Variety Names 50 Game-Changers From 115 Years of Covering Entertainment

In the past 115 years, there have been many game-changers, people whose creativity and hard work had a lasting influence. It’s impossible to name all of them, but editors of Variety have compiled a list of 50 individuals (or small groups in a few cases) who both altered the status quo and forced the industry to think differently about everything from artistic choices to business practices, diversity and inclusion to developing new forms of entertainment. They opened the minds of colleagues and opened doors to others. We sought to highlight a mix of people whose contributions have been well chronicled with those who have been less heralded but were highly influential in their time.

Pedro Almódovar (Born 1949)
Homosexuality was illegal in Almódovar’s home country of Spain until 1979, so the titles from the maestro’s early filmography speak volumes about his courage and outspokenness: “The Fall of Sodom” (1975) and “Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Tim” (1978) weren’t just underground sensations, they were declarations of a war that, luckily for his global fanbase, the provocateur won. By 1987, Almódovar had moved his defiant, joyous LGBTQ vision onto the world cinema stage, scoring the Teddy prize, the Berlinale’s first-ever award for queer cinema, with “Law of Desire.” Within a year, Almódovar’s journey from cult film outlaw to world-acclaimed cinema maestro was complete and he garnered his first Oscar nomination for the seriocomedy masterpiece “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.” In 1988, less than a decade after Spain repealed its anti-gay statutes, Variety described Almódovar’s heady cinematic brew: “Success of pix ‘Labyrinth of Passions,’ ‘Dark Habits,’ ‘What Have I Done to Deserve This?’ and ‘Matador’ was partly because they were outrageous sendups of local fauna: the Catholic church, the goody-goodies, the faithful housewife, the gay crowd.” Oscar wins in 1999 for “All About My Mother” and in 2002 for “Talk to Her” cemented Almódovar’s reputation as a global art cinema icon and inspired a generation of gay film artists around the world who benefitted from his powerful combo of social-political fearlessness and humanistic storytelling.
Louis Armstrong (1901-1971)
In 1971, Variety wrote Armstrong “will probably go down in history as the chief exponent of jazz — instrumental and vocal. The gravel-throated, silver-lipped musician had a style no one ever was able to emulate, though many have tried.” Armstrong, nicknamed Satchmo, learned music as a young street performer in New Orleans, then he began working professionally. He moved to Chicago, where he abandoned the cornet and started playing trumpet, “exerting such influence his name became synonymous with jazz,” Variety said. He eventually made more than 1,000 recordings and performed on radio, helping to pioneer the role of soloists in jazz, which previously had emphasized combo work. With his charisma and unique talents, he had big crossover appeal, appearing in multiple TV variety shows and movies (e.g., the 1956 “High Society”). He also performed in Europe regularly starting in the 1930s. Variety said he became an unofficial U.S. goodwill ambassador.
Desi Arnaz (1917-1986) and Lucille Ball (1911-1989)
The real-life couple were as influential off screen in shaping the modern television business as they were beloved on screen as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. As the stars and producers of “I Love Lucy,” Arnaz and Ball invented not only the concept of TV reruns by insisting the show be shot on film in Hollywood rather than performed live in New York, but they also enshrined the three-camera production set-up to capture sitcoms as stage plays. Moreover, the couple was business-savvy enough to make sure they owned the “I Love Lucy” negatives through their Desilu banner. Before those innovations, however, Ball fought courageously against CBS executives who told her that America would never accept the Cuba-born bandleader as her TV husband. In response, Ball and Arnaz organized a cabaret tour of theaters in heartland cities where they played to rave reviews and broke many a house record. On Oct. 15, 1951, “I Love Lucy” debuted on CBS with a pilot produced and financed by Desilu. The rest is showbiz history.
The Beatles
The Fab Four didn’t just lead the British Invasion of the early 1960s, they were a major force in the cultural revolution that expanded the boundaries of youth culture. America was still grieving the assassination of President Kennedy in February 1964 when John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr set ratings records with their appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” The Beatles’ triumph across the pond helped forge the modern rock ’n’ roll industry of world tours and platinum-selling albums and the cottage industry of music superstardom. Not bad for four lads from Liverpool. (Fun fact: The Beatles were named Icons of the Century in Variety’s 100th anniversary poll in 2005).
Chuck Berry (1926-2017)
Today, 65 years after his breakthrough hit, “Maybellene,” a rhythm and blues reimagining of the 1930s Bob Wills country swing hit “Ida Red,” Berry stands as a towering figure in the invention of rock and roll and the global cultural revolution that the music unleashed. Berry’s oeuvre of songs including “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “School Days,” “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Johnny B. Goode” lit up the charts in the 1950s, but their impact resonated far beyond the radio and jukebox play of their day. As John Lennon once famously said: “If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry.’” While the rock revolution was still in its infancy, Variety took Berry’s skillful wordplay and soulful playing and singing seriously, noting in 1955 that “Maybellene” demonstrated that “Chuck Berry is one of the more authentic practitioners of the r&b style and he has a first-rate example of that school in ‘Maybellene.’” By 1956, he was already seen by Variety as “One of the most original cleffers in the rhythm field.”
Kathryn Bigelow (Born 1951)
Bigelow smashed through one of Hollywood’s thickest glass ceilings on March 7, 2010, when she became the first — and so far only — woman to win the Oscar for director. The 2009 Iraq war drama “The Hurt Locker” also won for best picture, but it was the helming breakthrough that made headlines. Bigelow’s triumph came after years of working against gender type as a director who favored action and thrillers. Born near San Francisco, Bigelow studied painting before shifting into filmmaking. Her first major studio movie was 1990’s “Blue Steel,” a psychological thriller starring Jamie Lee Curtis. Other feature helming credits include the cult classic “Point Break” (1991), “Strange Days” (1995), “K-19: The Widowmaker” (2002) and “Zero Dark Thirty” (2012).
