Before ‘44, Jane Withers had been top-billed over Jackie Cooper in one movie, and top-billed over the Ritz Brothers in another; and top-billed over singing cowboy Gene Autry, and top-billed over Oscar winner Walter Brennan; and top-billed over Charles “Ming the Merciless” Middleton, and top-billed over Jean “Dale Arden” Rogers; and top-billed over Kane “Lamont Cranston” Richmond, and top-billed over Sidney “Charlie Chan” Toler; and so on, and so on.
The screen debut of young Henry Fonda? There she is, the year after she was in a Shirley Temple flick and the year before she was top-billed over Rita Hayworth — which, in turn, was the year before she was top-billed over Lon Chaney, Jr. And a film with Dana Andrews? Yep, that’s her name on the movie poster — the year after she was top-billed over George Reeves, which in turn was the year after she was top-billed over Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers.
Even leaving aside that she was in a Claudette Colbert drama and a W.C. Fields comedy and half-a-dozen other things before ‘44, I’d figure she’s a living connection to old Hollywood.
Thanks to the pandemic, I’ve been rewatching a lot of old cartoons at home, and then reading about them online. I’ve been surprised to learn that a lot of the people involved in these shows are still around. A couple of examples:
I used to watch The New Pink Panther Show on Saturday mornings in the 1980s. This show reran the Ant and the Aardvark shorts, which even as a kid I realized were pretty old. (The shorts were produced between 1969 to 1971.) So I was amazed to learn this week that, forty years later, the actor who voiced both title roles, John Byner, is still alive. It was also interesting for me to learn that he was imitating the voices of comedians Dean Martin and Jackie Mason, for the ant and aardvark characters, respectively. As a kid, I had no idea who these comedians were and until now I had never seen any clips of them performing live. (Jackie Mason, who incidentally is also still alive, I retroactively recognized as the voice of Krusty the Clown’s father on The Simpsons.)
Even more amazingly, I’ve just learned that Ruthie Tompson, one of the animators for Disney’s 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is alive and kicking at 110. I never would have guessed that any adult involved in a film that old would still be around today. (Marge Champion, who was mentioned upthread as also being involved in Snow White, died in October 2020.)
Which is where I usually find the people I’m surprised were still alive (right up until they suddenly weren’t). Recently-dead Tempest Storm and Walter Mondale (now there’s a couple) both surprised me.
While this thread was quasi-resurrected, I agree Brimley is probably the closest more modern Abe Vigoda. He was quite well known and played almost exclusively “old” characters going back to his 40s. I think some of it is just certain people look really old early in life, sometimes it can be based on how they dress but certain hair styles I think make you look older. Wallace Shawn is a good example of this, the way he dressed and kept his hair in the early 1980s (when he filmed My Dinner with Andre) easily age him 20 years. I think the effect is then magnified for people like Shawn / Vigoda / Brimley because as they age into “genuine old age” it’s less apparent because they had already been dressing and looking older than they were for many years. Like I can pull up pictures of Wallace Shawn from events he’s done in the last 5 years where he doesn’t look terribly older than he did in Princess Bride.
Meanwhile take someone like Kevin Costner, I remember well when he got on my radar as an actor–that run in the late 80s/early 90s of The Untouchables, Bull Durham, No Way Out, Field of Dreams, and Dances with Wolves. Costner looks quite youthful in those. Fast forward to 2020 and his tv series Yellowstone, and he doesn’t look at all wrong for the part of a family patriarch / grandfather he plays. In fact he looks pretty much right at what you’d expect for a man of 65.
Not an actor, but I think it still fits: a couple days ago, a woman choking in a restaurant was saved when she was given the Heimlich Maneuver…, by Dr. Heimlich himself.
The best example I know of of a film professional who not only lived a long time but also kept working for a long time is the Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, who lived to be 106 (from 1908 to 2015). He made mostly shorts and documentaries until 1972, when he made a feature film at the age of 63. After then he actually began making more and more feature films till 2012, when he made his last feature film at the age of 103. He then continued to make shorts until he died. His wife, who had been married to him for nearly 77 years at his death, outlived him and lived to be 101 herself:
According to the wiki thing, she was 108 when she checked out last year. That is a 27-year-longer tenure on the dirtball than her son, 3 years more than their difference in age.
I was watching The Battle of Britain (1969) recently and I checked the cast afterwards to see who was still among us. I knew Michael Caine was still alive. But I hadn’t realized Edward Fox is also.
Just saw an old movie poster for The Towering Inferno that included a rave from critic Gene Shalit.
I would’ve bet good money that he’d been dead for decades but nope…he’s still alive and kicking at 95.