Peabody Awards · CC BY-SA 3.0

Broke through as the scatterbrained comic relief on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, then proved there was calculation behind the ditziness by winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in only her second film, Cactus Flower. She built a decades-long career alternating broad comedies like Private Benjamin, for which she earned a Best Actress nomination, with Overboard and The First Wives Club. She has been partnered with actor Kurt Russell since they met filming her screen debut in 1968, and is the mother of Kate and Oliver Hudson.