The Only Actors Still Alive From The Cast Of The Great Escape

Towards the beginning of "The Great Escape," the audience is reminded by Ramsey (James Donald) of the so-called "duty to escape" — that is to say, when a soldier is captured and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, it is their responsibility to either escape or spend so much time trying to get away that they drain all of their enemy's resources in guarding them. Put in those terms, the titular escape, in which Hilts (Steve McQueen) and a ragtag team of prisoners attempt to break their way out of a German P.O.W. camp, seems rather a foregone conclusion.

Its escape attempt may be heavily fictionalized, but "The Great Escape" nonetheless won the hearts of audiences and critics alike. The war film was nominated for one Academy Award for its editing and, together with "The Magnificent Seven" three years earlier, it catapulted Steve McQueen to superstardom. Although "The Great Escape" is set in the 1940s during World War II, it was made in 1963, which means that there are a couple of surviving actors from the production still with us. After losing David McCallum in 2023, there are just two former stars of "The Great Escape" left: John Leyton and William Russell.

In order to plan their grand escape, the POW committee decides to begin constructing three tunnels, named Tom, Dick, and Harry. This is where John Leyton's character, the so-called Tunnel King, comes in. Together with his best friend Danny Welinski (Charles Bronson), he oversees the design and development of the tunnels. He is also one of the only characters who actually manages to escape, as he and Danny are seen at the end of the film rowing away to unoccupied Sweden.

John Leyton had a fairly prolific acting career during the 1960s and '70s, with dozens of credits to his name. But aside from his commanding roles in "The Great Escape" and "Guns at Batasi" in 1964, he's probably better known as a singer than as an actor. He first drew attention from musical audiences with a cover of "Tell Laura I Love Her" in 1960, and had a number one hit in the United Kingdom the following year with "Johnny Remember Me." He released four albums over the course of his career, most recently "John Leyton Is Back" in 1997. 

Although William Russell has a minor role in "The Great Escape" playing Sorren, one of the British officers who makes up the security detail for the intrepid escape artists, he's well-known for some of his other projects. In fact, science fiction fans should recognize his face from "Doctor Who," where he played Ian Chesterton, one of the Doctor's first companions, beginning back in 1963. Aside from his work in "Doctor Who," he had quite a run of television costume dramas in the 1950s and 1960s, playing the lead role in "The Adventures of Sir Lancelot," "Nicholas Nickleby," "Hamlet," and many other classic adaptations.

Now 99 years old, Russell is understandably retired. His last film performance was a cameo role in 2020's "Executive Order," likely because the production starred his youngest son, Alfred Enoch, who many may remember as Dean Thomas from the "Harry Potter" films. The same year, he reprised his role as Ian Chesterton in "Susan's War," a Big Finish audio drama that adds to the ever-expanding universe of "Doctor Who" stories.