The thread about the death of Dawn Wells leaving Tina Louise as the tontine winner of Gilligan’s Island made me wonder about other old shows or movies with only one or two cast members left.
I know F Troop has only Larry Storch (Corporal Agarn) and James Hampton (Bugler Dobbs) among the living.
Robert Clary as Corporal LaBeau and Kenneth Washington as Sergeant Baker are the last survivors of Hogan’s Heroes.
For movies, Carl Reiner’s 2020 death has left It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World with only two cast members that had speaking parts, Nicholas Georgiade as a detective at the scene of Smiler Grogan’s accident, and Barrie Chase who was the stoic bikini dancer at Sylvester’s place.
Of the main cast of The Dick Van Dyke Show, only DVD himself and Larry Mathews are still around. Granted, a significant number of the main cast lived long lives (DVD is 95 himself now).
“The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis” has series star Dwayne Hickman, Sheila Kuehl, Tuesday Weld (17 episodes) and Warren Beatty (5 episodes). Dwayne’s older brother Darryl is also living and appeared in two episodes as Davey Gillis but left with Chuck Cunningham
On the original “Perry Mason” for awhile in the fifth season they tried introducing a young law clerk played by Carl Held (first as a defendant). Either as a possible replacement if Raymond Burr left or to draw younger viewers; in any case he was superfluous and left after nine episodes . He appeared on Star Trek TOS “Return of the Archons”, his late wife Sarah Marshall was on the episode “The Deadly Years”.
“Lost in Space” has a number of people alive. June Lockhart is 95, Mark Goddard, Marta Kristen, Billy Mumy, Angela Cartwright still with us.
I was surprised that Nehemiah Persoff was still alive at 101 and at he was only on “The Untouchables” four times as Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik. For a show with a lot of cigarette smoking those actors seem to have lived long lives where as on “Dragnet” they tend to die in their late 50s or early 60s (Harry Morgan an exception).
As mentioned Nicholas Georgiade is alive at age 87. Great casting by Desilu…have a Greek (Georgiade) play an Italian-American and have an Italian (Paul Pucerni) play an Irish-American (Picerni played an Italian in the pilot and does speak it in the series, growing up in a mixed neighborhood of Irish and Italians).
Terry Carter, the original Colonel Tigh in “Battlestar Galactica”, is left from the “Phil Silvers/Sgt Bilko Show”. Not sure about others, Nat Hiken used a lot of people.
MASH is down to Alan Alda, Gary Burghoff, Loretta Switt, Jamie Farr, and Mike Farrell. There are others who appeared in multiple episodes(Jeff Maxwell), but I believe that is it from the main cast.
Well to be fair, it was essential that the original cast have an Italian good guy character to ward off complaints of bias against Italians showing all those mobsters. And while Picerni had a small part in the pilot, he didn’t join as a cast regular until season two.
Conlan Carter (b. 1934) and Jack Hogan (b. 1929) are apparently still alive. They played “Doc” and “Kirby” on Combat!, respectively.
Other cast memnbers still alive are Tom Lowell (“Billy Nelson”), Shecky Greene (“Braddock”), Steven Rogers (the original “Doc”), and Eric Braeden/Hans Gudegast (the perennial German soldier).
“McHale’s Navy” lists John Wright who played radioman Willy Moss (he is also the son of country singers Bobby Wright and Kitty Wells), Yoshio Yoda who played Fuji and Gavin MacLeod who played seaman Happy Haines the first two seasons
As an aside, MacLeod was in a 1968 episode of Hawaii Five-O today as drug-dealer and three-time loser “Big Chicken.” If you’re used to seeing him as Murray on MTM, this was quite a stretch.
It appears that Nehemiah Persoff and Nicholas Georgiade are the only surviving regular cast members of The Untouchables. Like Combat! the series had way too many guest stars to delve into here.
Out of the 18 “more than 10 appearances” on the 1970s version of “Upstairs, Downstairs” we have Jean Marsh (Rose), Christopher Beeney (Edward). Simon Williams (James), Jacqueline Tong (Daisy), Lesley-Anne Down (Georgina), Meg Wynn Owen (Hazel), Nicola Pagett (Elizabeth) and Pauline Collins (Sarah).
1960s “The Avengers” has Linda Thorson. For some reason people never count Julie Stevens, who played Venus Smith for six episodes inn 1962-63 as one of John Steed’s partners, probably trying to forget her “singing” that was in each episode.