1. Louise Brooks
Peak Years: 1926-1931
Best Film: Pandora's Box (1929) I have never seen a performer quite like Louise Brooks. Greta Garbo and Clara Bow play fantasy women, female characters written by men who desperately want to get laid. The sexuality they portray is for the benefit of males; they only give so that they can be taken. They are great actresses that can get their feelings across, but they are simply playing at a different game than Louise Brooks. Her personal life and her performances go hand in hand, as she states in her memoir Lulu in Hollywood that she had an earned reputation for sexual trysts (she even confesses to a sexual experience with Greta Garbo). Lulu was Louise's nickname and her character's name in G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box, a movie that showcases the ultimate star performance from the ultimate female silent star. As Lulu, Brooks is a mistress of a powerful man and a dancer (and by dancer the movie of course means prostitute). What separates Lulu from the traditionally judgmental role of the conniving temptress is that she, much like the Joker in The Dark Knight, seems to be more interested in acting on whims than being intentionally destructive. Brooks plays Lulu with an intense smoldering passion, no one makes love more thoroughly with their eyes, but she is not just a sex bob-omb. The subtleties of her performance, a wry suggestive smile here, realization of a devastating reality there, make what could be a comically strung character into a tragic heroine. She does manipulate men (and a lesbian woman who is in love with her) but her desire is for fulfillment rather than sexual gratification. But can't those two things go hand in hand? Ultimately while she is led to her downfall, it isn't her being that is wrong, it is the backwards society that refuses to tolerate her more honest nature. So if you weren't sure whether or not I thought she was good in Pandora's Box, I do. She's really good. And her performances in A Girl in Every Port and Diary of a Lost Girl are also compelling. While her status as a film star may not have been as strong during the silent era, her overwhelming acting ability coupled with her public persona make it say retroactively that she was the best female silent film star ever. No one could play Lulu quite like her.
So that's the list, if you can think of any other stars that deserve to be on here let us know in the comments.