I’ve been watching some old '70s childhood favorites on Netflix as background while I level my WoW character, and today I was watching Emergency! One of the rescues was a man they described as “in his late 40s”–I swear, the man looked 60. Wrinkles, graying hair, balding, scrawny…he looked like an old man. I’ve noticed that a lot of people on TV shows from the '70s and earlier look a lot older than their modern counterparts–for example, I think Darrin on Bewitched was supposed to be in his 20s, but he could easily pass for 40, whereas somebody today who looks 40 could be 60. Even in real life, people seem to look younger now.
Is it because we place more value on youth and beauty than they did then? Is it better nutrition? More casual clothing styles? Better makeup? Prevalence of plastic surgery? Or just a bias on my part and it wasn’t really true?
I’ve been watching some Twilight Zone episodes and it’s uncanny. Rod Serling starts narrating “Gerry Smith, 36 years of age…” and there’s no way the guy in the screen isn’t nearing 50, with deep facial lines and completely receded hairline.
All that smoking and drinking took a toll, I guess.
I’ve asked myself the same question when watching old movies. For example, Rita Hayworth was 28 when she made Gilda. Now, maybe I’m just a terrible judge of age, but I would have guessed that she was in her mid-30s (at least) in that photo. For perspective, here’s a photo of 28-year-old Anne Hathaway. To me, she looks exactly like a 28-year-old woman. No older, no younger.
My modern perspective is skewing things, of course, so maybe everyone thought Rita Hayworth looked like a perfectly normal 28-year-old at the time. But it seems to me that when it comes to beauty, youthfulness is much more highly prized today than it used to be.
Better care like alice says, plus I think better product to make yourself look younger, plus it’s more the fashion to dress younger. In those days they all dressed so staid once they got to a certain age, and cut their hair into “mom” haircuts.
I know people today that I consider young, though the lines on their faces make them look nearly 60. I think that clothing and the way they move through the world has a lot to do with it as well as other factors already mentioned.
I wonder about that myself. I turned 64 yesterday. When I was 20, 64 was old, looked old, sounded old. A 64-year old woman would have snow-white hair and wear dark dresses with a tiny print, minimal makeup, and not have much style. Yeah, there were exceptions, of course, but your average grandma looked like a grandma.
But my friends and I don’t look like that. We wear jeans (my mother never owned a pair of jeans!), color our hair, wear dangly earrings, sexy shoes, and just generally look… well… GOOD.
American teen rock-and-roll culture was born in the 50’s. Before that, the teenage years were not a place where you landed and hung out with your own music, your own food, clothes, slang. Before that, you were a teenager WRT age until you turned 20, then you got a job, got married, settled down, and then you were an adult and partook of adult things. (I am speaking in generalities here.)
But the youth counter-culture that my generation kicked off in the 60’s probably made the biggest difference. We were NOT going to get old or ever admit to BEING old: period. Not gonna happen. With our generation, teenage-hood was a place you landed and never left. I mean, just look at the aging rockers-- the Rolling Stones are 50… yeah, maybe the group is 50, but the Stones themselves? Let’s just say the Stones have some serious wear on them.
Some good answers here, but I’d also bear in mind that actors on televisions shows are not necessarily going to be good indicators of the looks of the general population of their peers.
Yeah, but, for example, Thelma Ritter in Rear Window (1954), and Margaret Dumont in *Duck Soup *(1933 - Marx Brothers) were both 50-ish when those movies were made. That was what 50 looked like then.
But it’s funny how different people age differently. I have two new friends who couldn’t be more different. One is a granny, looks like a granny, talks like a granny. The other is a rock star, looks like a rock star, talks like a rock star. Anyone looking at them would guess an age difference of at least 20 years. But it’s only 4.
Weight, hairstyle, and clothes have a lot to do with it.
Of course, comparing a movie star to an average person right off the street would be the height of silliness. But making a comparison between Thelma Ritter and Michelle Pfeiffer, as ThelmaLou did, is perfectly sensible. It indicates a significant shift in the standards of beauty, which very well may trickle down from glamorous movie stars to the woman who owns the clothing store down the street.
Good point, but Dumont, at least, made her later career out of playing the matronly straight woman, so it’s no surprise that she doesn’t look glamorous.
There aren’t many comparable actresses in Hollywood today – Kathy Bates and Dianne Wiest come to mind, but they’re both 64 this year.
The question is this: was Thelma Ritter (who was clearly a well-regarded actress, with 6 Oscar nominations) ever regarded, in her time, as glamorous or highly attractive – when she was 50 (in 1952), or, for that matter, when she was 30?
I don’t know the answer to this, but I’m noting that it might not be an apples-to-apples comparison.
It seems rather subjective. In the linked photos I don’t think Rita Hayworth looks significantly older than Anne Hathaway. I find it more likely that makeup, lighting, clothing, the difference between B&W versus color film and maybe even body language alters our perceptions about the age of the person we’re looking at.
This article has two photos of Bernie Babcock. In the first she’s in her mid-30s and in the second photo she’s in her mid-70s. How many people would have pegged her at 35+ in the first photo?
People looked older because the wanted to look older.
To be old was respectable. To be young was irresponsible.
There was a common phrase, never used today, which was heard by all kids when they misbehaved: “respect your elders!”.
Open any family photo album. Grandparents looked really old. My memories of mine are of very old people. Even though my mom’s mother was 47 when I was born. She already had the old lady look down pat. Hair net, dress half way to her ankles and support shoes. Never any makeup that I remember.
Part of it was exposure to sun. My great grandparents and grandparents spent years out in the fields working. That sun takes its toll.
