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Push to remove birthdates from IMDb

Hollywood actors want the Internet Movie Database to stop publishing their birthdates.

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They’re a pretty vain lot at the best of times, but now Hollywood actors want the Internet Movie Database to stop publishing their birthdates.

Both the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America want the data erased, a move that would no doubt be replicated for all the Australian stars filed, were it to take place.

The push would help break down casting preconceptions, but there would still be the issue of Wikipedia left to address. And as the comprehensive IMDb knows, such archival data is actually part of its value.

TIME Magazine notes that the detail of such data allows viewers to know that Glee‘s Cory Monteith (Finn) is 28, “making him akin to the Luke Perry of 2010.”

Ouch.

Source: TIME

27 Responses

  2. ehh, aside from wanting to know how old someone is when they played a particular role, the only thing the DOB is good for is seeing who shares your bday! I do look it up sometimes depending on the actor/reason for wanting to know.

    I’m actually surprised though it hasn’t already been moved to the “imdb pro” area, which is only available by subscription.

  3. Professional casting agents and film – TV producers in the US may occasionally use IMDB to see what else an actor has done, but wouldn’t use it to actually cast a film or TV show, as they need photos of actors to decide who to cast and many living actor IMDB pages have no photos.

  4. Demi Moore has never changed her birthdate it has always been Nov 11th 1962
    Do you homework before judging and using someone as an example

  5. One of the reasons they claim is that with writers etc. publishing their true age on IMDB stops them getting work if they’re over a certain age. Now, surely if the relative guilds were doing their job properly they’d be targeting the employers/studios etc. who employ such discrimination, not an innocent observer who just gives the facts.

  6. imdb is often inaccurate anyway, and anyone with a decent publicist can just have their fake age – sorry “official age” – put up there, and plenty do.

  8. I understand why people would not want their DOB published. These days your DOB is often used as a security question to identify you. In fact I had the power disconnected in a rental just be using the name and DOB of my housemate (who had the power under his name). Image how easy it would be to do for some random person. It is for this very reason I use a fake DOB for sites like facebook etc, if your my friend you should know my DOB!! (and there is nothing wrong with getting 2 cakes a year 🙂

    Yes once this information is on the internet there is no deleting it, and companies should understand that DOB’s are not a secret and should not be used for identification purposes, but having said all that genuine websites should respect all peoples privacy and requests not to publish personal data.

    Just my 2 cents

    Brad

  9. Well, I hope IMDB tells them where to get off. That would surely be the thin edge of the wedge – what next, their overinflated salaries, bad reviews. The concept is simple preposterous in this day and age – and it is even more stupid to believe that casting directors would lose access to the data if it was taken out of IMDB.

  11. If well known people don’t want their birthdates to be known then they shouldn’t let this information be made public. It is as simple as that.

    To supress information that has long been known to the public is nonsensical. What’s done is done.

  13. I did some reading on this and as others have reported casting agents rarely use IMDB or other online resource to find out an actors age, they have their ways. Besides if they are famous then age is usually not an issue or they know it already, if they are not then it’s not even likely to be on IMDB so doesn’t matter.

    And as I said before there are loads of other places online fans can find this into out, good luck trying to censor Wiki or other sites. What next are they going to sue fan sites for posting the birth dates?

  14. oh actors get over yourselves, just because you can botox your face doesn’t mean you can then botox the facts to go with it.

    So are they also going to stop newspapers publishing actors birthdays in the “On This Day” columns?

    I hope IMDB tells them to get over it.

  20. It is funny when a actors age keeps changing, demi moore for example. her birthday was 1960, i think, then i saw, 62, then 64, then 67 and now 1969, lol. You look every bit of your 50 years demi, we arent stupid.

  21. This won’t stop people from finding out when their favorite star was born, it would still be left on Wikipedia and countless fan sites, what are they afraid of?

    I bet you Betty White doesn’t care that people know how old she is, grown up Hollywood!

  22. Um who really cares how old they are? Hollywood actors are a very strange lot!

    If they really feel they’re missing out on roles due to their age that’s their problem – something must be amiss in their way of thinking of they really believe that.

    Fans like to know details of their favourite stars so I don’t think there’s any harm in putting their age anywhere – whole thing sounds very strange – such is Hollywood life.

  25. That is pathetic imdb is an information database and it is nice to see who is having their birthday on the homepage, makes you wish them well and reminds you of some actors you might have otherwise forgotten about, free advertising.

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