Actress Connie Sawyer Dies At 105

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Let's take a chance now to remember Hollywood's oldest working film actress.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "NEW GIRL")

CONNIE SAWYER: (As Oldest Woman in the World) Wait. I forgot Bernie. Hold the elevator. Bernie, Bernie - where are you, you idiot?

(LAUGHTER)

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

That's actress Connie Sawyer in a recent appearance on the show "New Girl." She passed away last week at the age of 105. In her eight-decade-long career, Sawyer was known for comedic roles from vaudeville acts to parts in "When Harry Met Sally" and "Dumb And Dumber."

GREENE: As for why her career was so long - I mean, that's the question we all want to know - right? - well, she credits her genes and also something else. She gave away the secret to her longevity in an interview with NPR's Susan Stamberg in 2016.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

SAWYER: Move. Don't sit on the couch. All my life, I played golf, I swam, and even here, I go to the exercise class.

GREENE: Now, by here, she meant the Motion Picture and Television Fund retirement center, where she had lived since 2004, exercising and working as an actress and - you know, in her spare time - writing a memoir, which she self-published. It was called "I Never Wanted To Be A Star - And I Wasn't."

MARTIN: We're not so sure she was right about that (laughter).

GREENE: I - exactly. I think she wasn't right about that.

(SOUNDBITE CIRCADIAN EYES' "GOODBYE")

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