# How Many 1930's Movie Stars Are Still Alive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 6, 2005, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-1930s-movie-stars-are-still-alive/283424 "2005-01-06T18:31:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-1930s-movie-stars-are-still-alive/283424/1 "2005-01-06T18:31:42Z")
I’ve been watching a lot of old movies on TCM and AMC, and I wonder if there is a site somewhere with the names of old time movie stars who are still alive…anyone know? Mickey Rooney is the only one I know who is still alive! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-1930s-movie-stars-are-still-alive/283424/2 "2005-01-06T18:56:07Z")
Shirley Temple and Jackie Cooper are still alive. Robert Blake’s tenure with the Little Rascals started in 1939, so I guess he counts. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-1930s-movie-stars-are-still-alive/283424/3 "2005-01-06T18:58:48Z")
I’d be better able to answer this at home, where all my research books are . . . Off the top of my head, I can think of Anita Page, Shirley Temple, Olivia de Havilland, Luise Rainer, Deanna Durbin . . . ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-1930s-movie-stars-are-still-alive/283424/4 "2005-01-06T19:49:37Z")
Gloria Stuart, Joan Fontaine, Maureen O’Hara, Freddie Bartholomew . . . ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-1930s-movie-stars-are-still-alive/283424/5 "2005-01-06T20:05:57Z")
Whoops, Fred is dead. Let’s substitute child star Baby Peggy (Peggy Montgomery), who was probably the inspiration for Baby Jane in _What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?_ ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-1930s-movie-stars-are-still-alive/283424/6 "2005-01-06T20:50:42Z")
I’m pretty sure the venerable [Charles Lane](http://imdb.com/name/nm0485272/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxteD0yMHxzZz0xfGxtPTIwMHx0dD1vbnxwbj0wfHE9Q2hhcmxlcyBMYW5lfGh0bWw9MXxubT1vbg__;fc=3;ft=20;fm=1) is still with us. If he is, his 100th birthday is the 26th of this month! ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-1930s-movie-stars-are-still-alive/283424/7 "2005-01-06T23:48:26Z")
The Garbos and Gables are gone, but, in addition to the people listed above 1930s film players Geraldine Fitzgerald, June Havoc, Ann Rutherford, Eddie Albert, Simone Simon, Constance Cummings, Kitty Carlisle, Jane Wyatt, Jean Parker, Jackie Cooper, and Marian Marsh are still alive. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-1930s-movie-stars-are-still-alive/283424/8 "2005-01-07T00:00:33Z")
Not quite from the 30’s (first role in 1944), Lauren Bacall. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Rhosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sir\_Rhosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Rhosis)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-1930s-movie-stars-are-still-alive/283424/9 "2005-01-07T00:10:12Z")
Bruce Bennett acted in the 1930s under his real name Herman Brix, before going to acting classes and getting a new name. Best role was not until “Treasure of The Sierra Madre” in (iirc) 1948. He’s currently the oldest living Tarzan, at 97 or 98 (two decades older than 77-year-old Gordon Scott in second place). Sir Rhosis ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-1930s-movie-stars-are-still-alive/283424/10 "2005-01-07T04:39:30Z")
Evelyn Keyes (perhaps best known for playing Suellen in GWTW or for being the last “Mrs. Artie Shaw” [they were technically still married when he died last week but have been separated for almost 20 years]) is still around and looks good. I just watched the DeHavilland interview on the new GWTW DVD and she both looks and sounds phenomenally well for a lady of 88 (though her tales of the filming were what Blanche from _Golden Girls_ would have called “a ‘why the hell tell it in the first place?’ kinda of story”). Also still alive from GWTW: Fred Crane (the Tarleton twin who wasn’t George Reeve in the opening scene) and Alicia Rhett (India Wilkes). Neither ever made another film. Of those who were adults during the 1930s, Gloria Stuart probably had the most recent paycheck courtesy of her TRIVIAL PURSUIT: 90S EDITION commercial a few weeks back. A German stage & cabaret star of the 1930s (1920s, even) who is still around is Speaking of Charles Lane, some accounts put his date of birth as early as 1899, making him soon to be 106! If those sources are correct, then [George Abbott](http://imdb.com/name/nm0007973/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxteD0yMHxzZz0xfGxtPTIwMHx0dD1vbnxwbj0wfHE9Z2VvcmdlIGFiYm90fGh0bWw9MXxubT1vbg__;fc=1;ft=6;fm=1) (who consulted on a revival of _Damn Yankees_ when he was 106) is the only celebrity I can think of who beats him in the longevity department.[Leon Askin](http://imdb.com/name/nm0039169/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxteD0yMHxzZz0xfGxtPTIwMHx0dD1vbnxwbj0wfHE9bGVvbiBhc2tpbnxodG1sPTF8bm09b24_;fc=2;ft=20;fm=1), best known to American audiences as General Burkhalter from _Hogan’s Heroes_. He is 97 and still acting; though imdb records his first film credit as 1952, he made some German movies before then. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-1930s-movie-stars-are-still-alive/283424/11 "2005-01-07T04:43:24Z")
They’re both dead now, but Bessie & Sadie Delany were both _well_ over 100 when their memoirs, [Having Our Say](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0440220424/qid=1105073346/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-0250601-7760707?v=glance&s=books), was published. (I don’t know how much of the actual writing they did, but a sequel, _On My Own at 107_, was published by Sadie when she was actually 108 (she lived to be 110). ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-1930s-movie-stars-are-still-alive/283424/12 "2005-01-07T04:44:44Z")
Uh… sorry- the above is in the wrong thread. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-1930s-movie-stars-are-still-alive/283424/13 "2005-01-07T16:14:50Z")
_The Wizard of Oz_ was released in 1939, and several of the Munchkins are still alive. [Here is a list,](http://www.kansasoz.com/munchkins/) although I don’t know when it was last updated. Jerry Maren is a pick in the **SDMB Celebrity Death Pool 2005**. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-1930s-movie-stars-are-still-alive/283424/14 "2005-01-08T04:38:57Z")
While he wasn’t actually a major star until much later, Glenn Ford was a known contract actor in the 1930s and he is still alive. Luise Rainer, whom Eve mentioned, won two Oscars during the 1930s, which I find amazing. The last time I saw her in public she was being escorted by Roddy McDowell to the Academy Awards ca. 1995. She has a credit from a (I was going to mention Richard Widmark, but he apparently either became an actor later than usual or else did exclusively stagework as his first credit didn’t come until the late 1940s when he was in his mid-30s.) [German filme](http://imdb.com/title/tt0360890/) from last year entitled Poem; it’s [official site](http://www.poem-derfilm.de/) has no English translation but is quite elaborate, but since the bizarre and elaborate credits also mention Goethe and Hermann Hesse I’m not positive if her scenes were new. (Check out the site for an oddity factor.)