Happy Birthday: Ali MacGraw

In the millennium, we are blessed to have Maggie Gyllenhaal and Kirsten Dunst as two of the most consistent actresses: for bad, piss-poor and laughably lame performances.

Now, it'd be one thing if these two were sexy ladies—say like Darryl Hannah or Rene Russo in their day—but not only are Gyllenhaal and Dunst incapable of acting their way out of that little visual above to the right—but let's be honest, they'd be prettier wearing said paper bag over their heads.

Looking back 30 or so years ago, the mid-1970s boasted a pair of equally appalling "actresses" whose performances were so dead-on bad-ass bad that just thinking about "The Gradudate" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" sends me into gales of pained laughter. Thank you, Katharine Ross! Sadly, in the final scene, as we hear the call of "Fuego!" ("Fire!"), Ross' character Etta Place is apparently spared. Better aim next time!

Then there's Ali MacGraw—who celebrates her 71st birthday on this April Fool's Day—who made "Love Story" the ultimate tear-fest: only because her performance was just killing me. Har har.

The ultimate crossroads in bad acting came when both Ross and MacGraw, their careers in tatters, were given recurring roles on fab nighttime soaps and "Dynasty" and "The Colbys," respectively, in the 1980s. Ross played Francesca "Frankie" Scott Colby Hamilton Langdon, with all of the emotion of a damp paper towel; while MacGraw played Lady Ashley Mitchell, a woman of alleged great sophistication, as convincing as a bag lady wearing lucite pearls. Thankfully, mercy prevailed. The Lady was eventually gunned down by revolutionaries. Hurrah!

Happy birthday, you kidder, you!