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It boggles the mind that only a couple of generations back, women were sometimes referred to as “the weaker sex.” That’s not only sexist, but misleading.  Plenty of tough, cunning, even deadly female characters have graced the screen over the past six decades that prove this idiotic saying wrong.   Here are an even dozen.

In the days before films relied on computers to entertain us, Billy Wilder used a movie camera to tell us stories. His stories might be funny or sad, but all held some grain of human insight, with even hard observations tempered by an underlying affection for his fellow man. At the closing titles, this made his many fans feel not only satisfied, but edified.

It’s striking just how alike they were: both petite women with big personalities and talent who achieved overnight success in iconic movies at age 19; both immensely driven professionals who, in the face of personal challenges and misfortune, channeled their prodigious energies into their work.

With a Best Actor Oscar win for “Dallas Buyer’s Club,” and a hit TV series with “True Detective,” it can be said unequivocally that Matthew McConaughey’s millennium career slump is officially over. It was the nineties that made him, and the aughts that tested him.  Now in the teens, he comes into his own, this time (hopefully) for good. How well do you know this comeback kid?

Young adult used to be just another stage in personal development, starting somewhere around the end of Barbie dolls and army men, and cresting just after the discovery of beer and indie rock. Growing up seems to happen in that one, long, hot zone of emerging identities and burgeoning freedom.  These days, YA is an entire industry of books and movies, a full lifestyle in fact, and one that doesn’t end once the “adult” is no longer “young.” After all, growing up is never quite over, which explains why YA audiences are as likely to be “adult” as they are “young.” For instance, who is the prime audience for “The Hunger Games?” Not just kids.   One forgets that the term “teenager”  gained traction only in the 1940s, as the popularity of Frank Sinatra took hold with a multitude of teen girls. Suddenly, this overlooked group had the attention of radio programmers and audiences, and a demographic was born. 

Baby boomers who grew up watching a lot of television probably know Eddie Albert best as Oliver Douglas, the city lawyer turned farmer on “Green Acres.” But like many actors who star in a popular TV series, Albert became so closely identified with the role that it’s almost jarring to see him in a movie, or to realize he’d been one of Hollywood’s most reliable character actors.

Today - if you mention the name Josephine Baker - most people will remember her vaguely as “some singer way back when”. But how many are left who can picture her in all her glory, with her sassy, sexy, breathtaking charisma on full display? Damned few, I’d guess. And that’s a shame, considering she’s right at your fingertips, forever preserved on celluloid.     One of the first black stars, Josephine had a flamboyant personality, with a singular grace and a confident style — unusual indeed for a performer of color in those days, much less a female one. Though not conventionally beautiful – her face a little too round, perhaps, her chin receding a tiny bit — her star-power was undeniable. And those eyes!  Born in 1906 to humble circumstances in St. Louis, over time, Josephine rose from being the poor daughter of a laundress in Missouri to steady work dancing in New York City. However, despite gaining some notoriety, by 1924 she had been relegated to perform in a musical called “Chocolate Dandies”, as well as joining the floorshow in a place called… I kid you not… The Plantation Club – gulp.