Side-By-Side Pics Of Hollywood Legends In Their Breakout Role & After Their 90th Birthday

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Hollywood can be a fickle place, creating stars overnight before ditching them for the next shiny thing, but there are some stars who have stood the test of time to become legends. It's impressive for anyone to survive into their 90s, but even more impressive if they've managed to do so as a longtime actor. As such, it's fascinating to compare these stars as nonagenarians to how they were when they first started out, whether they're still acting or enjoying a life of retirement.

While these celebs have still aged like fine wine, there's no denying that these stars look different from when they landed their breakout role — once you get to your 90s, there's really no way to effectively hide your age, as these pictures reveal. From portraying magical nannies and genies to adventurers who've traveled to space, here are 10 Hollywood stars who have stood the test of time and what they look like compared to their first big breakout roles.

Before Julie Andrews hit the screen, she was a Broadway star. At the age of 20, she became the first-ever Eliza Doolittle when "My Fair Lady" debuted in 1956. It was her role in 1964's "Mary Poppins," though, followed shortly by "The Sound of Music," that truly transformed Andrews into a star. Unfortunately, after a surgery in 1997, she hasn't been able to sing professionally.

While Andrews has kept a relatively low profile in recent years, she is still working. Younger audiences may know her best as the voice of the narrator and gossip columnist, Lady Whistledown, in Netflix's "Bridgerton." She's also teamed up with her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, to co-author children's books. Andrews turned 90 on October 1, 2025, and she seems happy to stay active. "I think I would go completely mad if I didn't have some lovely thing to work on," she told Forbes in 2023.

Andrews was recognized in 2022 with an AFI Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2023, she appeared in the "Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love" NBC television special. She then made a surprise appearance in a video for the World Parkinson's Congress in May 2026.

Dick Van Dyke, Julie Andrews' co-star in "Mary Poppins," had already made a name for himself as Rob Petrie in "The Dick Van Dyke Show," which debuted in 1961. Van Dyke has had his controversial moments over the years, but he's stayed a beloved icon through it all.

While he may have slowed down some when it comes to his number of TV and movie appearances, Van Dyke was in his 80s when he played a villain in the "Night at the Museum" movies. He was the gnome on "The Masked Singer" when he was 97 in 2023, and Van Dyke made his "Days of Our Lives" debut the same year.

Van Dyke still seems full of life, and he still has his trademark grin. Just before he turned 100, he spoke with The New York Times about aging. He credits staying physically active and being emotionally positive and open to change for his longevity. Van Dyke also talked about purposeful playfulness, telling the Times, "I try to avoid being the 'get off my lawn' guy. [Playfulness] keeps me connected to the child inside me."

Barbara Eden most famously starred in "I Dream of Jeannie," which debuted in 1965. With Eden playing a wish-making woman discovered by astronaut Tony Nelson, played by Larry Hagman, the show was a hit; there was even a Jeannie Barbie doll.

While that was her biggest role, Eden's been in a number of movies and TV shows in the years since. She still attends fan conventions in her 90s and going to the occasional film screening. "Sometimes one is forced to slow down, but I'll do what I do until I can't," Eden told People for her 90th birthday.

Eden still looks great today, telling Fox News in 2024 that she still exercises at home, including using a stationary bike and weight training. She isn't lifting heavy, but strength training, even with lighter weights, can help with longevity.

Alfred Hitchcock was a legendary, and at times controversial, director who used several women actors as muses for his suspense movies. One such woman was Tippi Hedren. She starred in Hitchcock's "The Birds" in 1963, which earned her the "Star of Tomorrow" award at the Golden Globes. She followed it up with "Marnie," also directed by Hitchcock, in 1964; she starred opposite Sean Connery, cementing herself in Hollywood as a legend.

Fast forward several decades, and Hedren is one of those celebrities who have rocked the red carpet in their 70s and later. She turned 90 on January 19, 2020, and she's the matriarch of a family of actors: her daughter is Melanie Griffith and her granddaughter is Dakota Johnson. Griffith shared an Instagram reel of Hedren's 95th birthday, writing, "She's happy, healthy and feisty!!"

Carol Burnett has been making audiences laugh for decades. She became a Broadway star early on thanks to the fairy-tale musical "Once Upon a Mattress" in 1959. Then, in 1967, Burnett starred as the host for "The Carol Burnett Show." No other woman had ever hosted a variety-comedy show before, and she had a hit on her hands.

In celebration of her 90th birthday in 2023, NBC put on the show "Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love," and Burnett has kept busy even beyond that. She made a Season 4 cameo in HBO's "Hacks" in 2025, and also played Norma Dellacorte in Apple TV's "Palm Royale." Burnett has said that Norma will likely be her last big role in front of the camera. "It's the best one to go out on," she told Entertainment Tonight in 2025. "You know, I don't think you can top it." However, she also said that she has writing projects in the works, so it doesn't sound like Burnett is going to be retiring anytime soon.

