Dick Miller is now 85, decades after he was the What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get sales clerk in The Terminator, decades after all those Roger Corman moves; first TV credit back in '57, and 57 years later he’s got his own That Guy Dick Miler documentary.
Back before Beneath the Planet of the Apes and Escape from the Planet of the Apes and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes in the 1970s, Natalie Trundy spent the 1960s acting on shows like The Twilight Zone and Bonanza and Perry Mason and Wagon Train – and before that, in 1957 and earlier, she was appearing on Matinee Theatre and Studio One in Hollywood and The Alcoa Hour and Goodyear Playhouse after the Lincoln’s Little Correspondent TV movie in '53.
Alice Hirson, a regular on Dallas and Homes Fires is still with us. Her latest IMDb credit is a 2014 short and she started on Secret Storm in the 1950s as a bit player.
Nope, her first appearance is much later. As I mentioned above, some IMDb listings are misleading as they give the start date of the series on the right, rather than when the actor first appeared which is on the left.
The last listing is for Hirson is for The Edge of Night, not Secret Storm. But if you look closely you see that’s for 1969-70. (I couldn’t find any connection to SS by Googling.) Her earliest appearance is 1963 on General Hospital. Since she was 34, this is a bit later than one would expect to start a long acting career.
British actor Tom Courtenay appeared in one TV movie in 1956 before getting further TV work and then movies in the 1960s.
Karen Scott’s most recent IMDB credit is from the '90s, but back before '57 you could see her on Sergeant Preston of the Yukon and Climax!
I phrased that badly. Anyhow, she was also on Judge Roy Bean – dangit, I just did it again – before the cut-off date, after making her Gang Busters TV debut in '52.
As per IMDB, Barrie Chase is still making appearances a good sixty years after her TV debut with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis on The Colgate Comedy Hour in '54; after a number of credits on Shower of Stars stretching into '55, she was in half-a-dozen movies during '56 before getting work on The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour in '57.
(In '58, when she acted on Mike Hammer and Have Gun - Will Travel, she performed on An Evening With Fred Astaire; in '59, Another Evening With Fred Astaire; and in 1960, Astaire Time. And so on.)
Elaine May and Mike Nichols were performing on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show as comedians in '57 – and again in '58, when they also acted together on Omnibus and The DuPont Show of the Month – before they appeared in a TV movie in '59.
After that, of course, he got his first Oscar nomination in the '60s before she followed suit in the '70s, and et cetera.
In the 1940s, Judy Nugent was a castmember on The Ruggles; in the 1950s, she acted on The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Superman and half-a-dozen other shows before '57. (Who else got more than half-a-dozen TV credits before the cut-off date? Big sis Carol Nugent, with The Gene Autry Show and The Bob Hope Show and so on.)
Happy Birthday to the previously mentioned Robert Morse. 83 years old today.
Started as an original cast member of The Secret Storm in 1954 and still working as a regular on Mad Men.
Also set to turn 83 this year: Jaye P. Morgan, who’d racked up a dozen TV credits by the end of 1957 – on The Jackie Gleason Show and The Jonathan Winters Show and et cetera – even without counting her tenure on The Jaye P. Morgan Show in '56.
(Followed by more TV work in the '60s and '70s, plus movie work in the '80s and '90s; her most recent IMDB appearance is circa last year.)
I remember her mainly from The Gong Show.
I remember Karolyn Grimes as Zuzu from It’s A Wonderful Life, because who doesn’t? But she qualifies for this thread because – ten movies later – she was getting pre-'57 television work on Fireside Theatre with a teenaged Jill St. John.
At that, Janie Bailey – the less-memorable It’s A Wonderful Life kid – is still with us in the form of Carol Coombs, who acted on shows like My Friend Flicka and Cheyenne before the cut-off date, after her TV debut on The Bigelow Theatre in '51.
Constance Towers is 81 today and doesn’t appear to have been mentioned.
Earliest IMDb listing is for 1952. Still going strong with an entry for Men at Work for this year. I must say, she is quite attractive.
Shirley Yamaguchi has IMDB credits dating back to the '30s in the movies, and picked up television work before the cut-off date – acting on The United States Steel Hour, singing on The Red Skelton Hour, and et cetera from Robert Montgomery Presents to The Ed Sullivan Show and so on; read her wiki entry some time, it’s fascinating.
Steve Lawrence of “Steve and Eydie” fame has his most recent IMDB credit right here in 2014; twenty years before that, he was acting on Empty Nest back in 1994; twenty years before that, he was performing on The Dean Martin Comedy Hour in '74; twenty years before that, he was appearing on the first episode of The Denny Vaughan Show in '54; and before that, he was singing on episodes of Tonight!
So he popped up all over the place before the end of '57 – on The Russ Morgan Show and The Jonathan Winters Show and the General Motors 50th Anniversary Show and The Steve Allen Plymouth Show and so on – after which, he spent the rest of the '50s singing on The Ed Sullivan Show and playing What’s My Line mystery guest.
Joan Freeman made her television debut on Sandy Dreams in the '40s, followed by pre-'57 roles on Lux Video Theatre and The Life and Times of Wyatt Earp; she was still getting work in '57 (on Bachelor Father and Father Knows Best), and kept at it in the '60s (on Gunsmoke and Perry Mason and et cetera) and '70s (Marcus Welby MD, Adam-12) and '80s (CHiPs, The Facts Of Life) and '90s (Renegade, The Commish).
Most recent IMDB credit as of last year, incidentally.
Lauren Chapin was mentioned, but Billy Chapin and Michael Chapin each got pre-'53 TV and movie work well before their sister began her Father Knows Best role in '54.
(In '55, you could see Billy and Michael in Night of the Hunter with Robert Mitchum.)
Hayward Morse is filming a movie set to come out next year, after racking up all those TV credits in the '90s and '80s and '70s and '60s – and before all of that, you could see him acting alongside dad Barry Morse in a made-for-TV version of Macbeth in '55, after he made his screen debut in a Barry-Morse-directed TV movie back in '52 with mom Sydney Sturgess.
(And while it technically falls after the OP’s cut-off date, wiki sez that in '59 he was in the first teleplay broadcast in color on NBC, which I figure deserves mention.)
Fresh off a Broadway run on Waiting For Godot, Geoffrey Holder made his TV debut in '57 on The United States Steel Hour; in February of '58, he was playing the Genie opposite Sal Mineo as Aladdin on The DuPont Show of the Month, with Basil Rathbone as The Emperor; and by '59, Holder was back on the big screen for Porgy and Bess with Sidney Poitier as Porgy and Dorothy Dandridge as Bess.
And after that – well, Bond villain, 7-UP pitchman, Tony award after Tony award…