Ashley Boone (1938-1994)
Boone was the first person to combine marketing and distribution duties when he was named Fox VP in 1977. Among his initial assignments in that role: handling George Lucas’ “Star Wars,” when many execs thought sci-fi and fantasy were passé. It became the highest-grossing film ever and Boone was promoted in 1979 to distribution-marketing president, the highest-ranking Black ever at a major studio. He set up his own firm, with Lucas as his first client. After that, Variety said, he was “the first Black exec to hold top marketing positions at a number of film companies,” including United Artists, the Ladd Company, Columbia, Lorimar and MGM. He died of cancer in 1994 and Variety quoted Alan Ladd Jr., who had promoted him at Fox. Ladd said Boone’s entry into the all-white Hollywood exec strata “took a lot of hard work, showing how really good he was.”
Charles Chaplin (1889-1977), Mary Pickford (1892-1979), Douglas Fairbanks (1883-1939) and D.W. Griffith (1875-1948)
In 1915, the public fell in love with Chaplin’s Little Tramp character. Pickford starred in a dozen films, and her eventual husband, Fairbanks, made his movie debut, while Griffith directed “The Birth of a Nation.” Griffith’s film was a massive hit that was also decried in its day as shockingly and painfully racist in its depiction of people and events. “Birth of a Nation” helped establish the NAACP as a national force that organized protests against the film. Four years later, Chaplin, Pickford, Fairbanks and Griffith banded together to do something radical: They took charge of their own careers and formed United Artists, which Variety often referred to as “The Big Four.” Hollywood production and distribution companies were growing, developing into the studio system, which locked talent into strict contracts that benefitted the company but not the contract players. The Big Four wanted to control their films’ budgets and creative choices. In September 1919, Variety explained another reason for the formation of UA: distribution. At that point, a two-week run in a big Broadway theater was “unheard of,” said Variety, and longer runs would mean more money for the UA quartet. The Big Four reminded film creatives to take charge of their careers. They also opened the doors for the world of indie filmmaking, offering alternatives to the studio system.
Joan Ganz Cooney (Born 1929)
The mother of “Sesame Street” worked as a newspaper reporter and as a publicist before she joined New York pubcaster WNET-TV as a producer. In the mid1960s, amid concerns about television becoming a “vast wasteland” of banality in primetime, Cooney recognized the need for programming crafted for the needs of children and youth at a turbulent time in the country. In 1968, she founded Children’s Television Workshop (now known as Sesame Workshop) to produce a program with the lofty goal of helping to advance the cognitive development of its toddler target audience. Cooney proved she had an eye for talent in teaming with puppeteer Jim Henson, whose offbeat “Muppet” creations were honed to help the show reach children with humor and fantasy. “Sesame Street” premiered to instant acclaim in 1969 on the noncommercial network then known as National Educational Television. The show’s endurance as a cornerstone of PBS (and HBO since 2016) and adaptability over a half-century has cemented Cooney’s status as one of the most influential women in the history of TV. The Arizona native was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995.
Dorothy Dandridge (1922-1965)
The first Black women to be nominated for lead actress Oscar (in 1955 for “Carmen Jones”), the first Black woman on the cover of Life magazine, she was ahead of her time, when Jim Crow laws oppressed Blacks, even big-name stars such as Dandridge. She was a fighter, and fought the white showbiz establishment for good roles that weren’t servants or “exotic” women. She also was one of the few performers to testify against the powerful gossip magazine Confidential in a famed libel trial. The mag printed a story that had her frolicking naked in the Lake Tahoe woods with a white band leader; she testified that the story couldn’t be true because of local segregation laws. In her posthumously published autobiography, she wrote: “While experiencing what seemed to be a full acceptance, I encountered not-yetness. Whites weren’t quite ready for full acceptance even of me.” In 1999, Halle Berry played Dandridge in a TV movie, closing a circle as Berry later went on to become, in 2002, the first woman of color to actually win an Oscar for lead actress.
Ossie Davis (1917-2005) and Ruby Dee (1922-2014)
The pioneering African-American actors broke ground artistically as their careers heated up after World War II. The couple acted in plays while Davis contiued to write, his art infused with their leftist politics, which led them to the forefront of the postwar civil rights movement (Davis’ 1961 play “Purlie Victorious” dealt with racism and caused some controversy). As their activism picked up steam, they joined with civil rights leaders — the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a close friend and ally — in organizing more protests. The touchstone 1963 March on Washington, which they helped organize, was just the beginning. Davis emceed the event and Dee “gave a freedom reading at the Monument” (according to Variety’s Aug. 29, 1963, coverage). Davis delivered the eulogy at Malcolm X’s funeral. In 2004, the couple were feted with the Kennedy Center Honors. Their commitment to art and politics surely was an inspiration to Spike Lee, who cast the couple in several of his films. The pair continued to be in demand by the theater world and Hollywood, a rare pair that never compromised their principles.
Ava DuVernay (Born 1972)
The word “influencer” is thrown around a lot, often describing people whose main asset is self-promotion. However, DuVernay is a true influencer, using her talent and brains to create works that raise consciousness and that offer opportunities for others. Six years ago, DuVernay was known only to a small number of film lovers for her early work, such as “Middle of Nowhere.” Since the 2014 “Selma,” she has become one of the most recognizable film directors in the world. She is known not just for her films, but also her activism. She works within the system and outside it. For example, “Selma” was for Paramount; for Netflix, she did the Emmy-winning “13th” doc and the miniseries “When They See Us.” Outside, she has Array, a grassroots distribution, arts and advocacy collective focused on films by women and people of color. Her influence — on fellow artists and on audiences — is broad and deep, and will continue in the 21st century.
