In a youth-obsessed culture, Hollywood’s latest “It” girl is 94.
In the new movie Thelma, June Squibb channels her inner-Tom Cruise as a defiant elderly woman determined to get back the $10,000 stolen from her in a phone scam. The film and her performance — her first leading role — have inspired a welcome re-examination of how seniors are portrayed onscreen, when indeed they are portrayed at all.
A study from the USC Annenberg School that assessed the portrayal of older characters in movies found that seniors are often underrepresented, mischaracterized, and demeaned by ageist language. Of the top 100 grossing films, just 11 percent of characters evaluated were aged 60 and over. A study from the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media found that 83 percent of people agree with the statement “sometimes I feel the media/culture doesn’t realize how much they stereotype older people.”
People over 50 make up a third of the U.S. population. Where is their representation?
Squibb, a stage actress (she made her Broadway debut in 1959 in Gypsy), didn’t appear on the big screen until age 61, in Woody Allen’s Alice. At 84, she received her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress as Bruce Dern’s uncensored wife in Nebraska.
The opportunities for actors of a certain age are limited, but, like Squibb, several have memorably made the most of them. Here are a few who paved the way.
Gloria Stuart, 86 (Titanic, 1997)
Let’s put it this way: Gloria Stuart was the only one in the cast of James Cameron’s Oscar-winning rom-traj who was actually alive when the real-life Titanic sunk. She makes old Rose, a survivor of the shipwreck who holds the mystery to an elusive diamond, instantly iconic. She became the oldest actress to be nominated for Best Supporting Actress. As Rose says of her younger self, she was quite a dish. In 1932, Stuart, with only a couple of films to her credit, was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers. Her breakout role was in James Whale’s The Old Dark House. Other memorable films include Golddiggers of 1935, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and My Favorite Year. Stuart adds a primal emotional buoyancy to Titanic’s flashback love story. Without old Rose, the whole thing sinks. Stuart died at the age of 100 in 2010.
Lillian Gish, 93 (The Whales of August, 1987)
Gish was one of the first ladies of the movies, and I mean that literally. She was D.W. Griffith’s leading lady in such benchmark silent films as The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Broken Blossoms, and Way Down East (the one with the thrilling escape over the ice floes). There’s a story that Whales of August director Lindsay Anderson complimented Gish on her acting in a particular close up, to which her costar, Bette Davis, herself then 79, quipped, “She invented them.” Gish passed away in 1993 at the age of 99.
Dick Van Dyke, 91 (Mary Poppins Returns, 2018)
This was stunt casting at its finest. Van Dyke, of course, doubled in the original Mary Poppins as Bert the chimney sweep, and Mr. Dawes, the ancient, mercenary bank director. Who better to play Dawes, Jr. than Van Dyke? For all Return’s CGI, the most magical special effect is Van Dyke himself energetically executing a dance step he performed in the first season The Dick Van Dyke Show episode, “Jealousy!,” in 1961.
Clint Eastwood, 91 (Cry Macho, 2021)
Clint Eastwood may be only artist to not only act in his 90s, but direct as well. The prolific Eastwood returned to the genre that launched his career (TV’s Rawhide, Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars) and earned him Oscars for Best Picture and Director (Unforgiven). Eastwood shoulders this Mexico-bound odyssey about a man who agrees to kidnap his boss’s son from his unfit ex-wife. When asked how he managed to direct and act at his advanced age, Eastwood said he was a firm believer in the title of a Toby Keith ballad, “Don’t Let the Old Man In.”
Rita Moreno, 91 (80 for Brady, 2023)
The only EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony-winner) on our list, the indefatigable Rita Moreno costarred with other age-defying actresses (Jane Fonda then 85, Lily Tomlin, 83, and Sally Field, 76), in this true-ish story of four senior Tom Brady fanatics who pooled their money to attend the Super Bowl. Moreno, the first Latina to win an Academy Award for her iconic performance as Anita in West Side Story, is savvy gambler Maura. As she has demonstrated throughout her eight-decade career, casting Moreno is a sure bet.
Carol Burnett, 90 (Palm Royale, 2024)
This is a bit of a cheat as Palm Royale is a limited series and not a feature film, but Burnett is a standout as a matriarch who, even in a comatose state, plots against her social-climbing daughter-in-law (Kristen Wiig). A true national treasure, Burnett’s crack comic timing is undimmed. Her performance is a master class that actors two-thirds her age would do well to study.
Dame Judi Dench, 87 (Belfast, 2021)
Prolific Oscar-winner Dame Judi Dench reportedly balked at playing the grandmother to the young character based on writer-director Kenneth Branagh because she didn’t think she was old enough. This would be their 12th collaboration on stage and screen, and it brought her yet another Oscar nomination (her eighth). She is true acting royalty.
Emmanuelle Reva, 85 (Amour, 2012)
Riva’s most memorable role had been in Alain Resnais’s inscrutable Hiroshima Mon Amour, the 1959 art house classic that helped expand the cinematic horizons of American moviegoers. She became the oldest actress to be nominated for Best Actress for her devastating performance as a woman who inexorably descends into dementia. It’s hard to get happy after this one, but this unflinching look at life, love, and death at least approaches these primal forces with honesty. Riva died in 2017 at the age of 89.
Jerry Lewis, 90 (Max Rose, 2016)
Jerry Lewis went viral in 2016 for his dismissive response to an interviewer who asked if he would ever retire. “Why?” he repeated, each response testier than the last. Lewis capped his nearly seven-decade career with his starring role in Max Rose about a widower who discovers that his wife may have been unfaithful. Lewis — and his manic comedies with and without Dean Martin — was never a critic’s darling, but they took notice of his dramatic performances in Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy and his arc on TV’s Wiseguy. Today, he is considered by comedy geeks to have been an influential director. Lewis died in 2017 at the age of 91.
Robert Duvall, 92 (The Pale Blue Eye, 2023)
Robert Duvall first stunned audiences as Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. He has worked steadily since, earning an Academy Award for his performance as a former country music star who gets a second lease on life in Tender Mercies, and nominations for his indelible performances in the first two Godfather films, Apocalypse Now, Network, and many others. Like all the surviving actors featured here, Duvall keeps getting better with age.
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