Not Cary Grant — an anonymous Hollywood trade jokeUnknown — a Hollywood trade jokeFirst documented 16 September 1960 · Herb Caen's column, San Francisco Chronicle
The earliest documented version of the five-stages joke ran in Herb Caen’s San Francisco Chronicle column on 16 September 1960, and the name in the punchline was the character actor Tige Andrews, not Cary Grant. Quote Investigator ↗ concludes the original creator is unknown — possibly a publicist or gag writer — and finds Grant’s name attached only once in print, in a 2011 newspaper item that hedged its own guess.
“The Five Stages of an Actor's Career” is not Cary Grant's. The earliest documented version appeared in Herb Caen's San Francisco Chronicle column on 16 September 1960 and named the character actor Tige Andrews; the joke's originator is unknown. Cary Grant's name is attached to it only in a 2011 Philadelphia Inquirer item that asked "was it Cary Grant?" and gave three steps rather than five. Source: Quote Investigator, "Quote Origin: The Five Stages of an Actor's Career." · Verbatim: “The five stages of an actor's life: "Who is Tige Andrews?" – "Get me Tige Andrews!" – "Get me a Tige Andrews type" – "Get me a young Tige Andrews" – "Who is Tige Andrews?"”
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Cary Grant. Use the credit shown above instead.
Can you use it?
? The wording is documented from 16 September 1960, but its author is unknown and every printing sits inside a publisher’s copyright, so there’s no reuse status to give. Safe to present as an anonymous trade joke — just don’t credit a named author.
Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool
In context
Evoking the themes of success, time and change. Theme: "The Five Stages of an Actor's Career". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "The Five Stages of an Actor's Career". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The earliest documented printing
Earliest printing
Herb Caen’s column, San Francisco Chronicle
Date
16 September 1960 — sec. 2, p. 19, col. 1
Name in the punchline
Tige Andrews — not Cary Grant
Originator
Unknown; possibly a publicist or gag writer
Tige Andrews, the memorable mime of “Threepenny Opera,” outlines the five stages of an actor’s life: “Who is Tige Andrews?” – “Get me Tige Andrews!” – “Get me a Tige Andrews type” – “Get me a young Tige Andrews” – “Who is Tige Andrews?”
San Francisco Chronicle · 16 September 1960
As transcribed by Quote Investigator ↗ from the Chronicle of 16 September 1960. No printing of the joke with Cary Grant’s name is documented before 2011, and that one ran only three steps.
16 September 1960 — Herb Caen prints the five stages in the San Francisco Chronicle with Tige Andrews in the punchline; this is the earliest evidence known to Quote Investigator ↗.
23 September 1960 — a week later, Mike Connolly’s syndicated column runs Hugh O’Brian’s ↗ version, ending “Who WAS Hugh O’Brian?” — the rendering that gets reprinted for decades.
1971 — Mary Astor prints it with her own name in A Life on Film (Delacorte Press ↗), introducing it as a very old joke in the profession — i.e. already anonymous and second-hand.
August 2011 — a Philadelphia Inquirer item gives a three-step version and asks “was it Cary Grant?”. That question mark is the entire basis of the Cary Grant attribution ↗.
No rights status can honestly be asserted for the joke itself: its author is unknown, and Quote Investigator suggests it may have come from a publicist or gag writer rather than any named actor. Every documented printing — the 1960 newspaper columns, Mary Astor’s 1971 memoir, the 2011 Philadelphia Inquirer item — is well after 1930 and would be covered by the copyright of the publication that carried it, so the short excerpt above is quoted here for identification and comment only.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Who gets the credit, and why they shouldn't
This is a joke with a revolving door in the punchline, so it collects names the way a coat collects lint. Three come up most often; the joke’s actual author is unknown, and only one of the three is even a candidate for having written it.
