And Beverly Cleary of Ramona Quimby fame.
And sitcom producer Norman Lear.
Loved Norman. I think of his npr interview a lot. Wise man.
Right, it was filmed before a live audience. Famously, in the reveal scene in the episode “That’s My Boy” (no spoilers here) the audience laughed so long and hard that they had to cut a lot of it out.
This is true, but I have found that a lot of people these days seem to use “laugh track” to mean any audible laughter in a sitcom, even if the source of that laughter is actual people actually watching the performers in real time.
Well, I will point out a rather obscure piece of trivia, but it does…well, spoil the episode. That episode lead to Bill Cosby getting a regular role on a TV show, specifically one where he was just a regular guy and his race makes no impact on the story. After seeing “That’s My Boy”, they were convinced it was time and the audience was ready for a Black person playing a role in an ohterwise non-racial show.
That was how Cosby got I Spy.
I’m pretty sure it was Greg Morris in that episode, who went on to star in “Mission Impossible.”
Yes, it was. I remember that episode well. But I believe @Mahaloth was just saying that Greg Morris opened the door for Cosby.
Yes, seeing a regular old middle-class Black guy made the producer realize, you know, that it is time for Black actors to just play regular roles unrelated to their race.
Yeah, that makes sense. Sheldon Leonard produced the DVD show, and also produced “I Spy.”
Here are three lists of entertainers who have lived to 100,105, and 110 respectively. Only a handful would be considered major stars, but I have pulled a few names I think many here would recognize from each list, including some already mentioned above.
List of centenarians (actors, filmmakers and entertainers)
Richard L. Bare, 1913–2015, aged 101. You may not recognize the name, but " he directed seven classic The Twilight Zone episodes: “To Serve Man”, “What’s in the Box?”, “The Fugitive”, “Third from the Sun”, “The Purple Testament”, “Nick of Time” and “The Prime Mover”. He directed almost every episode of the 1960s-1970s CBS television series Green Acres." He also wrote one of the standard texts on filmmaking, Film Director: A Practical Guide to Motion Picture and Television Techniques."
George Burns, 1896–1996, aged 100. Relevant quote: “If you live to be 100, you’ve got it made. Very few people die past that age.”
Irwin Corey, 1914–2017, aged 101. Comedian, “the World’s Foremost Authority.”
Olivia de Havilland, 1916–2020, aged 104.
Kirk Douglas, 1916–2020, aged 103.
Bob Hope, 1903–2003, aged 100.
Glynis Johns, 1923–2024, aged 100. British actor, Mary Poppins.
Charles Lane, 1905–2007, aged 102. American character actor.
Norman Lear, 1922–2023, aged 101.
June Lockhart, 1925–2025, aged 100.
Walter Mirisch, 1921–2023, aged 101. American film producer, Oscar winner for In the Heat of the Night.
Nehemiah Persoff, 1919–2022, aged 102. American actor " best known for roles as Leo in The Harder They Fall (1956), as Little Bonaparte in Some Like It Hot (1959), as Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik in The Untouchables (1959–1963).
Luis Rainer, 1910–2014, aged 104. German-born actor, " She was the first thespian to win multiple Academy Awards, and the first to win back-to-back; at the time of her death, thirteen days shy of her 105th birthday, she was the longest-lived Oscar recipient (and the longest-lived female star from Classic Hollywood), a superlative that has not been exceeded, as of 2025.[3]"
Leni Riefenstahl, 1902–2003, aged 101. Hitler’s propaganda film director.
Hal Roach, 1892–1992, aged 100. American film director, worked with Laurel and Hardy and Harold Lloyd, created the Our Gang (aka Little Rascals) shorts.
Jack Rollins, 1915–2015, aged 100. American producer, worked with Woody Allen, David Letterman, Dick Cavett, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams.
Eva Marie Saint, 1924– , aged 101.
Gloria Stuart, 1910–2010, aged 100. American Oscar-nominated actor, Titanic.
Dick Van Dyke, 1925– , aged 100.
Señor Wences, 1896–1999, aged 103. Spanish-American ventriloquist.
Estelle Winwood, 1883–1984, aged 101. British actor, Miss Withers in Murder by Death.
Adolph Zukor, 1873–1976, aged 103. Austro-Hungarian-born American film producer; co-founder of Paramount Pictures.
List of semi-supercentenarians (actors, filmmakers and entertainers)
George Abbot, 1887–1995, aged 107. American stage actor, director, playwright, screenwriter and producer, Oscar-nominated for writing All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).
Norman Lloyd, 1914–2021, aged 106. American actor, director, producer and writer, best known as Dr. Auschlander on St. Elsewhere, “Lloyd’s final film, Trainwreck, was released in 2015, after he turned 100. Lloyd remained the oldest-living male actor from Classic Hollywood until his death in 2021.”
List of supercentenarians (actors, filmmakers and entertainers)
Norman Spencer, 1914–2024, aged 110. British film producer, “collaborated with director David Lean during the 1940s and '50s.”
Hal Roach appeared on The Tonight Show only a few months before he died. He moved like a man literally half his age, walking quickly, and sharp in his physical moves and mentally alert. I wouldn’t have guessed how old he was, except that I was familiar with his background and work. This guy was making tons of films in the 19302 and 1940s. He way outlived ,many of the kids he directed in those “Our Gang” comedies.
I hated the Little Rascals/Our Gang stuff, but I was brought up on One Million B.C. 9and its dinosaur fight scene that was endlessly recycled through other movies) and Babes in Toyland/March of the Wooden Soldiers (which I re-watched last weekend while baking Christmas cookies). Hal’s good friend Walt Disney (who died in 1966! And Hal was almost a decade older than Walt) let him use the character of Mickey Mouse (played by a monkey in costume) and the music from “The Three Little Pigs” in his production. (Then Walt went on to make his own version in 1961)
They had some trouble putting him in the casket…
it kept saying close de box!
Difficult for you, easy for me.
Hal Roach did not direct the “Our Gang” comedies. Same with Laurel and Hardy and the films of Harold Lloyd. Roach was mostly a producer. /nitpick
Yeah, I should have put “producer, director, studio head.”
Mary Poppins had two people who made it to 100. Julie Andrews is still alive at 90.
I hadn’t made that connection, thanks.
Maybe Dick and Glynis will stick around long enough for Julie to join them in the over-100 club.
Glynis Johns died last year
D’oh! 