The longest-living Hollywood stars still with us

On her next birthday at the end of the month on Nov. 27, Ms. Sawyer will be 105 years old, making her one of the oldest members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t still earn her Oscar vote, appearing in “Pineapple Express” along with sitcoms such as “Two Broke Girls” and “How I Met Your Mother” in the past decade.

Like many on this list, Lloyd’s career is tied to that of Alfred Hitchcock — both in movies and in television with “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” which Lloyd directed and produced after starring in Hitchcock’s “Saboteur” and “Spellbound.” With both skills in front and behind the camera, Lloyd was able to use all of his talents working on the acclaimed 1980s drama “St. Elsewhere” and on “Dead Poets Society.”

At 102, this Broadway star can claim she starred with Cole Porter in the original version of “Kiss Me, Kate.” Later, she was able to rejoin the production when it was produced for television in the early 1960s. She was in the film adaptation of “Dressed to Kill” but mostly made her home on the stage — save for when she popped up on TV as a guest on “Cheers” in the 1980s.

In her 101 years of life, Olivia de Havilland has had a career any actress would envy. A boundary-breaker for the infamous "de Havaillan decision" that ended the onerous studio system that kept actors under contract with terrible conditions, she’s earned five Oscar nominations with two wins: one for “The Heiress” and one for “To Each His Own.”

When trice-Oscar nominated Douglas joined the century club last December, he told The Guardian, “I never thought I’d live to 100. That’s shocked me.” Known just as much for his star-turns in “Spartacus” and “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” as his Westerns, the Douglas name will live on for a long time through his work and that of his son Michael.

Channing was of the era that it wasn’t enough to be a talented pretty face to make it in show biz; you had to be able to sing, dance and be funny too. From Tony wins to Oscar noms, Channing had the range that allowed her to have her own prime time specials. At 96, Ms. Channing is a fan of organic eating, something she’s been doing since 1963.

While a huge segment of fans come from White’s years as Rose Nylund on “The Golden Girls” or Sue Ann Nivens on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” the fact is the 95-year-old White hasn’t stopped moving in entertainment since she got out of high school and even had her own radio show, “The Betty White Show.” While she recently completed a run on the popular “Hot in Cleveland,” White still holds her comedic own with recent appearances on “Saturday Night Live,” “Bones” and “Crowded.”

If you’re not following the 95-year-old Carl Reiner’s hilarious Twitter account, you have to fix that right away because he’s a great media reviewer. As well he should be, Reiner has racked up nine Emmy wins for his work on shows from “The Dick Van Dyke Show” to “Mad About You,” and yes, we love him as Saul Bloom in “Ocean’s Eleven.” So much so, we’re excited he’s just wrapped on the latest heist entry “Ocean’s Eight.”

The 95-year-old Day is everyone’s great-grandmother’s, grandmother’s and mother’s favorite actress who also happens to also be an amazing singer. (Think Amy Adams before there was Amy Adams.) With roles in “Calamity Jane,” “Starlift,” “Young at Heart” and the criminally underrated “Love Me or Leave Me,” Day also starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much” for which she earned an Oscar for her song, “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be).” While she has since retired to the California coast where she owns a hotel, Day is still active with animal rescue groups.

Where would we without Stan Lee? We can’t even count on our fingers and toes the number of movies and TV shows we wouldn’t have without him. He’ll be 95 on his birthday this Dec. 28, and we don’t think he’s going to slow down anytime soon — not after seeing his latest cameo in “Thor: Ragnarok.”

Fleming broke through in a small role on Hitchcock’s “Spellbound,” which led to her eventually co-starring (and singing) with stars like Bing Crosby. While she has not been active as an actress since the 1980s, the 94-year-old Fleming has been honored by both Hollywood and Palm Springs’ Walks of Fame. 

Carl Reiner isn’t the only former “The Dick Van Dyke” star who loves social media these days; Rose Marie (94), has a Twitter account that is as inspiring as it is funny (not surprising to us since we first fell in love with her as Frank Fontana’s mother on “Murphy Brown”).

Most famous for her role as Winifred Banks in Disney’s “Mary Poppins,” the 94-year-old Ms. Banks seemed destined for a life of showbiz after being born to Welsh parents in South Africa while they traveled the world as actors. Her career includes winning a Tony — “Send in the Clowns” was written with her vocal range and talents in mind — to NBC’s “Cheers” and playing Molly Shannon’s mom in “Superstar.”

