47. Goldie Hawn

Goldie Hawn is Hollywood royalty, but that’s not how she sees it. Hawn, granddaughter of Jewish-Hungarian immigrants, is known the world over for her box-office hits Cactus Flower, The First Wives Club, Private Benjamin and Shampoo.

Goldie originally seemed destined for life as a dancer – in the mid-1960s, she was running a ballet school and dancing professionally in stage productions and clubs in New York City and New Jersey. Dancing is a metaphor to her . “When I talk about dancing through life,” she says, “it really is how we move. It’s how we face today, how we walk into a room, how we pull ourselves up and feel that what we have inside of us is valuable and important.”

When she moved to California later in the decade, however, she started acting in sit-coms and sketch-shows, which brought her to international attention. Following this, she moved into film and her appearance as Walter Matthau’s fiancé in Cactus Flower earned her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Hawn is one of the most successful women in Hollywood. She has acted in over thirty films – in 1996, The First Wives Club quickly made over $100 million at the box office!

She is also an active philanthropist, whose Hawn Foundation which helps underprivileged children develop the mental fitness needed to survive in school, work and life. She provides programs and research to improve educational performance.

The much-loved actress is proudly Jewish and has spoken often of her heritage in interviews. As she told People magazine in 2017 –

“I was raised Jewish and I like my tribe”.