It might seem specious to observe that New York actors seem more real than their West Coast counterparts. But look at them-the movie stars, the Broadway divas, the character oddballs, the certifiably unclassifiable. They're here, they walk among us, they're in the world instead of inured to it. Starkly individual, they're still connected by the fact of this place and it's endlessly shifting boundaries. They leap from blockbusters to threadbare indie pics to TV to Shakespeare in the Park to budding playwrights' swings at the moon. We love them in the long shot and close up, from the Ziegfeld to the line at Zabar's.

Lauren Bacall.