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.

James Cagney (5'6½" according to the IMDb)

Charlie Chaplin (5'5" according to IMDb)

Acting in Hollywood

All that stuff about the British Royal Family being lizards, and 9/11 being an inside job and all the rest of it including the so called murder of Princess Diana was not a joke; I was pointing out that people actually believe that rubbish. And why do they believe it? Because they are paranoiac – not paranoid but paranoiac; I am paranoiac about the use of the word paranoid; I don't know why it's replaced paranoiac in the vernacular.

They are paranoiac because they believe that the reason they being left behind is because of the world wide conspiracy – but I don't want to write any more about it as I know as soon as I put a certain word in here a red flag will go up in CIA Headquarters, the game will be up and I'll disappear.

I have written the above in response to about 10 e-mails which, if I haven't replied to them already, I will soon.

By the way I have had a few complaints about not being able to leave comments on here and sometimes I have the same problem in replying to a comment. I think if you have a G-mail account you can sign in using that or maybe if you are a 'follower.'

Even though I get loads and loads of hits and page-loads I don't have that many followers. It doesn’t matter I can see – well I used to be able to see – who's reading it. I say used to because that was when the hits were low. For example I have had over 400 hits on the Julian Assange story, over the past two weeks, and over 300 on the one I wrote about The Golden Globes and Javier Barden.

Maybe I would make some money out of it if they'd have clicked on to the advertisements.

I wanted to follow up about the pilot season; I was asked what the pilot season is like in the UK; well there isn't one. Acting and entertainment is a totally different ball game over there but I have been here for 16 years and what I'm about to say will probably be out of date.

When I first came over here I noticed how professional it was; on the corners of most streets, instead of a pub or a bookies like in London, there were offers for head shots – actor photos.

Head shots were used as a calling card and I could buy 200 or 300 for less than $100. In London the actors would pay a lot more than that because their agent wanted quality shots and they would usually want their head shot back after they sent it to some casting director, which is why they would enclose a stamped address envelope.

Here the idea of a head shot is to get it so it looks like you, it has to be 8”x10” and your resume gets stapled on to the back.

If you are up for a job you just stick your head shot in the mail and nothing else; no 'dear sir would it be possible' you just stick it in the mail and make sure your agent's number is on there somewhere. You might just stick the character's name you or your agent is suggesting you for but nothing else; there is no need.

Digital photos and the internet have put a lot of the head shot shops out of business now, by the way.

The other place I was told about, on the first night I was here, was Frenches Book Shop on Sunset Boulevard. That place has everything for the actor.

In London there is a publication called 'Contacts' which gives you the address of every agent, film and TV company, prop house and lots more – a good digs guide too.

I always thought that would be a good idea over here but in Frenches you have a book, published every month or so, that is exclusively for agents. It gives you the names of the particular agents, what type of actors they are looking for and other useful information.

Of course it will have CAA and ICM in there but I'm sure nobody applies to them; when you are ready they will seek you out. But not all stars are with those big agents. Jack Nicholson and Harrison Ford, I believe, are still with their original agent.

Also in Frenches it gives you tips about how you should do most things – audition being one of them.

Casting directors were asked what annoys them more than anything about actors and the answer most of them gave was actors borrowing their stapler to stick their resume on the back of their head shot.

In London you have The Spotlight and in Hollywood there is The Academy Players – one big difference: the last time I advertised in The Spotlight it cost me a few hundred dollars for a half page. Again over here they don't care about the prestige of having a half page; there are 10 photos per page and for the year that costs $36 – that's about £24.

Don't you feel you are being ripped off over there?

The casting director wants to see what you look like not the fact that you can afford a half page!

The other places casting directors find actors, these days, is on the Internet Movie Date Base – the imdB – and you can usually tell who the British actors are on there as they rarely put a photo up.

Casting directors cast from the imdB so why don't they use it?

There are 300 million people here and when things get big they get big. I know somebody who was paid £250,000 for a commercial; it was a buy out for two years and when the two years ran out they renewed his contract.

That's why actors in Hollywood always carry their head shots and the guys who go for many commercials have heads shots and a change of clothes in their cars all the time.

I was out one day – British trained which means I don't go to the rip off acting coaches here and I was in my shorts – and my agent called me and told me to go over to West LA for a commercial audition; by the way they are all called auditions here not meetings etc – they tell it like it is.

There I was in my shorts at The Farmer's Market with my wife eating doughnuts and drinking coffee and the agent told me to get over there and to be wearing a suit. I came home, grabbed my suit, shoes, shirt and tie and got back into the car and went to West LA.

When I got there I got out of the car and got changed in the parking lot; no problem. On with the shirt, the tie, my trousers and socks and then I noticed; I had brought two odd shoes; they were both black but they were both the right foot and one was a tap shoe; so I had to wear my trainers/sneakers in with the suit.

