He made it to 99…and worked well into that decade of his life. The last time I saw Larry Storch in person was 2014…when he, at age 91, performed on the stage of The Comedy Store. I have seen comics seventy years younger not be as funny or as fresh as he was that evening.
That was the last time I saw him. The first time was when he came in to do guest voice work on Garfield and Friends. I told that story here and you might want to stop reading this and go read that.
In-between, I saw him at a few conventions and parties. There was one New York convention where he was sitting there in some replica of the cap he wore as Agarn on the show F Troop and he was signing/selling autographs. The end of the line for them seemed to be somewhere in New Jersey. He remembered me from Garfield — or at least he said he did — and he had me sit with him, ostensibly so we could chat while he signed. But he also was engaging in friendly banter with every single person in that line. They all wanted to tell him how much they loved him as Agarn, loved him in The Great Race, loved him on Car 54, Where Are You?, loved hearing him on Tennessee Tuxedo, etc.
I enjoyed watching this man be loved as he was but when he apologized to me for the distraction, I said, "It's okay. I'll come back when the line disappears." And for the rest of the convention, the line did not disappear.
I wish I'd had more time to tell him how amazing I thought it was that he was capable of being funny in absolutely everything he was ever in. But all those folks in that line — and I'm sure in many lines at many autograph shows and conventions — told him that for me. Being consistently hilarious is not easy but doing it for something like seventy years? Amazing.