Gene Hackman and Sean Connery are the ones that boggle my mind.

And if you're keeping score of who would be the oldest living winners of acting Oscars if they were still alive, it looks like George Arliss and Marie Dressler, both at 142, with him having a few months on her.

Yep, if every actor ever to win were still alive these would be the 25 oldest (with birth date):


Marie Dressler - 11/9/1868
George Arliss - 4/10/1868
Charles Coburn - 6/19/1877
Edmund Gwenn - 9/26/1877
Lionel Barrymore - 4/28/1878
Jane Darwell - 10/15/1879
Ethel Barrymore - 8/15/1879
Donald Crisp - 7/27/1882
Walter Huston - 4/6/1884
Emil Jannings - 7/23/1884
Wallace Beery - 4/1/1885
Josephine Hull - 1/3/1886
Victor McLaglen - 12/10/1886
Barry Fitzgerald - 3/10/1888
Warner Baxter - 3/29/1889
Ronald Colman - 2/9/1891
Alice Brady - 11/2/1892
Mary Pickford - 4/8/1892
Margaret Rutherford - 5/11/1892
Hattie McDaniel - 6/10/1892
Thomas Mitchell - 7/11/1892
Fay Bainter - 12/7/1893
Walter Brennan - 7/25/1894
Paul Muni - 9/22/1895
George Burns - 1/20/1896

So Marie Dressler was the first person on the planet born who went on to win an acting Academy Award. The first to go to even be nominated was May Robson, born 4/19/1858.

The first human being to go on to win any main show Academy Award (whose birthdate information is easily available) is George Bernard Shaw, born on 7/26/1856 and who eventually won for his part in Pygmalion. He is also the first to even get a nomination in any category.

Though again, that is based on readily available birthdates. Of the approximately 5,878 people who have been nominated I don't have that information for about 1200 of them.

You have to get pretty close to the bottom of the list to get to a name that I remember as a living person. There may have been some who died after I was born, but it is really only Mary Pickford's and George Burns' deaths that I remember happening. Pickford was a "she's still alive???". So, really it is only George Burns from that list that I actually remember as a living person.

Pickford was a serious businesswoman, for all her girlish looks.

I'm mostly sad because of all the work she did to bring awareness to the AIDS issue. She supported Rock Hudson when everyone else had pretty much abandon him and worked tirelessly for the cause up until the last few months of her life. I heard someone say today that in the last year or so, it was incredibly difficult physically for her to appear at her fundraisers, due to her failing health, and yet she insisted because she knew that they would raise more money by her being there. A class act all the way, IMO, whether you liked her acting or not.

I guess you didn't watch many "The Real McCoys" reruns, because I certainly remember Walter Brennan's death, too.

And George Arliss was born before Marie Dressler.

Makes one wonder who the earliest born person ever to appear in a moving picture of any kind is. Could there be someone from the 18th Century?

To me, Liz Taylor's death is sad because her life was sad and people have basically been waiting for her to die for about 30 years.

I think she might disagree with you about her life being sad. In fact, I think she would be shocked that anyone would think so.

How was her life sad? I just don't get that.


Agree completely with Motorboat Cruiser's post above.




Oh, but the special Liz cocktail they're whipping up for charity sales at the Abbey this weekend sounds gross.