Burnett shared with Entertainment Tonight what she likes to hear from fans about watching her old show. "I'm always thrilled when somebody said it was a time that the family was together and that maybe things weren't going so well, but your show made us laugh," she explained. "That makes me feel good. Somebody was sad or not feeling well or whatever [and] for just a few minutes they laughed."

Joan Collins had several small hits in London before breaking through with her first international role, 1955's "Land of the Pharaohs," and from there she set her sights on Hollywood. She had a career renaissance in the 1980s thanks to her role as the over-the-top and glamorous villain Alexis Carrington Colby on the popular nighttime soap opera "Dynasty" in 1981 when she was in her late 40s.

Collins became a nonagenarian in 2023, and she's still hard at work. She was in "A Murder Between Friends," a whodunit that came out in 2026, and starred in "My Duchess" as Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor and wife of Prince Edward, who abdicated the throne to marry her.

In 2026, Collins received the Icon of the Year award at Variety's Power of Women: London event. In her acceptance speech, she said (via Variety), "I discovered that to survive in this business and to thrive, you have to show which women are needed to reinvent themselves. We have to reinvent ourselves time and time again." As for how she lives a good life in her 90s, she told The Independent, "I wake up every morning and breathe the air and try to get a good night's sleep and drink lots of water and take care of myself."

William Shatner has become essentially synonymous with his role as the original Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise in the "Star Trek" franchise. The show debuted in 1966 when Shatner was 35, and he became a cultural icon.

At the age of 90 in 2021, Shatner followed in Captain Kirk's footsteps by going to space. He was on a Blue Origin shuttle, and he wrote in his book, "Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder," that the experience wasn't at all what he'd expected. "The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness," he wrote, according to Variety.

Along with traveling to space, Shatner is still active in his 90s, even riding horses. In an interview with Fox News for his 95th birthday in 2026, Shatner said that his secret for being able to stay so active is to not ever slow down: "Shatner's law is speed up, do more and forget the pain, take a pill if it hurts. You get older, you hurt more."

Rita Moreno had her first Broadway role at the age of 13, and she most famously played Anita in "West Side Story," which came out when she turned 30. She won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1962 for the role.

That was just one of many accolades that she has received, with Moreno becoming the first Latinx actor to get an EGOT — an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. She was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004. Steven Spielberg convinced Moreno to be in his remake of "West Side Story," which came out in 2021, the same year that Moreno turned 90.

When it comes to aging, Moreno fights off the worst of it by staying physically and mentally active. For the latter, she writes with her non-dominant hand and walks backwards: "I thought that anything you're not accustomed to sounds like it would work the brain," she said to Brain & Life.

Clint Eastwood started out in show business when he was in his 20s during the mid-1950s, and it was his role as Rowdy Yates on "Rawhide" that really put him on the map. The hit TV western ran from 1959 to 1965. Eastwood went on to play a gunslinging cowboy in a number of Spaghetti Westerns, including "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly."

Eastwood went on to become a prominent director, often starring in his own films. Eastwood has now officially retired; his last role on-screen was in 2021's "Cry Macho," which he also directed at the age of 91. His last work as a director was 2024's "Juror #2."

Eastwood's thoughts on aging actually inspired country music singer Toby Keith to write the song "Don't Let The Old Man In." In 2018, Keith went on the morning show "Ty, Kelly, & Chuck," and talked about riding in a golf cart with Eastwood not long before the actor's 88th birthday. Keith asked Eastwood how he keeps going, and Eastwood apparently replied, "'I just get up everyday, and I don't let the old man in.'" The song is used in the closing credits for "The Mule," which Eastwood directed.

Judi Dench was born in 1934, and her first major acting role was in 1957 as Ophelia in "Hamlet" on the London stage. She became a mainstay in England's theater scene, but she also worked in TV during the 1980s and 1990s, all to much acclaim. She became most famous on the international stage as an older adult thanks to supporting roles in big Hollywood movies, playing M in the "James Bond" franchise starting in 1995. Dench won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1999 for playing Queen Elizabeth I in "Shakespeare in Love." She was actually on-screen for just about eight minutes in the movie, but such is the power of a true star.

Dench has confirmed that she has age-related macular degeneration, which has impacted her eyesight so much that she has effectively retired from acting. She's also discussed having trouble with her memory at times, though she's still able to recite Shakespeare, which must be a muscle memory by now.

Even though she's not acting anymore, Dench has stayed active as she turned 90 and beyond. She wrote an autobiography, "Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?," and scheduled a number of shows around England timed with the book's November 2026 release.