The 60s was an immensly important decade regarding the movie industry. Some of the most distinguished actors that are now percived as cultural icons arose to fame in this era.
We’ve put together a list of the most beautiful, tallented and inspiring actors of the 60s.
12. Anthony Perkins
Best known for playing Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and its three sequels, Perkins is one of the most iconic and important actor figures of the 1960s. Perkins was cast as Norman Bates in the Alfred Hitchcock-directed film Psycho (1960). The film was a critical and commercial success, and gained Perkins international fame for his performance as the homicidal owner of the Bates Motel. Perkins’ performance gained him the Best Actor Award from the International Board of Motion Picture Reviewers. In 1961, Perkins received considerable critical acclaim for his performance in the film Goodbye Again, opposite Ingrid Bergman, a performance which won him the Best Actor Award at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival. In 1964 he starred in Une ravissante idiote, with Brigitte Bardot.
11.Rock Hudson
Hudson is generally known for his turns as a leading man in the 1950s and 1960s and is viewed as a prominent actor and ‘heartthrob’ of the Hollywood Golden Age. He achieved stardom with roles in films such as Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows(1955) and Giant (1956), and found continued success with a string of romantic comedies co-starring Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964). After appearing in films like Seconds (1966), Tobruk (1967) and Ice Station Zebra (1968) in the late 1960s, Hudson began a second career in television through the 1970s and ’80s, starring in the popular mystery series McMillan & Wife and the soap opera Dynasty.
10.Alain Delon
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon is a French actor and businessman, with French-Swiss dual citizenship since 1999. Delon became one of Europe’s most prominent actors and screen “heart throbs” in the 1960s. He achieved critical acclaim for roles in films such as Rocco and His Brothers (1960), Purple Noon (1960), L’Eclisse (1962), The Leopard (1963), Lost Command (1966) and Le Samouraï (1967). Over the course of his career Delon worked with many well-known directors, including Luchino Visconti, Jean-Luc Godard,Jean-Pierre Melville, Michelangelo Antonioni and Louis Malle.
9.Peter O’Toole
The British-Irish actor achieved international recognition playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. He received seven further Oscar nominations – for Becket (1964), The Lion in Winter (1968), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), The Ruling Class (1972), The Stunt Man (1980), My Favorite Year (1982), and Venus (2006) – and holds the record for the most Academy Award acting nominations without a win. He won four Golden Globe Awards, one British Academy Film Award, and one Primetime Emmy Award. In 2002, O’Toole was the recipient of the Honorary Academy Award, whose remarkable talents have provided cinema history with some of its most memorable characters.
8. George Peppard
Peppard secured a major role when he starred alongside Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), and later portrayed a character based on Howard Hughes in The Carpetbaggers(1964). On television, he played the title role of millionaire insurance investigator and sleuth Thomas Banacek in the early-1970s mystery series Banacek. He played Col. John “Hannibal” Smith, the cigar-smoking leader of a renegade commando squad, in the hit 1980s action show The A-Team.
7. Dustin Hoffman
American actor and director with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1980 (for Kramer vs. Kramer) and 1989 (for Rain Man).
He first drew critical praise for starring in the play Eh?, for which he won a Theatre World Award and a Drama Desk Award. This was soon followed by his breakthrough 1967 film role as Benjamin Braddock, the title character, in The Graduate. Since then, Hoffman’s career has largely been focused on cinema, with sporadic returns to television and the stage. His subsequent notable films include Midnight Cowboy, Little Big Man, Straw Dogs, Papillon, Lenny, Marathon Man, All the President’s Men, Kramer vs. Kramer, Tootsie, Rain Man, Hook and Wag the Dog.