List of artists, sorted by birth date - oldest first (all time)

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie (17 May 1866 – 1 July 1925) – he signed his name Erik Satie after 1884 – was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precu...

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Скря́бин; 6 January 1872 – 27 April 1915) was a Russian composer and pianist. Scriabin, who was influenced by Frédéric Chopin, composed early works that are characte...

Ralph Vaughan Williams (12 October 1872 – 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written...

Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff (Russian: Серге́й Васи́льевич Рахма́нинов; 1 April 1873 – 28 March 1943), was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff was one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Rus...

Charles Edward Ives (October 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though his music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his wor...

Harry Houdini (born Erik Weisz, later Ehrich Weiss or Harry Weiss; March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926) was a Hungarian-American illusionist and stunt performer, known widely for his escape acts...

Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian composer and painter. He was associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. With the...

Joseph Maurice Ravel (French: [ʒɔzɛf mɔʁis ʁavɛl]; 7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although...

Béla Viktor János Bartók (March 25, 1881 – September 26, 1945) was a Hungarian composer and pianist. Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of comparative musicology, which later beca...

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (sometimes spelled Strawinski, Strawinsky, or Stravinskii, 17 June 1882 – 6 April 1971) was a Russian (and later, a naturalized French and American) composer, pianist and conductor. He first achieved in...

Friedrich Wilhelm "F. W." Murnau (born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe; December 28, 1888 – March 11, 1931) was a German film director.

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the silent era. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Vic...

Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang (December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976) was a German-Austrian filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor.

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (Russian: Сергей Сергеевич Прокофьев, 1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian and Soviet composer, pianist and conductor. His works include such works as the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite...

John Ford (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973) was an American film director. He made Westerns such as Stagecoach (1939), The Searchers (1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), as well as adaptations of classic 20th-ce...

Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American actor, vaudevillian, comedian, filmmaker, stunt performer, and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical c...

Paul Hindemith (16 November 1895 – 28 December 1963) was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher and conductor. Notable compositions include his song cycle Das Marienleben (1923) and opera Mathis der Maler (1938). Hindemith...

Humphrey DeForest Bogart (December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957) was an American screen actor whose filmography include 1940s films noir movies such as The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and The Big Sleep. Over his career he received...

Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz; May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) was an American dancer, choreographer, singer, musician and actor. His stage and subsequent film and television careers spanned a total of 76 years, during whi...

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director and producer, often nicknamed "The Master of Suspense".

Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American sty...

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American entrepreneur, cartoonist, animator, voice actor, and film producer. As a Hollywood business mogul, he and his brother Roy O. Disney co-founded The W...

Clark Gable (February 1, 1901 – November 16, 1960) was an American film actor, often referred to as "The King of Hollywood" or just simply as "The King". Gable began his career as a stage actor and appeared as an extra in silent f...

June Marlowe (November 6, 1903 – March 10, 1984) was an American film actress who began her career during the silent film era. Her most well known role was that of "Miss Crabtree", in the Our Gang shorts. Marlowe was born Gisela V...

Cary Grant (born Archibald Alexander Leach; January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986) was an English actor who gained American citizenship in 1942. His best-known films include Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), H...

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marqués de Dalí de Pubol (11 May 1904 – 23 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí, was a Spanish surrealist painter born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain...

Henry Jaynes "Hank" Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American film and stage actor with a career spanning more than five decades.

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (Russian: Дми́трий Дми́триевич Шостако́вич; 25 September 1906 – 9 August 1975) was a Soviet composer and pianist, and a prominent figure of 20th-century music. Shostakovich achieved fame in the Sov...

Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress. She appeared in a range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, and received four Academy Awards for Best Actress—a record for any perf...

Marion Mitchell Morrison (born Marion Robert Morrison; May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director, and producer. An Academy Award-winner for True Grit (1969), Wayne was...

Olivier Messiaen (December 10, 1908 – April 27, 1992) was a French composer, organist and ornithologist. His music is rhythmically complex; harmonically and melodically it often uses modes of limited transposition, which he abstra...

Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress of film, television and theater. She starred in a various range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period fil...

James Maitland "Jimmy" Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American film and stage actor. Stewart was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime Achievement award. He was a ma...

Akira Kurosawa ( March 23, 1910 – September 6, 1998) was a Japanese filmmaker. Kurosawa directed 30 films in a career spanning 57 years.

Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly (August 23, 1912 – February 2, 1996) was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director, producer and choreographer. He is perhaps best known today for his performances in films such as An American in...

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British classical music, with a range of works including opera, o...

Sir Alec Guinness (2 April 1914 – 5 August 2000) was an English actor. After an early career on the stage he was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including The Ladykillers and Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played...

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer, songwriter, actor, producer and director. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records...

Édith Piaf (19 December 1915 – 10 October 1963; born Édith Giovanna Gassion) was a French cabaret singer, songwriter and actress. Her music was often autobiographical with her singing reflecting her life, with her specialty being...

George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, writer, and producer who worked in theatre, radio, and film.

Ingrid Bergman (29 August 1915 – 29 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award and the Tony Aw...

Jackson DeForest Kelley (January 20, 1920 – June 11, 1999) was an American actor, screenwriter, poet and singer known for his roles in Westerns and as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy of the USS Enterprise in the television and film seri...

Toshiro Mifune (April 1, 1920 – December 24, 1997) was a Japanese actor who appeared in almost 170 feature films. He is best known for his 16-film collaboration (1948–65) with filmmaker Akira Kurosawa in such works as Rashomon, Se...

Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress. She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killer...

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee (27 May 1922 – 7 June 2015) was an English actor, singer and author. With a career spanning nearly 70 years, Lee initially portrayed villains and became best known for his role as Count Dracula...

Albert King Nelson (April 25, 1923 – December 21, 1992), known professionally as Albert King, was an American blues guitarist and singer, and a major influence in the world of blues guitar playing. One of the "Three Kings of the B...

Irvin Kershner (born Isadore Kershner; April 29, 1923 – November 27, 2010) was an American film director and occasional actor, best known for directing independent films early in his career, and then The Empire Strikes Back, the J...

Marlon Brando, Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor and film director. Brando is most famous for his Oscar-winning performances as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954) and Vito Corleone in The Godfather (19...

Lauren Bacall, (born Betty Joan Perske; September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014) was an American actress. Bacall began her career as a model, before making her debut as a leading lady with Humphrey Bogart in the film To Have and Have...

Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, professional racing driver and team owner; he was also an environmentalist, activist, and philanthropist. He won numer...