August 29, 2026
It’s no secret I am a morbid motherfucker.
When I was a kid, I was radicalized by Richard Lamparski’s Whatever Became Of …? book series, which explored the then-current whereabouts of faded stars of the ‘20s-’60s. It did something to me to be learning about celebrities’ glory days and their unglamorous end games —sometimes of their very existences — all at the same time. I think Lamparski is directly responsible for why I became so interested in a figure’s beginning, middle and also their end.
I’m not alone in this pastime. There are countless Celebrity Death Pools, in which people who are ostensibly big fans of celebrity culture take bets on which bold-face names will expire in any given calendar year. Cold? Maybe, but many of the people in the pools won’t be any less sad when their guesses go, just because the passing gets them a step closer to winning $300 or whatever the pot is. It’s dark, but it isn’t necessarily malevolent.
Truth be told, Lamparski, for as dogged as he was in seeking out celebs, had more than a little contempt for some of them, too, a bit like the paparazzi. He would occasionally slip zingers into his write-ups, and he certainly understood the power of a shocking “after” portrait.
But overall, people who are a bit obsessed with the lives of celebrities are understanbly the most legit torn up over their deaths. We’re all a part of the parasocial cycle to some extent. Even if you don’t ID as a fanboy of anyone in particular, who hasn’t been deeply moved by an artist or performer enough to feel shell-shocked — or at least genuinely gutted — when their time is up? And what’s wrong with that?
I’m far less offended by people perhaps performing their grief a bit too much on social media when a celebrity dies than I am by the grief police. It’s much more human to be bummed out when a cherished public figure checks out — even to milk it — than it is to be unaffected, or offended that others aren’t.
That said, we’re all valuable, but the fact remains that there is a class of people in our society whose accomplishments or visibility and relatability make them not more valuable as people but news stories upon death. It’s fucking okay to be sad that the world no longer has Dolly Parton. She cut her first single in 1959 and worked until last week. She was a world-class musician, was the butt of boob jokes on every game show and talk show, taught us how to laugh at ourselves, acted in several must-see movies and ran an amusement park devoted to herself … all while coming off as something close to a saint. It’s okay to have deep concern about the state of the planet and to take time out to grieve the loss of a person you did not know, but whose presence or whose contributions lightened your load, yeah?
For years and years, I’ve kept a list of celebrities who are 80 or older because it dawned on me that due to advances in health, we have had, for quite some time, a happy glut of famous folks who are defying the odds and living into their 80s and 90s … and even 100s.
That’s great news, but that trend — plus a few others, including the omnipresence of social media and the fact that entertainers are working way past their previous expiration dates — is setting us up for each and every year to be a slaughterhouse of loss. (I would argue — with considerable evidence — that 1977 was the worst year for celeb deaths, capping off arguably the Old Hollywood nadir, followed by 2016.)
To explain a bit of what I mean — eons ago, when a former star would die, it was often in their 50s or 60s, by which time they hadn’t been in the public eye for 20 or more years. Their obituaries could often be bracingly minimalist. Some of them today would read as thoughtless. Though the media, especially the tabloid media, had known since the days of Valentino that the death of a great star could be hyped ad nauseam for big bucks, I feel it is a much more recent discovery that even minor public figures’ deaths can be attention magnets, particularly if there is an under-the-radar lightning-rod iconic twist.
For example, it went without saying that Dolly Parton’s death would make a huge impact. A video I simply retweeted was viewed 1.5M times. However, when ‘50s singer and Gong Show sexpot Jaye P. Morgan’s died at 94 (it was announced the following day), I was surprised to receive 3,500-plus likes and counting on a quick tribute video I posted.
Like all other aspects of social media and of business in general, niche “marketing” (for lack of a better word) can be more potent than trying to be all things to all people. Me writing another obit for Dolly Parton when there are a million of ‘em (or more) is never going to find its footing, but me writing one of very few obits for Jaye P. Morgan, whose name activates Boomers who recall her days as a husky-voiced singer as well as Gen Xers who recall her antics baring her boobs on The Gong Show, has a much better chance of catching on.
I’m not attempting to write a business how-to; I’m not in it for the money. What I am interested in, in the field of celebrity, is the interest.
