The 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons

Several issues ago, Funfare put out The l00 Greatest Stars (from 1950 to 2000), culled from the US magazine Entertainment Weekly.

Reacting to that story, my New York-based friend Raoul Tidalgo (Entertainment Editor of The Filipino Reporter) promptly sent me a copy of People magazine’s "special collector’s edition" featuring The 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons. (Again, it’s People’s own choices and the list might not include your own "icons".)

The People editorial says it all:

They are the gods and goddesses of pop culture. We enshrine them on posters (from Einstein to Farrah), recite their catchphrases like mantras ("Shagadelic!"), emulate their looks and their do’s (the Rachel). Some are so utterly unique that we know them by their first names alone: Marilyn, Elvis, Oprah. Or by their last: Schwarzenegger, Springsteen, Seinfeld. Others, like J.R. Ewing, Superman and Friends, don’t even have to be real to engage us...Meet the divas, jocks, jesters and just plain unforgettables.

•THE TOP TEN
1. Tom Cruise
2. Lucille Ball
3. Elvis Presley
4. Oprah Winfrey
5. Marilyn Monroe
6. Michael Jackson
7. Princess Diana
8. Michael Jordan
9. Madonna
10. Superman

•THE DIVAS
11. Diana Ross
12. Cher
13. Barbra Streisand
l4. Whitney Houston
15. Celine Dion
16. Dolly Parton
17. Jennifer Lopez
18. Aretha Franklin
19. Tina Turner
20. Mariah Carey
21. Shania Twain
22. Queen Latifah
23. Janet Jackson

•IN CONCERT
24. The Beatles
25. Aerosmith
26. The Bee Gees
27. Kiss
28. Bon Jovi
29. The Rolling Stones
30. ABBA
31. Run-D.M.C.
32. Led Zeppelin

•SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE
33. Julia Roberts
34. John Travolta
35. Mary Tyler Moore
36. Tom Hanks
37. Sally Field
38. Ron Howard
39. Will Smith
40. Katie Couric
41. Mister Rogers
42. Reese Witherspoon
43. Molly Ringwald
44. Denzel Washington
45. The Osbournes
46. Drew Barrymore
47. Michael J. Fox
48. Friends

•GONE TOO SOON
49. John Kennedy, Jr.
50. Bob Marley
51. Bruce Lee
52. Jim Morrison
53. Tupac Shakur
54. Jimi Hendrix
55. Judy Garland
56. John Belushi
57. James Dean
58. Jerry Garcia
59. Kurt Cobain
60. Marvin Gaye
61. Rock Hudson

•THE CLASSICS
62. Elizabeth Taylor
63. Julie Andrews
64. Bette Davis
65. Jackie Gleason
66. Dick Van Dyke
67. Katharine Hepburn
68. Jane Fonda
69. William Shatner
70. Bob Hope
71. Charlie Chaplin

•BRAND NAMES
72. Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable as Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler (in Gone With The Wind)
73. Barbara Eden as Jeannie (in I Dream of Jeannie)
74. Bon Denver as Gilligan (in S.S. Minnow)
75. Larry Hagman as J.R. Ewing (in Dallas)
76. The Brady Bunch
77. Henry Winkler as The Fonz (in Happy Days)
78. Telly Savalas as Kojak (in Kojak)
79. Penny Marshall as Laverne de Fazio (in a ditzy ’70s sitcom)
80. James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano
81. Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker (in All in the Family)
82. Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock (in Star Trek)

•GOOD SPORTS
83. Muhammad Ali
84. Dorothy Hamill
85. Joe Dimaggio
86. Jackie Robinson
87. Tiger Woods
88. Magic Johnson
89. Wayne Gretzky
90. Venus and Serena Williams
91. Joe Namath
92. Babe Ruth

•VISIONARIES
93. Bill Clinton
94. Alfred Hitchcock
95. Andy Warhol
96. Bill Gates
97. Betty Ford
98. Woody Allen
99. Steven Spielberg
100. Rudy Giuliani
101. Stephen King
102. Albert Einstein
103. Sigmund Freud
104. John F. Kennedy
105. Neil Armstrong

•PARAGONS OF STYLE
106. Audrey Hepburn
107. Nicole Kidman
108. Christie Brinkley
109. David Bowie
110. Calvin Klein
111. Grace Kelly
112. Gianni Versace
113. Gwen Stefani
114. Sarah Jessica Parker
115. P. Diddy
116. Cindy Crawford
117. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

•COMIC RELIEF
118. David Letterman
119. Ellen Degeneres
120. Robin Williams
121. Jay Leno
122. The Three Stooges
123. Eddie Murphy
124. Arsenio Hall
125. Richard Pryor
126. Roseanne Barr
127. Whoopi Goldberg
128. Rosie O’Donnell
129. Carol Burnett
130. Bill Cosby
131. Chris Rock
132. Mike Myers
133. Jim Carrey
134. Johnny Carson
135. Jerry Seinfeld

•UNREAL
136. Micky Mouse
137. The Simpsons
138. Cartman
139. Spider-Man
140. Beavis and Butt-Head
141. Harry Potter
142. Wonder Woman
143. Fred Flintstone
144. E.T.
145. Kermit and Miss Piggy
146. Bugs Bunny
147. Charlie Brown
148. Batman
149. Scooby-Doo

•THE SEX SYMBOLS
150. Pamela Anderson
151. Britney Spears
152. Harrison Ford
153. Mel Gibson
154. George Clooney
155. Justin Timberlake
156. Paul Newman
157. Leonardo DiCaprio
158. Farrah Fawcett
159. Burt Reynolds
160. Ben Affleck
161. Brad Pitt
162. Halle Berry

•IN YOUR FACE
163. Clint Eastwood
164. Jack Nicholson
165. Bruce Willis
166. The Rock
167. Al Pacino
168. Sylvester Stallone
169. Arnold Schwarzenegger
170. Russell Crowe
171. Eminem
172. John Wayne
173. Robert De Niro

•THE MUSICMEN
174. Bruce Springsteen
175. Stevie Wonder
176. Garth Brooks
177. Frank Sinatra
178. James Brown
179. Prince
180. Elton John
181. Sting
182. Bono
183. Johnny Cash
184. Bob Dylan
185. Axl Rose
186. Ricky Martin

•ONE OF A KIND
187. Judge Judy
188. Liberace
189. Howard Stern
190. Winona Ryder
191. Regis Philbin
192. Kevin Bacon
193. Dick Clark
194. Dr. Phil
195. Barbara Walters
196. Macaulay Culkin
197. Hugh Hefner
198. Monica Lewinsky
199. Susan Lucci
200. Martha Stewart

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