✕
The popular creditCary Grant One hedged mention, 2011
In the whole chronology assembled by Quote Investigator ↗, Grant’s name appears exactly once: an August 2011 Philadelphia Inquirer item by the critic Carrie Rickey that asked “Someone – was it Cary Grant?” and then gave three steps, not five. That was printed long after Grant’s death in 1986, and a columnist’s own question mark is not a source. Wikiquote’s Cary Grant page ↗ carries nothing resembling it.
✕
Also credited toMary Astor Quoting, not coining
Astor prints the five stages with her own name in them in A Life on Film (Delacorte Press, 1971 ↗) — but she introduces it as a very old joke in the profession, and adds that she was between stages four and five. Quote sites drop that framing and hand her the authorship; one such page ↗ credits it to her and dates it 1967.
~
Also credited toHugh O'Brian Leading candidate, not confirmed
O’Brian’s version ran in Mike Connolly’s syndicated column on 23 September 1960, a week after the Andrews printing, and it is the one that got reprinted — by the Associated Press in 1961, in Celebrity Register in 1963, and in a 1973 film-quotations reference that credited only “an anonymous wit.” He is the one name here that QI ↗ does not rule out: it names him and Tige Andrews the two leading candidates for having written the joke, calling O’Brian an important nexus of popularization while giving Andrews chronological precedence.
✓The earliest known printing is Herb Caen’s San Francisco Chronicle column of 16 September 1960, with Tige Andrews in the punchline; Quote Investigator ↗ concludes the joke’s creator is unknown and may have been a publicist or a gag writer.
Context
Why the joke keeps changing its name
It is a joke built to be re-cast. The five stages work with any name in the slot, which is exactly why no name sticks to it — every teller swaps in whoever is at hand, usually themselves. Within a week of the first printing in September 1960 it had already changed actors: Herb Caen ran it with Tige Andrews on the 16th; the gossip columnist Mike Connolly ran Hugh O’Brian’s version on the 23rd, with a sharper final beat — “Who WAS Hugh O’Brian?”
By December 1960 a Chicago Tribune column was running it with “Danny Doakes,” a stand-in name for nobody in particular, which tells you the template had already outgrown any single actor. Cary Grant is simply the most quotable name anyone ever dropped into the slot — and he was dropped in half a century after the joke started, by a critic who openly wasn’t sure.
“a very old joke in the profession” — Mary Astor, describing it in 1971
How far the template travelled
In August 1963 the Los Angeles Times printed it as an established trade joke, with the actor Herschel Bernardi supplying his own name, and noted every performer would like to reach stage two and stay there. A 1963 edition of Celebrity Register and a 1973 film-quotations reference both carried it with Hugh O’Brian in the slot, the latter crediting only “an anonymous wit.”
It escaped show business, too: in 2001 the management consultant Michael Hammer used a compressed version in Fast Company to describe the life cycle of business ideas — Who is X? Get me X! Get me a young X! Who is X? — and placed his own reengineering movement somewhere in the middle of it. All of these are documented in Quote Investigator’s chronology ↗.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1920–2007 · American character actor · first documented version, 1960
Tige Andrews — born Tiger Androwas in Brooklyn — was an American character actor best remembered as Captain Adam Greer in ABC’s The Mod Squad, a role that brought him Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, and as Lieutenant Johnny Russo in The Detectives. In September 1960 he gave the columnist Herb Caen the earliest known version of the five-stages joke, using his own name as the punchline. Quote Investigator is careful here: Andrews has chronological precedence, and he and Hugh O’Brian are the leading candidates, but the joke’s actual author is unknown.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Earliest documented printing
Earliest documented in Herb Caen's column, San Francisco Chronicle, September 16, 1960, sec. 2, p. 19, col. 1, as traced in Quote Investigator, "Quote Origin: The Five Stages of an Actor's Career," March 12, 2012 (updated February 28, 2025).
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The Five Stages of an Actor's Career’?” Last verified 7 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-five-stages-of-an-actors-career/