Controversial religious leader Louis Farrakhan is 92. He is still, nominally at least, the leader of the Nation of Islam organization.
As is his wife, Bonnie Bartlett, at age 96. They’ll be celebrating their 75th anniversary this year.
I just happened to look up Dyan Cannon for another thread, and she’s still alive at 89.
Gene Shalit turns 100 today!
And soon, David Attenbourough and Mel Brooks will as well.
We are seeing a small wave of 100 year olds. Jimmy Carter, Dick Van Dyke, a those that are coming.
Bill Shatner is 5 years away and is super active. I believe Shatner will make it.
I was going to mention that, I saw him in the celebrity birthdays column in the paper this morning. I honestly don’t know if I knew he was still alive or not.
I saw an ad today that Jimmy Buffett will be playing live in Austin soon. Not a tribute band – Jimmy himself. Not sure if it counts as an “Abe Vigoda” when I’m pretty sure Buffett died about three years ago.
Wikipedia confirms that he died 1 September 2023. Interesting that he’s doing concerts in 2026.
I’d have to guess it’s a tribute band, or Buffett’s old band touring. (Edit: yes, Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band is touring this summer, including a stop in Austin.)
Similarly, Jeff Lynne (of Electric Light Orchestra), who is still alive, retired from touring last summer (and had to cancel his final scheduled concert, in London, due to injury and illness). The ELO fan pages on Facebook have had several fans posting ads/concert listings from some casino in Connecticut, which state that ELO, including Jeff Lynne, will be playing at that casino’s theater.
Credulous ELO fans keep saying, “Is it true? Is he really coming back? Please tell me it’s true!!” OMG, folks, it’s undoubtedly a tribute band playing, and the casino is either (a) intentionally lying, (b) had some junior sales person write up an ad, who mistakenly looked up and copy-pasted the actual ELO bio, or (c) using AI to write ads, badly. (If Lynne were to come out of retirement, he’d do something bigger than a casino in Connecticut – and it’d be announced on his web site and social media pages, which it isn’t.)
Too late to edit: apparently, somebody got clued in, and the casino is now labeling it as a concert by “The Electric Light Orchestra Experience,” and that it’s a tribute band.
Yes! I love that movie. Severely underrated.
Yet, he is still 6 years younger than the other surviving Wilbury.
Marla Gibbs, best known for playing Florence Johnston on The Jeffersons and Mary Jenkins on 227, turns 95 this June.
Not part of the topic, but I hadn’t realized that Isabel Sanford, who played Louise Jefferson, was twenty-one years older than Sherman Hemsley, who played George. Hemsley was only thirty-five when he first began playing George Jefferson.
Definitely. I don’t think it’s shown very often, either. (Maybe a music issue? The movie does have that “Beatles-clone” set of characters who might have been playing something with expensive rights.)
Anyway: Has Vera Miles been mentioned recently? “Lila Crane” in Psycho, of course, among other iconic roles. She’s 95.
They did the same thing on Good Times, where Esther Rolle was 19 years older than the actor (John Amos) who played her husband James Evans.
Charo’s been mentioned in this thread so no surprise she’s still alive.
But I am surprised to see she’s still working. I saw a trailer for the upcoming movie Stop! That! Train! and she’s in the cast (and appears in the trailer).
John Astin (best known for the TV version of The Addams Family) celebrated his 96th birthday today. Per wikipedia:
He’s much better now.
We even announced John Astin as dead once. It was someone else.
He’s outlived the entire cast of Addams Family, including the children.
Heck, he’s even outlived most of the main cast of Night Court!