Actor/actress?

[losgigs]

When did people start calling actresses 'actors'? Isn't a female actor an actress anymore? I was just googling Jack Davenport (Watching Breathless on ITV) and learnt that 'he is married to the actor Michelle Gomez'. It just sounds so WRONG!!

[jno]

Jordyboy is the leading world expert on Jeff Chandler, but in his absence you could try here

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001996/?ref_=nv_sr_1

[jno]

that's the thing, Calilbax, calling a woman an authoress or a poetess used to be normal and now just sounds silly and Victorian. Some people think the same of actress and probably, in time, more will do so.

[2sp_]

Thanks jno!

I was frightened he was the president of Canada or something I should know!

[FredPuli43]

Personal choice by the performer. But chair for chairman/woman sounds odd to me. It sounds like a piece of furniture. It is unfortunate that women regard themselves as so inferior to men that the word chairwoman is thought undesirable. The same applies to actress. One old judge used to tell juries to appoint a foreman, saying that the foreman could, of course, be a woman, but "When I have duck served at dinner, I do not enquire whether it is a duck or a drake".

(And the Bench sounds like furniture too, but that's a little different from 'chair' !)

[janbee]

This question was asked on tv a couple of weeks ago and the accepted term is ACTOR for both male and female. The term ACTRESS only applies at awards ceremonies etc. e.g. Best actor, best actress.