Ok, I’ve been wondering this for a while. Does anyone know who’s been in the most movies in their career. I’d figure it’d probably be a stunt man or someone like that, but if anyone knows who can claim the most movies under their belt, please share.
Thanks for the help!
IMDB has such data.
I recall reading that it’s one of the women who posed with the torch in the Columbia Pictures logo
Since this is about films, I’ll move this thread to Cafe Society.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Sorry about posting on the wrong board. I can’t find anything on imdb. I’ll look a bit harder and see what I can find.
I did find this at IMDB:
http://us.imdb.com/Prolific/
So thanks for pointing me there. I wonder which actors that are currently acting would have the highest number…
mrbuddylee, sorry for the terse reply earlier, but look into this page to help answer your question. I have looked before and it’s not that helpful in finding people you’ve heard of! But if you poke around, maybe make your own sublist of those “prolific” types, you can build your own version.
According to the Internet Movie Database, the most prolific actors are:
Mel Blanc (905 acting credits)
Almost all of Blanc’s credits are for voices in Warner Bros. cartoons.
Adoor Bhasi (549)
Tom London (533)
Bud Osborne (525)
Edmund Cobb (515)
Prem Nazir (506)
Lee Phelps (502)
Oliver Hardy (442)
Lee Moran (I) (437)
Irving Bacon (436)
The most prolific actresses are:
Bess Flowers (489 acting credits)
Almost all of Bess Flowers’ work was as an unbilled extra over several decades in Hollywood. She became known as the Queen of the Extras.
Mae Questel (330)
Questel was the voice of Betty Boop and Olive Oyl from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Lalita Pawar (323)
Sharada (306)
Florence Lawrence (293)
Lawrence was one of the first movie actors to get screen billing, in 1910.
Pandharibai (278)
Mary Pickford (277)
Claire McDowell (268)
Mary Gordon (I) (260)
Sridevi (259)
The Hollywood actor who has starred in the most feature films is John Wayne. He acted in 153 movies; in all but 11 he had leading roles.
Ron Jeremy has 739 individual on-screen credits and a couple hundred more off-screen. If you count repeat clips in compilations, he has over 4000. Most of these are porn, but some aren’t; he has an uncredited role in 1973’s Jesus Christ Superstar. I wouldn’t want to share a water fountain with the guy, but give him his due.
Oh, and the woman holding the torch in Columbia openers: Is there any chance that that’s Shirley Temple?
Wow.
I would have bet money that John Carradine was the one with the most screen appearances… guess I was wrong.
Christopher Lee has appeared in the most movies of all seriously famous people I know.
According to the Original Posting, the question is “who has been in” the most movies. Isn’t it possible a key grip, a gaffer or even a clapper loader was in 1,000 films?
Well, clapper loaders tend to be removed in the editing process, unless you’re watching a very poorly made film. 
Re: Mel Blanc. There are probably a bunch of now-forgotten newreel announcers who could match his record. Though I’m not really sure if the OP was thinking about short subjects … or porn, for that matter!
I know this wasn’t really the question, but if you want to know which current major actor or actress has been in the most movies, the answer is:
Gene Hackman, with 76 credited roles.
This is a list of the top 91 actors (based on box office grosses), which can be sorted by Number of Films Starring, Average Box Office Gross of those films he starred in, Average B.O. Gross of all movies they made, Average B.O. Gross of all movies they made in the 1990’s, Average B.O. Gross of their last 10 movies, Total gross of all movies they’ve been in, Number of all movies they’ve been in, and number of movies they’ve been in grossing over 100 million dollars.
The major Actress with the most credited roles is:
Susan Sarandon, with 47 credited roles
Newsreel announcers may have been at the movies, but they weren’t in many films, were they?
Otherwise the clear winner would be DON ‘THUNDER THROAT’ LAFONTAINE … the guy who does movie trailers. 80 studio sessions a week! More than 3500 films, television shows and other projects!