The Ten Best Actors of All Time Relay Race

Craig Edwards from the Let's Get Out Of Here! blog has passed the Best Actors of All Time relay race baton on to us here at Life Between Frames, and we are honored to participate.

The relay race started off at the My Film Views blog, with the following description of how it all works -

"So what’s the idea behind the relay? I’ve created a list of what I think are the best actors. At the end of the post I, just like in a real relay race, hand over the baton to another blogger who will write his own post. This blogger will have to remove one actor (that is an obligation) and add his own choice and describe why he/she did this. At the end the blogger chooses another blogger to do the same. The idea is to make this a long race, so that enough bloggers get a chance to remove and add an actor. We will end up with a list (not ranked in order) which represents a common agreement of the best actors. It will also mean that those who follow this relay race will get to know new blogs as well!"

This is how the relay has gone so far -

My Film Views (created the original list: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Daniel Day-Lewis, Samuel L. Jackson, Charlie Chaplin, Gary Oldman, Anthony Hopkins, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall)

The Focused Filmographer (Removed Hopkins, added Christian Bale)

Front Room Cinema (Removed Pacino, added Paul Giammati)

I Love That Film (Removed Jackson, added Edward Norton)

Flixchatter (Removed Giammati, added Gregory Peck)

All Eyes on Screen (Removed Norton, added Tom Hanks)

Time Well Spent (Removed Hoffman, added Leonardo DiCaprio)

The Warning Sign (Removed Hanks, added Paul Newman)

Movies and Songs 365 (Removed Duvall, re-added Anthony Hopkins)

And So It Begins (Removed DiCaprio, added Max von Sydow)

Cinematic Corner (Removed Bale, added Ralph Fiennes)

The Film Emporium (Re-removed Hopkins, added Jack Nicholson)

Duke & the Movies (Removed Oldman, added Humphrey Bogart)

Southern Vision (Removed Fiennes, added Harry Dean Stanton)

Defiant Success (Removed Stanton, added Jack Lemmon)

Cinematic Paradox (Removed von Sydow, re-added Ralph Fiennes)

Encore’s World of TV & Film (Removed Peck, added Richard Burton)

Okinawa Assault (Removed Lemmon, added Bruce Greenwood)

Amiresque (Removed Greenwood, added Peter Sellers)

Flickers (Removed Chaplin, added Jeff Bridges)

Aziza’s Picks (Removed Sellers, re-added Gary Oldman)

…let’s be splendid about this… (Removed Burton, added James Stewart)

Being Norma Jeane (Removed Bridges, added Johnny Depp)

U, Me, and Films (Re-removed Fiennes, re-added Tom Hanks)

Eternity of Dream (Re-removed Hanks, re-added Leonardo DiCaprio)

Lime Reviews and Strawberry Confessions (Re-removed Oldman, added Amitabh Bachchan)

Surrender to the Void (Removed Bachchan, added Gene Hackman)

Taste of Cinema (Removed Depp, added Marcello Mastroianni)

1001 Plus (Removed Brando, added Cary Grant)

Public Transportation Snob (Removed DiCaprio, re-added Charlie Chaplin)

1:37 Exactly (Removed Peter O'Toole and added Kevin Spacey)

Melissa's Imaginarium (Removed Marcello Mastroianni and added John Cazale

FilmMattic (Removed Kevin Spacy and added Montgomery Clift)

Let's Get Out of Here! (Removed Daniel Day-Lewis and added Michael Caine)

The list as it was when the baton was passed on to us -

Humphrey Bogart

Robert DeNiro

Paul Newman

Jack Nicholson

James Stewart

Cary Grant

Charlie Chaplin

John Cazale

Montgomery Clift

Michael Caine

And now it's our turn to remove and replace one actor.

We have chosen to remove John Cazale.

Cazale had an amazing career, despite it being tragically cut short. Every film he was in is an Oscar-nominated classic and he was great in them. We have nothing negative to say about him, it was nice to see that he had made it on the list,  but when it came down to it he just didn't make the cut.

When making his choice, Craig Edwards was looking for someone who had worked in films along the lines of "nature run amok" flicks, and his pick, Michael Caine, had done a couple, including one of the ultimate slum jobs with Jaws: The Revenge. We didn't have to branch out too far from there to find our choice.

The actor we've chosen to acknowledge and add to the list is Robert Shaw.

Robert Shaw

A British actor with a great, distinctive voice, Shaw is, of course, best known for playing shark hunter-for-hire Quint in Jaws. His performance is one large element that helped elevate that film to the height of not only being the best "nature run amok" film ever made but, as far as we're concerned, one of the best films ever made, period. Shaw is fantastic as the hard-edged man of the sea, exuding awesomeness from the moment he's introduced with his fingernails scraping down a chalkboard. He's given some badass lines and he handles them perfectly. He can do comedy, he's hilarious in his interactions with Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss's characters. And he can be very intense.

With the USS. Indianapolis story, Shaw has one of the greatest monologues in cinema history, one that he helped shape into its final version. The story is absolutely chilling, and Shaw's delivery of it is brilliant. The way he says the lines, they stick in your head.

"Anyway... we delivered the bomb."

And we're not adding Shaw based on that one performance alone. Over the course of his twenty-seven year film career, before we lost him too soon in 1978 at the age of 51, Shaw had several great roles. Some standouts: He made his character Donald "Red" Grant in From Russia with Love one of the all-time best James Bond villains. He was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his portrayal of Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons (which won Best Picture.) He was the intimidating target of The Sting. His performance as the steely criminal heading a subway train hijacking, calmly counting down the minutes to threatened executions, in the original Taking of Pelham One Two Three is another favorite. The list goes on, Shaw worked on over fifty movies and TV shows.

Robert Shaw, he was the real deal, one of the greats, and he's our contribution to the Best Actors of All Time relay race.

So, the list is now: Humphrey Bogart, Robert DeNiro, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Charlie Chaplin, Montgomery Clift, Michael Caine, and Robert Shaw.

And our part in the race is done, it's time for the next runner to take over. Finding the next runner was the hardest part of this, but in the end we've chosen to pass the baton to the folks at The FilmNerds Blog.