But getting back to the pilot season in the UK which doesn't exist:

Because there are 300 million people here they have to get it right. When John Cleese wrote, with his then wife, Faulty Towers he wrote it to be broadcast on BBC2; the minority channel; he had plenty of time to write it and record it which is why it was so good.

That's John Cleese above with a reverse moustache - and me below stuffing cake into my mouth in a play - many many years ago; neither of them good headshots.

Anyway that's over 1300 words today so I'd better sign off.

The Internet Movie Data Base.

I'm changing the subject away from current affairs, disasters or even politics as this blog is to do with my novel and me – on Twitter I'm described as a Hollywood Professional Actor and Novice Novelist; and that's what I am.

One of the things you need as an actor is a way of getting yourself known to the people who can give you a job – or as the Americans say hire you.

In Hollywood it has always been The Academy Players Directory and in London it's The Spotlight.

There's a difference between the two of them but basically they are the same thing; a directory of actors both male and female. One of them is very expensive the other is very reasonable; I hesitate to use the word cheap but that would describe it better.

The Academy Players costs about $70 per year although I pay $18 as I subscribe to a casting service who have taken over the running of the Academy Players and I get a discount.

The photos in the Academy Players are usually about ten to the page – this is big enough for any casting director or director to see what you look like.

In the Spotlight you are expected to have a half page or even a quarter page – if not they kind of imply that you are a novice or not successful or, Lord help us, an extra!!!! The half pages are used by big names or even stars. I remember Roger Moore didn't have a photograph at all; just his name. He rightly (or his agents) deduced that we all know what he looks like.

The half page in the Spotlight goes into the hundreds of dollars – I can't remember how much it was the last time I subscribed; I think about £150 or so; now I may be wrong on that but it was certainly a lot lot more than the Academy Players.

So in the nineteen nineties Amazon, the people who sell books on line, started the Internet Movie Data Base; it wasn't meant to be a professional site, like Spotlight and the Academy Players, but more a fan site or for people generally interested in the film and television business.

Up to a few years ago it didn't cost anything to put your photograph on your page – we all have a page and it doesn't cost anything – but now you have to pay for the photos. I don't have to pay because I came in on the ground floor and put photos up there very early.

They had to start charging because many actors started to put their photos up. There are quite a few on my page because added to the ones I put up there are some production photos too.

The other day when they held the Golden Globe Awards here the photos of the winners were on their pages within minutes; those photos were put up there by an agency and didn't cost the actors anything.

The IMDb, as it is known, has more or less taken the place of the Academy Players Directory here in Los Angeles and you can usually tell the British based actors to the American Based ones as the Americans use it and have their photos on their pages whereas the British don't.

If you have no credits I believe you can put your resume up there – your CV in British speak.

There is also the Starmeter which leaves a lot to be desired; this is made up of the number of hits each actor gets in a week; you get lots of hits if you're in the news, have a movie out or you die.

Recent number ones have been Brittany Murphy, David Carradine and other people who have suddenly died but ordinarily what happens you go higher if you have a movie or play, or whatever, on television.

A lot of people watch a film on TV, of DVD, then look it up on the IMBb (notice the little 'b' by the way) then they click on every member of the cast and these are counted up over the week automatically and each Sunday the new list is there for all to see; when I say all to see I mean if you subscribe to IMDb Pro that is.

Tom Hanks for example is number 87; this week's number one is Zoe Saldana who was in Avator and number two is Naomi Watts.

The usual number one is Robert Pattinson who, this week, has dropped down to number ten for some reason and another regular in the top three is Johnny Depp.

If I killed somebody next week the week after I would be very high on the IMDb which brings me to a point I'd like to make.

Some casting directors, and even agents, will only consider, for certain roles or representation, someone in the top twenty thousand – which makes it ridiculous; just because you're on the news or people have looked you up you suddenly become a better actor??

The Starmeter, by the way – and there is a movie meter too – has every actor on it that has ever been in a movie so we are competing for popularity with all the stars of old; and they don't have to be stars.

Adolph Hitler is 8044; Marlon Brando is 364, Marilyn Monroe 981 and John Wayne is 472 and there are millions of others.

The average working TV or movie actor is usually in the forty to sixty thousands and people that haven't worked for years are usually between five hundred thousand and two million.

I go between eighty thousand to one hundred and twenty thousand – peaking sometimes at around sixty thousand. Most of my friends who don't do TV or movies much are in the many hundreds of thousands and as high as two million.

I think there are a lot of Lifeforce fans who look me up. I get letters (e-mails) from people who have seen it numerous times and obviously look me up otherwise I'd be down in the millions as I don't usually get credits for dubbing, looping and voice matching which keeps me going between jobs.