Short answers, pulled from the story.
Thespis became the first known person to speak words as a character in a play in the year 534 BC at the Theatre Dionysus. He stepped out of the chorus to answer the tragic chorus, creating the Greek term hypokrites which is the root of the modern word for acting.
Women were first allowed to appear on stage in England during the Restoration of 1660 when King Charles II issued letters patent to Thomas Killigrew and William Davenant. Margaret Hughes is often credited as the first professional actress on the English stage following these patents which were reissued in 1662 with revisions.
Lee Strasberg formulated Method acting as a range of techniques based on the idea that actors should use their own experiences to identify personally with their characters. This approach required actors to draw upon their feelings and experiences to convey the truth of the character they portrayed and was derived from Stanislavski's system.
Lillian Gish has been called film's first true actress for her work in the period from 1894 to the late 1920s when movies were silent films. She pioneered new film performing techniques and recognized the crucial differences between stage and screen acting while working for D.W. Griffith's Biograph Studios.
In 2024 the median hourly wage for actors in the United States was $23.33 per hour. Many actors lack benefits such as health insurance with only 12.7% of SAG-AFTRA members earning enough income to qualify for its health plan.