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

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

Walter Mondale

Didn't know there were two threads for this concept. Anyway, Alby Mangels is not dead.

Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland, currently at ages 94 and 95, respectively.

Ray Bradbury, 92, from this list.

Burt Young, who is only in his 70s.

Seems to happen to me regularly when i see/hear obituaries on people. Keep thinking that i'd heard they'd died a few years back.
Certainly happened with Spike Milligan and Don van vliet

"Muhammad Ali 70 Bufferfly/Bee"

lul

don rickles

Fats Domino, off that list

mido departs barnsley

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

Dave Brubeck... when his death was announced.

sherman hemsley. when he died i experienced deja vu. i could have sworn that he died several years earlier and even had faint memories of reading his obituaries.

Ravi Shankar, as of a couple days ago

Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland, currently at ages 94 and 95, respectively.

Was gonna say OdH but I didn't realize her sister was still around too! Guess they're each determined to outlive the other.

Mary Tyler Moore

ha, I've posted Dick van Dyke and MTM itt!

Olivia De Havilland and Joan Fontaine

Martin Landau.

lisa kudrow

I always seem to think that Ennio Morricone is dead, but he's still working!

kirk douglas

Denis Healey

Slim Whitman...but he's dead now :-(

He did become an operatic tenor as an adult, he didn't end up as a bus driver or something. That would have been cool though.

Masanori Murakami, turns 80 in a couple of weeks--first Japanese MLB player, pitched for the Giants in '64 and '65. And pitched really well: 90 innings, 65 hits, 100 strikeouts, 23 walks. He was 21 years old. I was mystified, so checked his Wikipedia page; the Japanese commissioner, Yushi Uchimura--Bowie Kuhn's brother, evidently--forced him to return to Japan after the '65 season.

https://i.postimg.cc/7PJ017j8/masanori.jpg

(Wasn't another Japanese player till Hideo Nomo in 1995.)

Jackie Robinson's widow Rachel (101!)

I know...I've posted about her at least once in this thread. Time passes, I'll assume she died and I forgot about it, and then she'll be in the news--she was in one of the clubhouses (Mets', I think) on Jackie Robinson Day last week.

I've posted her once too, itt.

PJ Proby, 85.

Norman "Spirit in the Sky" Greenbaum, 81.

Picked up a nice copy of this not two weeks ago.

https://www.discogs.com/release/1684951-Norman-Greenbaum-Back-Home-Again

Howard Wilkinson, 80