I have come across an anomaly in the Invelos Database.

There are two actors with the same name of "James McDonald". One of them was born in 1906 & died in 1991, he was a voice actor for Disney & starred in the likes of Alice in Wonderland & Cinderella.

The second actor has starred in the likes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Volcano and Home of the Brave. I have been unable to find a date of birth for him.

Because there is only one date of birth the James MacDonald (1906) is being credited with starring in Buffy, Volcano etc even though they were filmed after his death.

I have noticed that the 2nd James MacDonald has on occasion used his middle initial "G" when he has starred in things such as Broken Arrow & The Fan.

According to the CLT this has been used 71 times/155 profiles (this includes one incorrect credit for the Japanese release of Alice in Wonderland.)

The CLT cannot be used to check how many credits he has without his middle initial because of all the times he has been wrongly credited as his 1906 namesake.

I think it would be advisable that under the current situation of no DOB being available then his common name should be "James G. Macdonald". This would then differentiate him from "James Macdonald (1906)" and would lead to the separate actors being credited correctly, rather than the hotchpotch that is occurring now.

How do others feel about this idea & is it an acceptable way to proceed where two actors have the same name, but where one DOB is unavailable?

I would also like to apologise if this has been type of topic has been discussed previously.

Not allowed to do per rules... as you must use the most commonly credited for of the name.

You are not dealing in fact there. Ken said we can go against the CLT ONLY if you can document that it is wrong. That means... like many you see in this forum... you would need to open a thread to try to find the "True" most commonly credited form for him. You would have to list all his movies and seek help finding out what it actually says in the credits. Then if it is James G. Macdonald... then that is the only way it could be used. And if it is James Macdonald then that has to be it... whether we can find a birth year for him or not. The rules are in place for all... not just for the names that they work for.

There is many names that we only have 1 birth year for... but that don't mean we can ignore the rules for those names.

The CLT is wrong, how can a person be credited with an appearance in a film that was made 25 years after he died.

The inacuracies are creeping in because people are assuming that James Macdonald (1906) is the correct one instead of cross checking with other databases.

The other solution may be to have a DOD for actors that have the same name.

Of course you can always correct the one's that are entered in the db with the incorrect BY by the James MacDonald without the BY.

Quoting Addicted2DVD:

Quote:
You are not dealing in fact there. Ken said we can go against the CLT ONLY if you can document that it is wrong. That means... like many you see in this forum... you would need to open a thread to try to find the "True" most commonly credited form for him. You would have to list all his movies and seek help finding out what it actually says in the credits. Then if it is James G. Macdonald... then that is the only way it could be used. And if it is James Macdonald then that has to be it... whether we can find a birth year for him or not. The rules are in place for all... not just for the names that they work for.

There is many names that we only have 1 birth year for... but that don't mean we can ignore the rules for those names.

Agreed.  You have 2 choices: Open up a common name thread to determine the common name.
                                        Correct the inaccurate 1906 entries with supporting notes.

Quoting wolf359:

Quote:
The CLT is wrong

The CLT isn't so much "wrong" - it simply doesn't deal with birth years. If you look up "James MacDonald", you get all of them. That's just how it works - the CLT is really just a very basic tool, the results of which should never be taken on face value. This is just one of the many reasons why. Here, you'll have to manually establish which titles belong to which Mr. MacDonald. The CLT doesn't do that for you. In many similar cases, you'll find we've already established that using common name-finding threads, but there's always room for more of those... 

After looking through the CLT, it looks like you'll have to establish a common name for James (G.) MacDonald.  It appears that the 1906 James MacDonald wasn't credited nearly as much with any other variant.  The 1 1906 James G. MacDonald credit is obviously incorrect.  I'll get that fixed.  It looks like James G. MacDonald will be the common name at first glance, but that will have to be determined.  I can start a common name thread for JGM if you like.