Comment by iainmerrick
16 hours ago
I'm sure I saw a version of this that had Rod Steiger at #1, via a very long career as a mostly supporting actor.
It looks like it's very sensitive to the choice of dataset, so I guess there's no one "correct" answer.
Both this new one and the Oracle of Bacon seem a little suspiciously weighted towards living actors, which makes me think their data is skewed towards modern movies. But Hollywood has been around for a long time, so if there were a correct answer I would have thought it would be likely to be somebody very old or dead.
I don't think that's a problem with the Oracle of Bacon data; I think there actually are more newer movies than older ones, because Hollywood has figured out ways to ramp up its production over time.
I don't think the site mentions it, but it seems to stop counting actors after they retire. There's no way anyone is within 4 movies of every single actor in history.