The compilation is billed as "our list of the 100 men and women whose power, talent or moral example is transforming our world." In previous years "The Time 100" used the words "most influential."

For each of the 100 names, a person associated with the shaper was asked to pen a tribute blurb in the Time issue. For example, Tom Cruise writes about his "Mission: Impossible III" director ("Alias" and "Lost" creator) J.J. Abrams, Bob Newhart authors Ellen DeGeneres' item and fellow supermodel-turned TV-host Heidi Klum shares her thoughts on Tyra Banks.

Tony Award winner Vanessa Redgrave — Hoffman's Long Day's Journey Into Night co-star — offers her take on the newly-crowned Academy Award-winning Best Actor for his turn in "Capote." "The Actor Who Is Always 'There'" is the subtitle to the star's article, about watching him become Jamie Tyrone in the Eugene O'Neill work. Redgrave wrote: "Harold Pinter writes of the great Irish actor Anew McMaster's King Lear and Othello: You see the old man in his 60s; you see and hear the actor's greatness. I can convey only a faint impression of Hoffman. If he had maintained his tousled hair and rehearsal trousers, he would still have been Jamie. Seven times a week, Hoffman propelled himself with one deep groan into the darkness of the stage, and as Pinter says of McMaster, 'He got there.'"

Though she has not been on Broadway since 1977's Happy End, Streep has maintained a presence in the theatre community with a turn in the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park production of The Seagull and producing Off-Broadway's Bridge & Tunnel. (She returns to Central Park this summer in Mother Courage.) Director Robert Altman — who collaborated with Streep on the upcoming film "A Prairie Home Companion" — writes of her, "She's perhaps the smartest actor I have worked with. She needed not one thing from me, and in any case, no guidance, direction or suggestion I could have given would have matched her flawless instincts. That made me feel blissfully inadequate."

First-time Broadway producer Winfrey lent her name (and following) to The Color Purple musical and is listed among the "Leaders and Revolutionaries" section. Fellow Time 100 honoree U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice penned her focus: "As a TV star, magazine founder, businesswoman and celebrity, Oprah Winfrey certainly has power. But most important, she has purpose—an abiding commitment to the principles of goodness and generosity that transcend any one individual." Other names of note to theatre folk include one-time Broadway composer Paul Simon (The Capeman) on the "Heroes and Pioneers," as well as A Raisin in the Sun star Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and Las Vegas casino impresario Steve Wynn — who brought Avenue Q and will bring Monty Python's Spamalot to his new casino resort.

For more information on the Time feature story, visit the website at www.time.com.