The 100 Best Female Characters
Part 5 (41-50)

Lily Garland (played by Carole Lombard) in Twentieth Century: A minimally talented shopgirl who gets turned by a theatrical Svengali into a self-enchanted virago. Sounds like half of Hollywood to us.

Miss Giddens (played by Deborah Kerr) in The Innocents: Imagine a morally upright, proper 19th-century British woman--Anna from The King and I, say--but one who seethes with sexual repression and religious hysteria. Now imagine her as the caretaker to two very odd, perhaps demonically possessed children.

Holly Golightly (played by Audrey Hepburn) in Breakfast at Tiffany's: What's not to love?

Laurel Gray (played by Gloria Grahame) in In a Lonely Place: The used, smart L.A. beauty who inspires her self-destructive screenwriter/lover to pen the lines: "I was born when you kissed me. I died when you left me. I lived a few weeks while you loved me." This must be how the joke about the Polish actress who slept with the screenwriter got started.

Marylee Hadley (played by Dorothy Malone) in Written on the Wind: Of all the rich, messed-up, cocktail-swigging, didn't-get-enough-attention-from-Daddy-so-I'm-gonna-screw-lowlifes little sisters in big screen history, none does the rumba so thrillingly.

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Annie Hall (played by Diane Keaton) in Annie Hall: The apotheosis of hip, dope-smoking, neurotic ditz as ideal modern woman.

Charlotte Haze (played by Shelley Winters) in Lolita: Vulgar, pretentious, horny, cloyingly seductive and terrifying mom who discovers that her middle-aged dreamboat has married her in hopes of porking her adolescent daughter. A classic of her type.

Karen Holmes (played by Deborah Kerr) in From Here to Eternity: A bitter, edgy wife who not only grabs at clandestine sex, but screws Burt Lancaster in the Hawaiian surf. A model for our times.

Alicia Huberman (played by Ingrid Bergman) in Notorious: A sinner seeking Cary Grant's assistance in her struggle for redemption, but, more important, the best excuse for a zillion closeups in the history of film.

Jane Hudson (played by Bette Davis) in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?: A has-been movie star serves her invalid sister a dead parakeet and a rat, then takes her to the beach and lets her fry in the sun. Sisterhood for a society in which everyone is ready for their closeup.

The 100 Best Female Characters, Part 6 (51-60)

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