I see it all the time in the Celebrity Death Pool thread. A pretty well known actor or actress dies and there’s always one person who is surprised they were still alive at all.
So I was looking up some celebrities from long ago (on wikipedia) and was surprised to know who was still alive and kicking.
Seems that Sid Caesar is still around. He’s certainly lasting a long time. And, of course, Mickey Rooney’s
still making appearences. Good for him.
Speaking of cast characters of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, I was surprised to find that Jonathan Winters is still alive. Being a bit more of a portly gentlemen, it’s nice to see people of that size still reach their eighties sometimes. And he’s not the only one either. Mr “Blueberry Hill” himself, Fats Domino still belting out tunes here and there, although he was a little worse for the wear when he was rescued from New Orleans the year Hurricane Katrina did damage.
Kirk Douglas is still alive and is he the oldest “most known” celebrity right now? Oh, another person I found out was still around that surprised me a few days ago: Lauren Becall, Bogarts old main squeeze. Another lady that’s seen a lot of movies and years is Ingrid Bergen
Perhaps the biggest shocker to me was when I watching a Twilight Zone episode the other day (“Mirror Image”…the one where the woman in the bus station is first confused over her suitcase being moved and the ticket taker saying she’d been up there before…and then finding a double of her is running around) and looked up the name of the girl in the main part. Vera Miles is her name, and she is still, very much, alive. So is June Lockhart who played Timmy’s mother on the show Lassie for a good couple years.
I’m sure at least one person around here thought at least one person listed here was already dead, although I don’t know if we’ll get proof of that.
Still, what other actors or actresses were you or are you surprised to find out are still alive?
I’m always puzzled by people’s surprised reactions to learning that an actor has survived into his 70s or 80s. Life expectancy at birth in the U.S. is 77.7 years. I would think that most of us have relatives or acquaintances in that age range. Are actors expected to die as soon as they are no longer of use to the film industry?
Olivia de Haviland is older than Kirk Douglas by a few months, and still shows up on awards shows now and then.
When I saw Luise Rainer on the Oscars a couple of years ago, I was surprised she was still around. She’s not perhaps as famous as some of the others mentioned here, but she’s the first actor to win back-to-back Oscars (in 1937 and 1938).
I’m amused by the Sid Caesar reference in the OP. Several years ago, when I was a museum guard, my mom asked me how my day went. I responded by asking her if Sid Caesar was still alive. She said yes, as far as she knew. My response:
“Well in that case, I gave him directions to the Impressionist exhibit.”
I think it’s perception. In the case of some actors with long careers we may perceive them as being older than they are since they’ve been around for a long time. Then you don’t see or hear much of them for a while so you just assume they passed away.
I heard once that if you make it to the age of 50 or 60, you have an extremely high chance of living to 90. This is because the “average life span” includes people that die as children, or from accidents during their teens, 20’s, 30’s, etc… So if you can make it to a decent age without heart problems or cancer, you’ll probably be around awhile.
Until I saw her in Miss Congeniality 2, I was sure that Eileen Brennan had died. I could’ve sworn that I’d seen her obit on the news some years ago. Obviously, I was mistaken, but I have no idea why I made such an error!
I remember when she was in a very bad car accident a few years after making “Private Benjamin”, and it was touch-and-go for a few days there for her, but that was a long time ago now.
