Also ninety: Leslie Phillips and John Connell, each with TV credits back to the '40s.
As a child actor, Richard Bellis could be seen on Studio 57 and Captain Midnight and Lux Video Theatre before '58 – and he kept at it as a teen in the '60s, appearing on Cheyenne and My Three Sons and Batman – after which, he picked up ‘Composer’ credits on TV movies in the '70s, and more of 'em in the '80s, and yet more of 'em in the '90s, followed by still more in the '00s.
And we’ve lost another one. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., dead at 95.
Checking the guest star list for 77 Sunset Strip for thread candidates reveals a problem I’ve run into. (Besides people like Ruta Lee and Sherry Jackson already being listed.)
Some people acted for just a short while, haven’t done anything in many decades, and IMDb doesn’t list a death year for them. For minor actors, one can’t presume that their death was noted and entered. When do we presume the person is still alive?
Anyway … I think Julie Adams is still with us. Famously the girl in Creature from the Black Lagoon. Worked in movies early but eventually did the usual TV drama series in the 50s. Most recent credit is from 2011.
I hear ya; I’ve long wanted to mention Jay Brooks, who (a) IMDB doesn’t list a date of death for, and who (b) apparently went from Amos 'n Andy to Seinfeld forty years later, but has no credits for the twenty years since. Who knows?
(I will, though, mention centenarian Herb Jeffries, who followed up half-a-dozen movie roles with half-a-dozen television appearances as a singer back in '55.)
WWII veteran and iconic stand-up comic Shecky Greene was doing his schtick on episodes of The NBC Comedy Hour in '56 – working Vegas in between, on the same bill as Elvis Presley – before appearing on The Jack Paar Tonight Show in '57 and then performing on The Ed Sullivan Show in '58 and '59 and '60.
In 1960, Tom Nolan was on TV with a raspy-voiced Clint Eastwood on Rawhide, and decades later was on the big screen alongside a raspier-voiced Christian Bale doing his thing in Batman Begins, and before all of that got golden-age-of-television credits on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Thin Man before the OP’s cut-off date.
Gregory Walcott of Plan 9 From Outer Space fame later graced the Ed Wood film with an in-joke small part, after racking up 1990s credits on Murder She Wrote and Dallas, and 1980s credits on Simon & Simon and The Dukes of Hazzard, and 1970s credits on CHiPs and The Six Million Dollar Man, and 1960s credits on Bonanza and Dennis The Menace – and, yes, pre-'58 credits on Wagon Train and Cheyenne and Tombstone Territory and Zane Grey Theater (and, sure, on shows other than westerns, like Navy Log, I Led 3 Lives, The People’s Choice, and Dr. Christian.)
In looking at 77 Sunset Strip cast members, I wondered if Jacqueline Beer was still alive. Indeed she is, in fact she married Thor Heyerdahl and runs her late husband’s foundation! Wow.
TV credits go back to 1955.
Another problem I run into are listings like this for Jack Betts. Earliest listings are from 52 and 56 for soaps. But those are the start dates for the shows, his appearences are later. First real one is after the cut-off date.
Fred J. Scollay has that problem: at first glance, he qualifies on the strength of his work on Search For Tomorrow and The Edge of Night, but, yeah, he came on-board after the cut-off date, no matter how those shows are listed in his credits.
But after making his TV debut in '52, he did Studio One In Hollywood episodes from '53 to '57 – a version of 1984 with Eddie Albert as Winston Smith and Lorne Greene as O’Brien? The Night America Trembled, with Ed Asner and James Coburn? – along with various episodes of Robert Montgomery Presents, decades before he was popping up on LAW & ORDER in his sixties and seventies as Judge Andrew Barsky.
Roy Thinnes of The Invaders did The FBI Story movie with Jimmy Stewart in '59 after small-screen work on Peter Gunn in '58 and Cavalcade of America in '57.
Even aside from her recurring role on The Bob Cummings Show, Lola Albright makes the grade by dint of her work on Armstrong Circle Theatre and Lux Video Theatre in '51, and Tales of Tomorrow and All Star Revue in '52, and after a couple of movies in '53 was back on TV for Fireside Theatre and The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse in '54, and Gunsmoke and Screen Directors Playhouse in '55, and Four Star Playhouse and Celebrity Playhouse in '56, and Code 3 and The Red Skelton Hour in '57.
Her most recent acting credit is circa last year, as it happens.
Another actor from 77 Sunset Strip that I wasn’t sure if he was still alive since he hadn’t worked in so long: Roger Smith. I should have recognized that name, but it sounds so generic. He’s married to Ann-Margret. Retired from acting due to neurological problems.
Started out in 1956.
Seventy-five years after making her movie debut, Peggy Stewart was in the awful That’s My Boy with Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg – and was in another movie the year before that, and an episode of Community the year before that, and an episode of The Office the year before that, and an episode of NCIS the year before that, and My Name Is Earl the year before that, and et cetera – and she racked up plenty of pre-'57 credits on TV Westerns in between: The Gene Autry Show, Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, The Roy Rogers Show, The Cisco Kid, Have Gun - Will Travel, and so on.
For the parent-child combo hoped for upthread, the aforementioned Susan Kohner acted on Four Star Playhouse and The Alcoa Hour as a teen – and Matinee Theatre and Climax! at twenty, and Wagon Train and Suspicion at twenty-one, and so on, all before the cut-off date – and is apparently the daughter of Lupita Tovar, who got TV work in 1952 after movie credits dating back to the 1920s.
Tommy Ivo was a 1940s child actor in the movies, so it’s no surprise he got TV work as a teen on The Adventures of Falcon and Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok and et cetera before turning twenty and handling pre-'57 roles on The Adventures of Jim Bowie and The Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu and so on, plus a just-before-the-cutoff-date credit on The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin.
It’s a little surprising, though, that IMDB then credits him as a stunt driver in the '60s, and even the '80s, and featured in a documentary on drag racing in the '70s, such that he’s still picking up credit after credit after credit after credit as ‘Himself’ in the '00s on American Icon: The Hot Rods; the guy has two talents and loves one, I guess.
Robert Fuller spent over a hundred episodes on Emergency! in the '70s, and before that he spent over a hundred episodes on Laramie in the '60s, and before that he had a recurring role on US Marshal in '59, and before that it was General Electric Theater with Ronald Reagan in '58 – and before that, The Gray Ghost with Angie Dickinson back in '57 – and before that, Crossroads with Chuck Connors back in '56.
Happy Mother’s Day to Kimberly Beck’s mom Cynthia Chenault, who (a) did her thing in I Was A Teenage Werewolf decades before her daughter did a Friday the 13th flick, and (b) earned pre-'58 credits acting on shows like Father Knows Best and Dragnet when she wasn’t busy singing on Shower of Stars.
Eventually picked up a healthy number of credits as a TV writer, too.
Diana Darrin got work on Highway Patrol and The Adventures of Superman before both The Incredible Shrinking Man and The Amazing Colossal Man in '57 – same year she acted on Tales of the Texas Rangers and The George Sanders Mystery Theater.
Albert Finney, who turned 78 last week, was on British TV regularly from 1956 until he debuted in the movies in 1960.