The Only Main Actors Still Alive From 1967's The Dirty Dozen

In 1967, The Dirty Dozen fought their way into the hearts and minds of moviegoers in the classic war movie of the same name. Directed by Robert Aldrich, "The Dirty Dozen" told the (partly true) story of a dozen convicts ordered to fight for the U.S. in a secret, super-dangerous World War II mission. Among them: mobster Victor Franko (John Cassavettes), former coal miner Joseph Wladislaw (Charles Bronson), and Vernon Pinkley, played by Donald Sutherland in the role that landed him the "M*A*S*H" movie.

Character actor Lee Marvin played the general who put the ragtag team together, while Ernest Borgnine played his boss, who asked him to assemble the suicide mission that made the movie famous. All of these great actors are gone now, along with 10 of the 12 castmates who played the original "dozen." The two actors who are still with us, Stuart Cooper and Colin Maitland, had vastly different post-"Dirty Dozen" careers, but both made their mark on film history all the same. "The Dirty Dozen" was a box office hit and an Oscar winner, and it's even been honored by the American Film Institute. Plenty of sequels have failed to make a strong impression over the years, while a long-discussed remake is apparently still in the works.

New Jersey-born actor Stuart Cooper played Roscoe Lever, the fifth member of "The Dirty Dozen," in the 1967 film. After the film's release, he appeared in a limited number of on-screen roles – he has just five more credits to his name post-"Dirty Dozen" – but he also went on to gain success as a director, producer, and writer.

Cooper's other acting roles include guest stints on three shows in the '60s, as well as roles in two movies. The first, "I'll Never Forget What's'isname," was a very of its time British dramedy branded as being "For the adults among us!" The film starred Orson Welles and Oliver Reed, and according to "Censorship: A World Encyclopedia," it was one of a handful of films that was denied a Production Code Administration seal of approval in the late '60s, leading to the creation of the MPAA. The second film, "Subterfuge," starred Joan Collins and Gene Barry.

As a director, Cooper has made well over a dozen feature-length films and counting, including several TV movies. His 1975 war movie "Overlord" won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, as did his previous film, "Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs." Meanwhile, his short film "A Test of Violence" earned several festival accolades and was even nominated for a BAFTA. (He also wrote both "Overlord" and "A Test of Violence.") In addition, Cooper has directed TV episodes, written other projects, and produced films like "Bloodhounds" and "The Hunted." He currently seems to have several directorial efforts in the works.

Like Cooper, British actor Colin Maitland has only appeared in a few roles in the years since "The Dirty Dozen," though he continued to work as an actor until around 1980. Maitland played Seth K. Sawyer, aka the seventh member of the Dozen, in the film. Maitland first appeared on screen in 1960, and before filming Aldrich's classic, he had roles in movies including Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita" and the WWII sexual escapade film "Night of Passion."

After "The Dirty Dozen," Maitland only acted twice more, appearing in one episode of the short-lived show "A Man of Our Times" and eight episodes of "Shoestring," a BBC detective series in which he played the studio assistant and sound engineer to an on-air investigator (or "Private Ear," as the show calls him).

If you want to hear more from Maitland about his most famous roles, you're in luck: he's featured in both a "Dirty Dozen" documentary titled "Armed and Deadly: The Making of The Dirty Dozen," and on a podcast about the works of Stanley Kubrick. On the latter, "Kubrick's Universe," Maitland joined the hosts to speak about both "Lolita" and "The Dirty Dozen" in 2022.