they lived to be 96

11 THINGS: They lived to be 96

Thursday, January 18, 2007

1. Momofuku Ando: Instant Ramen inventor and founder of the Nissin Food Products Co. (producers of Top Ramen and Cup Noodles). He gets the gold medal for cool cool names.

2. Katharine Hepburn: The four-time Academy Award winner was to film what J.D. Salinger once was to literature: fiercely independent and never not interesting.

3. Fay Wray: So well-known for playing Ann Darrow in the 1933 version of "King Kong" that when she died, the Empire State Building went dark for 15 minutes to honor her. She gets the silver medal for cool cool names.

4. Sir John Gielgud: Known primarily for his many Shakespearean roles (on stage and screen), the British actor also had memorable film roles in "Gandhi," "Chariots of Fire" and "Arthur."

5. Alfred Eisenstaedt: He's best remembered for his photo of an American sailor kissing a woman in the middle of Times Square on V-J Day; his last photographs were of President Clinton with wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea in August 1993.

6. Simon Wiesenthal: Famed concentration camp survivor, Nazi hunter and founder of the Jewish Documentation Centre in Vienna. The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles is named in his honor.

7. Jane Wyatt: The mother on "Father Knows Best" and mother of Mr. Spock in one of the original "Star Trek" episodes, she also played the wife of Dr. Daniel Auschlander in the underappreciated '80s medical drama "St. Elsewhere."

8. Mildred Benson: The original author of the Nancy Drew mystery books, under the pen name Carolyn Keene.

9. Vyacheslav Molotov: The Soviet foreign minister under Joseph Stalin was also the "Molotov" in Molotov cocktail. Vyacheslav gets the bronze medal for cool cool names.

10. Stanley Marcus: The son of Neiman Marcus founder Herbert Marcus Sr. is also the person credited with making the department store a household name. Neiman Marcus celebrates its 100-year anniversary in September.

11. King Ramses II: Known as Ramses the Great, the son of Seti I and Queen Tuya had 200 wives and concubines, 96 sons, 60 daughters (and one insane grocery bill). Various sources indicate he lived to be 92, 93, 94, 98, 99 and 100. Take the average of all those numbers and what do you get? That's right ... 96.

Tim Sullivan, tsullivan@sfchronicle.com

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