R251 I feel like the evil queens from both Disney's Snow White and Cinderella were modeled on Crawford, so that would make sense.
R252 I see her Margot character from Ripley as a comedic performance, or I thought she and Philip Hoffman both added an unnerving type of tragicomedy, her as an unwitting pretentious fool and him as a creepy rapey douchebro, to the movie.
I also think she's similarly funny in Blue Jasmine and Notes on a Scandal. Of course, all these are women who are foolish and victims of their own dimwittedness and poor decisions, but the characters all would be so much flatter if they weren't played somewhat comically.
I LOVE Bringing Up Baby and while the role is obviously not a type Hepburn played often, I think she's amazing in it...but I have read that when it came out, it was absolutely panned and particularly her performance was panned as a failed attempt of a serious, stolid woman to play madcap comedian. I think she's incredibly successful at it.
One thing I love about Nicole Kidman is what a mess her acting choices have been. She's always good in her roles but she has chosen such great ones and such utterly confounding ones, like the recent Russian-lady-who-runs-a-psychedelic-retreat-center one. And to your point, she has chosen plenty of straightforward comedies as well as stealthy comedies, so perhaps one could say her range is broader than Cate's is. On the other hand, Cate is similarly prolific and like Nicole, Cate's material has to be great to rise to the level of her performances, and Cate's overall body of work has been much more consistently high quality.
I do think we have some really extraordinary actresses working today. I don't understand the pheneomenon of Reese Witherspoon and some other huge successes, but Cate, Nicole, Meryl, Glenn, Kate Winslet, Julianne Moore, Renée Zellweger—hate me, but even Gwyneth (as actress, not as Goop)—deserve the same level of acclaim as the dead-and-gone Hollywood icons whose work I still enjoy often.
Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn do stand alone IMO, but mainly because they were first and utterly unique and live on in magnificent black and white, from oddly beautiful youth to *really* fascinating old ladies.
And Lucille Ball stands alone for me.
And Crawford, but mainly as an idea and an image. I don't think she was a bad actress at all, but her acting ability was very shallow compared with Davis and Hepburn's. But I do see her in my mind as a vulnerable glamourpuss with football player shoulders and as the ultimate Disney cartoon villainess.
