Known for: Belle de Jour and Repulsion
Net worth: $75 million
Parisian-born, French and American actor Catherine Deneuve was so revered for her beauty in the 1980s, she became the representation of Marianne, France’s national symbol. Her elegant style has also been incorporated by luxury brands like Chanel No. 5 and Yves Saint Laurent, for whom she modeled.
Famously, especially in France, Deneuve starred in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. In America, she won fame with her performance in Indochine. Her role as a murderous schizophrenic in Roman Polanski’s Repulsion is perhaps her best remembered, but her greatest performance remains in Belle de Jour by Luis Buñuel, where she plays a housewife who’s an afternoon prostitute. She worked primarily in French and European cinema, but In America, she co-starred with Jack Lemmon in The April Fools and with Burt Reynolds in Hustle. In the 1980s she co-starred with David Bowie and Susan Sarandon playing an award-winning rendition of a bisexual vampire.
Brooke Shields
Known for: The Blue Lagoon and Pretty Baby
Net worth: $25 million
Throughout the 1980s Brooke Shields was like the supermodel-next-door. She was simply adored. As a teenage actress, she starred in The Blue Lagoon and Endless Love . She took a break from her career to graduate from Princeton University.
She performed in her first modeling gig when she was eleven months old. At 12, she played the controversial role of a child prostitute in the film Pretty Baby. The Manhattan-born model and actress was the youngest fashion model ever to appear on the cover of Vogue magazine at 14. By 16, she was one of the most well-known faces and a household name. She was on the cover of every major fashion magazine. Shields is a vegan and an animal rights activist. She protested the fur industry in 1989. But PETA called her out for modeling a mink coat at the Copenhagen Fur show. They called her a “fur pimp.” Geez. Savage.
Janet Suzman
Known for: Nicholas and Alexandra
Net worth: $2 million
South African-born British actress Janet Suzman went to school in Johannesburg and moved to London to train in theatre at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. In 1963 she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company where she became a celebrated actress.
Suzman starred in many British-telly drama productions like Saint Joan , The Three Sisters, Macbeth , Hedda Gabbler and Twelfth Night. In her debut film role as Empress Alexandra in Nicholas and Alexandra , Suzman received showers of praise plus a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Not bad. In her later years, she has taken on directing. Her first project, a televised production of Othello was filmed in South Africa at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg.
Louise Fletcher
Known for: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Net worth: $1 million
Now, here’s an actor who played a character we all love to hate—quite possibly the very one we love to hate the most. In 1976, the late Louise Fletcher introduced to the world of cinema the most wretched of all iconic screen villains, the evil Nurse Ratched. Lording over the psychiatric ward that held Jack Nicholson’s Randle McMurphy and his band of fellow patients, Nurse Ratched’s epic clashes with the incorrigible patient are indelible.
Louise Fletcher won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and also the BAFTA and the Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress. Her rendition of the heartless Nurse Ratched made her one of three actresses ever to win all three awards. An astounding performance, indeed. It was Fletcher’s performance in Thieves Like Us (1974) that caught the attention of Milos Forman, director of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In late September 2022, she sadly passed away.
Kim Basinger
Known for: The Natural and Batman
Net worth: $40 million
Growing up as an extremely shy girl from Athens, Georgia, Kim Basinger managed to take on beauty contests and win the Junior Miss Georgia title. By the time she was 20, she was a top model appearing on the cover of every fashion magazine. But Basinger wanted more than a modeling career, so the Cover Girl moved to Hollywood.
Breaking into TV, she landed parts on the groovy Charlie’s Angels series. She broke into the film industry with a role as a Bond girl. But it was Tim Burton’s box-office hit Batman that propelled her toward the stardom she sought. Notably, her role as a femme fatale in L.A. Confidential is universally hailed as brilliant. Basinger is a vegetarian and an animal rights activist. She posed for PETA, sans fur, supporting their anti-fur campaign.