Paget (nee Debralee Griffin) and her siblings, coming from a show biz family and being the offspring of a "stage mother" anxious to get her kids into the movies. Paget's sister Teala Loring got her movie breaks in the 1940s, Lisa Gaye was a film ...
Sonseeahray (Broken Arrow)
29. Missi Pyle
Actress | Galaxy Quest
Missi Pyle was born Andrea Kay Pyle on November 16, 1972 in Houston, Texas, and was raised in Memphis, Tennessee. The daughter of Linda and Frank Pyle, she has four older siblings, sisters Debbie and Julie, and brothers Sam and Paul. Pyle attended the North Carolina School of the Arts and graduated...
Laliari (Galaxy Quest)
30. James Stewart
Actor | Vertigo
James Maitland Stewart was born on May 20, 1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, to Elizabeth Ruth (Johnson) and Alexander Maitland Stewart, who owned a hardware store. He was of Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and some English descent. Stewart was educated at a local prep school, Mercersburg Academy, where he ...
Jefferson Smith (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington), George Bailey (It's a Wonderful Life), Elwood P. Dowd (Harvey)
31. Henry Travers
Actor | It's a Wonderful Life
British-born Henry Travers was a veteran of the English stage before emigrating to the U.S. in 1917. He gained more stage experience there on Broadway working with the Theatre Guild, and began his long film career with Reunion in Vienna (1933). Travers' kindly, grandfatherly demeanor became ...
Clarence (It's a Wonderful Life)
32. Betty White
Actress | The Proposal
Betty White was born in Oak Park, Illinois, to Christine Tess (Cachikis), a homemaker, and Horace Logan White, a lighting company executive for the Crouse-Hinds Electric Company. She was of Danish, Greek, English, and Welsh descent.
Although she was best known as the devious Sue Ann Nivens on the ...
Rose Nylund (Golden Girls)
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