So, if all you’ve got to offer when a famous figure dies is, “They go in threes,” go away … go far away. I just find that the equivalent of saying, “I have nothing to add.” There are worse offenses, like when lunatic Adrianne Curry muses that Dolly won’t get into Heaven because she had too much plastic surgery or the Rickster offers word poop like this:
By the way, that list of 80-plus-year-old stars I referenced used to come with my ranking of the “most famous and beloved” of them. I had a Top 100 list based subjectively on which ones had the broadest fanbases. I got rid of it because I felt it was too easy to criticize as ranking their worth as people, and it was pretty hard to work my way down the list and try to suss out whether Bill Cosby should be above Kim Novak should be above William Daniels.
But it’s pretty clear that even if it’s not possible to accurately rank the popularity and impact of living stars until they die (by which time you’d be ranking media hits and social media mentions), there really is a sort of hierarchy. Respectfully, I would place Dolly Parton in a rarefied field of entertainment figures who’ve died in the last 50 years that includes Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Princess Diana, Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. I mean, a recipe for Dolly Parton might include mixing Loretta Lynn, Marilyn Monroe, Walt Disney and Danny Thomas together. She shared attributes with many figures, but there was no one just exactly like her, and only psychos did not like her.
The next strata of massively impactful names whose deaths caused a huge commotion might include Kurt Cobain, Betty White, David Bowie, Carrie Fisher, Kobe Bryant and Robin Williams.
Living stars who might fall into the top tier one day — God forbid — might include Cher, Madonna, Elton John and Julie Andrews. You’d also have to think about people like Carol Burnett, Mel Brooks, William Shatner and many others in that second tier.
There are no hard-and-fast rules, but in general, dying youngish counts for a lot, so I would argue it’s hard to die at 80, as Dolly did, and make the world shudder, as Dolly’s death did. Some stars, as amazing as they were, as trail-blazing, as beloved, as inarguably iconic — live so long the impact of their death is muted. When Greta Garbo died, I was utterly absorbed and she certainly earned international press but she was 84 and had been so steadfastly reclusive, it felt like I was the youngest person who cared. It felt like many of the consumers of that sad news were perhaps like me reading those Lamparski books as a kid — just hearing about her for the first time.
When Marlene Dietrich died at 90 — by the way, Dustin Hoffman turns 90 next year — she was similarly so reclusive her death was a news story more than a temporary shared implosion of well-being.
There are many, many famous figures in their 80s and beyond today whose deaths will be news for mere hours, even Oscar winners. But that’s why I enjoy laboring over the obituaries I write — I like helping to keep those flames alive, I like informing people of what these figures did so they can perhaps revisit their output. One positive side effect of the social media and streaming age is it’s easy to wonder who Eva Marie Saint was (she is still with us at 102) and look up her performances and interviews and educate ourselves, and hopefully be seduced and find ourselves edified in some way.
A final thought I have about finality is the concept of when eras end.
There’s often been a debate about what the Golden Age of Hollywood was. (Frankly, the content today is dazzlingly diverse and challenging compared to any past era, but you know what I mean.) Some say it was from 1927-1950 or so. The American Film Institute (AFI) ranks the top actors and actresses of the Golden Age as being any who completed their first film in 1950 or before, allowing Audrey Hepburn, Sidney Poitier and Sophia Loren to squeak by. (Loren, 91, is the only living person on either list.)
Regardless, it ended and was ushered in by New Hollywood, around the mid-’60s until about 1980.
I grew up venerating people like Lucille Ball, Bette Davis, Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant and seeing them as indomitable antiques whose legacies were forever. Yet now, New Hollywood icons like Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro have matched them in age more or less and continue working indefatigably. Their ends are in sight, but you’d never know it. And yes, they strike me as old, but not in the same way that the Old Hollywood legends did.
I don’t mean this observation to come off as a beauty contest or a plastic surgery seminar — it’s not a discussion of who looks old, it’s more about our perception of “old” itself.
Some mind-blowers: Orson Welles died at just 70. Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Kim Cattrall are 70. Meryl Streep is 77, the same age Lucy was when she died. Dionne Warwick, at 85, is valued for her input more than at any time in her career. When Hedy Lamarr, one of the biggest box-office draws of the ‘40s and ‘50s died at 85 in 2000, she had not acted in decades and was mostly remembered by classic-movie fans. (Thankfully, her legacy has been supercharged by postmortem biographies and documentaries.)
If we have more celebrities than ever, more older celebrities than ever, is that a permanent change?
