Game: Earliest-born actor on IMDB

Cafe Society
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Two different games:

  1. Find the earliest-born actor on IMDB, and show your work. I easily got back to 1862. Watching an episode of the Twilight Zone about an old man, I looked up the actor, Joseph Schildkraut, on IMDB and traced him back to a 1915 German film called “Schlemihl.” This film starred his father, Rudolph Schildkraut, who was born in 1862, in the Ottoman Empire.

  2. Find the earliest-born actor on IMDB with a profile photograph. Joseph Schildkraut takes us back to 1896.

I’m confident that you all can easily beat these answers.

I imagine that these may have been done here before, and the answers are presumably retrievable by Google, but I’m inviting people to have fun with it. Poke around, see how early you can get, and tell us how you got there. If you really want to post some definitive answer that you found somewhere, please spoiler-box it.

Mods: I put this in Cafe Society because of its subject matter and because I think it’s really more of a fun research project than a game, but if you think it belongs in the Game Room, please move it. Thanks!

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Eleanor Duse, born in 1858, but I’m sure there’s earlier. She made a film, Cenere, in 1916. No photo on IMDb though.

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With pictures - Lionel Barrymore - 1878

StG

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William S. Hart - 1864 with pic.

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Does Gen. Shafter count? Born 1835. He’s not technically an actor, but he does appear in IMDB as starring in a film, of sorts.

Spoiler for how I know this old general’s film history He happens to be, or has been at one time, the person on the IMDB with the highest Bacon Number, depending on what rules you use for the game. I poked around a bit with the folks he has been filmed with, and didn’t find anyone older.

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Caveats:

Listed as an actor, not playing self (for example, Ulysses Grant’s wife is in an 1899 film and was born in 1825)
Most early actor records on IMDb don’t have any birth date data.
It is possible to look up all of the people born in a year on IMDb so this wasn’t hunt and peck discovery. So if that is cheating I’ll put in a spoiler.

[spoiler]Earliest I found was Daddy Taylor, born July 9, 1828. Credited as “Ancient Dancing Prospector” in Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925).

Next oldest are

Charles Manley, who did a couple dozen shorts in the 19teens and was born on September 25, 1830.

Sky Eagle, who appeared in several 1912 short westerns and was born on November 7, 1830

[/spoiler]

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No pic - Joseph J. Dowling - 1850

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For with picture (same caveats as above)

[spoiler]Sarah Bernhardt - Born October 23, 1844.

Second place looks like it goes to Gertrude Claire, born July 16, 1852.
[/spoiler]

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Nice! What a memorable face.

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Anna Townsend Jan 5 1845.

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I was going to post Teddy Roosevelt, for his appearance in the Simpsons, but he’s just a toddler compared to some of the other examples given. (Also, he played himself.)