According to the World Almanac, Ray Collins was 66 when he began playing the part of Lieutenant Arthur Tragg on Perry Mason. (He retired from the part at age 73.)
And Leo Carillo was about 75 when he started portraying the Cisco Kid’s sidekick Pancho (in the TV version).
And Peter Boyle must have been near 70 when he first appeared as Frank Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond.
Have there been any other much-older regulars on TV series, or in movies?
What percentage of episodes would separate occasional from regular? Burt Mustin was in 4 episodes of “All in the Family”, 1973-1976, as “Justin Quigley”. He was 89-91, assuming that imdb’s info is accurate.
Then-92-year-old Gloria Stuart has so far appeared in 2 episodes of “General Hospital”, 2002-2003, as “Catherine”. She is a 23-year-old babe in “Roman Scandals”, and I’d rather go out with 4 23-year-olds… (I’d like to have Groucho’s writers write for me too.)
Zara Cully as Mother Jefferson on “The Jeffersons” was 83 when she started in 1975 - http://imdb.com/name/nm0191652/
Judith Lowry as Mother Dexter on “Phyllis” was 86 when the show started in 1976 - http://imdb.com/title/tt0072556/
Famous “Mother Dexter” quote: “I dreamed I was dancing with Charles Bronson - stripped to the waist. And so was he!”
VCNJ~
Frances Reid, age 92, is still going strong on “Days of Our Lifes” as matriach Alice Horton
How old were The Golden Girls?
And aren’t some of the guys on 60 Minutes like several hundred years old?
Don Pardo, who’s now 88, is still the announcer for Saturday Night Live.
Just look at Boston Legal :
**William Shatner ** is 75.
Rene Auberjonois is 65.
Betty White is 83.
Perhaps the oldest actor to play the lead character in a television series was John Houseman, who was 83 when The Paper Chase ended in 1986.
John Hoyt had to have been in his 80s when he played the grandfather on some lame comedy in the late-80s/early-90s whose title escapes me.
There have undoubtedly been thousands and thousands of actors and actresses in their 90s who have appeared in movies, or do you mean a series of movies with the same characters?
Sir Rhosis
Donald Sutherland, at 71, is still going strong on Commander in Chief.
I checked out some hon that was on AMC in a movie from the 30s or 40s on the IDMB today, and saw that she was on Law and Order in 1999.
Can’t remember her name, tho.
That would make her at least 70.
Not to mention my Shirley Maclaine.
hh
Steven Hill, who played Adam Shiff on Law & Order was 68 when the show started, 78 when he left. Jerry Orbach (Brisco) was 55 when the show started, 69 when he quit (shortly before his death).
George Burns was 89 when he hosted George Burns Comedy World. Has last starring role in a movie was in 18 Again when he was 92.
I remember being surprised that Ernest Borgnine was a regular on the mid nineties sitcom “The Single Guy”. He was 78 when the series started.
Scanning his IMDB entry I see that not only is he still alive, he seems to have no problem getting regular work. Good for him.
Buddy Hackett was 75 when he got a supporting role in the TV show Action.
Mickey Rooney is still getting feature parts in movies at age 86, probably the only actor working regularly today who had credits back to silent films.
Dominic Chianese, who plays Uncle Junior on The Sopranos, is 75. He’s also a singer.
Nitpick: I thought Jerry Orbach kept filming episodes right up until his death…
Nope. Not of L&O, anyway. He was on the Trial By Jury spinoff at the time of his death. (About 4 episodes in, IIRC.)
Quit probably wasn’t the right word…perhaps ‘changed shows’.
Jester Hairston (ironically best remembered as the composer of the hymn Amen) was a name-in-the-credits regular castmember of the TV series Amen from the time he was 85 until he was 90.
Charles Lane (who looked 50 when he was 20 and 80 when he was 50) worked through his late 80s, had some theater credits (and quit smoking) in his 90s, and when he was shown on the 2005 TV Land Awards soon after his 100th birthday he announced in that very familiar voice “I’m still available if anybody’s interested”. Unfortunately nobody’s taken him up.
Leon Askin looked old and morbidly obese when he first played General Burkhalter on Hogan’s Heroes 40 years ago, but he continued acting steadily in American and German language film projects until shortly before his death last year. (He was in his late 90s, a recent bridegroom, recorded for his web site and achieved a lifelong dream of playing King Lear at 90 [in a wheelchair for the ‘carrying Cordelia’ scene] soon after founding a retirement home for Jewish film & theater in his native Vienna (where his family lived before they died in the Holocaust).
Lillian Gish gave a very moving performance in Whales of August when she was over 90.
Not an actor, but producer George Abbott was actively involved in plans for the revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum when he died suddenly of a stroke at the age of… wait for it… one-hundred and seven.
Natalie Schafer, bka Mrs. Howell from Gilligan’s Island, was very active in TV appearances into her late 80s (nobody knew she was that old because she would not reveal her age to even her husbands).
Fred Flintstone coexisted with dinosaurs more than 70 million years ago and yet is currently in a commercial. This makes his career in show business second only to that of Buddy Ebsen’s.
With movies, I mean principal characters, not cameos, extras, or bit parts.
Harry Morgan was 59 when he joined the cast of MASH* in 1975, and was thus 67 when the show ended its run in 1983.
In the movie 12 Angry Men, I think Joseph Sweeney (the first juror to change his vote in agreement with Henry Fonda) was 75.
Charles Coburn was 78 when he appeared as a port official, in Hong Kong, in Around the World in 80 Days.
Oh–and thanks for reminding me about Burt Mustin, already past 70 when I first saw him on TV in the late 50s. 
I didn’t see Star Wars and have no idea how old Alec Guinness was when he appeared in the movie.
In Dragnet, there was an episode titled "The Big Little Jesus " (about a stolen statue of the child Jesus from a church; set at Christmastime), the only episode to air on the radio show, in the series of the 50s, and the series of the 60s. Three actors in the 50s version–Ralph Moody, Herb Vigran, and Harry Bartell–appeared in the 60s remake of that episode as well. Ralph Moody must have been about 70 when he appeared in that episode.
Charles Lane played villainous characters on some 60s sitcoms. He is also the only person I know of to have been in the cast of both It’s a Wonderful Life (Lester Reinemann, Potter’s rent collector) and Mighty Joe Young (newspaper reporter covering the opening of O’Hara’s Hollywood nightclub). In the latter movie he would have been 44, according to your reckoning, and in his sixties when I saw him on the sitcoms.