This page comes from a suggestion by Taylor. He suggested taking classic movies like The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, All About Eve and Star Wars and seeing who the last living cast member turned out to be. For a longtime, I resisted doing that as it seems to be a combination of depressing and slightly morbid. I started to change my mind when Dame Olivia de Havilland passed away and I kept reading how she was the last main Gone With The Wind cast member to pass away. So…..finally, I have taken Taylor’s suggestion and turned it into a reality.
For this page, I decided to take a look at one of my father’s all-time favorite movies…..1963’s The Great Escape. The format of the page is to list in chronological order the passing of the cast members. This is not the entire cast just the main cast members. If we have an UMR page on the actor we have included a link to that page. If we do not have an UMR page then provided a quick overview of their career. So if you like this page, maybe I will do another movie this way. If you do not like it, then maybe this will be the one and only UMR page that tackles this approach.
Robert Graf (1923- 02/04/1966) as Werner “The Ferret”
Robert Graf was an German actor. In 1942, after completing his Abitur, he was conscripted into the Wehrmacht and sent to the Eastern Front. He was wounded in 1944, and assigned to war production duties in Munich, where he began his study of theater.
______________________________________________________________________________
Steve McQueen (1930- 11/07/1980) as Hilts “The Cooler King”
______________________________________________________________________________
Nigel Stock (1919- 06/22/1986) as Cavendish “The Surveyor”
Nigel Stock was an English actor. He was perhaps best known for his stint as Dr. Watson in TV adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes stories
______________________________________________________________________________
Gordon Jackson (1923- 01/15/1990) as MacDonald “Intelligence”
Gordon Jackson was a Scottish actor best remembered for his roles as the butler Angus Hudson in Upstairs, Downstairs and as George Cowley, the head of CI5, in The Professionals.
______________________________________________________________________________
Hannes Messemer (1919- 02/02/1991) as Von Luger “The Kommandant”
Hannes Messemer was a German actor. During World War II, Messemer served on the Eastern Front of World War II and was eventually captured by Soviet soldiers. He managed to escape and make it back to Germany on foot.
______________________________________________________________________________
John Sturges (1910- 08/18/1992) Director of Movie
______________________________________________________________________________
James Donald (1917- 08/03/1993) as Ramsey “The SBO”
James Donald was a Scottish actor. Besides The Great Escape, he was best known for his roles in 1957’s The Bridge Over The River Kwai, 1956’s Lust For Life and 1958’s The Vikings.
______________________________________________________________________________
Donald Pleasence (1919- 02/02/1995) as Blythe “The Forger”
Donald Pleasence was an English actor. Besides The Great Escape, he was best known for his role as Dr. Samuel Loomis in the Halloween movies and for playing Bond villain Ernst Stabro Blofeld.
______________________________________________________________________________
James Coburn (1928- 11/18/2002) as Sedgwick “Manufacturer”
______________________________________________________________________________
Charles Bronson (1921- 08/30/2003) as Danny “Tunnel King”
______________________________________________________________________________
Jud Taylor (1932- 08/06/2008) as Goff “The Other American”
Jud Taylor was an American actor and director. Taylor is perhaps best known for his directorial work on 1960s television shows such as Star Trek, Dr. Kildare, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
______________________________________________________________________________
James Garner (1928- 07/19/2014) as Hendley “The Scrounger”
______________________________________________________________________________
Richard Attenborough (1923- 08/14/2014) as Bartlett “Big X”
______________________________________________________________________________
Angus Lennie (1930- 09/14/2014) as Ives “The Mole”
Angus Lennie was a Scottish film and theatre character actor with a 50-year career span.
______________________________________________________________________________
Tom Adams (1938- 12/11/2014) as Dai Nimmo “Diversions”
Tom Adams was an English actor. He was best known for his role as Daniel Fogarty in several series of The Onedin Line.
______________________________________________________________________________
Lawrence Montaigne (1931- 03/17/2017) as Haynes “Diversions”
Lawrence Montaigne was an American actor. Montaigne portrayed the Romulan Decius in the Star Trek episode “Balance of Terror”. He had also been considered for the role of Mr. Spock. A year later, he portrayed the Vulcan Stonn, the paramour of Spock’s intended bride T’Pring, in the episode “Amok Time”
______________________________________________________________________________
David McCallum (1933- 09/25/2023) as Ashley-Pitts “Disposal”
David McCallum gained recognition in the 1960s for playing secret agent Illya Kuryakin in the television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. In recent years, McCallum gained renewed international recognition and popularity for his role as NCIS medical examiner Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard in the American television series NCIS. He appeared in over 460 episodes of NCIS.
John Leyton (1936-) as Willie “Tunnel King”. Leyton was one of the most popular UK pop singers in the early 1960s. He recorded the title song with lyrics.
William Russell (1924-) as Soren. Other Russell’s film roles included parts in The Man Who Never Was (1956) and Superman (1978).
Who’s left besides Johnny Leyton? One of my favourite movies of all time. RIP
Sadly, it has just been announced that David McCallum has died.
Sad news indeed. Sadly it is time to update this page.
David McCallum has died at the age of 90. Rest in peace
Hey Flora. Sad news about his passing. 90 years old and starring in a popular show…not many can make that claim.