Oldest Sitcom Lead Actor Still Alive?

[Satchmo Distel]

George Burns made it to 100. Has any living actor done so?

[Bad Ambassador]

I don't know about lead actor, but Norman Lloyd is still with us aged 105 and been in Wings and Modern Family. His first film was Hitchcock's Saboteur in 1942 and his most recent Schumer's Trainwreck in 2015.

[Gurke and Hare]

I don't know about any centenarians, but going strictly by the thread title I'm going to start the bidding at Geoffrey Palmer, 93.

EDIT: Okay, start the bidding for UK sitcom (As Time Goes By) lead actor.

[Dr Rock]

Betty White, 93 in January, if she makes it.

[Bad Ambassador]

I checked Stephanie Cole, who you'd think was a given as she played a resident of a retirement home 30 years ago, only to find that she was 48 when Waiting for God started.

[Gurke and Hare]

Getting away from leads, but Robert Fyfe who played Howard in Last of the Summer Wine is still going at 95. Is there a rest home for old actors in Poole? Wikipedia has quite a lot of them dying there.

[Brundle-Fly]

Dick Van Dyke is going to be 95 in December. He had his own sitcom in the early sixties.

[A Hat Like That]

Getting away from leads, but Robert Fyfe who played Howard in Last of the Summer Wine is still going at 95. Is there a rest home for old actors in Poole? Wikipedia has quite a lot of them dying there.

Howard Sibshaw
(Robert Fyfe; 1985, 1986–2010) Howard is the shy, beady-eyed, constantly conniving, simpering, henpecked husband of Pearl. Doubtless owing to his wife's domineering nature, Howard often tries to escape from her. Most episodes involve Howard dating peroxide blonde, Marina, behind his wife's back. In most episodes, Marina would simper, "Oh Howard.", followed by Howard's "Oh Marina."- sometimes the order was reversed, He is a creative but unconvincing liar. He and Pearl live next door to Clegg, and, much to the annoyance of the latter, Howard is always pestering him for aid in his various schemes to escape Pearl and be with Marina. Over the years he has come up with countless disguises, cover stories and hideaways to allow him to see Marina, all of which have ultimately been doomed or exposed by Pearl. In their earlier appearances, they were frequently shown in disguise with Howard saying, "I think we've really cracked it this time". However, he tends to ignore Marina when he's out with her, partly out of fear of his wife Pearl, and partly because he gets so deeply caught up in fabricating charades to cover up his affair. As a result, their relationship does not appear to have gone beyond hand-holding and gazing into each other's eyes (much to the annoyance of Marina), and the occasional kiss in a field, haystack, or mobile hut somewhere, and it is hinted that if Howard ever did get the chance, he would be too cowardly to go through with it anyway. It has also been suggested that Howard loves Pearl underneath it all. In later series Howard was shown to be out of the house more regularly (despite Pearl knowing about his attempted affair with Marina) and eventually became more involved in the schemes of the main trio. Howard first appeared in the Bournemouth summer season show of the series, and was popular enough and felt to have enough potential that he was soon made a regular character. At first, he, Pearl and Marina were used semi-regularly, but as time passed and their popularity grew, they appeared in every episode (particularly after Wally Batty died). Howard and Pearl's surname was given as Sibshaw in Roy Clarke's novel 'The Moonbather' in 1987, but only mentioned once in the entire TV series, in one of the last episodes, when Glenda refers to Howard as Mr. Sibshaw.

Lovely.

[studpuppet]

I checked Stephanie Cole, who you'd think was a given as she played a resident of a retirement home 30 years ago, only to find that she was 48 when Waiting for God started.

Forty when Tenko started. FORTY. And I thought I had a lived-in face.

[Autopsy Turvey]

Betty White, 93 in January, if she makes it.

Betty White will be 99 in January. Ninety NINE!

[dissolute ocelot]

Some very obscure ones. Marsha Hunt who's 102 is better known as a dramatic actor but starred in obscure 1959 family sitcom Peck's Bad Girl as the titular girl's mother: according to an IMDb review it was a "deconstructionist parody of family-life sitcoms of the 1950s".

I don't know about lead actor, but Norman Lloyd is still with us aged 105 and been in Wings and Modern Family. His first film was Hitchcock's Saboteur in 1942 and his most recent Schumer's Trainwreck in 2015.

Norman Lloyd was also co-star of short-lived 1992 sitcom Home Fires, and a regular in St Elsewhere which is arguably a comedy-drama though not a sitcom; not a sitcom lead but a regular. He's second behind Noriko Honma on IMDb's list of oldest living actors (some of whom are dead).

Not quite as old as Betty White, but Gloria Henry, who played (the American, non-stripy) Dennis the Menace's mother in the 1960s TV show, is now 97, and Carole Cook from The Lucy Show is 96. Also tenuous, Nehemiah Persoff who guested on a few comedies such as Barney Miller is 101.