What’s “permanent,” anyway?
I’ve wondered for many years how long the icons of the past 100 years will continue to resonate with successive generations. Some — Marilyn, James Dean, Elvis, the Beatles — seem to be in no danger (yet) of losing their pull, but while there is an avid collector’s market still out there, how long will Jean Harlow manage to hit the spot? Rock Hudson? The stars of the French New Wave?
Several years back, I hired a bunch of people in their early 20s to listen to a list of names I read aloud to them. Their task was to try to explain to me who each of those people were. I think I may have been inspired by Tyler the Creator telling Stephen Colbert, in 2017, he had no idea Elizabeth Taylor (who died at 79, the same age Glenn Close is now) was a famous actor, instead only knowing her as a jewelry hoarder.
This device is super common on social media now, a surefire way to make everyone who is Gen X and older lose our minds, but if we have all been aghast at videos showing younger people having no idea who Old Hollywood icons were, hold onto your hat (a phrase as old as the stars I’m talking about) — the latest example I saw showed teenagers admitting they’d never heard of … Christina Aguilera.
(When I ran the experiment, the oldest stars who had some semblance of identifiablity were Shirley Temple and Charlie Chaplin, but forget about Love Boat and Katharine Hepburn … and I even found people who’d not heard of Prince, George Michael, Cher “She recently died.” — and Madonna!)
So, my thought is that while the process seems to be slow until it’s very fast — like the balding of my head — there will come a time when 20th-century icons have no or drastically reduced pull.
This is just as inconceivable to me as a world without Dolly Parton.
It’s tempting to compare this eventuality to what is arguably happening — or about to happen — in the fine-art market. According to some, over the next 10 years, an unprecedented raft of art will change hands as wealthy Boomers die and pass their work on to their Gen X and Z heirs. Even though we’ve become used to Warhol and Monet and other marquee names being inherently valuable, and they probably always will be, other major figures are likely to lose value because so much of their work will be available — after all, these heirs will want to cash in rather than commit to expensive long-term care options.
More alarmingly, younger people seem less enamored of the idea of original artworks and/or are less wowed by the artists who’ve been anointed as the best of the best by their elders.
It led me to wonder about how long film buffs will agree that Joan Crawford was something special, or music buffs will agree Marvin Gaye was something special, or everyone will agree that Dolly Parton was one of the greats.
It turns out pop cultural legacy, like certain Supreme Court precedents, may not be settled law.
I suppose the point of this rambling personal post is that everything fades away, and that icons only stay icons as long as the people who call them that keep their legacies alive.⚡️
P.S. In case you thought I was kidding about the “happy glut” of very well-known figures who are 80+ as of 2026 … here are 300+ off the top of my head:
WILL BE 80 THIS YEAR:
Benny Andersson, 80
Deepak Chopra, 80
Charles Dance, 80
Sally Field, 80
Tommy Lee Jones, 80
