It's a joke almost as old as show business itself. The ageing actor - or more commonly, actress - who insists they can play characters decades younger than they are.

In our modern information age, though, it's no laughing matter.

Last month, an actress filed suit against Amazon and its subsidiary, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), for posting her birth date on the latter website.

The world's most comprehensive repository of information about films, television shows and just about everybody who has worked on them, IMDb has become the standard reference for not only journalists and fans but increasingly for folks in the industry who want to check out potential hires.

The actress, who remains anonymous but is described as pushing 40 and appearing much younger, complains that by posting her birth date, IMDb effectively destroyed her career - which had been exclusively playing younger women.

How? With actors' real ages virtually at their fingertips on the increasingly relied-on IMDb, casting directors and their bosses, producers and directors have grown ever more reluctant to even audition performers whose ages aren't within a few years of the desired age for the role.

''I have found, when I'm trying to sell an actor who very legitimately plays 30 for a 30-year-old role and I'm on the phone with a casting director, they will say, in some instances, 'I just looked them up, they're 35, they're too old and I'm not going to bring them in','' one veteran talent agent, Marilyn Szatmary, says.

''So the IMDb stopped them from seeing somebody that maybe they would have seen on the basis of my saying that this person plays 30.''

As IMDb usage has steadily grown, the two main actors' unions, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, have seen a corresponding spike in member complaints about such situations. The unidentified actress's lawsuit prompted both organisations to issue a joint statement on October 27 deploring IMDb and other database- facilitated age discrimination.

''An actor's actual age is irrelevant to casting,'' the statement began.

''What matters is the age range that an actor can portray. For the entire history of professional acting this has been true but that reality has been upended by the development of IMDb as an industry standard used in casting offices across America.'' Casual observers might question the severity of the problem. After all, things don't seem to have changed much since the 1980s, when Michael J. Fox played teenager Alex P. Keaton for seven seasons on Family Ties, starting at the age of 21. He was 24 when he starred as Teen Wolf and high-school rebel Marty McFly in Back to the Future.

These days, we have the likes of Lea Michele and Dianna Agron outgrowing their roles as high-school students on Glee. Both actresses were 23 when they started three years ago.

Of course, ageism has been a problem in Hollywood ever since silent-era producers discovered they sold more tickets to movies that featured attractive young people. Nevertheless, good actors tended to work their whole lives.

For decades, the issue was more a matter of dignity than it was of gainful employment. However, today character and everyday working actors - though much younger ones - have the biggest problem with IMDb birth dates.

''It's happening to people who aren't big-name celebrities,'' Duncan Crabtree- Ireland, SAG's deputy national executive director and general counsel, says. ''It may be happening to big-name celebrities too but the people that we hear most from about this are not well known but are regularly working actors who are trying to make a living out of it.''

Those aren't just actresses on the cusp of middle age but young-looking 20-year- olds whose bread and butter, adolescent roles, dried up on their last birthday.

The unions aren't threatening IMDb with litigation over the issue. They just want the website to voluntarily keep actors' ages a secret (or, at least, not easy to find without a more extensive web search).

Crabtree-Ireland says SAG has had some discussions with IMDb executives but nothing has come of them so far. Requests to Amazon and IMDb for comment for this article were ignored.

Of course, the obvious counter-arguments for posting the birth dates are hey, it's the information age and, hey again, it's a free country.

''Basically, websites like this provide a service. It's a valuable service and they're better when they've got more information,'' says the executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition, Ken Bunting.

Crabtree-Ireland thinks some casting directors could apply more professional ethics but he still views most of the problem as related to the database.

''Why do we want to put casting people in a situation where they could be asked by a producer or a director: 'How old is this person?''' he says. ''If the producer and director know it's right there on IMDb, how is the casting director supposed to respond? 'Hey, you shouldn't be asking me that, that's unfair age discrimination'?

''I don't take the blame off the casting directors or the production people. But I do think that if IMDb believes that they're not contributing to the problem, then they really have their heads in the sand.''

 

Los Angeles Daily News

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/modern-twist-to-an-ageold-dilemma-20111121-1nqry.html

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