Shane Rimmer made his television acting debut in '57, followed by more small-screen work in '58 and '59, and the '60s and '70s and '80s and '90s and '00s and '10s.
Heck, he’s got a TV movie in the works for next year as we speak.
Before becoming a biographer of Brando and Clift and et cetera, Patricia Bosworth was a TV actress on Concerning Miss Marlowe and Robert Montgomery Presents and Kraft Theatre before the end of '57; she recently wrapped up a biography of Jane Fonda, and is set to appear in a documentary on method acting this month.
Waldo, where did you find all these names? Did you grow up watching these people and so you remember them, or did you check online somewhere? Amazing that there are so many of them out there.
Six of one, half-a-dozen of IMDB.
So, f’rinstance, take the prior page; given that James Garner came up in this thread, how can Gena Rowlands not come to mind? And given how STAR TREK references dot the landscape likewise – hey, what Doper hasn’t seen the episode where the whole point is that Robert Walker Jr looks young-but-not-that-young?
So there’s that – plus, given how examples will occasionally jump out at me, bumping this thread every day for months makes it easier to keep bumping this thread every day for months. In November, THE CAINE MUTINY came on while I was flipping through channels; during the commercial, I looked up May Wynn on my phone; I wouldn’t have thought to do that in August or April, but I kept posting other stuff until it simply appeared before me in Autumn like Burt Kwouk in a PINK PANTHER flick.
So, too, do I now mention Virginia Leith, who (a) of course achieved MST3K fame by starring in THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN"T DIE; and who (b) made her television debut way back in 1956, the year she was up on the big screen with Joanne Woodward and Robert Wagner in A KISS BEFORE DYING, which was a classic the way BRAIN ain’t.
And – from a quick look at the credits for BRAIN – I note that Marilyn Hanold deserves mention for doing OFFICIAL DETECTIVE and THE BOB HOPE SHOW before doing a Jerry Lewis movie in 1957 before she made the rounds on THE PHIL SILVERS SHOW and HAVE GUN - WILL TRAVEL and et cetera before the end of the '50s, after which she went from Playboy Playmate to eye candy on BATMAN and IN LIKE FLINT and so on.
I’d figured on bumping the thread until we hit the one-year mark.
Harry Shearer was on the JAck Benny Show on radio in 1950. And, I’ve heard the show. You can find it out OTR sites.
Hal Stalmaster was Disney’s Johnny Tremain – remember that one? – back in '57, after making his television debut acting on Cavalcade of America; you could still see him on TV later in the '50s, when he’d moved from pre-Revolutionary-War antics to post-Civil-War ones with The Rebel; and in the '60s, he went from a recurring role with The Swamp Fox to a WWII-era role on 12 0’Clock High.
what’s the date?
Jackie Loughery became the first Miss USA back in 1952, and after getting movie work in 1953 landed a recurring role on Mister District Attorney in 1954, and after yet more movie work in 1955 got a recurring role on Judge Roy Bean in 1956 before getting a recurring role on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show in 1957.
Along the way, she also beat the deadline on half-a-dozen other TV shows – from Damon Runyon Theater to West Point to The Cisco Kid and so on.
Carol Lynley got plenty of television work in 1956 – on Goodyear Playhouse and General Electric Theater and The Alcoa Hour and so on – before spending 1957 acting on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The DuPont Show of the Month.
She kept acting on TV when she started getting movie work in 1958; was still at it when she came away with a Golden Globe nomination in 1959; and then kept making both small-screen and big-screen appearances in the '60s and '70s and '80s and '90s and '00s, easy as earning herself an award on Broadway.
Charles Herbert was acting on The Loretta Young Show in '54, and kept at it in '55 (when he was doing episodes of The Bob Cummings Show) and '56 (when he was doing everything from Playhouse 90 to Science Fiction Theatre). And after getting work on Alfred Hitchcock Presents in '57, he got a recurring role on The Donna Reed Show in '58 and '59 and '60 – a year when (a) he was doing a recurring role on Men Into Space, and when (b) you could of course still see him on The Loretta Young Show.
