In the News: Billy Graham on 'Most Admired' List 61 Times

The Rev. Billy Graham, the renowned Christian evangelist who died at age 99 on Wednesday, holds the remarkable distinction of having appeared on Gallup's Top 10 "Most Admired Man" list 61 times, more than any other man since the annual listing began in 1948 -- and more than any woman has appeared on the companion Top 10 "Most Admired Woman" list.

	Men		Women
		No. of times		No. of times
	Billy Graham	61	Queen Elizabeth II	49
	Ronald Reagan	31	Margaret Thatcher	34
	Jimmy Carter	28	Oprah Winfrey	30
	Pope John Paul II	27	Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis	28
	Bill Clinton	25	Hillary Rodham Clinton	26
	Dwight Eisenhower	21	Mamie Eisenhower	21
	Richard Nixon	21	Barbara Bush	20
	George H.W. Bush	20	Margaret Chase Smith	20
	Harry Truman	20	Nancy Reagan	19
	Nelson Mandela	20	Mother Teresa	18
	Bill Gates	18	Clare Boothe Luce	18
	Edward Kennedy	18	Condoleezza Rice	17
	Winston Churchill	17	Betty Ford	17
	George W. Bush	16	Mme Chiang Kai-Shek	17
	Colin Powell	16	Helen Keller	17
	Douglas MacArthur	15	Patricia Nixon	15
	Barack Obama	12	Eleanor Roosevelt	14
	Henry Kissinger	12	Maya Angelou	12
	Pope Paul VI	12	Elizabeth Dole	11
	Jesse Jackson	11	Barbara Walters	11
	Adlai Stevenson	11	Laura Bush	11
	Albert Schweitzer	11	Lady Bird Johnson	11
	Herbert Hoover	10	Indira Gandhi	11
	Pope Pius XII	10	Michelle Obama	10
			Princess Diana	10
Gallup

Graham achieved fame as a young evangelist in the late 1940s and 1950s when his rallies attracted increasingly large crowds and his influence spread, fueled in part by news coverage in Hearst newspapers and LIFE magazine. He subsequently became widely known for his worldwide evangelistic crusades that attracted millions of people and for his radio and television broadcasts heard and seen around the world. He also was known as the preacher to the presidents, and he met in person with every president from Harry Truman to Barack Obama, as well as Donald Trump before his presidency.

A 2005 Gallup poll showed that 85% of Americans said they had seen Graham on television at some point in their lives; 52% had heard him on the radio, and 16% reported having seen him in person.

Graham first appeared on Gallup's "Most Admired Man" list in 1955 and has been among the nation's top 10 most admired men every year since then, except in 1962 when he dropped out of the top 10 and in 1976 when Gallup did not publish the traditional Top 10 list.

Graham's 61 appearances on the list are far ahead of Ronald Reagan's 31 appearances, Jimmy Carter's 28 and Pope John Paul II's 27. Queen Elizabeth II's 49 appearances on the Top 10 "Most Admired Woman" list tops that category. Graham owes his remarkable record for being among the nation's most admired men in part to his longevity. The list requires that those named be living -- thus cutting short the number of appearances for people such as John F. Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower, who did not live until they were almost 100, as did Graham.

Graham held the No. 2 spot on the list eight times -- from 1969 through 1974, and again in 1997 and 1999 -- but never appeared as the No. 1 most admired man, a distinction usually held by the sitting president.

In 2017, even at his advanced age and despite not having appeared in public for years, Graham placed fourth on the "Most Admired Man" list, trailing only Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Pope Francis.