Right after Roger Federer won his 15th Grand Slam at Wimbledon this month, Pete Sampras declared, "The guy is a legend; now he's an icon." In his eyes, this was a status upgrade. Shortly after that, In Touch magazine referred to both Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett as felled icons. PeopleandTime chimed in. None of the big guns seemed prepared to award Ed McMahon official iconic status, but loads of other smaller media outlets did.

Other icons were on the way. Karl Malden, star of both "On the Waterfront" and "The Streets...