Can’t believe I haven’t mentioned her yet: Elaine Devry. First IMDb (TV) credit is 1953. Last is 1999.
Very lovely and a good rom-com actress.
I’m assuming she’s still alive since the death of Mrs. Mickey Rooney #4 shouldn’t go unnoticed.
Marty Ingels seems to just sneak in under the wire: an uncredited 1958 TV appearance on the Phil Silvers show.
Mort Sahl, on the other hand, qualifies by making his television debut back in '56 on The NBC Comedy Hour before repeatedly guest-hosting The Tonight Show in '57, and then spending the rest of the '50s as a What’s My Line panelist when he wasn’t busy acting on Pursuit or Playhouse 90 (or getting big-screen work, in In Love And War).
Nobody’s favorite Star Trek actress Grace Lee Whitney made her television debut back in 1952 – on The Unexpected – before acting on Cowboy G-Men in 1953.
(Years later, after roles on Mike Hammer and The Life And Legend Of Wyatt Earp, she was one of the girl musicians used for camouflage in Some like It Hot in '59.)
Was watching a bit of The Hospital earlier, and thought it ripe for candidates for this thread. (Plus you gotta love some Paddy Chayefsky.) 3 long term character actors that should be familiar to followers of this thread are:
Frances Sternhagen started in 1956.
Donald Harron (Charlie Farquharson from Hee Haw) started in 1951.
Richard Dysart started in 1953.
We’ll all be rewatching Back To The Future in 2015, so I’ll just mention that Old Man Peabody [del]owned all of this when it was farmland as far as the eye could see, and had some crazy idea about breeding pine trees[/del] was played by Will Hare, who has TV acting credits dating back to the '40s.
That’s sadly irrelevant, because he passed away on stage in 1997 – but the actress who played his wife, Ivy Bethune, is still with us after picking up TV credits that date back through Perry Mason and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and The Outer Limits to the '40s likewise. (She’s still acting right here in the '10s, even.)
Ann McCrea was one of the Singin’ In The Rain chorus girls in '52, when you could also see her on Death Valley Days; she kept acting on television through the end of '57 (on The Bob Cummings Show and State Trooper and The Man Behind The Badge) before spending years playing Midge Kelsey on The Donna Reed Show in the '60s.
She also did movie after movie after movie after movie after movie with Jerry Lewis, for which there can be no excuse.
Joby Baker of Good Morning, World made his TV debut on The Red Skelton Hour and then acted on Bachelor Father before and after the deadline, and on Dragnet before and after the deadline, sure as he had no trouble getting work in Gidget movie after Gidget movie after Gidget movie after doing West Point in '57.
Paul Lukather made the papers several months ago, when he put his six-bedroom place complete with swimming pool and car turntable up for sale; he maybe hasn’t done much acting of note since 2000 (unless you’re a Metal Gear Solid fan), but his TV credits run back through to '57 and earlier: Highway Patrol and State Trooper, Matinee Theatre and Science Fiction Theatre, and so on.
Buzz Martin – a name so '50s that, were I to propose it for the hero of a story set in the '50s, I’d be told to make things a little less cliché – made his TV debut in 1951 on Pulitzer Prize Playhouse before acting on Kraft Theatre and Lux Video Theatre in 1952, followed by Tales of Tomorrow work in 1953, and so on through The Big Story and Producers’ Showcase and Studio One In Hollywood before the deadline…
…after which, he moved on to big-screen roles: Pork Chop Hill with Gregory Peck, The FBI Story with Jimmy Stewart, PT 109 with Cliff Robertson, and et cetera.
As far as I can tell, Anita Ekberg hasn’t been mentioned yet, but after movie work in Mississippi Gambler with Tyrone Power and The Golden Blade with Rock Hudson and Abbott And Costello Go To Mars with, uh, Abbott and Costello, she switched to TV in time to act on Private Secretary and The Colgate Comedy Hour before acting on the Casablanca series in '55.