Buddy Greco has television appearances dating back to 1956, when you could see him on The Rosemary Clooney Show. Also on that show that year: his then-future-ex-wife Dani Crayne, who acted in Conflict episodes before doing Cheyenne in '57.
(Her small-screen credits technically stretch back even further: to 1955, when she appeared in a TV movie alongside Clint Eastwood and Steve Allen and Audie Murphy and Tony Curtis; it’s a cliché to say What Is This, I Don’t Even, but, c’mon.)
Sally Forrest made her TV debut in 1952 on Schlitz Playhouse with Irene Dunne and Barbara Billingsley; after doing Lux Video Theatre and Armstrong Circle Theatre and The Ford Television Theatre and yet other shows, she could be seen acting on Climax! in '55 and '56 and '57 – and '58, but, hey, who’s counting?
(She also beat the deadline in a TV movie with a pre-Perry Mason Raymond Burr.)
We could technically count Liza Minnelli for this – she’s been appearing on TV since '56, when she hosted Ford Star Jubilee – but I don’t want to quibble over trifles.
I do, though, want to note that in '59 she appeared on The Gene Kelly Show with Cherylene Lee, who (a) went on to do sitcoms ranging from Bachelor Father to McHale’s Navy to Dennis The Menace years after she’d (b) made her small-screen acting debut on Playhouse 90 back in '56.
Ralph Votrian has a film role as an elderly resident completed and awaiting release, sure as he earned youthful credits on a dozen TV shows before the end of '57.
Jack Imel appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in '56 – and The Lawrence Welk Show in '57, where you could still see him in the '60s. And the '70s. And the '80s. He was still performing in the '90s and '00s, as it happens.
Patty’s blandly dimwitted boyfriend Richard on The Patty Duke Show was of course played by Eddie Applegate, who’s still getting work half a century later: he did a movie last year with French Stewart and Claudia Black, and did a TV movie the year before that with Patton Oswalt and Laura Kightlinger, and before that was the grandfather in Easy A with Emma Stone, and et cetera.
Anyhow, before all of that he was acting on The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis – and back before that he was beating the deadline on Kraft Theatre.
Loren Janes has acting credits in the '00s and the '90s and the '80s and the '70s and the '60s and even the '50s, dating back to The Cisco Kid in 1955 – the same year he more significantly made his debut as a stuntman. And so in 1956, he was getting stunt work on The Adventures of Jim Bowie; in 1957, on Sugarfoot; in 1958, on Broken Arrow; in 1959, on Laramie; in 1960, on Bat Masterson; and so on: he was a stunt double for Kirk Douglas in Spartacus, and for William Shatner on Star Trek, and for Steve McQueen in Bullitt (and The Sand Pebbles and The Getaway and The Hunter and The Reivers and et cetera).
Yvonne Craig is, of course, Batgirl – but before that, she was racking up TV credits in the early '60s (on 77 Sunset Strip and Laramie and Tales of Wells Fargo) and late '50s (on Bronco and Perry Mason and Schlitz Playhouse), all the way back to her television debut on The Bob Hope Show in '57 (the year she was in a movie with Jim Backus).
Top Five just hit theaters, with the role of “Rosario Dawson’s grandmother” going to Miriam Colon decades after she was Tony Montana’s mom in Scarface – and decades before that, she was racking up pre-'58 TV credits on Danger and Star Tonight and The Big Story and Studio One In Hollywood.
And from a quick look at IMDB – dang, but that’s a lot of characters named “Maria”.
Groucho’s daughter Melinda Marx acted in The Story Of Mankind like dad in '57, after appearing side-by-side with him on You Bet Your Life the year before that, and the year before that – and they were still doing You Bet Your Life episodes together the year after that, followed by a made-for-TV version of The Mikado.
No, really.
And from a look at IMDB, that’s her singing on The Ed Sullivan Show with dad nowhere in sight: after '57, sure, but that’s her on Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall – and various other TV shows – before the end of 1957, which is still pretty good.