the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually still alive

Name Bosko Balaban
Team Aston Villa
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Telma Hopkins!

but that was last week.

today it was ARNOLD STANG!!!!

don't know why i though telma hopkins died.

Zsa Zsa Gabor just turned 91 a few days ago.

abe vigoda

I think Ernest Borgnine is still at it too.

doris day

she's getting a grammy tomorrow

Shirley Temple

!!!

Leonard skinner, but he's now dead.

I was surprised that Bosko even lived.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, June 15, 2004 4:15 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark

dying here

had no idea Sam Beckett lived until 1989 until the other day

j.d. salinger, but then he died not long after i found out

Louie Anderson

He was on Tim & Eric a year or two ago.

Kenneth Mars, but once again after he was dead.

Jane Russell

Clive Dunn

(still)

len lesser

Herbert Lom

(I keep being surprised, sorry)

One of the people who was in Hitler's bunker when he shot himself
Lee Harvey Oswald's wife (not even that old - still in her sixties)

Ken Dodd, and Patrick Moore.

Doris Day

Every time I think Peter O'Toole is dead he scores a new role. This has been going on for more than 20 years.

G Gordon Liddy

I have a distinct (and apparently false) memory of reading Rolf Harris's obituary about six months ago, even though I barely knew he was then and barely know who he is now.

also Bob Hope's wife has no business being alive in 2011, although I'm not really surprised about it.

lauren bacall

wilford brimley
ernest borgnine

I follow BFI on Twitter and part of the pleasure I get from it is them linking to onstage chats with visiting Hollywood legends who are always Surprisingly Still Alive. Borgnine was one (super-sharp too); George Kennedy another.

Dick Van Dyke

sort of thought nelly furtado was dead

Famous to me for deciding that Linda Ronstadt made the best album ever.

Right

Pat Boone

Hey, JF...(xpost) I haven't read Rockwell's Stranded essay in ages, but I think, at least viewed from the vantage point of today, it took some nerve to write about Linda Rondstadt while surrounded on all sides by Captain Beefheart and the Ronettes and the New York Dolls and other rock-critic favourites. Does he argue that it's the best album ever, or just that it's the one he theoretically wants to have with him on a desert island?

He doesn't really take either tack, he's basically trying to call attention to her work in general. Here's the essay itself:

https://www.ronstadt-linda.com/desertisle.htm

He's a good writer, but somewhat prissy and impersonal. I mean I wonder how many sought the record out after reading this.

He's pretty (self-)conscious about being out-of-step with the critical consensus.

Haven’t read that whole thing in ages, maybe since it first appeared.

Pretty thorough. I mostly only remembered the beautiful voice part but not all the all stuff.

Maybe it was a slow release time capsule for me. I found it interesting at the time but didn’t fully come around until I saw that recent documentary about her.

Around that time Elvis Costello also wrote a recantation and appreciation of her.

I then decided to put her in the same category as the other Elvis, somebody long derided in certain corners as just a Dumb Singer but who was in fact a very skilled interpreter who usually hired a great band and knew how to interact with them.

With the good and great stuff outweighing the missteps

And yeah, learning to appreciate and love the quasi-operatic singing that otherwise might seem to fall between two stools as it were.

It's kind of a forerunner to Carl Wilson's Céline Dion book, though approaching from the fan side rather than the skeptic. It doesn't make me like Ronstadt any better, but it explains why Rockwell does.

Julie Andrews

― flappy bird, Wednesday, October 16, 2019 7:11 PM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Allen Jones, 87.

Edmund W. Gordon, social psychologist, 101.

― alimosina, Friday, April 21, 2023 1:23 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

Now 103.

Dickey Lee, 87

Jo Anne Worley, 87

Rodion Shchedrin, 91.

... and Sofia Gubaidulina, 92!

Abbe Lane, two days older than Rodion Shchedrin

Joey Heatherton is 80 today, Sorry Joey but I would’ve thought you’d died around 1987 from substances. Glad you’re still with us.

Swamp Pop singer Johnnie Allen, who I just learned is opening some shows for Nick Lowe later this year.

Just watched Puzzle of a Downfall Child: director Jerry Schatzberg, 97.

Vera Miles, 95

WOW. That seems nuts to me. Immortal for Psycho; I've recently seen her in The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and a Columbo episode where she plays a killer cosmetics magnate engaged in corporate warfare with Vincent Price. Good or great in all, though her Searchers character is a travesty.

Pete Murray, 99

Harrison Ruffin Tyler (95) - the last living grandson of former U.S. President John Tyler who served from 1841 to 1845

that's right, GRANDSON

WOW. That seems nuts to me
Note that Vera Miles gets mentioned here every year or two. But I myself hadn't taken note either until I searched.

Forgot she was in Liberty Valance

i am compelled to note that john tyler died while serving in the confederate congress. no doubt jd vance's favorite president

It's thought that Harrison Tyler might be the last person on earth whose grandparent was born in the 18th century

Sophia Loren, 90 (today)