Stephen Rea, 80
Susan Sarandon, 80
Patti Smith, 80
Steven Spielberg, 80
Oliver Stone, 80
ARE 80+:
F. Murray Abraham, 86
Alan Alda, 90
Jane Alexander, 86
Woody Allen, 90
Herb Alpert, 91
Ursula Andress, 90
Julie Andrews, 90
Paul Anka, 85
Ann-Margret, 85
Dario Argento, 85
Elizabeth Ashley, 87
John Astin, 96
Julie Andrews, 90
Frankie Avalon, 85
Max Baer Jr., 88
Barbra Bain, 94
Carroll Baker, 95
Adrienne Barbeau, 81
Toni Basil, 82
Shirley Bassey, 89
Warren Beatty, 90
Joy Behar, 83
Dirk Benedict, 81
Candice Bergen, 80
Joe Biden, 83
Jacqueline Bissett, 81
Brenda Blethyn, 80
Pat Boone, 92
Barry Bostwick, 81
Tom Brokaw, 86
James Brolin, 86
James L. Brooks, 86
Mel Brooks, 100
Genevieve Bujold, 84
Gary Burghoff, 83
Carol Burnett, 93
Ellen Burstyn, 93
Gary Busey, 82
George W. Bush, 80
Michael Caine, 93
Dyan Cannon, 89
Kim Carnes, 81
Leslie Caron, 95
Dick Cavett, 89
Peter Cetera, 81
George Chakiris, 91
Stockard Channing, 82
Geraldine Chaplin, 82
Chevy Chase, 82
Chubby Checker, 84
Cher, 80
Tommy Chong, 88
Julie Christie, 86
Connie Chung, 80
Eric Clapton, 81
Petula Clark, 93
John Cleese, 86
Bill Clinton, 80
Joan Collins, 93
Judy Collins, 87
Rita Coolidge, 81
Francis Ford Coppola, 87
Bill Cosby, 89
Brian Cox, 80
Michael Crawford, 84
Peter Criss, 80
James Cromwell, 86
David Cronenberg, 83
Cathy Lee Crosby, 81
Timothy Dalton, 80
Tyne Daly, 80
Roger Daltrey, 82
Anthony Daniels, 80
William Daniels, 99
Blythe Danner, 83
Linda Dano, 83
John Davidson, 84
Clifton Davis, 80
Bruce Davison, 80
Robert De Niro, 83
Brian De Palma, 85
Judi Dench, 91
Catherine Deneuve, 82
Bruce Dern, 90
William Devane, 86
Danny DeVito, 81
Neil Diamond, 85
Angie Dickinson, 94
Micky Dolenz, 81
Placido Domingo, 85
Donovan, 80
Michael Douglas, 81
Fred Dryer, 80
Sandy Duncan, 80
Faye Dunaway, 85
Bob Dylan, 85
Clint Eastwood, 96
Barbara Eden, 95
Sam Elliott, 82
Bob Eubanks, 88
Linda Evans, 83
Fabian, 83
Lola Falana, 83
Antonio Fargas, 80
Jamie Farr, 92
Mike Farrell, 87
Mia Farrow, 81
Barbara Feldon, 93
José Feliciano, 80
Bryan Ferry, 80
Fannie Flagg, 81
John Fogerty, 81
Jane Fonda, 88
Harrison Ford, 84
Dennis Franz, 81
Morgan Freeman, 89
Art Garfunkel, 84
Gloria Gaynor, 82
Lynda Day George, 81
Giancarlo Giannini, 84
Barry Gibb, 80
Marla Gibbs, 95
David Gilmour, 80
Paul Michael Glaser, 83
Sharon Gless, 83
Danny Glover, 80
Jonathan Goldsmith, 87
Elliott Gould, 88
Lee Grant, 100
Karen Grassle, 84
Linda Gray, 85
Al Green, 80
Joel Grey, 94
George Hamilton, 87
Herbie Hancock, 86
Debbie Harry, 81
Mariette Hartley, 86
Goldie Hawn, 80
Murray Head, 80
Joey Heatherson, 81
Tippi Hedren, 96
Judd Hirsch, 91
Dustin Hoffman, 89
Paul Hogan, 86
James Hong, 97
Anthony Hopkins, 88
Ernie Hudson, 80
Engelbert Humperdinck, 90
Linda Hunt, 81
Lauren Hutton, 82
Eric Idle, 83
Julio Iglesias, 82
Reggie Jackson, 80
Bianca Jagger, 81
Mick Jagger, 83
Jenny Jones, 80
Shirley Jones, 92
Tom Jones, 86
Gabe Kaplan, 81
Lainie Kazan, 84
Stacy Keach, 85
Garrison Keillor, 84
Harvey Keitel, 87
Billie Jean King, 82
Carole King, 84
Calvin Klein, 83
Robert Klein, 84
Gladys Knight, 82
Dean R. Koontz, 81
Bernie Kopell, 93
Sandy Koufax, 90
Swoosie Kurtz, 81
Nancy Kwan, 87
Patti LaBelle, 82
Frank Langella, 88
Ralph Lauren, 86
Carol Lawrence, 93
George Lazenby, 86
Michael Learned, 87
Brenda Lee, 81
Michele Lee, 84
Hal Linden, 95
John Lithgow, 80
Rich Little, 87
Christopher Lloyd, 87
Kurt Loder, 81
