Finding out in the recent 30 Rock thread that Katrina Bowden started when she was only 17 got me thinking.
Most “teens” in tv shows are at least 18, because that frees them from the schooling requirements. Teens in their mid-20s are common and some have been over 30.
Oldest person to play a teen is probably a good thread, and I’ll start that.
But for this thread I’m thinking about a different issue. Another reason older actors are hired is that they are so much more physically developed than teens. They aren’t as gawky, they’ve lost the acne, they’re fully grown in all directions.
Katrina Bowden seemed unearthly gorgeous at 17. Way back in time Tuesday Weld was the knockout teen of the 50s at 16 playing Thalia Menninger on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.
In between you had Danica McKeller on The Wonder Years, Christina Applegate on Married with Children and Mila Kunis on That 70s Show.
I always thought Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell) was attractive, at least when he was a kid.
Melissa Joan Hart (Clarissa Explains it All)
Scott Baio (Happy Days)
Ricky Schroder (Silver Spoons)
Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris in Buffy. Sorry, nobody who looked like that in high school would have been dateless. No matter how ugly the shirts. But the show was a fantasy. There aren’t really vampires & werewolves, are there?
“Go Fish” is considered one of the lesser episodes. But we do get to see Young Nick in a Speedo…
Sarah Michelle Gellar as “Buffy” was very pretty, particularly in the show’s first season before she lost some weight. Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia on that same show was strikingly beautiful too.
Stacey Dash as Dionne on Clueless was gorgeous, as was pre-Mike Tyson Robin Givens on “Head of the Class” twenty years ago.
