The great Gena Rowlands is still acting long after her Golden Globe nominations in the '00s and '90s, after her wins in the '80s and '70s, after showing up for season after season of Peyton Place in the '60s, after getting plenty of small-screen work before the end of '57 on Goodyear Playhouse and Ponds Theater and maybe half-a-dozen other TV shows dating back to her television debut in '54.
Richard Eyer had roles on The Roy Rogers Show and The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse and Science Fiction Theatre and The Red Skelton Hour and Father Knows Best and a dozen other TV shows – plus a dozen big-screen movies – before the end of 1957, soon after which he became a castmember on Stagecoach West.
Madeleine Sherwood got work on The Philco-Goodyear Television Hour and Suspense and Danger and You Are There and Studio One In Hollywood and so on by the end of '57; in '58, she brought her Broadway role to film in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof; and, after doing Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Decoy and et cetera, she was back alongside Paul Newman for yet more Tennessee Williams in Sweet Bird of Youth.
Years later, you could see her as Reverend Mother Superior Lydia Placido in '67 and '68 and '69 and '70 – with petite Sally Field of course playing The Flying Nun.
Venetia Stevenson was acting on television before the end of '57 – on Playhouse 90 and Matinee Theatre and Cheyenne and Sugarfoot – which is why she of course made the rounds on The Bob Hope Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, appearing on the latter with the Everly Brothers, not long before she married Don Everly.
(You remember Don Everly, right? Why, he performed on television whole bunch of times before the end of '57…)
They tried to repeat the Rock Hudson formula with James Westmoreland, branding him as “Rad Fulton” when he was acting in the '50s: in the movies, and on television in Bronco and West Point and Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Lux Playhouse and so on. Since it didn’t really take, he eventually switched to acting under his own name.
After doing Forbidden Planet with Leslie Nielsen, you could see Robert Dix acting with Sal Mineo on Lux Video Theatre in '56 and with Lloyd Bridges on Studio 57 in, well, '57. And after spending '58 on shows like Highway Patrol and Mike Hammer and Richard Diamond, Private Detective, he was back on the big screen in Lone Texan, which fits with how he spent '59 acting on TV westerns like Mackenzie’s Raiders and Frontier Doctor and Death Valley Days and The Rifleman.
He kept at it in the '60s – on yet more TV westerns like Gunsmoke and Rawhide, when he wasn’t doing yet more movies as Frank James or Wild Bill Hickok – and in the '70s kicked off Live And Let Die as That Guy Who Gets Stabbed In New Orleans.
Kathryn Beaumont did movie after movie after movie after movie in the '40s before acting on Climax! with John Agar, and on TV Reader’s Digest with Louis Hayward, and on The Fred Waring Show with Sterling Holloway – and appearing as the celebrity challenger on What’s My Line – all before the deadline in the '50s.
Also before the deadline in the '50s: her voice work as Wendy Darling in Peter Pan, and as little Alice in Alice In Wonderland.
After doing half-a-dozen movie roles, May Wynn lost out on the Donna Reed part in From Here To Eternity before getting, uh, the May Wynn part in The Caine Mutiny. She then acted on The Ford Television Theatre and Schlitz Playhouse before landing the recurring role of Jean Blackburn on The Bob Cummings Show in '55 and '56 before playing Liz Clark as a Noah’s Ark castmember in '56 and '57 – and picking up yet other pre-deadline credits on State Trooper and The Restless Gun and so on.
These come from looking at credits for the Robert Montgomery Show (1950-1957).
Ray Boyle last worked in 1994-5 after a 30 year layoff but is apparently still alive.
The previously mentioned Diana Douglas.
Jack Hartley is still active (if IMDb hasn’t confused two different people), but only after a 54 year layoff!
Plus I want to mention the wonderfully named Skip Homeier again.
IMDB is clearly confusing two different people. “He was a member of the National Youth Theatre in the summer of 2010,” it says; not the same guy, says I.
By contrast, I give you the IMDB entry for Will Hutchins, who after acting on Conflict and Matinee Theatre played the leading role of Tom Brewster on Sugarfoot in 1957, and of course stuck with the role in 1958 and 1959 and 1960 and 1961: he guested as Tom ‘Sugarfoot’ Brewster on Maverick back when, and so I’m pretty sure he’s the same guy showing up as an in-joke wink in the Maverick movie decades later; he got work on Perry Mason in the '60s before apparently doing The New Perry Mason in the '70s; he did Spinout with Elvis Presley before naturally doing Clambake with Elvis Presley; the whole thing hangs together, is what I’m saying.
Speaking of which, Roydon Clark spent the late 1950s acting on The Rifleman and Bat Masterson and Maverick after beating the deadline on Sugarfoot and Cheyenne and Colt .45, after of course getting work in various big-screen westerns, before naturally doing his thing in yet more big-screen westerns.
