re: who is considered the greatest/biggest movie star of all time?

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Stars from the golden age were really only known outside of Hollywood when fans saw them in a movie, thus, they seemed bigger than life. Stars today are known more for their off-screen antics, politics, talk shows, etc... than they are for their actual work.

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To a certain degree - there was still a tabloid system back then, just not the breadth and depth we have now - just twitter and TMZ alone probably remove the mystique of virtually any star.

The Golden Age stars' private lives were carefully controlled and marketed - with an exclusionary system - now it's the reverse - most stars are inclusionary, by exception - they live and die at the box office based on the social media campaigns. To a certain degree all modern "stars" are branded like the legends once were, but dilution has reduced their relative value.

Frank Sinatra, for example, was once at the intersection of everything - Hollywood, pop music, media, government, organized crime - virtually any problem was solvable by The Chairman with 1 or 2 phone calls.

Just absolutely zero chance of anybody like that in Hollywood - much less talent - having that kind of pull today - Cruise probably comes closest with his influence in Scientology. Hip-hop stars at the very top tier have some of this influence now (and I'm thinking specifically of the amount of wealth and access to government that Jay-Z has at his disposal).