Do actress careers end when they reach 50?

Ask Nicole Kidman (53); Halle Berry (54); Helen Mirren (74); Meryl Streep (71); Helena Bingham Carter (54); Salma Hayek (54), Viola Davis (55); Diane Lane (55); Sandra Bullock (56); Laura Linney (56); Angela Bassett (62); Vanessa Williams (57); Jamie Lee Curtis (62); Emma Thompson (61); Queen Latifah (50); Renée Zellweger (50); Kathy Bates (71); Julia Louis-Dreyfus (59); Rita Moreno (88) and many others.

My guess is they’d say no.

It's never to late to start a career being an actor. Of course Hollywood loves youth and eye candy but entertainment needs all ages. Movies, T.v. shows, commercials need people of all ages

Of course not, unless they want to quit or something then they can continue for as long as they want 

Hell no, what a ageist thing to say...

It depends on if the actress loves the career. If they are really good at it and enjoy it, they may continue past their 50's. Even more so if they are a top billing actress.

No more so than male actors careers.

No. There are lots of parts for older women. But altogether there are fewer parts for women as a whole. Especially leading roles.

Also feminists complain about the romantic films with old men and younger women but remember those men couldn't get acting parts when they were younger because Hollywood wants older men with younger women. So it's swings and roundabouts.

Meryl Streep (71), Glenn Close (73), Judy Davis (65), Isabelle Huppert (67), Jane Fonda (83), Tilda Swinton (60), Julianne Moore (60), Judi Dench (86), Gemma Jones (78), Harriet Walter (70), Lesley Manville (64), Fiona Shaw (62), Cate Blanchett (51), Nicole Kidman (53), Emily Watson (54), Helena Bonham Carter (54), Laurie Metcalf (65), Diane Lane (56), Jamie Lee Curtis (62), Sigourney Weaver (71), Kathy Bates (72), Miranda Richardson (62), Sally Field (72), Laura Linney (57), Angela Bassett (62), Julie Walters (71), Maggie Smith (86), Celia Imrie (68), Joan Collins (87), Emma Thompson (62), Penelope Wilton (74), Rachel Griffiths (52), Sophie Okonedo (52), Jackie Weaver (73), Eileen Atkins (86), Goldie Hawn (75), Kristen Scott-Thomas (62), Helen Mirren (75), Gillian Anderson (52), Jennifer Jason Leigh (59), Charlotte Rampling (75), Blythe Danner (78), Glenda Jackson (84) and Betty White (99). Many of who are in their 60s and 70s, acting consistently in all mediums; film, television and also theatre. Similar to Jackie Weaver, Lesley Manville's career didn't take off in Hollywood until she was 61, as a result of her Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress for Phantom Thread in 2018, after an already 45 year career.

Many older actresses will be relegated to independent film and arthouse productions - and these movies are more likely to be nominated for major accolades such as; Golden Globes, Oscars and British Academy Film Awards (as supposed to major studio film and blockbuster movies).

They may also choose to venture into television work and with many film writers opting to create for TV (in particular HBO and Netflix), rather than Motion Pictures (with many Hollywood stars following suit), especially with the invention of television streaming services, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Britbox, Disney+, AppleTV and BBC iPlayer, with many of these productions on these platforms now eligible to be nominated for Golden Globes, Emmys and British Academy Television Awards.

Some choose to go to the stage, to be involved with theatre productions in the West End or on Broadway. A notable and recent example being Glenda Jackson, who returned to acting after a 30-year hiatus to be involved in British politics at the Houses of Parliament as a part of the Labour Party. She won her first Tony Award as Best Actress at the age of 81 in 2018. In 2020 (during the COVID-19 pandemic), she won the British Academy Television Award as Best Actress for the BBC made-for-television film 'Elizabeth is Missing'.

• So no, actress career's don't end when they reach their fifties. If they have serious theatrical acting ability or in turn they have been nominated or even won major accolades, such as Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards (BAFTA), they will still be employable and will work until their old age well into their 70s and 80s (e.g. Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Elieen Atkins, Glenn Close, Betty White). It's just the actresses who rely purely on their looks (with them playing the game in Hollywood) and don't have virtuoso acting ability that will find it VERY difficult or IMPOSSOBLE to secure work

Sometimes an actor quits because they aren't getting enough roles to support their career continuing, sometimes it's because they just want to retire, sometimes they're fed up with acting - there are hundreds of reasons. 

That can happen at ANY age.  There is far less competition once an actor (male or female) reaches a certain age - perhaps over 40 - so actors who are keen to stay in the business are more likely to get work.Many actors continue working well into their 80s!

Not the good ones  - but it is true that less parts are written for them. Look at a production like The Dig - the female lead in real life should have been in her 50s but they rewrote it for someone in her 30s.