40. SALLY FIELD
She got her big break playing perky surfer girl Gidget, then won even greater fame as cute Sister Bertrille in The Flying Nun. But it was her astonishing turn as a woman with 16 different personalities in the 1976 TV movie Sybil that proved Field's mettle as a serious actress — and won the California native her first Emmy. Since then, she's collected two more, most recently for her outspoken widowed matriarch on ABC's Brothers & Sisters.

Get This! Sybil: Two-Disc Special Edition