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

Ned Rorem, 99 in two days time.

Frederick Forsyth, 84

Frederic Raphael, 91.

After the Pharaoh Saunders news I wholly expected to have missed Marshall Allen's passing but was delighted to be wrong.

Sonny Rollins is a mere slip of a lad in comparison.

lou adler, 88, is still around

xxp saw Sun Ra Arkestra earlier this summer at Solid Sound Fest and Allen was presented with a cake onstage for his 98th birthday! Band was smokin’ too.

I notice there's a Bert I. Gordon film on tonight. He'll be 100 in September.

― Doodles Diamond (Tom D.), Friday, June 3, 2022 11:52 AM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Unless the family is holding back bad news, he made it to 100 on 24 September.

Raoul Vaneigem, 88.

he'll be happy w/how things are turning out

Roberta Flack, 85

Composer (Mission Impossible theme, among others) Lalo Schifrin, 90

Heard an interview on NPR this morning.

Richard Stilgoe, the UK's answer to Tom Lehrer, 79

Jerry Lee Lewis, 87.

WHole lotta livin goin on

I watched the 1956 musical comedy The Girl Can't Help It last night; Fats Domino and Little Richard are gone, but which musical performers from the film are still around?

Johnny Olenn, 85
Nino Tempo, 87
Ray Anthony, 100

On a tangent Mamie Van Doren - I was thinking of MST3K - is still around. She's 91.

Eddie Cochran was in The Girl Can't Help It and Untamed Youth, so he must have met both Mamie Van Doren and Jayne Mansfield. Thus packing a lot into a short life.

This photo from Wikipedia, although small, radiates late-80s energy:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/MamieVanDoren87AlanLight.jpg

Though Cochran only appears in The Girl Can't Help It alone on a TV program watched by the other characters; I suspect it's likely he never met Mansfield.

had work-reason to google mangosuthu gatsha buthelezi earlier today and he's still with us

Had no idea Roberta Flack was still alive. 85.

I mentioned journalist/non-fiction writer Gay Talese on another thread, he's 90.

John Kander, of the songwriting team Kander and Ebb, 95.

Ted Turner, 83.

Bob Ezrin, 73. Which isn't old but I had no idea he was barely into his twenties when he began producing Alice Cooper records.

Jimmy Swaggart!

Cleo Laine

Saw today that Morton Subotnick will be at the 2023 Big Ears festival. 89

Until I saw this tweet, Pete Murray.

RIP whoever used to have the hair currently residing on David Hamilton's head.

Over Christmas, listen out for Pete Murray and David Hamilton - together. With a combined age of 181 - we think it's radio's oldest double act! Pete's radio career began in the early '50s; David's in the late '50s. Pete was David's hero - now his friend. pic.twitter.com/Em9kXE114C

— BoomRadioUK (@BoomRadioUK) December 10, 2022

Frank Drebin, by the looks of it

Pete Murray is 97! And still has his own hair! Whereas David Hamilton hasn't had his own hair since he was 27.

Until I saw this tweet, Pete Murray

You can't have been paying attention when I shouted him in this thread a couple of months ago, then.

You're right, I wasn't. My fault, not yours.

Edna O'Brien, 92.

Tom Lehrer, hanging in there at 94.

Garnet Mimms, 89

Wow!

richard hell

Murray Melvin, 90

I saw him in the street once, in Soho, like 10 years ago, he looked great.

Pele

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/22/football/pele-health-christmas-spt-intl/index.html

A perennial (and only just turned 90) but still:

Merry Christmas! pic.twitter.com/LCEN46v5ry

— Sir Quentin Blake HQ (@QuentinBlakeHQ) December 24, 2022

Fair play to the guy for rolling along still but his artwork enrages me

i like him but there was a smart point in a recent LRB that QB's artwork greatly launders the nastiness in roald dahl's writing

yesterday was reading The Enormous Crocodile (a book set in Africa) and thinking about exactly this

Just watching "White Christmas" and noticed one of the dancers in one of the musical numbers was George Chakiris... still alive at 90.

Okay, that I am really surprised about.

Columnist/author/humorist Dave Barry, 75.

Garnet Mimms, 89

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, December 20, 2022 2:35 AM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ah grand: my first single I bought (well, I won it at a fete) was "It's been such a long way home" and it's a great track.

Stuart Hall (the paedo one), 93 on Christmas Day.

the restorative benefits of a prison diet in the nonce wing for a few years did him no harm at all!