what links the following names: Alec Baldwin, James Cagney, Viggo Mortensen, Bruce Willis, Dustin Hoffman, Eddie Cantor, Rudolph Valentino, and Malcolm McDowell?
Everyone on your list has featured in a film that has an exclamation point (!) in the title - except Rudolph Valentino, as far as I can tell. Since all the others have, I think this might still be the link, and maybe I'm just missing a Valentino film.