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Well, I hope you all did your civic duty before Tuesday and voted on the Fan Ballot website for the 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. While I didn’t choose them, I’m looking forward to current top vote-getter Phish being selected, then in December giving a meandering, freeform three-and-a-half-hour acceptance speech. Another event I’m eager for takes place in late July in Cooperstown, New York, when the Baseball Hall of Fame welcomes five new members: Phillies great Dick Allen, plus Dave Parker, CC Sabathia, Ichiro Suzuki, and Billy Wagner.
All this enshrinement news got me to thinking about how many various “halls of fame” are out there. From Iowa aviation to Hawaiian music, from insurance to toys, it seems as though every subject and interest is covered. And yet there’s, to date, no recognized hall for the motion picture industry. Sure, there’s the Walk of Fame along the sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in L.A., but its 2,800-plus stars include radio, recording, stage, TV, and now “sports entertainment” as well as movies. Besides, many honorees lately seem to be tapped just as they are about to release a new project.
Where would such a hall go? The recently-opened Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles would be a logical place to put it, or perhaps near the Grauman’s/Mann’s/TLC/This Space for Rent Chinese Theatre building. A more important question, though, would be who would make up the inaugural class. The Baseball Hall of Fame’s 1936 debut squad, for example, featured Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth, and Honus Wagner, while the Rock and Roll hall boasted a group of 10 that included Chuck Berry, James Brown, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, and Elvis Presley. Thus, five seems like a good number to start with.
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As for myself, I’d have to opt for a quintet of Humphrey Bogart, Charlie Chaplin, Katharine Hepburn, Alfred Hitchcock, and Marilyn Monroe. It’s an older-skewing group, of course, but I’m taking into account bodies of work, global acclaim and influence, and how their efforts have withstood the test of time.
With these factors in mind, my question for you readers is: Which five performers or behind-the-camera creators do you think should be the first inductees into a Hollywood Hall of Fame? Do you go the fake Edward Hopper “Nighthawks” poster route and select Bogart, James Dean, Monroe, Elvis, and John Wayne? Would you start in chronological order with Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, and Rudolph Valentino? Or do you go contemporary and choose Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks, Anthony Hopkins, Steven Spielberg, and Meryl Streep? Give us your top five names–and the reasons why you chose them–in the comments below.