The Emmy-winning comedian and actor Dick Van Dyke is turning 100 this December. The Mary Poppins actor recently appeared at the Vandy High Tea event in Malibu, California, and joked about turning 100. He quipped during the event, “I’m not officially 100 until December. Two months. Two months. It’d be funny if I didn’t make it” (via PEOPLE).
He further shared that he would’ve taken better care of his health if he knew he was going to live this long. He shared that the only thing he did right in his lifetime was marrying his wife, Arlene Silver, whom he married in 2012. He shared:
I brag sometimes about how I made it to a hundred and the truth is, if I had known I was going to live this long, I would’ve taken better care of myself. And it is frustrating because I don’t know what I did right. Other than her [wife Arlene], I didn’t do anything right.
His show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, earned him three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. He has also won a Grammy and a Tony Award. The actor would turn 100 on December 13 and would join other celebrity centenarians, including Superman Returns actress Eva Marie Saint. Here are 10 other celebrity centenarians that we love and respect.
1. Jimmy Carter
The 39th president of the United States died last December, almost three months after turning 100. Jimmy Carter served as the president from 1977 to 1981. Before he became the head of state, he was the governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975. When he secured his Democratic nomination in 1976, he was a true dark horse as he wasn’t well known outside of Georgia.
Carter pardoned all Vietnam draft evaders and negotiated several major foreign policy agreements. His presidency is also known for his national energy policy. After his time at the White House, he was known for his humanitarian work.
He and his wife, Rosalynn Smith, enjoyed 77 years of married life together. They both entered hospice care in early 2023. Carter credited Rosalynn for his long life. Back in 2019, he shared with PEOPLE:
It’s hard to live until you’re 95 years old. I think the best explanation for that is to marry the best spouse: someone who will take care of you and engage and do things to challenge you, and keep you alive and interested in life.
Rosalynn died in December 2023. At 100 years old, Carter was the longest-lived former U.S. President. Carter and Rosalynn had three sons, John “Jack”, James III “Chip”, and Donnel “Jeff”, and a daughter, Amy.
2. Bob Hope
Bob Hope was best known for hosting the Oscars. He undertook the gig for a record 19 times from 1953 to 1978. Hope made it to his 100th birthday in 2003 before dying in May of that year. Hope’s daughter shared that he was determined to reach that impressive number. She told Page Six:
He was determined to do that. His grandfather lived to be just short of 100 so Dad’s goal was always to beat his grandpa. I think it kept him alive towards the end.
He also had other health secrets behind his longevity. As per Men’s Health, he used to walk two miles every day back in the ’80s when he was already well into his 70s. He shared that he got this habit from his grandfather, whom he claimed was mentally sharp when he died. Hope shared:
When he was 96 years old, he walked two miles to the local pub every day to get a drink. He died within a month of his 100th birthday, and he remained mentally sharp till the very end.
Hope’s wife, Dolores Hope, was also a centenarian. She was a model and a singer. Dolores used to join Hope on his USO tours. She died in September 2011, at the age of 102. She told ABC7 in 2009 that her secret behind a long life was to “laugh a lot.”
3. Eva Marie Saint
Academy Award-winning actress Eva Marie Saint just turned 101 on July 4, 2025. The actress, born in 1924, celebrated her 100th birthday last year with four generations of her family by her side. She has retired from acting after a career spanning seven decades. Her final acting role came in the 2014 film Winter’s Tale.
The Hollywood icon had some memorable roles in her career, including the Oscar-winning role in On the Waterfront
She continues to live a healthy and fulfilling life at 101 years old. Last year, she told PEOPLE that she didn’t feel like she was 100 years old, sharing that she continues to enjoy some routine things and spending time with her family. She shared with the outlet:
I certainly don’t feel 100 years old. I continue to take walks out in the fresh air, like watching baseball — especially the Los Angeles Dodgers, and enjoy time with my family and friends. A good life.
For her 100th birthday celebration, Saint told PEOPLE that she planned to gather her four generations of family from all over the United States. She shared:
I’m looking forward to spending my 100th birthday in Los Angeles with my dear, dear family. Four generations of family members will be gathering together from Los Angeles, Chicago, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco.
She didn’t make any similar announcements for this year’s birthday. However, her family is a big supporting element in her long and fulfilling life. Her most notable role in the 2000s was playing Superman’s adoptive mother, Martha Kent, in Superman Returns.
4. Gloria Stuart
Gloria Stuart was best remembered for portraying Rose’s older version in James Cameron’s Titanic. Stuart turned 100 in July 2010, two months before her death due to respiratory failure. For her role in Titanic, she earned an Oscar nomination at the age of 87, making her the oldest acting nominee.
Stuart was active since the Pre-Code Hollywood era and signed a contract with Universal Pictures in 1932. She appeared in films like The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, Poor Little Rich Girl, and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm for the studio. She later turned her focus to television roles and theater until Titanic put her in the spotlight.
26th September 2010, Gloria Stuart, died at the age of 100.
2 months before her death (4th July 2010), she celebrated her birthday with part of the #Titanic movie crew (tweet here: https://t.co/SjuJdPGhUv). She has her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.#TitanicMovie pic.twitter.com/UrQrJv4OoD
She retired from acting in 2004. Her final film role was alongside Michelle Williams and John Diehl in Land of Plenty. Her 1999 memoir, I Just Kept Hoping, suggests how she used her career to keep her going in her old age. She told SF Gate,
I was driven then [in the 1930s], and I’m driven now.
5. George Burns
George Burns published his book, How To Live To Be 100 Or More, in 1983. He then went on to live another 13 years and celebrate his 100th birthday before his death in March 1996. The comedian and performer did not give up on his work until his death, and even published the book 100 Years, 100 Stories in 1996.
