Hollywood’s golden oldies
Doris Day in Calamity Jane, 1953 about people.”
American comedy star Betty White is also 96 and an animal lover, too. Sitcom The Golden Girls brought her international fame and she kept the laughter coming as a cast regular on Hot In Cleveland.
She once joked: “I may be a senior, but so what? I’m still hot.”
Throaty-voiced actress Glynis Johns played a mermaid in 1948 movie Miranda, was mother-of-two Mrs Banks in Mary Poppins and appeared alongside Sandra Bullock playing granny Elsie in While You Were Sleeping.
She celebrated her 95th birthday in October and now lives in retirement in Santa Monica in Los Angeles.
Murder She, Wrote’s TV detective Angela Lansbury turned 93 this year and is still working. The Londonborn actress, who was made a Dame in 1994, makes a cameo appearance in the new Mary Poppins Returns movie and is still fondly remembered for her magical film role in Bedknobs And Broomsticks.
She says: “Providing I can put one foot in front of the other, I will continue to act.”
Ninety-two-year-old Chitty Chitty Bang Bang star Dick Van Dyke also appears in Mary Poppins playing Bert and Mr Dawes Senior in the original 1964 movie with Julie Andrews. He once joked: “I’ve retired so many times now it’s getting to be a habit.”
Melvin Kaminsky, better known as comedy writer and actor Mel Brooks, also turned 92 earlier this year and is still working.
The Young Frankenstein and
The Producers writer is still working and was the voice of Vlad in this year’s Hotel Tranylvania 3 movie A Monster Vacation.
He also has three forthcoming projects on the go – Blazing Samurai, Fairy Tale Forest and the as-yet-untitled Lani Pixels projects.
He once pointed out: “You’re young forever when you write. Alfred Hitchcock directed until the day he died. As long as you don’t have any dementia or Alzheimer’s, if you have your All-Bran every day and clear yourself out, I think your brains are gonna be all right.”
Heat Of The Night, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner and To Sir, With Love film star Sidney Poitier, who turned 91 in February, was the first African American to win the leading actor Oscar for Lilies Of The Field in 1963. He was presented with his award by Mel Brooks’ wife actress Anne Bancroft.
Sidney once pointed out: “Far as I can tell, I still have most of my hair, my gut is not hanging over my belt and I still have all of my teeth.” Sidney Poitier in To Sir, With Love in 1967