Different from oldest TV show with still living cast, this is the TV show with the most oldest living cast members. Or cast members that lived the longest. Or that have the longest average lifespans. I think that makes this thread as clear as mud.
Anyway, I gotta hand it to The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Betty White just celebrated her 99th. Gavin MacCleod is 89. Ed Asner is 91. John Amos is 81. We just recently lost Cloris Leechman at 99.
Valerie Harper and, I was sad just find out, Georgia Engel died in 2019 at 70 and 69 respectively. Which won’t bring down the average more than does Ted Knight, who passed in the 1980s while in his 50s. Of course there is MTM herself, who lived to 81.
Any other TV shows whose casts collectively lived to such ripe old ages?
Is it being in a sit com that does it or are there any other shows whose primary cast is so long-lived?
Betty White - 99+
Bea Arthur - 86
Rue McClanahan - 76
Estelle Getty - 84
MTM has more over 90 I suppose but GG doesn’t have anyone in the 50s or 60s pulling down the average. I suppose you’d have to do the math and make a call about who counts as a “regular”.
The Dick Van Dyke Show is a contender. Working with Mary Tyler Moore was good for a long life.
DVD is still with us. Carl Reiner just recently passed at 99. Rose Marie was 96 when she passed in 2017. Mary Tyler Moore as mentioned made it to 81. Morey Amsterdam was 92 when he passed way back in 1996.
Jerry Paris only made it to 61 but Millie (Ann Morgan Guilbert) was 87 when she passed in 2016. Mel (Richard Deacon) was the other short lived one, only 63. Go back just 5 years ago and it was amazing how many of the cast was still alive.
The “classic” (1958-1964) cast of Lassie included June Lockhart (now 95) and Jon Provost (now 70), who are still alive, and Hugh Reilly and George Chandler, who died at 83 and 86, respectively. That works out to an average 83.5 and still climbing. In fact, Lockhart and Reilly replaced Cloris Leachman and Jon Sheppod (who died at age 91). If you count both sets of parents during the Jon Provost/Timmy years, the average climbs to an impressive 86.5 years at death. That’s probably the longest-lived cast which still has two members alive.
Andy Griffith - 86
Jim Nabors - 87
Frances Bavier - 86
Jack Burns - 86
Howard Morris - 85
George Lindsey - 83
Don Knotts - 81
Hal Smith - 77
Hope Summers - 77
Jack Dodson - 63
Howard McNear - 63
Aneta Corsaut - 62
Still living cast members
Betty Lynn - 94+
Elinor Donahue - 83+
Ron Howard - 66+
So we have a show where the youngest death was at age 62. And at least nine cast members who lived into their eighties.
In an alternative universe where NBC picks up “Star Trek” after seeing the first pilot “The Cage” and they were impressed with several things before rejecting it (assuming no cast changes)
Jeffrey Hunter 42
Leonard Nimoy 78
Majel Barrett. 76
John Hoyt. 85
Peter Duryea. 73
Laurel Goodwin. Still alive age 78
For an obscure 1960s sitcom “Please don’t Eat the Daisies” the lead actors Mark Miller (born 1924) and Patricia Cowley (born 1933) are still alive. The four boys that were born in the 1950s are listed being alive in imdb although if any died maybe nobody noticed. Shirley Mitchell who was in half the episodes died at age 94.
My mother’s favorite TV series of all time, Your Show of Shows (1950-54). Among the six main players, who were each in at least 80 percent of the episodes, the average age at death was 90.2. No other actor appeared in more than 21 percent of the episodes.
Carl Reiner 98
Imogene Coca 92
Sid Caesar 91
Felisa Vanoff 90
James Starbuck 85
Howard Morris 85
So is Andrea Dromm, who played Yeoman Smith in that episode.
The one who brought down the average age was Lloyd Haynes, who played Communications Officer Alden. Dromm and Haynes were intended to be regulars on the series but their characters were eliminated after the second pilot.
Haynes instead got the lead role of teacher Pete Dixon in Room 222. He died of cancer at the age of 52.
Room 222 might otherwise be a contender of this thread. Besides Haynes, the other three regulars were Michael Constantine (alive at 93), Denise Nicholas (alive at 76), and Karen Valentine (alive at 73).
It would have been interesting if they had kept Andrea Dromm around. In the second pilot, it was implied she was Gary Mitchell’s squeeze (they held hands as the ship neared the energy barrier), and Mitchell of course died at the end of the episode.
There were two Doris Ziffels on Green Acres, something I noticed immediately watching the show a few months ago. Barbara Patterson fell ill in 1969 and died two days before the Moon landing. She was replaced by Fran Ryan, who lived to be 83.
Ryan is another of those actors for whom you can say “Oh, him/her again!”
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