In '49, a young actress appeared on TV with a pre-I-Love-Lucy Vivian Vance and on the big screen with a pre-I-Love-Lucy William Frawley. And pre-'56, you could see her on Climax! and Schlitz Playhouse. And since she’d just married Ronald Reagan, you could of course see Nancy Reagan appearing with him on General Electric Theater and The Ford Television Theatre.
Peter Mark Richman made his TV debut in '53 with Eva Gabor on Suspense, and was soon picking up pre-'58 work on episodes of Goodyear Playhouse, and episodes of Armstrong Circle Theatre, and episodes of Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre – along with Playwrights '56 and Studio 57, plus Justice and Kraft Theatre and The United States Steel Hour.
By '99, he was in his seventies and still active to the point of writing and producing a movie he felt like acting in – and after turning eighty, he acted in a small film with everyone from Danny Glover to Martin Landau to Billy Zane.
Lee Aaker acted on The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin from 1954 to 1959 after making the rounds on Fireside Theatre and The Ford Television Theatre in 1953 following his small-screen debut in 1952; his other pre-1957 television credits included everything from The Lone Ranger to The George Burns And Gracie Allen Show, plus working with Walter Brennan and Chuck Connors on Screen Directors Playhouse.
Before he was a Greek god on Star Trek, you could see Michael Forest on TV westerns like Cheyenne and Tombstone Territory in '57 – same year he was on the big screen with James Garner and Angie Dickinson in Shoot-Out At Medicine Bend – after he made his small-screen debut on Death Valley Days back in '53. Forest also picked up half-a-dozen other Golden-Age-Of-Television credits pre-'58 – on Highway Patrol, Studio 57, Lux Video Theatre, and so on – and is now still acting in his eighties.
(In his seventies, you could see him in Cast Away with Tom Hanks; in his sixties, he was the rich guy Madonna may have killed with sex in Body of Evidence; in his fifties, King Kong Lives with Linda Hamilton; in his forties, The Assassination of Trotsky with Richard Burton; and before that, he played everyone from Atlas to Achilles in the movies, which helps explain why he’s still up and around all these decades later.)
Back before Tommy Sands of Babes In Toyland fame was Frank Sinatra’s son-in-law, he acted on Kraft Theatre and Zane Grey Theater in '57 – the same year you could see him on The Eddie Fisher Show and The Spike Jones Show and The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show and The Dinah Shore Chevy Show.
It’s also the same year he got his own This Is Your Life episode.
Felicia Farr was on the big screen in '57 for the original 3:10 To Yuma after years of TV acting – on Playhouse 90 (and before that, Celebrity Playhouse), and The Ford Television Theatre (and before that, The Fireside Theatre), and et cetera on back through to her small-screen debut on The Lone Wolf in '54; she kept getting TV work in the sixties and seventies, and is now still alive in her eighties.
Joe Turkel – who played both the eerie bartender from The Shining and Doctor Tyrell in Blade Runner – was getting work on television back as early as '52, when he was on Boston Blackie and Dangerous Assignment and The Unexpected; pre-'57, you could also see him on The Lone Ranger and Four Star Playhouse and I’m the Law and Highway Patrol and Public Defender and Navy Log and The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp and Crossroads and The Lineup and I Led 3 Lives and General Electric Theater and et cetera.
I thought he was mentioned earlier, but apparently not. Another BR cast member, James Hong, has been mentioned twice and I knew Turkel might have qualified.
I keep running into near misses. E.g., today is Anita Bryant’s birthday (74). She appeared on the old George Gobel show but her run didn’t start until 1959.
Martin Milner of Adam-12 fame is 82. He was on TV starting in 1950.
Julius La Rosa is still alive. Best known for his role on The Arthur Godfrey Show and being fired on-air by Godfrey, La Rosa was an outstanding singer on the series and for many years on his own, much to Godfrey’s dismay.
Not really known for his acting, but I was surprised to learn recently that Jake LaMotta is still alive at age 92. His first TV credit was in 1953.
Tommy Kirk and Tim Considine first started playing The Hardy Boys on television back in '56 – Kirk after doing Loretta Young Show episodes, and Considine after playing Spin in all those Adventures of Spin and Marty episodes – and between the two of 'em you’ve got pre-'57 work on Gunsmoke and The Ford Television Theatre and Crossroads and Frontier and Treasury Men In Action and Big Town and I’m The Law and Chevron Theatre and The Adventures Of Rin Tin Tin and et cetera.
(In '56, Kirk did an episode of Lux Video Theatre with Carole Wells, who (a) acted on Medic and Cavalcade of America later that year, and (b) is also still with us.)
