For Fallout 4...is it recommended to play any of the recent Fallout games?
The last I played was fallout 1 and 2 way back in the day...
If you're asking "is it important to play Fallout 3 or New Vegas before 4", I am almost certain the answer is no. It's too early to say for certain, of course, but based on what we've seen so far, it's very likely you'll be fine. It may call out events from 3, since is somewhat nearby (Boston vs. Washington DC), and it'll probably reference Fallout 1 and 2 events the way Fallout 3 and New Vegas did, but it's likely you'd be fine with no previous Fallout experience at all.
If you're asking "is it worthwhile," absolutely. Though I'd say it's probably wisest to play Fallout 3 before New Vegas, because there are systematic things that improved. In particular, the weapon variety weapon up tremendously, and New Vegas handles things like Speech checks in a much better fashion. You can fix some, but not all, of those things with mods, but it's better just to play the earlier game first so it doesn't feel like a step back.
It's possible the same is true of 3 and New Vegas vs. 4. The trailers for 4 talk about the new crafting system, for example. 3 had very rudimentary crafting, New Vegas added things like weapon mods but still much of it didn't work that well (i.e. most cooking). You might enjoy 3 and New Vegas more if you played them before 4.
Systems aside, the two games offer different experiences. Fallout 3 is much more of an open world, with less imposed structure. There are
so many ruins in the DC wasteland with their own little stories to tell, many of which aren't related to any quest. New Vegas arguably has the better main quest storyline, with a somewhat branching structure since you can align yourself with one of several factions. Though the faction alignment's not
that important, since you can do pretty much everything up until almost the end.