"Larger" people who have lived past 70.

Cafe Society
1

It’s pretty well known that being large or big or fat makes one a less likely canidate to reach very old ages, but it’s not impossible.
So, being a slightly large guy myself, it’s always good to hear about those who made it past, say, 70, even being at a considerable weight.

I know weight is a relative opinion, though, so by considerable weight, I’m talking about people who would probably be seen as “hefty” or “bigger” by most people, but better than that, I’ll give some examples.

Off the top of my head, I can think of Charlie Daniels. Bit on the hefty side, yet he’s still performing into his seventies.
And then there’s Fats Domino who is currently 82.
And [Jonathan Winters](Jonathan Winters) is 84. Nice.

Gives me some hope.

2

Jackie Gleason was obese, smoked 4 packs a day, drank straight bourbon whiskey like a mollyfocker and lived into his 80’s, whoring it up with fresh young tail (apparently he made Tiger Wood’s sexual appetite look like that of a retarded 6 year-old eunuch from Idaho) until his last days…

3

A nitpick, Wiki says he died at 71. Still impressive, but he might still be around if he took better care of himself. :smiley:

4

I could have sworn he lived into his 80’s but I am obviously thinking of someone else—I am just about certain about the obesity, incredibly heavy smoking and two-fisted drinking though, as he did an interview with 60 Minutes not too long before he died where he talked freely and openly about his unhealthy lifestyle and gargantuan appetites and how he was OK with his life choices…

5

Orson Welles made it to 70, and Raymond Burr to 76.

6

Dom DeLiuse died at 75. Orson Welles lived to 70.

7

Well, you don’t know her, but my grandmother was all of 5 feet tall, weighed 300 lbs or so most of her life, and made it to 83.

8

Not relevant to the thread, but I note on that page that it says that Nixon showed Gleason something which Gleason later reported to have been an alien craft.

This means one of 3 things:

  1. Gleason deluded himself.
  2. The US military has an alien craft.
  3. Nixon pulled one of the greatest pranks of all time. :smiley:
9

Marlon Brando was over 300 pounds at one point and managed to make it to 80

10

Sidney Greenstreet – the Fat Man in The Maltese Falcon and dozens of other films – lived to be 75.

Darlene Cates (best known for the role of the mother in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape) was up over 550 pounds at one point. She’s still alive at age 62.

11

Just in case you missed it. . .
A similar question from a while back.

12

Darius Milhaud (French composer) lived to be 81. (He’s 52 or 53 in this picture.)

13

Are you my cousin? Because I could say the same thing. Those Italian grandmothers were real survivors!..TRM

PS - keeping on topic, I believe Ernest Borgnine is still kicking, well into his nineties, and he’s no anorexic.

14

Shelley Winters lived to be 85.

15

My aunt was about 60 pounds overweight and lived to be 97 years old. She loved to eat. Cause of death is probably pneumonia.

16

William H. Taft made it to 72.

17

Kate Smith was 79 when she died, and continued performing into her 70s. She was always overweight, most notably so in the Forties when she performed what was for decades and may well still be the definitive cover of Berlin’s “God Bless America.”

18

Just read where today is John Madden’s (a pretty hefty guy, though maybe not as big as some of the others that have been mentioned in this thread so far) 74th birthday…

Happy Day John!!!

19

Charles Durning is still kicking at 87.

20

Leon Askin, obese Austrian-Jewish character actor best known for playing General Burkhalter on Hogan’s Heroes, not only lived to be 97 (and nine months) but his 80s and 90s were among the most productive years of his life professionally.

As for large in the non-obese sense, Martin Van Buren Bates(a Civil War veteran and sideshow performer) was 7’9, fathered (with his first wife, giantess Anna Swan) the two largest babies every recorded in U.S. history to that point (23 and 18 lbs respectively- both died at birth), and lived to be 82. That is ancient for a person that tall. (Anna Swan Bates died at 42; when she died he married a woman of average size.)