Esther Eng (1914-1970)
Eng was a Cantonese-American woman who produced and directed films in the 1930s and ’40s and was always open about being a lesbian. Born as Ng Kam-ha in San Francisco, she fell in love with movies, seeing hundreds of them in local cinemas. Her first credit was as co-producer of the 1936 “Heartaches,” filmed in Hollywood. She directed several pics in Hong Kong including “Storm of Envy” and “Ten Thousand Lovers,” and returned to the Bay Area in 1939, distributing Cantonese films. In 1941, a Variety reviewer praised “Golden Gate Girl,” one of the films she directed. Unfortunately, most of her films are lost but scholars hope they will be discovered somewhere. Eng was the focus of a 2013 documentary “Golden Gate Silver Light,” from S. Louisa Wei. The film, distributed by the N.Y.-based Women Make Movies, relied on Eng’s photos. Reviewing the doc on Film Business Asia, Derek Elley said it creates a portrait of a woman for whom “boundaries of race, language, culture and gender did not seem to exist.”
Jane Fonda (born 1937)
In the 21st century, actors frequently speak out about issues. They may not be aware of how much they owe to Fonda, who raised her voice when being outspoken was not only rare — it was dangerous. Fonda protested the Vietnam conflict when that war was still popular, and fought for the rights of women, Native Americans, G.I.s and others. Her bank records were stolen, she was hounded by government agencies and on June 28, 1973, Variety said that she was on Richard M. Nixon’s infamous Enemies List. Two years later, Variety bannered a story, “FBI Fonda Lie Fizzles.” The Dec. 16, 1975, report said the FBI in 1970 had tried to give Variety’s Army Archerd fake evidence that Fonda had threatened the life of Nixon, in order to “cause her embarrassment and detract from her status with the general public.” She filed a civil-rights suit, claiming the government had waged an “organized campaign” to discredit her, according to Variety. Nevertheless, she persisted. The two-time Oscar winner’s production company initiated topical films (“9 to 5,” “Coming Home,” etc.), and she has continued her activism, including 2020 climate-change protests, resulting in her frequent arrests — and supporters’ undying gratitude.
Bob Geldof (Born 1951)
Showbiz folk have a long and proud tradition of fund-raising, but Ireland’s Geldof took it to a whole other level. In 1984, the BBC aired Michael Buerk’s report on a “biblical famine” in Ethiopia. Geldof and Scotland’s Midge Ure created the supergroup Band Aid to record “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” a single that raised millions for famine relief. Geldof then organized Live Aid, with July 13, 1985, concerts at Wembley Stadium London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. It featured an all-star lineup of 70 bands or performers. On July 15, 1985, Variety estimated the global TV audience at 1 billion, saying the event had raised $40 million. Later estimates vary, but they are frequently pegged at 1.5 billion viewers, and $150 million raised. The concerts also inspired other bigscale fund-raisers such as Farm Aid, Comic Relief (both in the U.K. and U.S.) and USA for Africa. The event also led to the U.N.’s term “extreme poverty” as a target for global goals. While reporters and politicians talked about a world crisis, artists actually did something about it.
Whoopi Goldberg (Born 1955)
In person, some stars put up a shield that tells the public not to approach unless asked. Goldberg is the opposite. Fans across the age/race/economic spectrum feel a personal connection to her, as if they’re old pals, even though she’s more accomplished than most of those shielded stars. Since 2007 on ABC’s “The View,” her no-nonsense, plain-speaking approach has sometimes been controversial, but for most of the time, it’s endeared her to fans for life. She defies conventional wisdom in her career, such as following early film stardom with guest work on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” She’s an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) winner, a prolific producer and an activist on a wide array of causes. And she’s been an inspiration for an entire generation of young people who have learned that it’s OK to follow your instincts, it’s OK to push boundaries and it’s OK to be yourself.
Berry Gordy (Born 1929)
Before he was 30, Black recording pioneer Gordy had moved off his hometown Detroit’s car assembly lines and into the record business, courtesy of a song he co-wrote that famously pronounced “The best things in life are free, but you can save them for the birds and bees. I want money.” Before he was 40, Gordy’s creation, Detroit-based Motown Records, was deemed by Variety “one of the most successful indie disk operations in the country” in a page one report about the night Seagram’s chief Edgar M. Bronfman presented Gordy with the Interracial Council for Business Opportunity’s top award for business leadership. That anointing by one of the world’s top captains of industry happened during the tumultuous 1960s, when Black leaders including Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were being gunned down, sports icon Muhammed Ali was facing prison and civil rights protestors were facing firehoses, police dogs and shallow graves. How much did Gordy’s “Hitsville” recording operation change America? The answer is “immeasurably,” and there’s only one word for an American music scene without Gordy’s talent roster of Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, The Marvelettes, Lionel Richie, Gladys Knight, Rick James and Martha Reeves, et al: “unimaginable.”
Billie Holiday (1915-1959)
All the racism, cultural fears, conformity and sexism of 20th century America were no match for the unique vocal prowess and deep, soulful artistry of Holiday. In a 1939 review of the then 24-year-old singer’s show at Café Society in New York City, Variety noted, “There’s no compromise with Miss Holiday’s stuff….” That same year, an explanation of sorts for that remark was provided when Variety reported on the release of Holiday’s landmark recording of “Strange Fruit,” calling the song “a musical anti-lynching campaign,” with Holiday’s “vocals pointedly objecting to southern hangings.” If you’re keeping track, that places Holiday ’s recording of a social protest record nearly 25 years before a guy named Bob Dylan built a career out of such outings. In her short life, Holiday traversed a path from rape survivor to big band vocalist, battling heroin addiction along the way. Though Variety’s first reviews of her talents weren’t raves, within weeks of her 1959 death Variety was reporting there’d soon be a film version of her best-selling autobiography, “Lady Sings the Blues.” The film was eventually made with Diana Ross in 1972, and earned five Oscar noms. In 2020, love for the tragic, magnificent “Lady Day” is greater than ever.