93-year-old Ms. Kyo earned a Golden Globe nomination for her role as Lotus Blossom in “The Teahouse of the August Moon” opposite Hollywood heavyweights Glenn Ford and Marlon Brando but is mostly known for over a dozen movies (like the Kurosawa classic "Rashomon") that she made in her native Japan.

From winning an Academy Award in 1954’s “On the Waterfront” to her turn in 2014’s Colin Farrell vehicle “Winter’s Tale,” Eva Marie Saint’s career has been anything but ordinary. How many people have more than one star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Ms. Saint has one for both television and movies), played Superman’s mother (in the 2004 version) and portrayed the intriguing Eve in “North by Northwest"? Just one.

The soon-to-be 93 Ms. Tyson is one of the few to ever be honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, earning the honor from President Barack Obama in 2016. Ms. Tyson was nominated for an Oscar for 1972’s “Sounder” and won Emmys for “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” and “The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All.”

Holbrook, always a gentleman’s gentleman, had early success in Hollywood but didn’t really come into his own until later in his career, most notably as Deep Throat in “All the President’s Men.” Holbrook, who has been recognized with five Emmys and a Tony, became the oldest actor to receive an Academy Award Best Supporting Actor nomination for his work in 2007’s “Into the Wild.”

While modern audiences may only associate the 92-year-old Ms. Lansbury with her murder-mystery Jessica Fletcher role in “Murder, She Wrote,” her career started off with a bang, earning Oscar noms for her parts in “Gaslight,” “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and  “The Manchurian Candidate.” In 2013, the Academy gave her an Honorary Academy Award.

A comedian made for the Twitter age despite making his name in the black-and-white television era, the almost-92-year-old has had two shows with his name in the title, starring roles in multiple-Emmy winning programs and, yes, is even going to be in the next “Mary Poppins” movie — 54 years after being in the original.

At 91, Cloris Leachman has most notably transitioned her career from award-winning dramatic turns in films like “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “The Last Picture Show” (for which she won an Oscar) to comedy standards like “Young Frankenstein” and the TV series “Raising Hope.” Not slowing down in any of the seven decades in which she’s worked, Leachman has future roles lined up through 2020.

At 91, Mel Brooks remains one of the most inspirational comedic actors, directors, and producers on both the silver screen and the Broadway stage. One of the rare “EGOT” (Emmy/Grammy/Oscar/Tony) multi-award winners, Brooks’s satirical films have inspired decades of quotable moments (“They’ve gone plaid!”) and jokes that define comedy (“Mongo only a pawn in game of life”).

Celebrating her 91sst birthday, the incredibly talented Irene Papas is known for her powerful work in “Zorba the Greek” and “The Guns of Navarone.” She also was a noted inspiration for filmmaker Federico Fellini and good friend to Katherine Hepburn, who called her “one of the best actresses in the history of cinema."

The distinctively voiced, 90-year-old Daniels is an award-winning actor, best known for roles on “St. Elsewhere,” “Boy Meets World” and, most recently, “Girl Meets World.” But William Daniels's best known role may be one in which he never actually showed his face, when he co-starred (in an uncredited role) with David Hasselhoff as the voice of the superhero car “K.I.T.T.” in the 1980 TV series, “Knight Rider.”

Poitier has been one of the most prominent and magnetic actors of his, or any, generation. He is the first African-American to receive an Oscar for his role in the 1963 film “Lilies of the Field.” Most well known for his roles in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” and “In the Heat of the Night,” Poitier has also been behind the camera as a director since the 1970s for films including “A Warm December” (1973) and “Stir Crazy” (1980). Through his 90 years, Poitier has remained an outspoken figure for civil rights.

The tall, lanky Belafonte earned the nickname “The King of Calypso” for his first successful music album “Calypso,” which brought the Jamaican folk music craze to the United States. In his 90 years, Belafonte has won every major acting and music award, including becoming the first African-American man to win an Emmy for his solo TV show, “Tonight with Belafonte.” He is also friends with fellow actor Sidney Poitier, who was born only nine days after Belafonte.

The 90-year-old Stiller may be known more as the father of actor and filmmaker Ben Stiller, but his six decades of acting have solidified him as one of the best known voices of sitcoms, too. With award-winning turns in eight seasons of “Seinfeld” and nine in “King of Queens,” Stiller also appeared 36 times on the “Ed Sullivan Show” with his late wife Anne Meara as a comedic husband-wife duo. That said, Jerry Stiller may be most infamously known to all as the creator of “Festivus” (“the festival for the rest-of-us”).