2004

Who: Ronald Reagan
Major Accomplishment: Reagan never became a major star, but he continued to make movies and threw himself into the work of the guild. He was elected its president and re-elected five times, through some of the stormiest years in the history of the film industry.
Legacy: Professor Kenneth Lynn said in an interview: “He fulfilled a restorative function we desperately needed…To have someone speak in terms of possibility, of limitlessness rather than of limits, was an elixir, a real upper. He was the most important President since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in these symbolic respects.”

Who: Marlon Brando
Major Accomplishment: Finally, in 1954, in “On the Waterfront,” he won his first Oscar. The role of Terry Malloy, more than any other, is emblematic of the power and reach of the style of acting Brando brought to the screen. “If there is a better performance by a man in the history of film, I don’t know what it is,” said Elia Kazan, his director again.
Legacy: Jack Nicholson, who co-starred with Brando in “The Missouri Breaks” and was a friend and neighbor for many years, termed him “a genius who was the beginning and end of his own revolution.” In an interview yesterday, he said: “There’s no one before or since like Marlon Brando. The gift was enormous and flawless, like Picasso.”

Who: Julia Child
Major Accomplishment: Child was a towering figure on the culinary front for more than 40 years. Most Americans knew her as the imperturbable host of the long-running PBS television series “The French Chef.”
Legacy: In 1966 she became the first PBS personality to win an Emmy Award. When she moved from her longtime home in Cambridge to a retirement center in her home state, California, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington took her famous kitchen: whisks, stockpots and 800 knives.

>>>NEXT: We said goodbye to Johnny in 2005…

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.