Lena Horne (1917-2010)
As a former Cotton Club chorine of the ’30s who rose to become a color barrierbreaking screen icon in movie musicals of the 1940s, Horne’s was the first Black face many moviegoers ever saw on screen, at least in a non-subservient role. But that didn’t mean she got lead roles, and in the early ’50s she all but quit films, tired of being a glamour queen pushed out for one musical number that could be cut from prints shipped to the South. Her careers in song and on stage allowed her to flourish as a headliner, though, as reflected in Tony and Drama Desk triumphs in the ’80s and Grammy wins into the ’90s. Determined not to coast on her beauty, Horne had the backbone to quit the USO over segregationist policies and honor the troops on her own; later, in the riven ’60s, she took part in the March on Washington and become one of the public faces of the NAACP. Appearing on a “forever” stamp in 2018 is among the least of her honors, but appropriate: Having gone from untouchable Hollywood goddess to a tell-it-like-it-is force of nature, she’s forever on our minds.
Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998)
On Dec. 12, 1951, Variety reported, “RKO is making a rare move for a major distrib in taking on a subtitled pic for U.S. release.” Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” awakened the world to Japanese filmmaking and opened distribution doors to foreign-language films in the post-WWII world. The influential “Rashomon” innovated such techniques as shooting into the sun and offering the then-rare concept of unreliable narrators. (The title entered the mainstream to denote conflicting reports of one incident.) Kurosawa directed 30 films, including 15 starring Toshiro Mifune, starting with 1948 “Drunken Angel.” One of their landmark collaborations was “Seven Samurai,” generally regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, mixing both epic and intimate storytelling. The director excelled in samurai tales such as “Ran” and “Kagemusha,” but also made contempo crime dramas including “Stray Dog” and “High and Low.” George Lucas acknowledged his “Star Wars” debt to Kurosawa’s “The Hidden Fortress.” “Samurai” was remade as “The Magnificent Seven” and Sergio Leone’s “A Fistful of Dollars” was patterned after Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo” (1961).
Sherry Lansing (Born 1944)
Lansing’s path as a movie executive in 1970s Hollywood was not an easy one. The Chicago native worked as a model and actor after graduating from Northwestern University, but after small roles in two movies (1970’s “Loving” and “Rio Lobo”) she turned her attention behind the camera. She joined MGM’s story department in 1973 and was promoted to department head two years later. She was named president of production at 20th Century Fox in 1980 — making her the first woman to earn a president-level title at a major studio. Later in the decade, as an independent producer of such film as “Fatal Attraction” (1987), “The Accused” (1988) and “Black Rain” (1989). In 1992, Lansing achieved another first when she was named chair of Paramount Pictures. She set the standard for female executives in showbiz during her 12-year run which yielded such Oscar-winning blockbusters as “Forrest Gump” (1994), “Braveheart” (1995) and “Titanic” (1997).
Norman Lear (Born 1922)
Television comedy is divided into two distinct eras: before “All in the Family” and after “All in the Family.” Lear was the writer and driving force behind the 1971- 1979 CBS sitcom that paved the way for an earthier and edgier tone in primetime as the Me decade began. “All in the Family” portrayed conservative patriarch Archie Bunker debating the Vietnam war and other hot-button issues with his hippie son-in-law Mike Stivic. The show, adapted from the British format “Man About the House,” depicted a changing country with all its conflicts and racial prejudices. From there, Lear went on to deliver a string of indelible TV comedies that also frequently broke ground: “Maude,” “Good Times,” “Sanford and Son,” “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.” Lear also unabashedly championed liberal causes and First Amendment protections as the founder of advocacy group People for the American Way. The group famously bought at auction a copy of the U.S. Constitution for $8.1 million in 2000 and sent it out on a tour for public viewing.
Bruce Lee (1940-1973)
Lee had one of the briefest and most remarkable careers in film history. He became an international star with the 1973 “Enter the Dragon,” which bowed one month after his death at age 32. Variety reviewer Whitney Williams enthused, “Lee socks over a performance seldom equaled in action (movies).” Born Lee Jung-fan in San Francisco, he became a child performer in Asian films. As a young adult, he created Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid of East and West, of martial arts, philosophy and mysticism. Before Lee, Western awareness of martial arts was limited to vague knowledge of judo and karate. Lee finally achieved his goal of becoming the first Asian global superstar, but didn’t live to see it. His charisma, good looks and dazzling moves ensured him a long legacy. And nearly 50 years after his death, he is a reminder that there is a huge global audience for films starring Asian leading men.
Little Richard (1932-2020)
Perhaps the most startlingly transgressive figure spawned by the early days of rock and roll, singer-songwriter Little Richard was Black, sexual, hilarious and hard-driving. He was outrageously coiffured, provocatively painted and suggestively outrageous. While Patti Page was blandly singing about the joys of “Old Cape Cod,” Little Richard (born Richard Penniman) was lasciviously extolling the virtues of “Tutti Frutti.” From 1955-1956, Little Richard blasted out a barrage of chart hits that have never been matched for their high voltage, other-worldly carnality. The titles “Tutti Frutti,” “Long Tall Sally,” “Slippin’ and Slidin’,” “Rip It Up,” “Ready Teddy,” “She’s Got It” and “The Girl Can’t Help It” tell you everything you need to know about the singer’s world view, which was 100% between the sheets. Lest the reader assume that Little Richard posed no threat to 1956 American social norms, his first appearance on page one of Variety wasn’t for selling records. “Richard (Little Richard) Penniman was taken to jail after local police officers stopped a floor show at a dance. The bandleader and three members of his band were held for taking part in a show consisting of ‘improper posturing.’”
George Lucas (Born 1944)
Is there anyone in the world who doesn’t know “Star Wars”? Lucas will always be recognized as a great storyteller. But he also had a profound effect on work behind the camera. With the 1977 “Star Wars,” he changed visual effects work from miniatures to computers. He also helped develop THX sound and Pixar, which began in 1979 as part of Lucas’ computer division. Lucas parlayed his success with “American Graffiti” (1973) into an amazing deal with Fox. He got 40% of the “Star Wars” profits and retained ownership of the movie sequels and merchandise. His savvy provided a sharp lesson to aspiring moviemakers on how to balance creativity with a business sense. He also demonstrated to the major studios that live-action movies could be a starting point for video games, theme-park attractions, TV animation and merchandise. Before Lucas, the studios were aware that Disney animation had successful merch, but Lucas showed them that it could work with live-action blockbusters. And in addressing Lucas’ influence, special mention should be made of the fact that he has donated billions to charity.