Sophia Loren, 91
Tina Louise, 92
Darlene Love, 88
Joanna Lumley, 80
Anni-Frid Lyngstad, 80
Ali MacGraw, 87
Shirley MacLaine, 92
Terrence Malick, 82
Barry Manilow, 83
Miriam Margolyes, 85
Cheech Marin, 80
Steve Martin, 81
Marsha Mason, 84
Johnny Mathis, 90
Elaine May, 94
Paul McCartney, 84
Edie McClurg, 81
Marilyn McCoo, 82
Malcolm McDowell, 83
Ian McKellen, 87
Vince McMahon, 81
John McVie, 80
Lee Meriwether, 91
Lorne Michaels, 81
Bette Midler, 80
Vera Miles, 96
Donna Mills, 85
Hayley Mills, 80
Juliet Mills, 84
Ronnie Milsap, 83
Liza Minnelli, 80
Helen Mirren, 81
Joni Mitchell, 82
Rita Moreno, 94
Giorgio Moroder, 86
Melba Moore, 80
Van Morrison, 81
Anne Murray, 81
Joe Namath, 83
Craig T. Nelson, 82
Willie Nelson, 93
Aaron Neville, 85
Randy Newman 82
Julie Newmar, 93
Wayne Newton, 84
Jack Nicholson, 89
Nick Nolte, 85
Kim Novak, 93
Margaret O’Brien, 89
Ed O’Neill, 80
Yoko Ono, 93
Michael Ontkean, 80
Tony Orlando, 82
Al Pacino, 86
Jimmy Page, 82
Michael Palin, 83
Chazz Palminteri, 80
Barbara Parkins, 84
Joe Pesci, 83
Michelle Phillips, 82
Roman Polanski, 93
Maury Povich, 87
Stefanie Powers, 83
Priscilla Presley, 81
Sally Jessy Raphael, 91
Dan Rather, 94
Vanessa Redgrave, 89
Tim Reid, 81
Cliff Richard, 85
Keith Richards, 82
Smokey Robinson, 86
Linda Ronstadt, 80
Diana Ross, 82
Katharine Ross, 86
Marion Ross, 97
Carole Bayer Sager, 82
Eva Marie Saint, 102
Susan Saint James, 80
Jill St. John, 86
Chris Sarandon, 84
Diane Sawyer, 80
Martin Scorsese, 83
Ridley Scott, 88
Bob Seger, 81
Tom Selleck, 81
William Shatner, 95
Wallace Shawn, 82
Martin Sheen, 86
Talia Shire, 80
Carly Simon, 83
Paul Simon, 84
Nancy Sinatra, 86
Tom Skerritt, 93
Grace Slick, 86
Jaclyn Smith, 80
Dick Smothers, 86
June Squibb, 96
Sylvester Stallone, 80
Ringo Starr, 86
Connie Stevens, 88
Martha Stewart, 85
Patrick Stewart, 86
Rod Stewart, 81
Stephen Stills, 81
Barbra Streisand, 84
Susan Sullivan, 83
George Takei, 89
Russ Tamblyn, 91
Jeffrey Tambor, 82
Holland Taylor, 83
Renée Taylor, 93
Toni Tennille, 86
Marlo Thomas, 88
Lily Tomlin, 87
Pete Townshend, 81
Daniel J. Travanti, 86
Donald Trump, 80
Tommy Tune, 87
Leslie Uggams, 83
Liv Ullmann, 87
Björn Ulvaeus, 81
Brenda Vaccaro, 86
Frankie Valli, 92
Joan Van Ark, 83
Mamie Van Doren, 95
Dick Van Dyke, 100
Bob Vila, 80
Bobby Vinton, 91
Jon Voight, 87
Robert Wagner, 96
Christopher Walken, 83
Burt Ward, 81
Lesley Ann Warren, 80
Dionne Warwick, 85
John Waters, 80
Roger Waters, 82
Sam Waterston, 85
Tuesday Weld, 83
Wim Wenders, 81
Jann Wenner, 80
Billy Dee Williams, 89
Henry Winkler, 80
Joanne Woodward, 96
Jo Anne Worley, 88
Michael York, 84
Neil Young, 80
Absolutely great post. I think about this stuff a lot also! I wonder if Judy Garland might also fit in w/ Elvis, Marilyn, et al, as Eternal (For Now, Anyway).
Glad to be a gay old boomer who was and is still enthralled by the great stars of yesteryear and some of the stars of today. Your essay is most interesting, Matthew, and what seems to be especially shocking about Dolly Parton's passing was how well she looked right up to the end when she was still in the public eye. The length of some of these stars' careers is also incredible, as you pointed out, the only star of yesteryear who I can think of that worked into great old age was George Burns. Thank you for your lists, for your insight and for sharing your appreciation of fame and stardom.