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.
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Steve McQueen (1930- 11/07/1980) as Hilts “The Cooler King”
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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
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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.
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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.
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John Sturges (1910- 08/18/1992) Director of Movie
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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.
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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.
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James Coburn (1928- 11/18/2002) as Sedgwick “Manufacturer”
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Charles Bronson (1921- 08/30/2003) as Danny “Tunnel King”
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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.
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James Garner (1928- 07/19/2014) as Hendley “The Scrounger”
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Richard Attenborough (1923- 08/14/2014) as Bartlett “Big X”
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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.
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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.
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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”
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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).
William Russell as Soren is still alive
Hey JB…. I will have to add William Russell to this page…..I will have to see which character Soren was…as right now I do not remember his part. Thanks for the feedback.
Leyton and McCallum are still around. Interesting page but I agree with the person “eerie”
Hey Dickie Attenborough. You are 100% correct they are both alive and well. I agree with you and Mike….this page is interesting and eerie.
Good page, but eerie.
Thanks Mike.
I think this is an excellent page. I knew that David McCallum was still alive, but not John Leyton. I think pages like this is a good way for you to find more subjects for future pages of both dead actors and those still living. There are several good options here from The great escape, even though I know you find doing pages on British artists difficult.
Glad to see I can see and comment on this page. When I checked UMR out earlier today, it said Bad Gateway
Hey Flora. Thanks for checking out this new type of page. From a suggestion from Taylor, to some tweaks from WoC and myself….I think it turned out interesting. I have come to a new appreciation for John Leyton…..or as I used to call him….”Charlie’s tunnel buddy”….or “one of the three that got away”. I had no idea he was a singer….but like you I am glad he is still around. As for David McCallum….I think he might be as popular as ever with the success of NCIS and his beloved Ducky character. Thanks as always for the feedback.
Well I like it. I had forgotten that I hade made that suggestion. I personally do not think this is morbid at all. I view it as a celebration of life and legacies left behind. Interesting that Angus Lennie was one of the last to pass in life while being one of the first to pass in the movie. I feel proud to see one of my suggestions shining bright at UltimateMovieRankings. Thanks for doing this for me.
Hey Taylor….glad you like “your” page. Sorry it took so long to complete the page. My son suggested comparing when they died on screen to when they died off screen. That discussion quickly turned into something “really morbid” as we were trying to figure out who would have died first in the scene where BigX, Intelligence and others get taken out by the Germans. Thanks again for the suggestion.