Another example of old-before-his-time comes from watching The Godfather. Abe Vigoda was only fifty when he made that movie.
James Lipton (Inside the Actors Studio) is 87. Fun fact: he can put on his resume that he was a pimp. In Paris. In the 50s.
Babyface is 55.
Of course there’s Wilford Brimley whose age has finally caught up to his looks. 
Terry Bollea (Hulk Holgan) always looked about a couple decades older than he was when he was in his 20’s and 30’s.
Redd Foxx and Whitman Mayo very convincingly played Fred Sanford and Grady Wilson as two men in their late 60s. At the time, Foxx was in his early 50s and Mayo was in his 40s.
Speaking of black sitcoms of the 1970s, on both The Jeffersons and on Good Times, the actors playing the husbands (Sherman Hemsley and John Amos) were 20 years younger than the actresses playing their wives (Isabel Sanford and Esther Rolle).
With me, it usually happens when the particular celebrity dies. For example, I would’ve pegged both Ossie Davie and David Brenner were about ten years younger than they were when they passed on.
[QUOTE=Charlie Wayne]
One striking example for me was Paulina Poriskova. I just discovered today that she is 50 years old. She was born in 1965 in Czechoslovakia and I would never have guessed she was anywhere near that age. I became interested in her when I was around 25. At that age, I met a lady from Czechoslovakia and we spent quite a bit of time discussing what it was like for her growing up in that country and escaping from the Communist government there.
[/QUOTE]
That wouldn’t have never happened to me for the simple reason she was the first SI swimsuit model who was nearly exactly my age. Somehow, I remember things like that. (Also, FTR, she’s 49. Both me and her have one more year till we hit the bit 5-0.)
Every time I’m reminded of his age, I’m amazed all over again.
I was going to make a joke about him being a different age than you thought, but then I saw they were born in the same year.
Lorde.
Royals was released when she was 16. She was born in 1996 for fuck’s sake. I couldn’t believe it when I found out. Sure, the subject matter of her songs is predominantly youth-culture-oriented, but listen to her being interviewed and you’d give her at least another ten years, if not more.
How can someone that young be not only so prodigiously talented, but so informed and articulate?
She reminds me of Kate Bush at that age, except she seems even more worldly.
That reminds of what happened when I first heard “You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette. Not knowing anything about her past as a Canadian teen actress and pop star, I thought anyone who had been that burned in a relationship had to be at least around 30. She even looked about 30 in the video. Instead, she was barely 21 at the time.
When Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards first got together, I thought it was much more of a May-December relationship than it actually was.
In fact, the age difference was only 6 years between them- not all that significant. I figured him being about 5 years older than he was and I figured her being about 10 years younger than she was- so, I was thinking it was about a 20 year age difference.
Estelle Getty was actually younger than her character daughter, Bea Arthur, on The Golden Girls. I’m assuming it was a matter of excellent makeup that aged her. I never would have guessed…
cue eerie music
Just today I was surprised to learn that Sen. Ted Cruz is younger than I am. He’s 43. I would have guessed 50 or 55.
John Slattery, playing white-haired, jaded senior partner Roger Sterling on Mad Men, is 10 years younger than I am!
Every time I hear about some famous person’s age, they always seem to be much younger than I am! 
Lupita Nyong’o. She burst on the scene last year, was photographed everywhere. She’s 31. I thought she was mid-twenties, albeit a very self-possessed, sophisticated twenty something.
Also from The Electric Company: Luis Avalos just died last year, and he wasn’t that old. Because of his early balding, he looked older than his age (late twenties, I think) when TEC ran in the early 1970s.
Demetri Martin and Chris Hardwick are both in their 40s.
Wow, what a way to find out David Brenner died. 
Somehow I had missed that.
I gotta agree with you though for me it was worse. I not only thought he was about 10 years younger than they were, I thought he was still alive.
I’ll agree with Wilford Brimly too though I have no idea how old he is. I’ve never looked it up but I have wondered about it from time to time and about the closest I could narrow it down to was around Lestat age.
Since it often takes African American and African performers longer to become famous, I’m rarely surprised when they are somewhat older than they appear (Jamie Foxx looks younger than he is, but he’s less than 9 months younger than myself and I’m 47).
Some actors who ages surprised me were/are:
Isabella Rossellini : I was surprised that she was nearly 40 when the execrable Death Becomes Her was released and I am also surprised that she’ll be 62 this year.
David Strathairn: I am still surprised that he is is 65. He looks to be in in his late 40s to early 50s.
Noriyuki “Pat” Morita - This late actor looked far older than he was (his mid 40s) when he starred on Happy Days in the 1970s and was conversely far younger than the Mr. Miyagi character that he played in the 1980s.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus - Looked much younger (late 20s) but acted much older when she appeared as Elaine Benis on Seinfeld in the 1990s
Maggie Q - The Asian-American actress is only 34, but she looks much older (mid 40s)