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

Kenneth Cope, 92.

(Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), but not yet Deceased. "Randall", OTOH, passed away in his 40s.
Hopkirk's widow - Annette Andre - also still with us at 84).

Marty Ehrlichmann, the man who discovered Barbra Streisand and managed her for 50 years, 94 in a couple of weeks.

I was absolutely sure that Bill Beaumont died about five years ago.

He's only 71, he looked ancient in the late 80s. Guess that's what rugby does to you.

hang on micheal yarwood has been alive until today !?

Yeah him too, seems like he wasn't on tv since the mid-80s.

i cannot belive mike yarwood was still alive until today

I don't remember Mike Yarwood being on TV since about 1981, and assumed he had died in the '90s or 2000s.

There was an interesting interview with Herb Alpert, a mere 88, in the Guardian yesterday.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/07/herb-alpert-on-80-years-in-music-mozart-thelonious-monk-all-of-us-have-the-same-12-notes (sorry, Guardian link)

John Rechy, 92.

Bill Rogers, co-founder of the SDP, 94.

Len Deighton, 94

Bill Rodgers, rather.

Len Deighton, wow.

His Wikipedia CV is quite something. Before he even got to the spy novels there was RAF, RCA, BOAC, an illustrated cookery column in the Observer and a spell as a book cover designer that included the first UK edition of On the Road.

oh i thought of one of these last night

erich von däniken, 88

he was in mind bcz i am evidently still salty abt kubrick's star wars movie topping that second poll

anyway to return to nicer topics, the book that collects len deighton's cookery columns is also deighton-designed and is grebt

i have it somewhere and yes

no way is von Däniken only 88, i suspect aliens

I was looking at my copy of Bomber by Len Deighton just the other day. It has a new introduction (2009) by Deighton where he states: "Bomber was the first fiction book written using what is now called a 'word processor'. In 1969 that name did not exist." I have no idea how true that is, or how you could verify such a claim, but I'm happy to go along with it!

https://slate.com/culture/2013/03/len-deightons-bomber-the-first-book-ever-written-on-a-word-processor.html !!

^ fun read!

Yes! Thanks mark

Just saw that Roger Whittaker died, 87. First, I had no idea he was still alive; and for some reason I assumed he was in his 70's back in the 1980's.

Oh no! Why wasn't that reported anywhere??!?!

Oh right, it's just being reported, even though he died last week. Always kind of liked him tbh. A champion whistler if nothing else!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzKQfrNseoI

RIP Rog. Definitely my idea of what a folk singer was when I was a kid. Durham Town is a great song.

Pete Murray, by now a regular on this thread and still hanging in there at 98.

Amanda Lear, somewhere around 83

Always impressed by the cloud of confusion around Amanda Lear’s origins, such as for example in wiki:

Contested facts include her birth date and place, the gender she was assigned at birth, names and nationalities of her parents, and the location of her upbringing.

I am a big fan of her sister Shanda

I also think they make jet planes

Actress Barbara Rush, 96

Amanda was just on Drag Race France a couple of months back, kinda great!

If you watched Peyton Place on TV in 1965-1966 you saw two regular cast members who are 95+ now, Barbara Rush and Lee Grant - who is 95, 96, or 97. Also you are old.

Lee Grant's hit the age where you impress people more by adding years rather than subtracting them. Not quite sure where the crossover point would have been though.

Credit where it's due, she looked "about 40" for a good 25 years

Sandy Gall is 96 today

No way!

That was my reaction too

David Graham, the voice of Parker from Thunderbirds, 98.

!

bobby rush, 89, currently touring the US

Don King, 92!

Glynis Johns is 100 years old today. She appeared in Mary Poppins, The Sundowners, and the Burton & Taylor version of Under Milk Wood, but seems to have dropped off the radar after the early 1970s.

Glynis Johns is 100 today, Happy Birthday Glynis 🎁🎂 pic.twitter.com/vhTT94qM0B

— 🇬🇧📺 Classic British TV 📺🇬🇧 (@Classicbritcom) October 5, 2023

Happy birthday!

Glynis Johns plays Diane's mum (!) in an early episode of Cheers from 1982, so not dropped off the radar entirely after the early 1970s.

In the original cast of A Little Night Music, "Send In The Clowns" written for her!

i *thiiiink* i have a copy of sandy gall's "travels with the mujahideen" in a box somewhere (everything is in a box still)

I somehow confused Sandy Gall and France Gall in that moment.

France Gall's Voyages avec les moudjahidines long suppressed, of course.

Director and Warhol associate Paul Morrissey, 85.