He celebrated the release of this book by planning three sold-out nights at Caesar’s Palace before canceling them for health reasons. He shared his secret behind a long, healthy life with UPI Hollywood:
You’ll be happier and live longer if you find a job you love; that way you avoid stress. Never take stress to bed with you. Work on it in the morning.
He also shared that he would exercise 45 minutes a day before taking a 15-minute brisk walk around his neighborhood. He also revealed that he had two to three drinks a day. In a statement released during his 100th birthday, he joked,
What do you give a man who’s been so blessed? Another 100 years? A night with Sharon Stone?
6. Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas was an Oscar-nominated actor, known for his roles in Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful, Paths of Glory, and Spartacus. For the latter two films, he collaborated with legendary director Stanley Kubrick. He died in February 2020 at the age of 103.
Douglas had a grand 100th birthday celebration, where he was surrounded by 135 of his family and friends (via PEOPLE). This included his three sons, including actor Michael Douglas, and his late wife, Anne Buydens, who died in 2021 at the age of 102. He was reportedly offered a glass of vodka by his cardiologist at this event to celebrate the milestone.
He had a stroke in 1996, following which his cardiologist had forbidden him to drink for years. He also survived a helicopter crash in 1991. Douglas wrote about his long life in an essay for Newsweek in 2008. He shared:
Humor helps longevity. Try to think of others, try to help them. You will be amazed how that lessens your depression. That satisfaction is priceless. The greatest dividend to old age is the discovery of the true meaning of love.
He was the recipient of the Academy Honorary Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
#Spartacus celebrates its 65th anniversary today!
It is Kirk Douglas's second highest-rated movie on the Tomatometer: https://t.co/TkBuU2Zocr pic.twitter.com/8aADjgeDSb
7. Ellen Albertini Dow
Ellen Albertini Dow found Hollywood fame late in her life. She didn’t act on screen until the ’80s, when she was in her seventies. She was a dancer and an acting and drama coach before her acting career took off. She appeared in several television shows, including Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Golden Girls, Family Matters, Will & Grace, Seinfeld, Scrubs, and The Nanny.
She appeared as the rapping granny Rosie in Adam Sandler’s The Wedding Singer and the elderly lady Mary Cleary who outs her grandson in Wedding Crashers. She also appeared as Disco Dottie in 54 and as a choir nun in Sister Act.
She found acting roles until 2013, when she was 99. She died in May 2015 at the age of 101. Her husband Eugene died in October 2004. They were married for 53 years.
8. Norman Lear
Screenwriter and producer Norman Lear never put off work until the day he died. He was 101 when he died in December 2023. He was the creative genius behind shows like Good Times, One Day at a Time, and All in the Family. In July 2023, when he turned 101, the TV icon appeared on an Instagram video where he joked:
It’s Norman Lear here, dribbling a bit because he’s entering his second childhood. I’ve just turned 101, and that is, they tell me, my second childhood. It feels like that because of the kind of care I’m getting. I get the kind of care at this age that I see children getting, toddlers getting. And so I am now a 101-year-old toddler.
When he turned 100, he spoke with USA Today about what kept him going. He shared, “Some people run. I don’t run. I wake up and do the things that please me. That’s my present to myself. That’s my prayer. That’s everything.”
Before he was a TV producer, Lear had fought in the Second World War as part of the U.S. Army Air Forces. He later became a publicist. His television shows have garnered 55 Emmy nominations and won 22 of them. He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1984.
He was also an activist, working to protect the First Amendment and voting rights. He founded the People for the American Way in 1981 and a nonprofit called Business Enterprise Trust in 1991.
9. Olivia de Havilland
Olivia de Havilland lived to the age of 104 and died in July 2020. She famously played Melanie Hamilton in 1939’s Oscar-winning film Gone with the Wind, for which she received an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actress. It was only her first Oscar nomination, as she went on to receive four more nominations for Best Actress.
She won the Oscars twice for To Each His Own and The Heiress. She was also known for her work in the theater, appearing in Broadway shows like Romeo and Juliet, Candida, and A Gift of Time. She lived in Paris from the 1950s until her death in 2020.
Her sister, Joan Fontaine, was also an Oscar-winning actress. She credited her long life to the three Ls: love, laughter, and light (via Vanity Fair). She also told the outlet that she did The New York Times crossword every single day to keep her mind sharp.
10. Queen Elizabeth I
Queen Elizabeth I, the former Queen of England and better referred to as the Queen Mother, lived to the age of 101. She was the mother of Queen Elizabeth II, who recently passed away in 2022 at the age of 96. The Queen Mother died in 2002.
When she turned 100 on August 4, 2000, a note from Buckingham Palace thanked her well-wishers. It read, “During her long life, Queen Elizabeth has always been encouraged by, and felt grateful for, the friendship and support of many people, and would now like to send you her best wishes and thanks.” (via Royal Responses).
She also had advice for anyone seeking to live a long life like her. She shared it in her official biography (via @gettyarchive / Instagram):
Wouldn’t it be terrible if you’d spent all your life doing everything you were supposed to do, didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t eat things, took lots of exercise, and suddenly, one day, you were run over by a big red bus and, as the wheels were crunching into you, you’d say, ‘Oh my God, I could have got so drunk last night.’ That’s the way you should live your life, as if tomorrow you’ll be run over by a big red bus.
A post shared by Getty Images Archive (@gettyarchive)
She continued her active public life as the matriarch of the British royal family until a few months before her death. She died just weeks after the death of her younger daughter, Princess Margaret.
What do you think of these celebrities who lived long enough to celebrate their 100th birthday? Let us know in the comments below!
