What’s the oldest TV show where the entire main cast is still living? I’ve been running 60s and 70s shows through my head, and it’s kind of shocking how few shows have an entire cast that is still-living-- by that, I mean, the people who appeared in the opening credits, or pretty much every episode for at least a season. That made me wonder if Roseanne counts, because the only deceased cast member, AFAIK, is Glenn Quinn, who was there only for the last few seasons as Becky’s boyfriend, then husband. Shelly Winters is dead, but her appearances as Roseanne’s grandmother were infrequent.
Every major show from the 70s has at least one dead cast member: MAS*H; Charlie’s Angels; Little House on the Prairie; Diff’rent Strokes; One Day at a Time; Emergency!; The Mary Tyler Moore Show; Three’s Company; The Bob Newhart Show; Taxi. Even a startling number of 80s shows like Designing Women and Cagney and Lacey have deceased cast members.
It seems that by virtue of having a small opening cast (three people) blessed with longevity, The Six Million Dollar Man, which premiered in 1974 is the oldest, albeit, it began with a TV movie in 1973 that also starred Darrin McGavin, who is dead. But the movie wasn’t officially the pilot for the show.
Can anyone think of an older show with a still-living, intact major cast? Maybe there’s a more obscure show that hasn’t occurred to me.
Anyway, if that doesn’t count, then there’s The Bionic Woman
I’m more than a little surprised to find that both Richard Anderson (Oscar Goldman) and Martin E. Brooks (Dr. Rudy Wells) are both still among us. I really can’t think of an earlier program with a still-living primary cast.
The original cast of *MASH * (premiered 1972) included McLean Stevenson, who passed away in 1996, and Larry Linville, who passed away in 2000. Even sitcoms that premiered a few years after The Six Million Dollar Man have deceased cast members (WKRP in Cincinnati’s Gordon Jump and *Taxi’s *Andy Kaufman).
It probably helps to have a small number of primary cast members.
If the dad hadn’t died prematurely of AIDS then *The Brady Bunch *would have been a good example, especially given its very large cast. Ann B. Davis (the maid) only passed away less than a year ago.
Adam-12 ran from 1968 to 1975. Its only two onscreen regulars were Martin Milner and Kent McCord, both of whom are still alive. Shaaron Claridge, who played the dispatcher, is also living (Claridge was an actual police dispatcher).
Sugarfoot from 1957. Starring Will Hutchens, no other regular cast (Jack Elam is listed in Wikipedia as a recurring character, but the IMDB says he was in only two episodes of 69).
I was going to protest that Rudy Wells was first played by Alan Oppenheimer, before Brooks took over–but it turns out that Alan Oppenheimer is still living, as well! What do you know?
Meanwhile, 60% of the main characters for the show from which The Facts of Life spun off, Diff’rent Strokes, are deceased (Conrad Bain, Gary Coleman and Dana Plato). It premiered in 1978. Again, I’m surprised (but pleasantly so) to see that Charlotte Rae is still among the living.
There were several nun regulars who were pretty senior at the time. I’m not going to look them up, but I’d bet a sizeable number of them are gone … and not in the sense of “flown away.”