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

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

Having belatedly learned of the death of Bruno Latour and Jean-Luc Nancy, I checked up on big names in French Philosophy and many I figured were gone are still here - most surprisingly Luce Irigiray at 93 and Helene Cixous at 86 (I thought both had died decades ago)

Also the painter Alex Katz (who I knew was old and living, but wasn’t sure he was ~still~ living) is in fact alive at 96