Judging from the wealth of trivia he shares on the Turner Classic Movies channel, author Robert Osborne is obviously a film historian whose focus is primarily and unapologetically Hollywood's golden era. Molly Haskell has been a feminist film critic of significant stature since her first book in 1973, "From Reverence to Rape: the Treatment of Women in the Movies". Given their unabated interest in the subject, it's no wonder they have come up with a glossy guide to the fifty actresses they feel epitomized the height of glamour and box office appeal when the major studios dominated the business and groomed its stars. For each of the legends, there is a full-page photo (usually an unfamiliar one which is a nice treat), a thumbnail profile and filmography, selected stills from classic roles, and some intriguing trivia ranging from beauty tips to on-the-set drama. It's all superficial but supremely entertaining for movie buffs.
As such lists go, the choices are all laudatory but in some cases debatable. The inclusion of several women - Pickford, Gish, Davis, Hepburn (Kate and Audrey), Garbo, Dietrich, Crawford, Bergman, Garland, Monroe - is inarguable especially for the endurance of their legacies. Others seem to be included more for iconic reasons than for the studio films they actually did, for instance, Louise Brooks (more famous for her two G.W. Pabst films in Germany than anything she did in Hollywood), Marion Davies (her career overshadowed by all things Hearst), Grace Kelly (a brief Hollywood career and then European royalty) and Lena Horne (no great movie roles given the era's pervasive racism).
At the same time, the book serves a great purpose in re-introducing luminous screen personalities who deserve to be resuscitated for a new generation of film viewers - personal favorites like Jean Arthur, Irene Dunne, Carole Lombard and Rosalind Russell among others. I also like how the editors have chosen a few women who had been previously underestimated and given them a new aura of respectability, for instance, Clara Bow, Doris Day, Kim Novak and Loretta Young. Although I will draw ire for this opinion, I feel some of the selections seem decidedly second-tier for such a vaunted list, namely Ann Sheridan, Esther Williams, Maureen O'Hara and Debbie Reynolds. It's also unclear to me where the demarcation line is drawn as I was surprised to see Shirley MacLaine, Sophia Loren and Natalie Wood included but not, for example, Leslie Caron, Julie Andrews or Jane Fonda.
Of course, any such list will have glaring omissions - Janet Gaynor, Shirley Temple, Margaret Sullavan, Joan Fontaine (though sister Olivia de Havilland is included), Ida Lupino, Alice Faye, Jennifer Jones, Betty Grable, Jane Wyman, Dorothy Dandridge, among others come to mind. I also wish the editors could have included some recognition for foreign actresses of similar stature in the same era, for example, Anna Magnani, Celia Johnson, Jeanne Moreau, Simone Signoret and Setsuko Hara. But this is all part of the fun. The others on the top fifty list, in case you're wondering, are Lauren Bacall, Claudette Colbert, Ava Gardner, Greer Garson, Jean Harlow, Susan Hayward, Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Hedy Lamarr, Vivien Leigh, Myrna Loy, Ginger Rogers, Norma Shearer, Barbara Stanwyck, Gloria Swanson, Elizabeth Taylor, Gene Tierney, Lana Turner and Mae West.