Ida Lupino (1918-1995)
Born in a trunk in London, the daughter of British stage star Stanley Lupino, she had the heritage and the thesping chops to make it to the top of the acting ladder, first in the U.K. and then in Hollywood. By the time she was 25, she was a bona fide big-screen star in America, co-starring opposite the likes of Ronald Colman and Humphrey Bogart and honored by no less than the New York Film Critics Circle as lead actress of 1943 for her role in Vincent Sherman’s “The Hard Way.” Luckily for audiences and women in Hollywood, Lupino wanted more. Her aspirations for better roles and later, opportunities to direct, put her in the cross-hairs of the Hollywood studio bosses, and before she was 30, she was spending more and more time “on suspension” for such offenses as the unpardonable sin of not wanting to star opposite Ronald Reagan. At 31, she changed history by beginning her directing and producing career and challenging the male hierarchy that held 99% of the helming gigs. A decade later, her breakthrough was still rare enough for Variety to note her direction of the hit episodic TV Western “Have Gun, Will Travel,” made Lupino “the first femme to take charge of any TV oater.” She was also the only woman to direct an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” and star in the series.
Madonna (Born 1958)
When Sire Records co-founder Seymour Stein signed Madonna to a record deal in 1982, she was a dirt-poor, 23-year-old club kid with a homemade demo tape for a track (“Everybody”) that became her debut single. By 1984, she was on “American Bandstand” to perform “Holiday,” famously telling host Dick Clark her mission in life: “to rule the world.” And that’s essentially what the Queen of Pop has been doing ever since. Her second album, “Like a Virgin,” dropped in November 1984, and Madonna became one of the most famous female singers on the planet, a purveyor of female sexuality, unafraid to push boundaries. Grammy wins, a combustible and high-profile marriage to Sean Penn that was rich fodder for the tabloids and leading roles in such feature fare as “Dick Tracy” and “Evita” followed. And while Alek Keshishian’s 1991 documentary “Madonna: Truth or Dare” includes a revealing clip in which then-beau Warren Beatty mock’s the star’s insatiable need for attention, Madonna has proven herself a chameleon with staying power, reinventing herself many times over as children’s book author, philanthropist, human-rights activist and even “Esther,” the Hebrew name she adopted during her Kabbalah phase. Madonna has never claimed to be the most talented singer or dancer, but what she’s always had is relentless drive, grit and endless determination.
Marlee Matlin (Born 1965)
On March 31, 1987, Variety reported on the Academy Awards, with Army Archerd writing “The Oscar to Marlee Matlin was one of the most dramatic moments in all of the awards shows we have attended.” He also quoted the show’s producers about her presentation of the Oscar for sound: “It was her idea … she’s a gutsy lady!” That evening captured Matlin. She is a great actress, and one of two people with disabilities ever to win an acting Oscar. She also has a sense of irony about herself and the industry. In Oscar history, more than 60 actors have been nominated for playing a person with disabilities, but only two of them actually had disabilities, Matlin and Harold Russell. Since her burst into stardom, Matlin has worked tirelessly as an actor and activist, championing people with disabilities who are sometimes termed the “invisible minority” in Hollywood’s push for inclusion. She’s making sure they won’t be invisible for long.
Hattie McDaniel (1893-1952)
Oscar winner McDaniel was a Hollywood trailblazer who is remembered with both affection and ambivalence. She started singing on the radio while a teen; she was in her 30s when she came to Hollywood. She won her supporting actress Oscar for “Gone With the Wind” on Feb. 29, 1940. The following day, Variety reported, “Miss McDaniel was given a great ovation when she entered the banquet hall, bedecked in orchids and flashing a smiling recognition of the tribute.” The story omitted the fact that she and her escort were relegated to a small table separate from others. Her acting was universally admired, although she was frequently criticized for playing servants. She always responded that she was happy to be a working actress: “I’d rather play a maid than be one.” In his book “Hattie: The Life of Hattie McDaniel,” Carlton Jackson writes, “She did not start out — as the NAACP did — deliberately to change the system; she changed it by example, rather than by words. Perhaps that feat was her greatest accomplishment.”
Oscar Micheaux (1884-1951)
Micheaux was a one-man studio: He not only wrote, produced and directed his films, he also promoted and distributed them “by personally knocking on theater doors across the country,” Variety reported. In 1926, Variety hailed Micheaux as “the best known and most prolific” Black filmmaker at the time. Among his milestones: the first feature film and the first all-sound movie to spotlight Black talent in front of and behind the camera. He debuted as a writer-director in 1919, adapting his own novel “The Homesteader.” His final film was “The Betrayal” (1948). His films fought to correct Hollywood’s negative stereotypes; he tackled such taboo subjects as judicial and racial prejudice, lynching, poverty and Blacks passing for white. For many years, his films were forgotten; with low budgets, their tech quality wasn’t great, so TV station buyers generally ignored them. And while many of the films are lost, there is a renewed interest in Micheaux, so the search continues.
Lin-Manuel Miranda (Born 1980)
If his creative contributions in Broadway musicals including “Hamilton” and films such as “Moana” wasn’t enough, Miranda has been a driving force to spread the word of theater, diversity and education behind the scenes. After detailing the Latino experience in the Tony-winning “In the Heights,” Miranda revolutionized Broadway with the record-breaking, Pulitzer Prize-winning “Hamilton,” telling the story of our country’s founding fathers — and insisting the roles be played by actors of color. To help disaster relief for Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria, Miranda even returned to the role of Alexander Hamilton for a limited time in 2019 at the University of Puerto Rico, his father’s alma mater, to raise money for disaster relief. Miranda also wanted to make the hot ticket accessible to students; first, the show producers partnered with the Rockefeller Foundation in financing a program to get 11th-graders tickets to matinees. And during lockdown, Miranda made his companion in-school program known as EduHam available for free. When coronavirus shut down the country, Miranda was one of the first big names who sent his project straight to streaming, putting the filmed version of “Hamilton” on Disney Plus, rather than holding it for a theatrical release.
