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Tim Appelo,
In a new video called #Rethink Aging, The Jeffersons star Marla Gibbs, 91, says, “Ninety-one is the new 30!” In April, Carol Burnett and Willie Nelson, still creatively vital, join the nonagenarian club. Burnett's NBC special Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love airs April 26, and Nelson will celebrate his big day with a Hollywood Bowl birthday concert with Neil Young, Tom Jones, Snoop Dogg, Beck and more. And he's not stopping there: He's also got a brand-new album, I Don't Know a Thing About Love.
Here are nine of the top talents over 90 whose creative energy we can all envy — and emulate if we can.
Quincy Jones, 90

“People keep tellin’ me I’m turning 90 this year [on March 14],” the musician-producer who earned 28 Grammys, a Tony and seven Oscar nominations, posted on Facebook recently. “But what they don’t know is that I feel like I’m turning 50! They must be real convinced though because apparently I’m getting a 90th-birthday Concert at the Hollywood Bowl w/special guests on July 28 & 29th, 2023!!”
He's also producing a movie musical adaptation Alice Walker’s The Color Purple starring Taraji P. Henson, 52, and Louis Gossett, Jr., 86, arriving in theaters Dec. 20.
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Mel Brooks, 96

Far more spry than his 2,000 Year Old Man character, Brooks narrates his latest hit TV series, History of the World, Part II (a job he gave Orson Welles in the 1981 original, Part I). It stars Marla Gibbs and Wanda Sykes (in the ’70s sitcom parody Shirley!), plus a parade of younger Brooks-idolizing actors. Brooks got his start on TV 70 years ago as a writer for Sid Caesar’s comedy-variety show (along with Woody Allen and Neil Simon), then went on to cocreate the 1960s TV cult classic Get Smart. So it’s gratifying to see that after an Oscar, four Emmys, three Tonys and three Grammys, his TV career is still going strong.
Don’t miss this: 95 Things We Love About Mel Brooks on His 95th Birthday