IMDB publishing ages- Page 4

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/14/10 at 2:03am

You mean like Catherine Zeta-Jones??

[Jane2]

Posted: 2/14/10 at 2:20am

She changed hers too?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/14/10 at 2:24am

She claims to be in her early 40s!

[Jane2]

Posted: 2/14/10 at 2:27am

Hmmm, let me google her right now.

[Jane2]

Posted: 2/14/10 at 2:28am

How old IS she? She looks pretty young to me.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 2/14/10 at 4:20am

What I don't understand is why birthdates are even necessary. You wouldn't advertise this information unless it was needed for some tangible reason. A person can usually play a range of ages. It doesn't make sense to publish a specific birthdate.

Because sometimes people are interested to know how old Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were when they made What Ever Happened to Baby Jane like I did the other night. You're making it seem as though the birth dates are published for the sole purpose of harassing small time actors to deprive them of roles, instead of just having general records available. If uncredited extra roles have a place on IMDB, so do birth dates.

[nygrl232]

Posted: 2/14/10 at 7:28am

>You're making it seem as though the birth dates are published for the sole purpose of harassing small time actors to deprive them of roles, instead of just having general records available. If uncredited extra roles have a place on IMDB, so do birth dates.

That's the side effect of publishing birth dates. I didn't create the ageism in the business, nor the "go-to" status of imdb for casting professionals. imdb's birthdate policy is an ongoing problem in the industry. Imdb claims free speech and freedom of info act, actors are horrified that their ages (whether incorrectly or correctly reported) are emblazoned on a popular website for all (the public and agents alike) to see.


From http://www.stephonfuller.blogspot.com/

"Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Today I was a member of a roundtable session with executives from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) along with about a dozen other actors. We discussed what IMDB is to us, as individuals, how we use it, what we wish it would do that it currently doesnâ??t, etc.

The biggest topic was, of course, the â??age thingâ??. Why do they list our date of birth? Why wonâ??t they remove it if requested? It doesnâ??t affect me so much, because early on, back in the day, I entered my own date of birth June 28th, 19?? They acknowledged that having the age displayed can cost an actor a job in some situations; especially women. Theyâ??re trying to figure out a way to make everyone happy. Maybe placing it somewhere else within the profile and not on the front page could be an option. Maybe giving the actor control over it; Iâ??m not sure I see that happening. The thing is that the casual viewer and some industry professionals do want to know an actors actual age. Theyâ??re trying to please many different groups of people. Iâ??m not sure what the answer is, but they are looking into coming up with some sort of solution."

I'm not sure how publishing ages "pleases everyone." It's doing the opposite, especially for the actors, who make up a significant percentage of the website's existence.
Updated On: 2/14/10 at 07:28 AM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/14/10 at 9:15am

Why do you keep putting things in quotes that were never in quotes? Nowhere in that jumbled quote you posted does it say that posting ages pleases everyone.

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/14/10 at 9:34am

It's definitely a sore spot with some actors, but I think they are in the minority now. This isn't 1947, when movie stars could fairly easily hide their ages from the public. This also isn't the age when a woman's acting career is completely over at 40.

The people who complain the most about this are the ones who aren't famous yet. If they were famous, EVERYONE would know their age or have easy access to this information already, even if IMDb didn't exist. It would be published on fan sites, message boards, blogs, in newspapers, magazines, and gossip rags.

The Internet has arrived, don'tcha know? You can't blame career falterings on one website.

[LaurenB]

Posted: 2/14/10 at 10:35am

nygrl232 - Put up your own website, and don't let the IMDB site define you. Use a webmaster who is smart in SEO (search engine optimization), so that if a search is made on you, YOUR site comes up before the IMDB site.

Then, sign up for the IMDB Pro account, modify or eliminate the birthdate, and then add a link to your site.

[nygrl232]

Posted: 2/14/10 at 11:18am

Thanks, LaurenB.

[Jane2]

Posted: 2/14/10 at 11:35am

"Because sometimes people are interested to know how old Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were when they made What Ever Happened to Baby Jane like I did the other night."

Sort of like when obituaries list the age of the deceased so that you can know how long they lived, lol.

[StockardFan]

Posted: 2/14/10 at 12:24pm

I don't think Catherine Zeta Jones is older than early 40's? I'm 43 and she looks younger than I do!