# oldest dead celebrity **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 28, 2005, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844 "2005-05-28T01:34:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2005, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/21 "2005-05-29T00:10:39Z")
I say we give it to Mr. Abbott (as all his friends called him – really, it’s true). I saw him interviewed on _Today_ at age 102 and, while no longer directing, he apparently was _producing_ yet another show. He seemed very crisp and vital. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2005, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/22 "2005-05-29T03:22:44Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Charles Lane, one of the busiest actors in film, recently turned 100. Go, Charlie. 🙂 Did you see him at the TV Land Awards? He used his camera time to ask for work! How cool is that (and he still has the same voice- he quite smoking 10 years ago so he should be good for another 20). [Here’s a list](http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Centenarian#Actors.2Ffilmmakers.2Fentertainers) of show-biz centenarians. Señor Wences (“Hallo!”) is the only one that I know for a fact was still performing after triple digits. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2005, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/23 "2005-05-29T03:29:33Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Hmmmm, was Methusalah a “celebrity”? > > Not that I actually believe . . . He had a chance to be on the _Love Boat_ pilot, Noah’s Ark, but died a week before it sailed. (Charo made it- she was married to Japheth at the time, later leaving him for Xavier Cugat.) ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2005, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/24 "2005-05-29T06:35:19Z")
While it’s getting away from the OP, two 90 something actors who are alive, well and keep amazingly busy in stage and film are [Kevin McCarthy](http://www.body-snatchers.com/) and [Norman Lloyd](http://www.vidiot.com/UPN/SD/images/7Days-Cast1999h.jpg). Both were born in 1914, both were on Broadway in the 1930s (Lloyd was heavily involved with Orson Welles & John Houseman’s _Mercury Studio_) and both have movies in production currently. (McCarthy has college aged children to educate, which is one reason he hasn’t retired.) Gloria Stuart also remains busy in her 90s, though she had quite a few decades (mostly) off from acting. Lillian Gish won raves and several awards for her work in _The Whales of August_, filmed when she was in her early 90s. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2005, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/25 "2005-05-29T09:21:37Z")
> [@Wendell Wagner](#): > > Her name was Jeanne Calment, not Marie Clement. The age numbers are wrong too. He was 47 and she was 90 when they signed the contract. He lived to be 77, so she was 120 when he died. I believe that it wasn’t an agreement to pay her rent. I think it was a reverse mortgage. He agreed to pay a certain amount each month so that he would acquire her house when she died. > > The average life expectancy has not tripled since 1850. It hasn’t even doubled. The average life expentancy was about 45 in 1850. It’s now about 76. I find it impressive that you know all this stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/26 "2005-05-29T15:54:16Z")
Cicero writes: \> I find it impressive that you know all this stuff. Thank you. I guess it helps to be able to make stuff up when all else fails. Did I ever tell you about how Jeanne Calment, Vincent Van Gogh, and I used to go out drinking together? ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2005, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/27 "2005-05-29T15:57:50Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > There was an actor born in the late 18th century . . . Ok, found him: he was a manager, not an actor. David Kinnison, who died in 1852, supposedly at 115 years old. He fought in the American Revolution and, at the age of 111, was operating Mooney’s Museum (a variety house) in Chicago. Of course, I’d be surprised if he really was that old. I think our winner thus far is George Abbott. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2005, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/28 "2005-05-30T05:45:41Z")
While she wasn’t an actress herself, Jolie Gabor made many TV and panel-show appearances and was a “jeweler to the stars” and for movies. She was also, of course, the mother of Eva, Zsa Zsa & Magda and mother-in-law of George Sanders (who married first Zsa Zsa and later Magda) among many others. (She was also the step-great-great-grandmother of Paris Hilton.) She died in 1997 at the age of 103, though I’m guessing she was a jewelled cabbage for the last few years. (She never knew that her daughter Eva was dead [the family didn’t tell her] or that Magda was terminally ill [she died a few weeks after Jolie]), thus Zsa-Zsa lost both sister and her mother in less than two years (which had to have been a major blow, especially considering that she was almost 80 and from what I’ve read her daughter isn’t much of a comfort.) Connie Hilton (ZsaZsa’s daughter, supposedly by Conrad Hilton but he had doubts) is the only child of the Gabor sister’s 20 marriages. Odd. Her father left her a $100,000 trust fund out of his $200 million estate, though her inheritance from her mother and aunts will probably dwarf that. ---
**Author:** ![START](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@START](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/START)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2005, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/29 "2005-05-30T07:06:29Z")
> [@Good Egg](#): > > Who was the celebrity who died at the oldest age? Moses ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2005, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/30 "2005-05-30T08:41:57Z")
Sampiro writes: \> Connie Hilton (ZsaZsa’s daughter, supposedly by Conrad Hilton but he had \> doubts) is the only child of the Gabor sister’s 20 marriages. Odd. Her father left \> her a $100,000 trust fund out of his $200 million estate, though her inheritance \> from her mother and aunts will probably dwarf that. And she didn’t even get the $100,000. The will had a clause that anyone who contested their share in court wouldn’t get anything. She contested it and thus didn’t get anything. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2005, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/31 "2005-05-30T15:22:22Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > David Kinnison, who died in 1852, supposedly at 115 years old. He fought in the American Revolution and, at the age of 111, was operating Mooney’s Museum (a variety house) in Chicago IIRC, he also claimed to be the last survivor of the Boston Tea Party. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2005, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/32 "2005-05-30T15:34:00Z")
> [@Governor Quinn](#): > > IIRC, he also claimed to be the last survivor of the Boston Tea Party. I _am_ impressed. (By the way: poor old Zsa Zsa’s blobby and unglamorous daughter is “Francesca,” not “Connie.”) ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2005, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/33 "2005-05-30T16:39:41Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > I _am_ impressed. > > (By the way: poor old Zsa Zsa’s blobby and unglamorous daughter is > “Francesca,” not “Connie.”) And i know for a fact she never took part in the Boston Tea Party. (Her name is ‘Constance Francesca’; I confused her with Barron’s daughter, Connie- Barron received only about $500,000 from his father’s estate but successfully sued for much more- veddy veddy bad man, incidentally [used to work for a hotel he owned and he was a total prick, the total antithesis of his father when it came to managing people]). ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2005, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/34 "2005-05-30T19:24:29Z")
> [@START](#): > > Moses :dubious: I’m afraid the afomentioned Methusalah already has him beat. As do Noah and Adam (and probably Eve if she were worth mentioning) and a number of others. Hell, actually Jeanne Calment beats out Moses. I suppose if you go by the Book of John and say he was with God at the beginning of the world, Jesus is the oldest celebrity to die. Although I think if you come back again you forfeit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844.md?page=1)