The 1960s came into your living room every night. Andy and Opie heading to the fishing hole. A genie blinking out of a bottle. Captain Kirk, Agent 99, the Beaver, and a shipwrecked movie star who never ran out of evening gowns. On the radio, a kid from Philadelphia telling the whole country to twist.
Some of those faces are still with us, and a few are busier at 90 than most folks are at 40. Others we lost along the way. Here are 16 of the brightest stars of that decade and where life has taken them since.
The Faces on Your TV
Andy Griffith gave us Mayberry from 1960 to 1968, and the show signed off while still ranked Number 1, something only three series in television history have done. He found a second signature role as the rumpled lawyer on Matlock from 1986 to 1995. Griffith died in 2012 at 86.
Dick Van Dyke tripped over that ottoman on The Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961 to 1966. He is still going. In 2024 he became the oldest Daytime Emmy winner ever, for a guest role on Days of Our Lives, and in December 2025 he turned 100. He credits the gym, three days a week.
Barbara Eden blinked her way into our homes as Jeannie from 1965 to 1970. She turned 95 in August 2026 and lives in California with her husband, Jon Eicholtz. This year she posted a video showing fans what the inside of that famous bottle would have looked like.
Tina Louise was Ginger, the movie star who washed up on Gilligan’s Island from 1964 to 1967 without a single wrinkled gown. Since Dawn Wells died in 2020, she is the last surviving member of the cast. Now 92, she lives in New York and has spent decades tutoring public school children.
William Shatner took command of the Enterprise in 1966. In 2021, he rode a rocket to the edge of space at 90, the oldest person ever to go at the time. This year, at 95, he announced a heavy metal album and produced a documentary marking the show’s 60th anniversary.
Barbara Feldon was Agent 99, the smart one on Get Smart from 1965 to 1970, and earned two Emmy nominations for it. Don Adams, her bumbling partner Maxwell Smart, died in 2005. Feldon, 93, has written books of poetry and prose and still gives interviews about the show.
Jerry Mathers was the Beaver from 1957 to 1963. In 1968 a wire story reported a Private Mathers killed in Vietnam, and the rumor it was him spread so far that Tony Dow, his TV brother Wally, sent flowers to his parents. Mathers served in the Air Force Reserve and never left the country. He is 78 and still meets fans at conventions.
Max Baer Jr. played Jethro, the Clampett nephew, on The Beverly Hillbillies from 1962 to 1971. He went on to produce and star in the 1974 drive-in hit Macon County Line. Since Donna Douglas died in 2015, Baer, now 88, is the last surviving member of the main cast.
Elizabeth Montgomery twitched her nose as Samantha on Bewitched from 1964 to 1972 and picked up five Emmy nominations for it. She later moved into serious TV dramas, including The Legend of Lizzie Borden in 1975. She died in 1995 at 62, just eight weeks after a cancer diagnosis.
Sally Field was Gidget in 1965 and The Flying Nun from 1967 to 1970, then spent years fighting to be taken seriously. Two Oscars later, for Norma Rae and Places in the Heart, nobody argues. In September 2026, at 79, she won an Emmy for the Netflix film Remarkably Bright Creatures, the oldest woman ever to win her category.
The Big Screen
Julie Andrews won the Oscar for Mary Poppins in 1964 and climbed every mountain in The Sound of Music a year later. A throat surgery in 1997 took her singing voice, so she turned to writing, co-authoring more than 30 children’s books with her daughter. She turned 91 on October 1, and a new generation knows her as the voice of Lady Whistledown on Bridgerton.
Sidney Poitier became the first Black actor to win the Best Actor Oscar for Lilies of the Field, and in 1967 alone starred in In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and To Sir, with Love. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Poitier died in 2022 at 94.
The Voices on the Radio
Paul McCartney was 21 when the Beatles landed in New York in 1964. At 84, he is still making records. The Boys of Dungeon Lane, released in May 2026, is his first solo album in more than five years, including “Home to Us,” his first-ever duet with Ringo Starr.
Diana Ross led the Supremes to 12 Number 1 hits, more than any other American group. She rang in 2026 by headlining Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve in Times Square, and this October, at 82, she was back on stage in Las Vegas, the city where she played her final show with the Supremes in 1970.
Chubby Checker got America twisting in 1960, and “The Twist” is still the only single ever to hit Number 1 in two different years. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame finally called in November 2025, 39 years after he first became eligible. At 85 he still spends most of the year on the road.
Connie Francis was at one point the world’s biggest-selling female singer, with hits like “Who’s Sorry Now” and “Where the Boys Are.” Then in 2025 her 1962 recording “Pretty Little Baby” went viral on TikTok and racked up billions of views. She joined the app at 87 to thank her new fans. Francis died that July.
Sixteen names. Twelve still with us, and most of them still working. The biggest stars of the ’60s never learned how to retire.
