The Storyteller: The IMDb being sued by mysterious actress.

Clint Eastwood

(all 6'2" of him according to the IMDb)

Well what about that aye? The almighty IMDB is being sued for being amateurish; well they are amateurs they are run by a computer which is owned by Amazon. Yes Amazon.com or more likely Amazon.co.uk by people who know nothing about the film business.

Most of the contributions are made by people of the profession who write their own biographies and then deny it and put bits of information in themselves about themselves.

I was in a movie a few years ago and before I got home from the audition it was on the IMDB and put there by an assistant director who wanted his first credit to be on there.

When you put a film up on there you need at least 3 or 4 heads of department and they had that and put me in as the only actor in the movie – and I wasn't playing the lead.

Let me tell you what this is all about: the IMDB or the IMDb, as they like to be known, publish as many films and TV productions details as they can. They have a page for every film and everybody in that film from the top producer to the poor fella who has to wipe the shit from the stars' arses have another page to themselves. Incidentally the arse wiper is usually called the Associate Producer.

On that page the IMDb like to put as much information as possible including our age. Now if we look 15 years younger than we actually are we won't ever play our true age. But if they show your age and the casting director casts from the IMDb, as they do these days in Hollywood, they will presume it's an old picture and won't see you or audition you.

The Spotlight in London and The Academy Players, in Los Angeles, would never dream of publishing an actor's age; they have been in the business since the 1930s and they are the professionals.

An actress has sued Amazon.com for more than $1m (£639,000) after her age was posted on its Internet Movie Database.

The unnamed actress says the website misused her legal date of birth after she signed up to the IMDbPro service in 2008.

She says revealing her age on the site will lose her acting opportunities.

Amazon and its movie database subsidiary are accused of breach of contract, fraud, violation of privacy and consumer protection laws. (source BBC.co.uk).

The IMDb is a Johnny come lately and novice casting directors with novice directors have given it more credence than it deserves. It is here to stay and is an important new tool in American TV and film and this will spread to the UK and because of this it needs to be professional. I don't know what the answer is as they don't charge anybody to have a page, as the others do, but if they are that important they should answer to somebody; the profession??

Years ago I did a fringe play at the Soho Poly Theatre, in London, and I played a rebellious 25 year old. I was 34; my pal the director knew roughly what age I was but one day the writer found out how old I was and was shocked – I suddenly looked 34 to him.

The performance was successful so nothing really happened.

People tend to believe you look the age that you are and directors and casting directors have no imagination. In Hollywood if you go for the part of a cowboy that is how you go to the audition. I sat outside a casting directors office one day when I first went there and saw about 30 actors walk across the parking lot as if they were on their way to the OK Corral!

I've spoken about suits before.

So we will see what happens with that case.

But it struck me, if they are so determined to get the ages right for whatever stupid reason, maybe they should be sure to get the other information right – the height!!!!

I have read loads of biographies and interviews of actors and in a lot of them their height is mentioned.

I know that Steve McQueen was 5”7”, Marlon Brando 5'8”, Mel Gibson 5'6” - I put those actors heights down as they are leading players and usually thought to be tall; Humphrey Bogart 5”8” - these actors never minded playing with taller actors unlike a certain actor in a TV series when I first went to Hollywood who wouldn't allow people to audition who were over a certain height.

Paul Newman and Robert Redford about 5'7” each!

So why don't they go up to these actors and measure them. Let's have some phantom measurer (I know no such word) approaching actors with a tape and getting the truth?

But who puts these false height on the IMDb? Why their publicists, of course! Did you really think James Dean towered over people?

And what height am I? I am a half inch taller than Sylvester Stallone – no matter what is says on the IMDb!!

By the way – here I am; http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0838002/ you'll have to copy and paste it, I think, as it probably can't be hyper-text for you to click on to. No it actually works on my computer so give it a go.