I saw this the other day on Twitter.
Really? That's a fact? I don't buy it. Okay maybe it's the case with Panic in the Streets (1950) where Richard Widmark is placed against all 6' 4" of Jack Palance but I refuse to believe that most leading men were over 5' 10". In fact, there were a lot of really short leading men who starred along even shorter leading women. Alan Ladd was paired with Veronica Lake and Mickey Rooney with Judy Garland for a reason people!
Here is a list of 30 classic film actors who were under 5' 10". I'm not even including those stars who were exactly 5' 10"! If you can think of any more, do let me know.
Mickey Rooney 5' 2"
Alan Ladd 5' 6-1/2"
James Cagney 5' 6-1/2"
Edward G. Robinson 5' 5"
Humphrey Bogart 5' 8"
Tony Curtis 5' 9"
Ernest Borgnine 5' 9"
Marlon Brando 5' 9"
Tony Randall 5' 8"
Jack Lemmon 5' 9"
Frank Sinatra 5' 7"
Gene Kelly 5' 7"
Bobby Darin 5' 8-1/2"
Dean Stockwell 5' 6"
Richard Barthelmess 5' 8"
Ramon Novarro 5' 6"
Paul Newman 5' 9-1/2"
James Dean 5' 8"
Steve McQueen 5' 9-1/2"
Peter Lorre 5' 5"
Buster Keaton 5' 5"
John Garfield 5' 7"
Kirk Douglas 5' 9"
Charles Boyer 5' 9"
Dirk Bogarde 5' 8-1/2"
George Raft 5' 7"
Peter Sellers 5' 8"
Claude Rains 5' 6-1/2"
Charlie Chaplin 5' 5"
Groucho Marx 5' 7-1/2"
Images shamelessly stolen from TCMDB and stats stolen from IMDB. Thanks to my Twitter friends for suggestions and to Carlos for helping me round out the list to an even 30.