Rita Moreno (Born 1931)
Moreno is one of only 16 people to win EGOT: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. She’s also received the 2004 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the 2013 SAG Life Achievement Award and Kennedy Center Honors in 2015. That’s pretty impressive for an actor whose early career was filled with roles that were “embarrassing.” She made her film debut in 1950. “I call that my dusky maiden period,” she told Variety. “Any character who had dark skin, I got all those parts. I could play a Polynesian, East Indian princess, whatever.” She won an Oscar for 1961’s “West Side Story,” and says, “The character of Anita became my role model after all those years. Anita was a young Hispanic woman with dignity, self-respect and enormous strength.” With works ranging from “The Electric Company” to “Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego” to 2020’s sitcom “One Day at a Time,” she has also inspired young people for decades.
Ryan Murphy (Born 1965)
The writer-producer-director busted open mainstream doors for inclusion on broadcast TV, writing stories about LGBTQ-plus characters and people of color while instructing audiences on the nuances of everything of high school glee clubbers (“Glee”) to trans performers in the 1980s ballroom community (“Pose”). But he’s revived horror anthology series (“American Horror Story”) that has pushed the envelope of storytelling, as well as crime and punishment (“American Crime Story”), disaster (“9-1-1,” “9-1-1: Lone Star”) and rewritten history with an idealist POV (“Hollywood”). And his push for inclusive and inventive storytelling has been rewarded: not only with accolades including 6 Emmy wins, but also with a Netflix deal worth $300 million.
N.W.A.
The California hip-hop crew were not the first rappers to make political waves, nor were they, necessarily, the most eloquent. But the group’s breakthrough 1988 album, “Straight Outta Compton,” not only made “gangsta rap” a household term, it also demonstrated the young musical genre’s potential for productive provocation, setting the stage for the coming showdowns between hip-hop and conservative America that would continue through the 1990s and beyond. Everything about the group — which at the time consisted of Ice Cube, Eazy-E, MC Ren, DJ Yella and Dr. Dre — was calculated to push buttons, but its 1988 incendiary track “Fuck tha Police” actually brought the group to the attention of the FBI, prompted boycotts and even got the group arrested at a Detroit concert. Though the group would disband a few years later, the song continued to be a potent rallying cry for advocates against police violence, one that could still be heard at protests as recently as this past summer. F. Gary Gray directed a big-screen version of their story with the blockbuster “Straight Outta Compton.”
Sidney Poitier (Born 1927)
Every artist hopes to change the world. Sidney Poitier actually did it. A Dec. 11, 1957, Variety article announced his casting in the film “Porgy and Bess.” Poitier said he’d originally turned down the role, due to “the fear that if improperly handled, ‘Porgy and Bess’ could conceivably be, to my mind, injurious to Negroes.” Poitier at that point wasn’t a star, having made only a handful of films. And most actors, especially Black actors in the 1950s, were happy to get any work at all. But his 1957 approach gave a key clue to his entire career. He only played people with integrity, people that you would want to know. His work was a revelation to large segments of the global audience who had never met a Black person. With three big hits in 1967, he was named top box office star of the year, just one of his many accomplishments. He also won the first lead actor Oscar given to a Black and later an Honorary Academy Award. Poitier made a difference. And that’s the greatest thing you can say about any artist, or any human.
Prince (1958-2016)
“My name is Prince, and I am funky,” the Minneapolis-bred superstar sang in the early ’90s, in what counted as a serious understatement for one of the great R&B, pop, rock and, yes, funk talents of all time. You could substitute “feisty” into that statement, too: Prince Rogers Nelson never took to even the hint of compromise, whether it was demanding that he be able to produce himself and generate every sound on his 1978 debut album — when he had only the talent, not the clout, to claim complete auteur status — to his legendary battles with record companies over his master recordings. It wasn’t completely surprising that the man who had just posed in his underwear and teased an androgynous look would get booed off the stage opening for the Who. So what did he do but become an even bigger rock star than that headliner, with the “Purple Rain” film and album, and then proceed to skew back toward R&B perfection. His leaps off speaker stacks in high heels caused him some injury, but he kept on going with the help of a cane. Adopting “slave” sideburns or changing his name to a glyph represented a bold stand for artists’ rights, and elevating women and blurring color boundaries provided an idealist’s vision of a musical Great Society. But his greatest legacy might have been in proving just how effortlessly genius trumps genre.
Shonda Rhimes (Born 1970)
Rhimes had a limited resume as a screenwriter when she moved into showrunning and established herself as a force with the overnight success of ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” in March 2005. Fifteen years later, Rhimes is firmly at the helm of one of the industry’s most prosperous production banners run by a showrunner, Shondaland. Rhimes has become ABC’s modern Aaron Spelling — a producer who has achieved the rare public profile of being directly associated with the brand of her shows. As she built a drama empire at Disney with ABC series such as “Private Practice,” “Scandal,” “How to Get Away With Murder” and “Station 19,” Rhimes blazed a trail in the industry for Black showrunners. She has also opened countless doors for talent from underrepresented backgrounds including star directors Ava DuVernay and Regina King. In 2017, Rhimes rocked the industry by relocating to Netflix with a nine-figure production pact that set off a frenzy of megabucks pacts for A-list showrunners.