Emmy winner Keith Michell is still here long after earning various pre-'57 TV credits. Fun fact: he was in a modern retelling of OTHELLO set among '60s-era jazz musicians, alongside Patrick McGoohan as the innocuous Iago analogue complete with a clunky racial angle – “Me? Oh, I belong to that new minority group: white American jazz musicians. They’re going to hold a mass meeting in a phone booth.”
The knockoff Desdmona in that one was played by NYC-born Marti Stevens, also still with us long after doing a TV movie in '55 before acting on shows like M Squad and Stagecoach West and et cetera.
After making her TV debut on Robert Montgomery Presents, Millette Alexander got work on Goodyear Playhouse and Kraft Theatre before the end of '57 – followed by soap-opera work starting in '58 on Edge of Night, followed by all those years playing Doctor Sara McIntyre on Guiding Light from the '60s to the '80s.
James Olson apparently never got work on any of the Superman TV shows over the years, but he was the guy who calls in Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando, which is pretty much the closest thing to firing up the signal watch imaginable.
Anyhow, he’d earned plenty of small-screen credits in the decades prior, stretching all the way back to '57 (the year he was on the big screen with young George Peppard) and '56 (the year he was on the big screen with old Victor Mature).
In the '60s, Christopher Plummer’s ex-wife Tammy Grimes starred in The Tammy Grimes Show in between earning Tony Award wins, but before all of that she was acting on Kraft Theatre and Studio One In Hollywood and Max Liebman Spectaculars and The United States Steel Hour, all before the end of '57.
Jean Moorhead followed up years of movie work by becoming a 35-23-35 Playboy Playmate the year she made her television debut on The Bob Cummings Show before appearing as an I’ve Got A Secret special guest before acting on The Lineup and Bachelor Father and Death Valley Days and The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet before the end of '57.
Happy 80th birthday to Don Eitner, who picked up work on Star Trek – both as an actor in his own right, and as William Shatner’s stunt double – which makes sense, since a decade earlier he (a) made his TV debut on Science Fiction Theatre in '56, the same year he (b) started his recurring role as Cadet Townsend on West Point.
He then stuck with that double-barreled credential-building in '57: playing a military man on television, on Navy Log and The Silent Service, and doing big-screen sci-fi movies like Kronos and Beginning Of The End. (Note that he was a soldier in that last one there – just like he was a Marine in Until They Sail.)
He then kept on doing exactly what you’d expect on TV : he’s credited as “Corporal” and “Sergeant” and “Lieutenant” and “Major” and “Commander”, easy as getting work on shows like Men Into Space and Lost In Space and et cetera. And he kept getting big-screen sci-fi work as well, because, hey, the man knows his job.
Sort-of watched 7 Faces of Dr. Lao the other day. The main cast member still alive is the noted Barbara Eden.
John Ericson started in 1950 and the most recent credit is from 2008.
From the IMDb bio page:
"Studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. Was in the same class as Grace Kelly, Jack Palance, Don Murray and Don Rickles.
Posed for the nude centerfold in Playgirl magazine’s January 1974 issue."
First is “Just, wow!”, The second is “Okaaay.”
(His wife, Karen Ericson, started too late to qualify for this thread, but she did play “Queen Bess” in the Season 3, Episode 14* Catwoman’s Dressed to Kill* episode of the Batman TV series. Playing the victim of Eartha Kitt’s Catwoman is always worth a mention.)
Not sure if Frank Kreig is still alive. Started in 1945, first TV in 1952. Last credit in 1967. Seems unlikely but stranger things have happened. (No birth year listed, so hard to guess an age.)
Dirk Evans from the above Batman episode is another one of those that would (just barely) qualify if still alive but no credits in decades. (The only other qualifier from that episode is of course Adam West.)
Speaking of Batman villains, the first season of Buck Rogers cast Frank Gorshin and Cesar Romero and Julie Newmar as baddies, with good guys like Peter Graves and frickin’ Buster Crabbe and Erin Grey in skintight shiny pants and it was awesome.
And in the second season, they dropped all of that – and the opening narration by William Conrad, and girl-of-the-week guest stars like Jamie Lee Curtis, and voice work by Mel Blanc – and they dropped Tim O’Connor as Doctor Huer.
O’Connor had been a fixture on cop shows in the '70s: a recurring role as a police lieutenant on The Streets Of San Francisco, a murder victim on Columbo, and so on from Police Story to The FBI to Hawaii Five-O and et cetera. And before that, he of course did hundreds of Peyton Place episodes in the '60s.
And before all of that, he was on 12 O’Clock High and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Sunday Showcase and Play of the Week and The DuPont Show of the Month and you see what I did there; and the point is, his TV credits run all the way back to '54.
Robert Paget made his TV debut on Kraft Theatre before acting on The Red Skelton Hour in '56 and '57 and – after acting on Playhouse 90 in '58 – kept at it in '59, when you could also see him on episodes of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. And after acting on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, you could see him on The Joey Bishop Show in '61 and '62 and '63, followed by My Favorite Martian and et cetera.