Actors in "old" makeup versus when they really were old

Cecily Tyson in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (age 110)

Cecily Tyson for real (age 95)

Supposedly Chris Evans’ mother cried when she saw him aged up in Avengers because he looked just like her father.

Cicely.

Old Charles Foster Kane:

Old Orson Welles:

A recurring theme in the “old makeup” versions of some of these actors (Richard Dean Anderson, Orson Welles, William Shatner (below), versus how they actually look when older, is that the actors gained weight as they got older (Welles, tremendously so), and the makeup used on them decades ago didn’t anticipate for that.

I wonder how much that’s

  • The overall growth in US obesity rates such that show management didn’t anticipate old folks also generally being fat folks.

  • The actor not wanting to appear obese by the standards of the day as well as old.

  • Just economizing on a series TV show; it’s fairly easy to make up a face, wrists, and hands. With the tech of the times, how much harder is a full-body fat suit, and how much harder is bulking up the pudgy face while still having it look natural as the actor emotes through it.

  • A standard comment about actors in scenes where IRL they’d be wearing a helmet and face protection, oxygen mask, space helmet, etc. is that that stuff is left off so the actor can act and the audience can see their face. I suspect, but do not know, that extreme makeup is similar.

Spock, “The Deadly Years” (Vulcans age more slowly than humans)

Leonard Nimoy

Probably mostly the second and third points, I’d guess.

That’s true but on the other hand, several of the actual old actors look much better than their made-up old counterparts from decades earlier, since they’re actors who have a stake in staying as youthful-looking as possible, as opposed to their made-up characters, who were made to look old.

I mean, the makeup people surely have access to pictures of his father, and used them for reference.

I’ve heard that it’s actually easier to make a character fatter, and that part of the challenge with old-age makeup is making people appear gaunt. You can put on more layers of latex, but you can’t take away from the skin. At least, not until digital makeup became a thing.

I couldn’t get the links to work… But I like the real Don Ameche to the “old” Don Ameche from Heaven Can Wait.

We’ll never know how accurate the old age makeup on John Belushi was, sadly

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/john-belushi-dances-on-snl-graves/

Master makeup artist Dick Smith, who aged Dustin Hoffman for Little Big Man, similarly aged David Bowie (in several stages) for The Hunger.

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/david-bowie-john-blaylock-production-made-dick-sm-1382-c-59a4f6aba4

Again, sadly, because Bowie died at age 69 we’ won’t know hiw accurate this was.

Sean Connery, aged for the closing scenes in Zardoz, actually looks pretty much like older Sean Connery. (about 2 minutes in)

Semi-related: they should get Wil Wheaton to refilm all the Stand By Me scenes with Richard Dreyfuss and splice them into the movie.

Has something like that ever been done? Maybe George Lucas putting Hayden Christensen into Return of the Jedi would count?