where did the expression "bad actor" originate?

[eek]

Is it from a film or TV show?

It gets tossed around by aWol now so many other media types and in several forms .

Still. it strikes me as a "show mw the money" "see ya wouldn't wanna be ya" "yada yada yada" thing. A euphemism for "bad asses", surely. Did the WH sloganeers co-opted it from pop culture?

[grauch]

1. definition

bad actor
n.
One that consistently behaves or reacts poorly: "Phosphorus is not the only bad actor in lake eutrophication" Chemical Week.

I wouldn't call Chemical Week pop culture.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. It's been cop jargon for years

I'm not sure that it began with cops, though.

--p!

[boston bean]

3. Since you bring up cops, I was having a discussion the other day

about where the word cops and fuzz originated?

I don't know, does anyone else?

[Dogmudgeon]

6. "Cop" used to mean "to grab" or "to catch"

Even today, the word is used similarly: "to cop a feel"; "he copped to the crime".

As for "fuzz", it supposedly got started around the time of the Depression, and I don't think a definitive etymology has ever been established.

--p!

[boston bean]

7. Thank you very much! Good description! nt

[elehhhhna]

4. the term Bad Actor comes from the law, iirc. or Tom Cruise. Not sure.

[sybylla]

5. What you need is a book nerd with an OED

And you're in luck.

Actor has been used to mean 3)One who acts, or performs any action, or takes part in any affair; a doer. (In later usage nearly always with fig. allusion to 4.)One who personates a character, or acts a part; a stage-player, or dramatic performer.

And has been used since Shakespeare's time, as he was fond of the metaphor of each person being an actor on a stage. See the following examples directly from my OED on CD

1603 Shakes. Meas. for M. ii. ii. 37 Condemn the fault and not the actor of it.
1604 Case is Altered in Thynne Animadv. 138 Oh wicked money, to be the Actor of such a mischiefe.
1759 Robertson Hist. Scotl. I. i. 5 The characters of the actors are displayed.
1819 S. Rogers Hum. Life 102 Now distant ages, like a day, explore, And judge the act, the actor now no more.
1875 Poste Gaius Introd. 13 An actor is negligent when he is ignorant of the consequences of his act.


on edit: I'll add these examples of usage for meaning #4 listed above

1581 Sidney Def. Poesie (Arb.) 25 There is no Arte delivered to mankinde, that hath not the workes of Nature for his principall object+on which they so depend, as they become Actors and Players as it were, of what nature will have set foorth.
1593 Shakes. Rich. II, v. ii. 24 After a well grac'd actor leaues the Stage.
1646 J. Hall Horae Vacivae 19 God sends us not unto the Theater of this World to be mute persons, but actors.
1651 Hobbes Leviathan i. xvi. 80 A Person, is the same that an Actor is, both on the Stage and in common Conversation.
1748 J. Mason Elocution 4 The Latins by Pronunciatio and Actio meant the same thing+hence they whose Business it is to speak publickly on the Stage, are with us called Actors.
1774 Burke Sp. Amer. Tax. Wks. II. 419 Another scene was opened and other actors appeared on the stage.
1876 Green Short Hist. x. (1878) 730 Pitt was essentially an actor, dramatic in the Cabinet, in the House, in his very office.

I would think "bad actor" would have come into use at the same time actor came into such use.

[ToeBot]

8. Ibsen's Peer Gynt - Oslo, Norway Feb. 24, 1876