(Yes, there was a Casablanca series for some reason; it gave an early TV role to Rossana Rory in '56 before she started doing Errol Flynn Theatre episodes in '57.)
After big-screen work in the '40s – including Easter Parade, with Fred Astaire and Judy Garland – Dolores Donlon acted on I Love Lucy and The Jack Benny Program before doing The Walter Winchell File and The George Sanders Mystery Theater in 1957, the year (a) she became a Playboy Playmate; and (b) after which, you could see her on 77 Sunset Strip in 1958 and 1959 and 1960.
Pippa Scott made her small-screen debut on Your Play Time in '55 before heading to the big screen for The Searchers in '56, after which she returned to telvision in '57 for Producers’ Showcase; she then returned to movies for Auntie Mame in '58, and after picking up work on Maverick and General Electric Theater you could see her on the Mr. Lucky series in '59 and '60; in '61 and '62, Adventures in Paradise; and et cetera.
Y’know, technically Frank Gifford has been appearing on TV since '56, but that would open up a whole can of worms.
That said, I’ll now open a whole other can of worms with Ronnie Rondell Jr, who was little Dannie Kettle in the Ma And Pa Kettle movies before he was old enough for grown-up roles in the late '50s – he’s one of the sailors in The Enemy Below, and one of the soldiers in The Naked And The Dead, and so on – and before the end of '57, you could see him on television in Soldiers of Fortune and The Restless Gun and Combat Sergeant and Richard Diamond, Private Detective.
After more than a dozen movies in the early '50s – from Tarzan And The Slave Girl to Rodeo King And The Señorita – Mary Ellen Kaye acted on episode after episode after episode after episode The George Burns And Gracie Allen Show easy as doing episode after episode after episode after episode of Schlitz Playhouse when she wasn’t busy with I Love Lucy or The Lone Ranger or Father Knows Best or – well, take your pick from any one of more than a dozen other TV shows before the cut-off date.
Dale Hartleben and his kid brother Jerry Hartleben got pre-'57 credits on TV and in the movies. (Jerry got interviewed plenty when the 3:10 To Yuma remake came out.)
Flip Mark – aka Philip Mark Goldberg – made his small-screen debut back in 1957, on The Phil Silvers Show; he then spent the rest of the '50s acting on Alcoa Theatre and Lassie and Bachelor Father before spending the '60s getting work on everything from The Jack Benny Program to The Andy Griffith Show, along with My Three Sons plus My Favorite Martian, and et cetera and et cetera.
Joan Swift made her television debut in '57, acting on The Gale Storm Show and Death Valley Days before promptly moving on to – well, The Joey Bishop Show and The Jack Benny Program and The Red Skelton Hour; she also did a TV movie with Lucille Ball and Bob Hope, and Alcoa Premiere with Fred Astaire and Telly Savalas, and then spent the mid-'60s getting work on everything from I Spy to The Munsters before playing Captain Kirk’s doomed sister-in-law on Star Trek.
Back in '55 and '56, Barry Curtis was the star of The Adventures of Champion.
Well, unless you count Champion The Wonder Horse as the star.
Which, as it happens, wiki doesn’t, though IMDB does.
So he’s got that goin’ for him, which is nice.
Be that as it may, Curtis had been acting on TV before that – on The Lone Ranger and Medic and Four Star Playhouse – and then he kept at it in '57, on Father Knows Best and Annie Oakley and State Trooper. And he kept acting after that, too…
Susan Harrison was in Sweet Smell of Success with Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster in 1957, after small-screen work on Matinee Theatre with Dean Stockwell following her TV acting debut on Star Tonight; she then spent the golden age of television making the rounds on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Playhouse 90 before famously playing the ballerina in “Five Characters In Search Of An Exit” on The Twilight Zone.
Buddy Hart made his TV debut on Schlitz Playhouse before playing Chester Anderson on Leave It To Beaver in '57 and '58 and '59 and '60 before moving on to My Three Sons in '61 and The Twilight Zone in '62 and The Donna Reed Show in '63 and so on.