The 3 greatest actors of all time

1. Daniel Day-Lewis                                                                                        Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis (born 29 April 1957) is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. Born and raised in London, the son of Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis and actress Jill Balcon. Despite his traditional actor training at the Bristol Old Vic, he is considered to be a method actor, known for his constant devotion to and research of his roles. He often remains completely in character for the duration of the shooting schedules of his films, even to the point of adversely affecting his health. He is known as being one of the most selective actors in the film industry, having starred in only five films since 1998, with as many as five years between each role.
   
   One of the most acclaimed actors of his generation, his work has earned him numerous awards, including three Academy Awards for Best Actor, for his portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot (1989), Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood (2007), and Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln (2012), a feat which makes him to date the only male actor in history to garner three wins in that category. Day-Lewis has also won four BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Critics' Choice Movie Awards, and two Golden Globes Award for Best Actor.
   
   
   
   
2. Marlon Brando                                                                                                  Marlon Brando, Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American screen and stage actor. He is widely regarded as having had a significant impact on the art of film acting.
   While he became notorious for his "mumbling" diction and exuding a raw animal magnetism, his mercurial performances were nonetheless highly regarded, and he is widely considered as one of the greatest and most influential actors of the 20th century. Director Martin Scorsese said of him, "He is the marker. There's 'before Brando' and 'after Brando'.Actor Jack Nicholson once said, "When Marlon dies, everybody moves up one.
   An enduring cultural icon, Brando became a box office star during the 1950s, during which time he racked up five Oscar nominations as Best Actor, along with three consecutive wins of the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He initially gained popularity for recreating the role asStanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a Tennessee Williams play that had established him as a Broadway star during its 1947-49 stage run; and for his Academy Award-winning performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954), as well as for his iconic portrayal of the rebel motorcycle gang leader Johnny Strabler in The Wild One (1953), which is considered to be one of the most famous images in pop culture. Brando was also nominated for the Oscar for playing Emiliano Zapata in Viva Zapata! (1952); Mark Antony in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1953 film adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar; and as Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver in Sayonara (1957), Joshua Logan's adaption of James Michener's 1954 novel. Brando made the Top Ten Money Making Stars, as ranked by Quigley Publications' annual survey of movie exhibitors, three times in the decade, coming in at number 10 in 1954, number 6 in 1955, and number 4 in 1958.
   Brando directed and starred in the cult western film One-Eyed Jacks which was released in 1961, after which he delivered a series of box office failures beginning with the non-success of the 1962 film adaptation of Mutiny on the Bounty. The 1960s proved to be a fallow decade for Brando, and after 10 years in which he did not appear in a commercially successful movie, he won his second Academy Award for playing Vito Corleone inFrancis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), a role critics consider among his greatest. The movie, which became the most commercially successful film of all time when it was released — along with his Oscar-nominated performance as Paul in Last Tango in Paris (1972), another smash hit — revitalized Brando's career and reestablished him in the ranks of top box office stars, placing him at number 6 and number 10 in Top 10 Money Making Stars poll in 1972 and 1973, respectively.
   Brando failed to capitalize on the momentum of his revitalized career, taking a long hiatus before appearing in The Missouri Breaks (1976), a box office bomb. Afterward, he was content to be a highly paid character actor in parts that were glorified cameos in Superman (1978) and The Formula(1980) before taking a nine-year break from motion pictures. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Brando was paid a record $3.7 million ($14,190,445 in today's funds^[6]) plus 11.75% of the gross profits for 13 days work playing Jor-El in Superman, further adding to his mystique. He finished out the decade of the 1970s with his controversial performance as Colonel Walter Kurtz in another Coppola film, Apocalypse Now (1979), a box office hit for which he was highly paid and that helped finance his career layoff during the 1980s.
   Brando was also an activist, supporting many issues, notably the African-American Civil Rights Movement and various American Indian Movements.
   
   Brando was ranked by the American Film Institute as the fourth greatest screen legend among male movie stars whose screen debuts occurred in or before 1950. Considered to be one of the most important actors in American cinema,Brando was one of only three professional actors, along with Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe, named by Time magazine as one of its 100 Persons of the Century in 1999.
   
   
   
   
3. Jack Nicholson                                                                                                
   Jack Nicholson, an American actor, producer, screenwriter, and director, is a 3-time Academy Award winner and 12-time nominee. Nicholson is also notable for being one of two actors - the other being Michael Caine - who have received Oscar nods in every decade from 1960s through the 2000s.
   
   
   Born April 22, 1937 in Manhattan, Nicholson was raised believing his grandmother was his mother, and his mother, a showgirl, was his older sister. He discovered the truth in 1975 from a Time magazine journalist who was researching a profile on him.
   
   Nicholson made his film debut in a B-movie titled The Cry Baby Killer (1958). His rise in Hollywood was far from meteoric, and for years he sustained his career with guest spots in television shows and a number of Roger Corman films, including The Little Shop of Horrors (1960).
   
   Nicholson's first turn in the director's chair was for Drive, He Said (1971). Before that, he wrote the screenplay for _The Trip (II) (1967)_, and co-wrote Head (1968), a vehicle for The Monkees. His big break came with Easy Rider (1969) and his portrayal of liquor-soaked attorney George Hanson, which earned Nicholson his first Oscar nomination.
   
   Nicholson's film career took off in the '70s with a definitive performance in Five Easy Pieces (1970). Nicholson's other notable work during this period includes leading roles in Roman Polanski's noir masterpiece Chinatown (1974) and _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which he won his first Best Actor Oscar.
   
   The '80s kicked off with another career-defining role for Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining (1980). A string of well-received films followed, including Terms of Endearment (1983) which earned Nicholson his second Oscar; _Prizzi's Honor (1985)_ andThe Witches of Eastwick (1987). He portrayed another renowned villain, The Joker, in Tim Burton's Batman (1989). In the '90s he starred in such varied films as A Few Good Men (1992), for which he received another Oscar nomination, and a dual role in Mars Attacks! (1996).
   
   Although a glimpse at the darker side of Nicholson's acting range reappeared in The Departed (2006), the actor's most recent roles highlight the physical and emotional complications one faces late in life. The most notable of these is the unapologetically misanthropic Melvin Udall in As Good as It Gets (1997), for which he won his third Oscar. Shades of this persona are apparent in About Schmidt (2002), Something's Gotta Give (2003) and The Bucket List (2007).
   
   In addition to his Oscar wins and nominations, Nicholson has seven Golden Globe Awards, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. He also became one of the youngest actors to receive the American Film Institute's Life Achievement award in 1994.
   
   Nicholson has five children: Eldest daughter Jennifer Nicholson (b. 1963), from his marriage to Sandra Knight which ended in 1968; Caleb James Goddard (b. 1970) with Susan Anspach; Honey Hollman (b. 1981) with Danish supermodel, Winnie Hollman; and Lorraine Nicholson (b. 1990) and Ray Nicholson (b. 1992) with Rebecca Broussard. Nicholson's longest relationship was the 16 years he spent with actress Anjelica Huston; it ended when Broussard become pregnant with his child.