The lovely Anna Maria Alberghetti was singing on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show in '57 and The Jimmy Durante Show in '56, the same years you could see her acting on The Loretta Young Show; her small-screen acting credits go back to 1952 (when she was on The Colgate Comedy Hour), and her singing ones back to 1950 (on Cavalcade of Stars), and in one capacity or another she was all over the place in the Golden Age Of Television: on Ford Star Jubilee and on The Ford Television Theatre, and on Matinee Theatre and General Electric Theater, and on Red Skelton Revue and The Red Skelton Hour, and on Schlitz Playhouse and Make Room For Daddy and et cetera, all before '58.
Oh, and she sang on The Ed Sullivan Show a bunch of times before winning the Tony on Broadway; you’d see her on there in the same episode as Sugar Ray Robinson, or Gloria Swanson, or Nat King Cole, or any other big name of yesteryear.
For balance, consider this.
Switching gears entirely, let me now add mention of Chuck Hicks, who started getting work as a stuntman on Cheyenne in '55 and – well, look, since he was already hanging out on the set, he soon picked up a dozen minor acting roles on the show during '56 and '57 because they kept needing someone to be a passenger on the riverboat or a bar patron at the saloon or an old-timey blacksmith or whatever.
Anyhow, he’d been appearing on television since 1952 – showing up on everything from Gang Busters to My Friend Flicka – and was still getting work as a stunt performer as recently as 2010, when he was still getting work as an actor likewise.
Janis Paige had no trouble getting work in '57 – on Studio 57 and The Bob Hope Show and Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall and Lux Video Theatre and The Big Record and even The Pat Boone-Chevy Showroom – because, well, she’d just finished starring as Jan Stewart on the It’s Always Jan sitcom in '55 and '56.
She sang on The Colgate Comedy Hour and acted on The Philip Morris Playhouse in '54; appeared on The George Jessel Show, and acted on The Plymouth Playhouse, in '53; sang and acted on The Milton Berle Show, in '52 and '51; and otherwise made the rounds on TV from '50 to '57 when she wasn’t busy in movies or on Broadway.
Elizabeth Wilson is still with us. Although best known for her roles in The Graduate and Catch-22, she first started on The Kraft Network Theatre in 1955. Her latest role was as Franklin Roosevelt’s mother in 2012’s Hyde Park on the Hudson.
John McMartin, a versatile character actor probably best known to many today from his role as a patrician defense attorney of the NBC series Law & Order is still around. His first TV role was in 1958 on Armstrong Circle Theatre.
John Karlen is still kicking. He’s another versatile character actor who is probably best known as playing Harvey Lacey, the husband of one of the title characters from the 1980s television police drama, Cagney & Lacey. His first TV role was in 1949s The Big Story
Susan Oakland, who was a panelist on many 1960’s television game shows is still alive. She got her start on 1954’s What’s Going On? a game show which ran briefly that year.
Gaby Rodgers, probably best known for her co-starring role in the 1955 noir classic Kiss Me Deadly and as the wife of the late songwriter Jerry Leiber is still alive. She had numerous television credits throughout the 1950s,starting with 1950s Pulitzer Prize Playhouse
Rachel Ames is probably best known for earning all those Emmy nominations playing Audrey Hardy on General Hospital in the '60s and '70s and '80s and '90s and '00s: she got raped by a doctor, she was accused of murder, she miscarried after a car crash, she overdosed on pills, she reunited with her kidnapped son, she headed back to the altar for a fourth marriage, you name it. And she was still at it as recently as 2013.
But before all of that, in '57 and earlier, she picked up plenty of TV work: she acted on episodes of General Electric Theater, with Ronald Reagan and Michael Landon and Robert Cummings; she acted on episodes of Crossroads, with Chuck Connors and Guy Williams and Conrad Nagel; and she acted on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Tales of Wells Fargo and half-a-dozen Science Fiction Theatre episodes and a dozen other shows besides.
Dick Van Patten’s been mentioned, but Joyce Van Patten was racking up TV credits in '48 and '49 – on The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse and Kraft Theatre, respectively – and kept at it on The Big Story and Armstrong Circle Theatre before getting tapped as one of the original castmembers for As The World Turns in '56.
She was still working in her seventies – a recurring role on Desperate Housewives, a part as Rob Schneider’s much-older wife in Grown Ups, and so on – and was top-billed playing an Alzheimer’s sufferer in a movie just last year, before turning eighty just this month.
Has Jack Carter been mentioned? He’s 90 years old and still working.