Elvis Presley, yes; Marilyn Monroe, no. Albert Einstein, yes; Al Capone, no. Babe Ruth, yes; Magic Johnson, no.
Life Magazine unveiled its list Friday of the 100 Most Influential Americans of the 20th century, and those among the missing are as interesting as those who made it.No Madonna, no Magic, no Michael Jordan. No Clark Gable. No Greta Garbo. No Al Jolson.
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Not on this list. Not a single U.S. president - and there were 17 since 1900.
More than 60 historians and other experts were consulted by Life in making the list. Only three people received unanimous support, the magazine reported: the Wright Brothers and Henry Ford.
So who did make it?
Elvis, Albert and the Babe. Polio vaccine inventor Jonas Salk and infant care guru Dr. Benjamin Spock. The king of rock 'n' roll is joined by a half-dozen other musicians: Louis Armstrong, Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Bing Crosby, Bob Dylan and Richard Rodgers.
"It's a list of the most influential people of the past 100 years, not the famous," said Mary Steinbauer, editor of the special issue. "In making our selections we looked at how our lives would be different if each of our honorees didn't live."
Missing completely are the 17 presidents of the 20th century. "Every president is important to us - that's the nature of the job," said Steinbauer. One first lady made the list: Eleanor Roosevelt.
More than half of the list was born in the 19th century, and only 21 of the honorees are still living.
Marlon Brando was the lone actor to make the list; from the world of sports, Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, Jackie Robinson joined the Bambino.
Activists-advocates was second to the sciences in producing honorees. Thirteen of them were cited, including civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill W., and feminist Betty Friedan.
As a group, the 100 captured 11 Nobel Prizes, five Pulitzer Prizes and four Academy Awards. Twenty of them never graduated high school, including Walt Disney, William Faulkner, Jackson Pollock and Malcolm X.
Thirteen were born in a foreign country and later became U.S. citizens, such as choreographer George Balanchine (Russia) and scientist Wernher von Braun (Germany). New York was the state that produced the most honorees, 14, double that of runner-up Illinois.
The list also included Life's founder, Henry Luce. Life said the 100 were selected from a field of 636 people under consideration.
*****
(Additional information)
And the honorees are . . .
NEW YORK (AP) - Here are the "100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century" compiled by editors of Life Magazine and listed alphabetically:
Jane Addams (1860-1935) Social reformer
Muhammad Ali (1942- ) Prizefighter
Elizabeth Arden (1884?-1966) Businesswoman
Roone Arledge (1931- ) Broadcasting executive
Louis Armstrong (1900?-71) Jazz musician
George Balanchine (1904-83) Choreographer
John Bardeen (1908- ) Physicist
Irving Berlin (1888-1989) Songwriter
Edward L. Bernays (1891- ) Public Relations executive
Leonard Bernstein (1918- ) Conductor/composer
Marlon Brando (1924- ) Actor
Wernher von Braun (1912-77) Rocket engineer
Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) Author/educator
Wallace Carothers (1896-1937) Chemist/nylon inventor
Willis Carrier (1876-1950) Engineer/air conditioning inventor
Rachel Carson (1907-64) Environmentalist/author
Bing Crosby (1904-77) Singer/actor
Clarence Darrow (1857-1938) Lawyer
Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) Labor organizer
Robert De Graff (1895?-1981) First paperback book publisher
John Dewey (1859-1952) Philosopher/educator
Walt Disney (1901-66) Cartoonist/film producer
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) NAACP founder
Allen Dulles (1893-1969) Founding CIA director
Bob Dylan (1941- ) Singer/songwriter
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) Theoretical physicist
T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) Poet/critic
William Faulkner (1897-1962) Author
Abraham Flexner (1866-1959) Educator
Henry Ford (1863-1947) Automobile manufacturer
John Ford (1895-1973) Filmmaker
Betty Friedan (1921- ) Feminist author
Milton Friedman (1912- ) Economist
George Gallup (1901-84) Public opinion analyst
A.P. Giannini (1870-1949) Banker
Billy Graham (1918- ) Evangelist
Martha Graham (1894?- ) Dancer/choreographer
D.W. Griffith (1875-1948) Filmmaker
Joyce C. Hall (1891-1982) Businessman/greeting cards
Ernest Hemingway (1898-1961) Author
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935) Jurist
J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) FBI director
Robert Hutchins (1899-1977) Educator
Helen Keller (1880-1968) Activist author/lecturer
Jack Kerouac (1922-69) Author
Billie Jean King (1943- ) Tennis player
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-68) Civil rights activist
Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956) Sociologist/sex researcher
Willem Kolff (1911- ) Biomedical engineer
Ray Kroc (1902-84) McDonald's founder
Edwin Land (1909- ) Inventor, polarized lenses/camera
William Levitt (1907- ) Developer
John L. Lewis (1880-1969) Labor leader
Charles Lindbergh (1902-74) Aviator
Raymond Loewy (1893-1986) Industrial designer
Henry Luce (1898-1967) Editor/publisher
Douglas MacArthur (1889-1964) U.S. Army General
George C. Marshall (1880-1959) Soldier/diplomat
Louis B. Mayer (1885-1957) Motion picture producer
Claire McCardell (1905-58) Fashion designer
Joseph McCarthy (1908-57) U.S. Senator
Frank McNamara (1917-57) Inventor of the credit card
Margaret Mead (1901-78) Anthropologist
Karl Menninger (1893-1990) Psychiatrist
Charles E. Merrill (1885-1956) Stockbroker
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) Architect
Robert Moses (1888-1981) Municipal planner
William Mulholland (1855-1935) Civil engineer
Edward R. Murrow (1908-65) Journalist
Ralph Nader (1934- ) Consumer advocate
Rienhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) Theologian
John von Neumann (1903-57) Mathematician
Euguene O'Neill (1888-1953) Playwright
J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-67) Physicist
William Paley (1901- ) Broadcasting executive
Jackson Pollock (1912-56) Artist
Emily Post (1873-1960) Etiquette columnist
Elvis Presley (1935-77) Entertainer
Jackie Robinson (1919-72) Baseball player
John D. Rockefeller Jr. (1874-1960) Philanthropist
Richard Rodgers (1902-79) Composer
Will Rogers (1879-1935) Humorist author/actor
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) Political figure/
author
Babe Ruth (1895-1948) Baseball player
Jonas Salk (1914- ) Polio vaccine microbiologist
Margaret Sanger (1883-1966) Leader of birth-control movement
Alfred P. Sloan Jr. (1875-1966) Industrialist
Benjamin Spock (1903- ) Pediatrician/educator
Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) Photographer
Roy Stryker (1893-1975) Deptartment of Agriculture official
Bill W. (1895-1971) Alcoholics Anonymous founder
Andy Warhol (1928-87) Artist
Earl Warren (1891-1974) Supreme Court Chief Justice
James D. Watson (1928- ) Biologist/DNA researcher
Thomas J. Watson Jr. (1914- ) Businessman
Tennesee Williams (1911-83) Playwright
Walter Winchell (1897-1972) Journalist
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) Architect
Orville Wright (1871-1948) and Wilbur Wright (1867-1912) Aviation pioneers
Malcolm X (1925-65) Civil rights activist