For some reason British actors don't seem to have lived as long

[Jake Thingray]

People tend to think of him in terms of films, resulting in no-one really remembering Our Man at St. Mark's, Foreign Affairs, The Culture Vultures or the probably best forgotten Casanova '73, and he's definitely retired now, but Leslie Phillips is still alive at 96.

[Brundle-Fly]

Alf from ALF is a staggering 266 years old.

[NurseNugent]

Stanley Baxter and Doreen Mantle are both 94

[Brundle-Fly]

Just realised John Astin, Gomez from The Addams Family is still undead at nearly 91.

[Menu]

I checked Stephanie Cole, who you'd think was a given as she played a resident of a retirement home 30 years ago, only to find that she was 48 when Waiting for God started.

FUCKING HELL! Surely not? That would have made her in her twenties when playing the Black Widow in Open All Hours.

FUCKING HELL

[Bad Ambassador]

She joined the cast of OAH at the age of 40. She was in infamous PIF Building Sites Bite as "Auntie", aged 36.

[Ptolemy Ptarmigan]

Not a lead, but Colin Jeavons will be 91 a week today.

He was primarily a serious actor in loads of TV and film, but he was Max Quordlepleen in Hitchhiker's, Shadrack in the TV sitcom adaptation of Billy Liar, and Del Boy's lawyer in OFAH.

[thecuriousorange]

Prince Philip has come out with some crackers and he'll be 100 in June.

[Ptolemy Ptarmigan]

Not a lead, but Colin Jeavons will be 91 a week today.

He was primarily a serious actor in loads of TV and film, but he was Max Quordlepleen in Hitchhiker's, Shadrack in the TV sitcom adaptation of Billy Liar, and Del Boy's lawyer in OFAH.

Oh my crikeys, he used to present Play School! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erZeAEbGtTQ

[Menu]

She joined the cast of OAH at the age of 40. She was in infamous PIF Building Sites Bite as "Auntie", aged 36.

Oh I thought OAH ended in the 70s and WFG didn't start till mid-90ish.

[Glebe]

Not a lead, but Colin Jeavons will be 91 a week today.

He was primarily a serious actor in loads of TV and film, but he was Max Quordlepleen in Hitchhiker's, Shadrack in the TV sitcom adaptation of Billy Liar, and Del Boy's lawyer in OFAH.

"Do the bizzo, Solly!" A friend sent me a photo of him in old Doctor Who recently.

[Brundle-Fly]

Not a lead, but Colin Jeavons will be 91 a week today.

He was primarily a serious actor in loads of TV and film, but he was Max Quordlepleen in Hitchhiker's, Shadrack in the TV sitcom adaptation of Billy Liar, and Del Boy's lawyer in OFAH.

Surely, his most famous roles are Tim Spanker in BBC's House Of Cards, Inspector Lestrade in ITV's Sherlock Holmes and The General in Nu-Metallers, Reuben promo video for Blood, Bunny, Larkhall? (his son's band)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z1YvmwJ76I

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Grandson, Shirley?
Let's not forget his being a cast member of early 80s bbc2 - broadcast shoe  Dear Heart, sharing a cast with Toyah Wilcox, in which he appeared in at least one sketch as a teenager, a role he may have possibly been a bit on the mature side for.
But yeah, he'll always be Shadrack in the telly versh of Billy Liar to me ( a long haired Jeff Rawle, a good few years before he got a haircut and donned the comfy cardie for his role in Drop The Dead Donkey played our eponymous hero), a young Lisa's favourite comedy series of the time, partly from the near- illicit thrill of hearing George A. Cooper playing Bill'ys dad ( The Fall consider re....no, we've no time for that nonsense) saying " bloody" all the time. Always the talk of the playground at infant's school the next day.

[Keebleman]

Surely, his most famous roles are Tim Spanker in BBC's House Of Cards, Inspector Lestrade in ITV's Sherlock Holmes and The General in Nu-Metallers, Reuben promo video for Blood, Bunny, Larkhall? (his son's band)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z1YvmwJ76I

Colin Jeavons used to be my archetype, in the late 70s/early 80s, of the actor who could turn up in anything at anytime - adverts, dramas, comedies.  I wouldn't have been surprised to learn he was on TV every day in some role or other.  Female equivalent was Jacqueline Clarke.  https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0164800/?ref_=tt_cl_t3

[smudge1971]

But yeah, he'll always be Shadrack in the telly versh of Billy Liar to me ( a long haired Jeff Rawle, a good few years before he got a haircut and donned the comfy cardie for his role in Drop The Dead Donkey played our eponymous hero)

Before adopting the pseudonym Howard Devoto and forming Buzzcocks and Magazine

[Thomas]

Matthew Perry

[Fr.Bigley]

Geoffrey Palmer Is 93.

[Glebe]

Butterfly murderer Geoffrey Palmer Is 93.

[Fr.Bigley]

He was acquitted  man, just let it go.