Enter the Birth Year controversy.

Each actor should have (documented, of course) their birth year set in the program. That way they will be separate.

Thanks -- I saw references to a "Credited As" field on this board, but couldn't find it in the actual software.  My only other attempt at profile editing -- trying to get "C.J. Ramone" from the documentary End of the Century to match up with "C. J. Ramone" fromThe Simpsons: The Complete Fifth Season -- ended in a similar failure.

Anyway, if a fix for situations like this is in the works, I'm happy to wait and deal with it when the fix is rolled out.

Quoting aaronwt:

Quote:
I thought an actors name isn't allowed to be duplicated in the Actors guild. Thats why many have to use initials to differentiate themselves from other actors with the same name.

True, but not everyone is a member of SAG.  They've only been around since the 1930's so anything before that is up in the air and even after that, they have requirements an actor has to meet before becoming a member.  Plus, as far as I know, SAG is strictly an American union and therefore foreign actors do not fall under it so that can cause duplicates as well.

This is a perfect example of why simply using the "most common 'as credited' occurrence" of an actor's name in the Invelos main database, isn't going to work in every case.

These are two different folks credited in their respective films using the same name.  However, it is apparently easily documented that one uses a middle initial of "S." and the other a middle initial of "C.".

If we use the middle initial, it makes the use of Birth Year unnecessary.  Using Birth Year should be avoided as much as possible, especially since it has become apparent that it is not something that will always be documentable (is that a word?).

The other reason for not using just the most "common 'as credited' occurrence" of an actor's name in the Invelos main database, is that the most "common 'as credited' occurrence" can and often will change over time meaning the database will be changing all the time (actresses marrying, remarrying, new actors changing the way they are credited, etc.). 

IMHO, we need a method that combines the "most common 'as credited' occurrence" in the Invelos main database with some standard Rules which would include using the most complete version of the actor's name.  The more complete the name, the more likely it is to be "unique".  Other standard Rules would address use of diacritics, punctuation, etc.

All I can do is hope that Ken is considering all of the possibilities.  Hopefully, we will find out soon! 

I've got a similar problem as the OP -- two actors with the same name but two totally different people. Is there any way to edit an actors name in the DB so I can differentiate between the Gregory White who starred in Buffy and the Gregory White who starred in Resident Evil?

I had the same issue with Harrison Ford and had to delete the one form 1884 he died in 1954. I highly doubt I will be buying any of his movies so doesn't matter.

I had to edit all my movies with Harrsion Ford to the correct one which is 1942 one.