Lauren Bacall is no longer left–she died at 89:
Looks like there are countless living television actors/actresses from pre-1957. This is probably because life expectancy is rising so more and more people are reaching their eighties and onwards.
What I’m wondering is how many are still around that were in films during the 30s and 40s. Probably just a few hundreds.
Well, there’s Terry Kilburn, who worked on dozens of films in the '30s and '40s before acting on half-a-dozen TV shows from '51 to '57 (and after which, Get Smart).
Gloria Jean made her film debut in '39, and then spent the '40s acting on the big screen – with W.C. Fields in Never Give A Sucker An Even Break, with Groucho Marx in Copacabana, and so on – before getting plenty of pre-'57 TV work, on Rebound and Annie Oakley and Death Valley Days and The Colgate Comedy Hour and et cetera.
Back in the '30s, Michèle Morgan was acting in her first films, and she was still at it in '42 with Alan Ladd, and '43 with Frank Sinatra, and '44 with Humphrey Bogart, and so on for Robert Cummings and Ralph Richardson and et cetera before beating the OP’s deadline in episode after episode of Studio One In Hollywood.
Come the '60s, she did Lost Command with Anthony Quinn and George Segal shortly before doing her first TV movie; after more big-screen work in the '70s, she did yet more TV movies in the '80s, and yet more TV movies in the '90s – and she’s now still alive in her nineties, unless you insist on that February 29th birthday.
In 1937, Conrad Binyon and Joel Davis debuted in Life Begins With Love; after more movie work in the '30s and '40s – one was a Marine in Sands of Iwo Jima alongside John Wayne, the other did Spellbound with Gregory Peck – each beat the OP’s deadline by acting on TV in the early '50s.
Martin Spellman did a dozen movies in the '30s and '40s before Dragnet in '57.
Unfortunately, Joel Davis passed away on December 19, 1966, at the age of 33.
Unfortunately, Joel Davis passed away on December 19, 1966, at the age of 33.
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Your sources beat IMDB’s all hollow!
Well, one out of two ain’t bad for bumping-the-thread purposes. No obit yet for Oscar nominee Ann Blyth, who in '57 was in The Helen Morgan Story (as, y’know, Helen Morgan) after TV work with everyone from Raymond Burr to Ethel Barrymore, after movie roles dating back to '44, right?
Yes, IMDB can be quite unreliable at times. Lack of death information can be mistaken for proof of being alive.
Another example is that of Joe Kirkwood, Jr. which you mentioned in post #387. According to Wikipedia.org, he died several years ago but his exact death date is unknown.
In fairness, Wiki didn’t say that when I’d checked it; the edit and debate about it only just kicked off this week (with mention that the HWoF website lists him as alive).
I suppose, though, I maybe shouldn’t mention Jimmy Murphy, who neither IMDB nor Wiki list a date of death for, but who was one of the Bowery Boys and acted in plenty of classics – Blackboard Jungle, Somebody Up There Likes Me, and so on – before racking up pre-'58 TV credits, such that attention shoulda been paid?
not any more.
At least we’ve still got Regis Philbin.
Tommy Rall’s most recent IMDB credit is for this year, the better part of a century after racking up pre-'57 credits on television and in the movies.
Sharyn Moffett and her brother Gregory Moffett apparently qualify: both of 'em acting on the big screen in the '40s with The Judge Steps Out, both of 'em acting on the small screen pre-'57 thanks to Fireside Theatre, and between the two of 'em you’ve got everything from Cary Grant in Mister Blandings Builds His Dream House to George Reeves doing his Adventures of Superman best.
Jason Wingreen, who made his TV debut back in '55 on Armstrong Circle Theatre before getting work on Playhouse 90 in '56, is apparently still alive decades after he went from acting on Twilight Zone to The Outer Limits and thence from Star Trek to being the voice of Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back, which should entitle the guy to some insaaaaaaaaaane level of sci-fi geek cred.
This is a joke, right? After all your other posts and you give someone whose first IMDb listing is from 1962?
The previously mentioned James Drury will be signing autographs next weekend at the Oregon State Fair.
Wiki and other sources assure me he’s in the pre-'58 camp.
If we’re going to insist on IMDB for Rat Pack hanger-ons, how about Nancy Sinatra, who of course appeared on The Frank Sinatra Show time and again and again as a teen, starting with her singing debut in '57 not long before she spent the early '60s acting on shows like Burke’s Law and The Virginian.
I’m not seeing that in Regis Philbin’s Wikipedia entry. The closest I see is: “In his earliest show business work, Philbin was a page at The Tonight Show in the 1950s. Later, he wrote for Los Angeles talk show host Tom Duggan, and nervously filled in one night when the hard-drinking Duggan didn’t show up. He also was an announcer on The Tonight Show in 1962. In 1957, Regis left his job as assistant news editor to Baxter Ward at KCOP, Los Angeles to make his fortune in New York. His replacement at KCOP was George Van Valkenburg.”
Assuming the “later” in that passage was pre-1958, that was only one brief appearance on a local show. IMDB mentions nothing in the 1950s. What are these “other sources” of which you speak?
Well, if you’re underwhelmed by the above bit from Wiki – that he was an assistant news editor at KCOP in 1957, during which time he filled in on-air for talk-show host Tom Duggan – then I don’t expect you to be impressed by, say, this, which covers the same ground about his pre-'58 days: “KCOP-TV hired him as a stagehand and then writer, researcher, and producer. After substituting once on-air in sports, Philbin wanted to be on-air permanently and became frustrated with behind-the-scenes work. In 1957 he switched to radio news at San Diego’s KSON, where he developed unremarkable but quirky ‘Philbinesque’ stories.”
The OP asked: “Who else from early TV (say, pre-1958) is still with us?” As far as I can tell, this guy from early TV – pre-1958 – is still with us, sure as technically correct is the best kind of correct; put me under oath and ask me whether he worked both behind the scenes and in front of the camera in pre-1958 TV, and I’d fear perjury charges for answering “no”, which is why I’d answer “yes” with a clear conscience.
As a gesture of goodwill, let’s add a new (and IMDB-friendly) example guiding off your username: maybe Sheila Sim, who did TV movies back in the '40s – if not the alliterative Kamal Khan himself, the incomparable Louis Jourdan, who was a regular on one show, and performed on the aforementioned Your Show Of Shows, and et cetera pre-'58, back when he was also acting on Robert Montgomery Presents and Climax! and The Ford Television Theatre and so on.