Roger Moore’s death was the first of a cinematic James Bond (well, excluding David Niven in the first Casino Royale) – Sean Connery, born 1930, is still with us, as is Lazenby (1939), Dalton and the rest. As far as I can make out, Chris Cornell’s death in 2017 was only the second of a Bond theme singer after Matt Monro’s in 1985.
At 83 Julie Andrews is still with us, as are her co-stars from The Sound of Music (Christopher Plummer, born 1929) and Mary Poppins (Dick van Dyke, 1925)
Meanwhile, half of Badfinger died by suicide before their mid-40s, and another member died of a brain aneurysm in his mid-50s. Being a Beatle has had a fifty percent mortality rate, so far. None of the original the original Magnificent Seven survive, though some at least had a good innings
Usually women live longer than men, but the male stars of the 1961 Ray Harryhausen monster movie Mysterious Island are still with us – Michael Craig aged 91 and Michael Callan aged 84 – while the female stars Joan Greenwood and Beth Rogan, the youthful sex interest of the movie, are dead, Beth Rogan dying in 2015 with home grown cannabis drying in the airing cupboard after a life of more off screen drama than on.
Sadly Todd Armstrong, Jason in the 1963 Jason and the Argonauts , another Harryhausen feature, also died by suicide, but the other stars have exhibited a reasonable degree of longevity – Honor Blackman (1925) (and also a Bond girl), Nancy Kovack (1935), John Cairney (1930), Gary Raymond (1935)
What to make of all this? It is, I guess, statistically unremarkable. It would be tempting, but too much, to suggest that if you want a long life, play James Bond (or sing about him), or star with (or be) Julie Andrews, or play opposite a Ray Harryhausen beast (he himself died at 92)
And I haven’t even touched on Angela Lansbury’s survival of the astonishing murder rate of Cabot Cove.
Séamus Sweeney 