Paul Robeson (1898-1976)
One of the most accomplished popular singers of the early 20th century, and a trailblazer for Black actors in the formative eras of filmmaking, Robeson would be well remembered today if all he contributed were his recordings and his roles in 1930s films like “Show Boat,” “The Emperor Jones” and “Song of Freedom.” However, it was his willingness to sacrifice his own career and financial prospects in service to his ideals that made him an icon. Always willing to test boundaries with his art, Robeson became increasingly galvanized by the early stirrings of the civil-rights movement — he was one of the first major stars who refused to perform for segregated audiences — as well as fights for workers’ rights. His unabashed socialist views and admiration for the Soviet Union led him to be called in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he was defiant. Blacklisted at home and denied a passport to tour internationally, Robeson’s career never fully recovered, but he would serve as an inspiration for generations of artist-activists who followed in his wake.
Will Rogers (1879-1935)
Born in the Cherokee Nation when it was still an Indian Territory, Rogers parlayed his rope skills into major media stardom. Known for his folksy downhome demeanor, Rogers scored a vaudeville contract in 1905 and eventually began performing monologues about the news of the day while twirling his lariat, drawing crowds to the Ziegfeld Follies before branching out to silent movies and eventually talkies. He also performed on radio, wrote books and was a long-time syndicated columnist for the New York Times. “I never met a man I didn’t like” was one of his best-known sayings. Upon his 1935 death in a plane crash, Variety eulogized him as “unofficial ambassador of American goodwill,” noting his diverse endeavors before lauding him as daring, frank, sincere and philanthropic. His widow donated their Pacific Palisades ranch to the state of California upon her death in 1944; Will Rogers State Beach is also named for him.
RuPaul (Born 1960)
With 1993’s hit “Supermodel (You Better Work),” a catchy tune with a fun and sassy video, RuPaul exploded into pop culture, bringing the art of drag along with him. He’s been firmly entrenched there ever since, building a drag empire since 2009 with “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” which spun off “Drag Race: All Stars” and “Untucked” along with grabbing many Emmys along the way. But although he has said that “Drag is dangerous. Drag is not politically correct. Drag will never be mainstream,” the “Drag Race” format has been sold and produced in several countries, including the U.K., Canada and Netherlands, while celebrities and even politicians line up to participate on the “Drag Race” panels. As RuPaul is a household name and familiar face on TV commercials, his shows have catapulted the careers of drag performers and opened doors for such series as HBO Max’s “We’re Here” and making it safe for mainstream audiences to embrace such shows as Netflix’s drag glow up series “A Queen Is Born” from Brazil, and ballroom culture shows “Pose” and “Legendary.”
Harold Russell (1914-2002)
Russell had never acted before he appeared in the 1946 “The Best Years of Our Lives,” yet he became the only person to ever win two Oscars for one performance. But Russell’s contributions extend far beyond acting. He became a role model for any person with a disability, for all veterans — and for pretty much everyone else. William Wyler directed the film from a script by Robert E. Sherwood. It was a starry cast doing great work, but Russell was the heart and soul of the movie, which centers on military vets adjusting to civilian life. Russell plays naval petty officer Homer Parrish, who lost both hands in the war. Wyler, the writers and Russell offered a straightforward and unsentimental look at the character, showing that the people around Homer are the ones who need to make the biggest adjustment. Russell won as supporting actor and was given an Honorary Oscar “for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans.”
Rod Serling (1924-1975)
Serling pushed the boundaries of television during his heyday as the writer of landmark 1950s teleplays as “Requiem for a Heavyweight,” “Patterns” and “A Town Has Turned to Dust.” But it was as the creator and host of the CBS anthology drama “The Twilight Zone” that Serling left his biggest mark on the medium. Born in Syracuse, N.Y., Serling served in the army during WWII after high school and then pursued writing at Antioch College. He got his start writing for radio and TV stations in Cincinnati but soon was selling scripts to NBC’s and CBS’ prestige anthology series of the day. Serling chafed at the content restrictions imposed on his work by the all-powerful advertising giants of the day. “Twilight Zone,” which ran from 1959-64 on CBS, was his way of using science fiction and fantasy to mask social commentary. He also endures as one of a very few writers to have an on-camera role on his show. Serling, who also co-wrote the screenplay for 1968’s “Planet of the Apes,” died at age 50 in 1975.
John Singleton (1968-2019)
The first Black person and youngest person ever to earn an Oscar nomination for director knew he wanted to be a helmer from a young age. Singleton grew up in Los Angeles, surrounded by the crack epidemic of the early 1980s, and he was equally immersed in the blockbuster movie boom of the same period. After attending USC film school, Singleton announced himself by landing a deal with Columbia Pictures for his senior project spec script. At the age of 22, Singleton even insisted to studio chief Frank Price that only he could direct the script that became 1991’s “Boyz n the Hood,” which brought him Oscar noms for directing and for original screenplay. Singleton’s other notable feature credits included “Poetic Justice” (1993), “Higher Learning” (1995), “Rosewood” (1997), “Baby Boy” (2001), “2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003) and “Four Brothers” (2005). In later years, the director wrote, helmed and produced FX’s “Snowfall” and BET’s “Rebel,” and he earned an Emmy nomination for directing “The Race Card” installment of FX’s “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.”
Bessie Smith (1894-1937)
Dubbed the Empress of the Blues, Smith was the highest paid Black performer in the late 1920s and influenced countless singers, from Billie Holiday to Janis Joplin, Frank Sinatra and Aretha Franklin. Born in Chattanooga, Tenn., Smith began singing on street corners as a child, and found a mentor in Ma Rainey while performing in a Black traveling show. Her debut single, “Downhearted Blues,” sold nearly 800,000 copies for Columbia Records in six months, providing a much-needed boost to the then-faltering label in 1923. A hardpartying diva who traveled in her own railroad car, Smith earned as high as $2,500 a week as a vaudeville performer and was estimated to have sold more than 4 million platters between 1924 and 1929, Variety noted in her obit. Her recordings include “Backwater Blues,” “St. Louis Blues,” “Young Woman’s Blues,” a classic that she wrote, “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home,” “’T’aint Nobody’s Biz-Ness If I Do” and “Send Me to the ’Lectric Chair.”
