Who Are the Oldest Actors to Star in a Broadway Show?

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This time, the reader question was: Will June Squibb be the oldest actor to ever appear on Broadway?

When previews of Marjorie Prime begin at Second Stage’s Hayes Theatre in November, one of its actors, June Squibb, will be 96 years old.

Squibb made her Broadway debut in 1960, in the original Broadway production of Gypsy. She was a replacement Electra when the show moved from the Broadway to the Imperial Theatre, utilizing lightbulbs as her stripper gimmick in the iconic “You Gotta Get a Gimmick”. Squibb appeared with Ethel Merman each night, playing both Electra and the Maid, at the age of 30. 

Since Gypsy, Squibb’s four Broadway credits have included two plays and two musicals, spanning six decades. She originated a role in the Robert Goulet-led and Kander-and-Ebb scored The Happy Time in 1968. A decade later, in 1978, she appeared in the play Gorey Stories (actually billed as “an entertainment with music”), which closed on opening night. The piece, celebrating the macabre and offbeat work of the artist and writer Edward Gorey, was a unique evening at the Booth Theatre. 

After a 17 year hiatus from Broadway, filled with lots of film and television work, Squibb returned to Broadway in the play Sacrilege (1995). The short-lived play starred Ellen Burstyn, who Squibb understudied. Finally in 2018, Squibb stepped into the role of Josie in Waitress. If you don’t remember a Josie, that may be because you saw the show when the character was named “Joe”. The character gender flip allowed June Squibb as Josie to sentimentally sing with Jenna, as the old woman who owns the diner where she works. 

Squibb is a beloved actor with an incredibly long career—but does 96 make her the oldest actor to play Broadway in a regular production with 8 performances a week?

According to our research, that is indeed the case! 

Broadway has been graced with amazing performances by some legendary octogenarians, particularly in recent years. 

The one-and-only Chita Rivera was 82 years old when she gave her tour-de-force performance in The Visit in 2015, earning a Tony nomination. Legendary actor and director Austin Pendleton was also 82 when he appeared in The Minutes on Broadway in 2022.

Robert Morse, cherished for a long career of performances from originating the role of J. Pierrepont Finch in How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying to portraying Truman Capote in Tru (both which won him Tony Awards) appeared in Broadway at the age of 85 in 2016. Morse was part of the starry revival of The Front Page, the finale on a Broadway career that spanned over 60 years.

Audiences thrilled to see Elaine Stritch portraying Madame Armfeldt in 2010 as a replacement in the A Little Night Music revival; her rendition of “Liaisons” at the age of 85 was adored. Stritch replaced Angela Lansbury in the role. While Lansbury was “only” 84 years old when she was in A Little Night Music, she turned 86 while starring in The Best Man on Broadway a few years later.

In 2015, a then 86-year-old Jerry Adler cracked up audiences in Larry David’s Fish in the Dark; this marked Adler’s 66th year working on Broadway, having made his debut in 1949 as a stage manager. 

In 2018, Elaine May returned to performing in a production on Broadway for the first time in 57 years. The 86-year-old multi-hyphenate gave a Tony Award-winning performance in The Waverly Gallery, her first time opening in a Broadway show she hadn’t penned herself. 

The great James Earl Jones turned 84 during performances of the 2015 revival of The Gin Game. Jones gave indelible performances throughout his Broadway career, including starring in four Broadway productions while in his 80s! His scene partner in the two-hander The Gin Game was Cicely Tyson. Tyson celebrated her 91st birthday during the run of the production! Like her co-Star Jones, she gave a few lauded performances on Broadway after her 80th birthday, also including her Tony Award-winning turn in A Trip to Bountiful at age 88.

Rewinding to earlier years on Broadway, Lylah Tiffany made her Broadway debut in All The Way Home at age 83 in 1960. Tiffany played the role of Great-Great Granmaw in the hit play that starred Lillian Gish. Gish herself played Broadway at the age of 82 in A Musical Jubilee. 

The character name of “Great-Great-Granmaw” brings to mind Earl of Ruston, a short-lived country rock musical that played Broadway in 1971. The real grandmother of one of the writers was the star of the show, although she had never performed professionally before. While Leecy R. Woods Moore was “only” 75 at the time, she certainly made Broadway history as perhaps the only time a writer’s grandmother starred as herself while making her theatre debut.

While Follies and 70 Girls, 70 are both musicals about groups of older actors, their original Broadway casts were younger at the time than one might think. Ethel Shutta turned 75 while singing “Broadway Baby” in Follies, but the average cast age was a bit younger. However, Rosalind Elias who played Heidi in the 2011 Follies revival was 82 at the time. 

In 1956, Floyd Buckley was the oldest actor currently on Broadway when he died at age 79, shortly after finishing a performance in the hit play No Time for Sergeants. 

In 1936, a celebration was held for the 25th anniversary of the Broadway Association, at which the oldest actress on Broadway, Kate Mayhew, was hailed. Mayhew had appeared that year in a play called Alice Takat, at the age of 82.

It’s likely that Irwin Corey holds a record for being the oldest understudy ever on Broadway. In 2004, at the age of 90, Corey was both appearing on stage in Sly Fox as Court Clerk and also understudying the role of Jethro Crouch. Corey had made his Broadway debut over 60 years earlier, in the revue New Faces of 1943. 

While it must be counted separately since she wasn’t appearing in a regular 8-performances-a-week Broadway production, Doris Eaton Travis is likely the oldest person to have performed on Broadway. Travis was one of the oldest surviving Ziegfeld Follies girls, having performed in the storied revue in 1918, 1919, and 1920. Travis made special appearances in many editions of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS’s Easter Bonnet competition, returning to the New Amsterdam Theatre to recreate steps from dances she performed on the very same stage a century earlier. From ages 94 through age 106, Travis brought the house down in the special event on Broadway. 

Another Broadway special event worth noting is the 1987 celebration of George Abbott’s 100th birthday. The time honored Broadway creative was feted by a slew of his collaborators which included multiple actors over the age of 80 in Happy Birthday, Mr. Abbott! Or, Night of 100 Years. 

A few years ago, Lois Smith became the oldest actor to win a Tony Award at age 90. Smith was honored for her performance in The Inheritance, which she gave when she was 89 years old in 2019 and 2020. However because of the pandemic, the 2020 Tony Awards were not distributed until a ceremony could be held in September of 2021, when Smith was 90 years old. 

In 2018, Rosemary Harris stepped into the role of Mrs. Higgins in the 2018 My Fair Lady revival. Harris turned 91 while appearing in the production. It was her 27th Broadway production, having made her debut in 1952. 

Technically, Cicely Tyson’s last performance in The Gin Game was when she was 91 years and 23 days old and Rosemary Harris’s last performance in My Fair Lady was when she was 91 years, 9 months, and 19 days old… meaning that Harris ekes out first place as far as oldest actor on Broadway for now. When Squibb takes her bow in Marjorie Prime this fall, she will break the record.