Reaching 100 is unusual enough, but there are some famous figures who managed to do it, even after spending decades in politics or on the silver screen.
Jimmy Carter
You might be surprised to know that Jimmy Carter spent a very small chunk of his long life actually being president. He was born in Plains, Georgia, in 1924, and he grew up around his family’s peanut farm. He served in the Navy and became governor of Georgia before entering the White House in 1977.
Carter served a single term as president. But he continued being busy afterward through the Carter Center, going on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He finally reached 100 on October 1, 2024, and died at home in Plains on December 29 the same year. What a life.
Dick Van Dyke
Dick Van Dyke is one of the few famous 100-year-olds who’s still alive. He was born in Missouri in 1925 and grew up in Illinois, appearing on radio, the stage, television, and movies. The Dick Van Dyke Show really helped him become a household name.
But his starring roles in classics like Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang didn’t hurt, either. He actually won a Daytime Emmy at the ripe old age of 98. Van Dyke turned 100 in December 2025 and has continued making public appearances ever since.
Olivia de Havilland
Olivia de Havilland’s best-known for appearing in Gone with the Wind, but as it turns out, her life started nowhere near Hollywood. She was born in Tokyo in 1916 to British parents and then grew up in California. She ended up appearing in some of the biggest movies of early Hollywood.
De Havilland won two Oscars for Best Actress and even fought Warner Bros. in court over studio contracts. That was a pretty gutsy move at the time. De Havilland died in Paris in 2020 at the age of 104.
Kirk Douglas
You probably know him as Kirk Douglas, or Spartacus. He was actually born Issur Danielovitch in Amsterdam, New York, in 1916 to immigrant parents. Douglas became one of the major movie stars of the 1950s and 1960s, appearing in films like Champion and Lust for Life.
He produced Spartacus and gave blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo an on-screen credit. Douglas sadly suffered a stroke in 1996 that affected his speech, but he kept appearing publicly. He died at age 103 in 2020.
Bob Hope
It’d be easier to talk about what Bob Hope didn’t do than what he did do. His career was that impressive. He was born in England in 1903 and moved to the United States as a child. He went on to work in vaudeville and radio, as well as on Broadway. He also made the transition to the silver screen and the small screen.
He appeared in many USO shows to entertain American troops over several decades. He actually became quite closely associated with those performances, although most people recognize him from the Road films with Bing Crosby. Hope turned 100 in May 2003. He died two months later at his California home.
George Burns
Turning 100 was just another achievement in a life full of them for George Burns. He was born Nathan Birnbaum in New York in 1896 and started performing as a child. He eventually became famous alongside his wife, Gracie Allen, with their comedy act going from vaudeville to radio.
It even made it to television. Burns had another run of success on his own and won an Oscar for The Sunshine Boys when he was nearly 80. Yes, 80, he was just that good. He celebrated his 100th birthday in January 1996 and died the following March in Beverly Hills.
Gloria Stuart
You wouldn’t expect an actor to begin entertaining a new generation when they were 87. But that’s exactly what Gloria Stuart did. She’d been acting since the 1930s and stepped away from movies for years. It wasn’t until James Cameron cast her as the older Rose in Titanic that she appeared in the spotlight again.
She actually earned an Oscar nomination for her role in the 1997 blockbuster. Stuart turned 100 on July 4, 2010, and died that September in Los Angeles, a little under three months after her birthday.
Norman Lear
Norman Lear was born in Connecticut in 1922 and flew combat missions in a B-17 during World War II. So far, pretty normal. But he actually went on to help create or produce quite a few hugely popular shows, including All in the Family and The Jeffersons.Â
He had a hand in Maude, Good Times, and Sanford and Son, too. Lear continued working during his old age and was still producing after he turned 100. You just couldn’t keep him down. Lear died in Los Angeles in 2023 at 101.
Eva Marie Saint
It’s no surprise that Eva Marie Saint went on to be an iconic movie star. Her first feature was On the Waterfront in 1954, opposite the one and only Marlon Brando, after all. She won an Oscar for it.Â
She was born in Newark, New Jersey, on July 4, 1924, and later starred with Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. Saint didn’t only stick to film, as she has also appeared on television shows. She turned 102 on July 4, 2026, and is still living, one of the last stars from Hollywood’s Golden Age.
June Lockhart
June Lockhart practically grew up inside show business, so it’s no surprise that she wanted to get involved in it. She was born in 1925 as the daughter of actors Gene and Kathleen Lockhart, appearing with the pair of them in A Christmas Carol when she was still a child.Â
Lockhart made a name for herself by appearing as part of the Martin family on Lassie and one of the Robinsons on Lost in Space. She also won a Tony and had a longtime interest in the space program. She turned 100 in June 2025 and died that October.
Glynis Johns
Not everyone knows Glynis Johns’s name, but she had a voice that you won’t forget. She was born in South Africa in 1923 to a traveling theatrical family. Johns built a long career in British and American film, including playing Winifred Banks in Mary Poppins.Â
Broadway audiences knew her for something else, however, as Johns was the first person to sing Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Send in the Clowns’ in A Little Night Music. She turned 100 in October 2023 and died in Los Angeles in January 2024.
Norman Lloyd
Norman Lloyd was born in New Jersey in 1914 and had a pretty incredible career. He worked with Orson Welles and appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur. He became familiar to TV audiences as Dr. Daniel Auschlander on St. Elsewhere. Then decades passed.Â
He continued acting at the age of 100 and appeared in the 2015 comedy Trainwreck. Lloyd died at his Los Angeles home in 2021 at 106, after working in the entertainment industry across nine different decades. Not many people can say they’ve had a career as long as that.
Luise Rainer
Winning two Oscars is impressive enough. Now imagine doing it in only two years. That’s what happened to Luise Rainer, who was born in Düsseldorf in 1910. She acted in Europe before MGM brought her to the U.S. Rainer won Best Actress for The Great Ziegfeld in 1937 and did it again the next year for The Good Earth.Â
But her Hollywood run wasn’t meant to last long, and she ended up settling in London, England. She lived there for decades. Rainer died in 2014 at 104, less than two weeks before her 105th birthday.
Marsha Hunt
Doing more than 50 movies is quite the achievement, and Marsha Hunt managed to do that while she was still in her early 30s. She was born in Chicago in 1917 and grew up in New York. She worked as a model before landing film roles during the 1930s.
These included Pride and Prejudice, The Human Comedy, and Blossoms in the Dust. The Hollywood blacklist years made it harder for her to get movie work, so she transitioned to stage and television roles instead. Hunt later spent a lot of time on charitable causes and died in Los Angeles in 2022, aged 104.
Katherine Johnson
Katherine Johnson wasn’t a film star or a TV actress. No, she was a mathematician, and a darn good one. She was born in West Virginia in 1918 and was clearly gifted, graduating from college at only 18. She joined the federal aeronautics program in 1953 and later calculated flight paths for NASA missions.
One of these was Apollo 11. It wasn’t until decades later, however, that the film Hidden Figures helped introduce her story to a much wider audience. Johnson died in 2020 at 101.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