Steven Spielberg (Born 1946)
Famously rejected by USC’s film school, Spielberg, who made Super 8 movies as a kid, cut his artistic teeth at Cal State Long Beach. By 1975, the “Jaws” director was a household name, having invented the summer blockbuster with the hit shark attack pic. With a proclivity for the science fiction-adventure genre, Spielberg would go on to create some of the most iconic movies in the canon of modern American cinema, from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.” Later, the three-time Oscar winner would turn his attention to hot-button topics, from poverty, racism and domestic abuse in the South (“The Color Purple”) to the Holocaust (“Shindler’s List”) to the invasion of Normandy during WWII (“Saving Private Ryan”). In 1994, Spielberg founded what has since been re-named the USC Shoah Foundation — the Institute for Visual History and Education. It’s Spielberg’s philanthropic commitment to preserving the stories of Holocaust survivors and survivors of other genocides that will likely serve as the filmmaker’s most impactful contribution to global world culture.
Wes Studi (Born 1947)
In the early years of film, Native American characters were plentiful, though usually the bad guys and almost always played by non-Indigenous actors. As Westerns faded, Hollywood’s interest in Native Americans disappeared. However, Studi stands as a beacon of hope to millions. He has acted in such films as “Dances With Wolves,” “The Last of the Mohicans,” “The New World” and “Avatar” and has starred in PBS movies based on the crime novels of Tony Hillerman. Studi was born in Nofire Hollow, Okla., where Cherokee was his first language. He learned English in school and served in the military, doing a tour of duty in Vietnam. In 2019, he was given career recognition with an Honorary Oscar, the first Indigenous person to win an Academy Award for acting. (Buffy SainteMarie won as co-writer of “Up Where We Belong,” the original song from the 1982 feature “An Officer and a Gentleman.”) Studi is honorary chair of the national endowment campaign of the Indigenous Language Institute in Santa Fe and works with the organization Partnership With Native Americans.
King Vidor (1894-1982)
The founding father of the Directors Guild of America may have begun life far from Hollywood, with Texas roots and Hungarian ancestry, but he was never far from the picture biz. He started as a Galveston, Texas, portraitist working with a Box Brownie camera, then as a nickelodeon ticket taker and as an amateur newsreel cameraman. The road from the Lone Star state took him to the top of the Hollywood pecking order, creating powerful, humanistic silent film masterpieces in the 1920s such as “The Big Parade,” “The Crowd” and “Show People.” But long before he packed theaters and led his fellow film directors to form the DGA in 1935, Vidor, while still in his early 20s, was leading the industry by ambitiously challenging the major companies and the reigning box office trends of pageantry and pulpy melodrama with small-scaled, artistically-minded films. Variety’s reporters of the era weren’t given to sentimentality, but in 1920, one of its “Muggs” wrote: “Most producers would go broke if they had to make their reputations as King Vidor did, by putting on an inexpensive picture and letting the sincerity, humanity of the story and the acting put it over. (His films) stand for something more important than mere pictorial value.”
Mae West (1893-1980)
The woman who was once the epitome of sex appeal on stage was a pioneering feminist. Born and raised in Brooklyn, West worked her way up from vaudeville and burlesque as a teenager to movie stardom in her 40s. She exercised a rare level of control over her career from the start. She also had a primal instinct for honing a brand that stayed strong until her death in 1980 at age 88. West first made her mark in 1926 with “Sex,” a steamy Broadway play that she wrote, directed and produced. The show drew the ire of New York City censors, who shut down the production and sent West to jail for 10 days. Hollywood came calling amid all the notoriety. In 1932, at an age when most actresses were considered past their prime, West signed with Paramount and produced a series of saucy film comedies including mega-hits “She Done Him Wrong” (1933) — in which she delivers the famous line “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me” — and “I’m No Angel” (1933). West maintained an unusual level of control over her films and ranked high among Hollywood’s highest-paid stars in the 1930s.
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)
In 1983, Variety wrote that Williams was a “profoundly influential force” in global theater, thanks to his depictions of human frailty and “the neurotic byways of sexuality.” He wrote some of the great classics of American theater, including “The Glass Menagerie,” “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Sweet Bird of Youth” and “The Night of the Iguana.” The film adaptations often toned down his frank addressing of taboo topics; for example, the 1955 “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” was about homophobia, a daring idea at the time, which the 1958 film only hints at. And “Streetcar” offered the then-radical idea that men and women are often driven by sexual urges. But his plays aren’t memorable because of the ground-breaking subject matter. In poetic, insightful dialogue, he created characters — Blanche DuBois, Stanley Kowalski, Maggie and Brick and Amanda Wingfield, to name a few — who illuminated the fragility of humans, memorably depicting their vulnerabilities and strengths.
James Wong Howe (1899-1976)
Wong Howe was one of the world’s greatest cinematographers, with work on such early films as “The Thin Man” (1934) and “Yankee Doodle Dandy” (1942). His success was especially notable considering the bigotry he had to endure. Wong Howe was born in China; he was 5 when his family moved to the United States. Starting at age 18, he worked various film-related jobs and became lighting cameraman in 1922 on “Drums of Fate.” He made his debut as cinematographer in 1923 and worked on six films that year. Among his later credits were “Picnic,” “Sweet Smell of Success,” “The Rose Tattoo” and “Hud”; he won Oscars for the last two. His final film was the 1975 “Funny Lady.” Wong Howe married writer Sanora Babb in Paris in 1937, but because she was Caucasian, the marriage wasn’t recognized in the U.S. until 1949, when California rescinded its anti-miscegenation law. Even then, Wong Howe and Babb couldn’t go out together in public, since mixed-race marriage violated the studio contracts’ morals clause. In its July 15, 1976, obituary of Wong Howe, Variety said he was “one of the world’s foremost cinematographers, and usually considered without peer in the black-and-white field.”

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