Some other living celebrities who are also WWII veterans: Mel Brooks, Dick Van Dyke, James Garner, Hugh Hefner, Hal Holbrook, Russell Johnson, Christopher Lee, Patrick Macnee, Carl Reiner, Mickey Rooney, Joseph Wapner, and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
Then. They might not have been well-known or recognized until later, but ultimately they just have to have had some interesting association with or direct role in WWII. So a singer who was alive then but not necessarily associated with the war effort wouldn’t necessarily count, but Vera Lynn (mentioned above) would. I was about to say that that last remaining Andrews sister would count for the same reason, but apparently she died early this year. I missed that… Damn!
Really interesting responses so far. WWII cast such a long shadow for such a long time (and arguably still does) that it’s strange to think how quickly the era is starting to pass from human memory, and to see what significant figures from then are still left.
I’m pretty sure James Garner served in Korea, not WWII.
I flew with Bob Hoover once. Damn, what a pilot. He told a hell of a story about his WW II adventures, too.
Yogi Berra was part of D-Day.
OK, you HAVE to tell that story!
He served in both wars. Granted, his service during WWII was in the Merchant Marine but that’s considered military service during wartime. (He was only sixteen at the time. The other branches required you to be a minimum of seventeen to volunteer.)
Pete Seeger might count - he was already pretty well known before the war, as one of the Almanac Singers with Woodie Guthrie and crew. Although the Army trained him as a mechanic, he always found himself assigned to entertain his fellow troops instead of fixing airplanes, finding himself being traded from one Pacific base to another for favors, like a prison bitch. When asked what he did in the war, he would always simply answer “I played my banjo”.