Why is it that actors from the 40's 50's looked older then they were?

[SNAFU]

I am in the process of working my way through Alfred Hitchcock Presents, from the 50's…. Great show and so incredibly well written and directed! I just watched an episode with EG Marshall and Jack Klugman from 1957. Both looked like they were in their mid to late 40's when they were in their mid 30's! Was it the style? Make-up, diet or what?

[Bettyboy72]

Its funny you mention that snafu. I just watched The Red Shoes this weekend and the actors playing college kids had huge bags under their eyes, crows feet and lines and wrinkles. The guy who played Julian was in his 30s playing a young man but looked so old.

I think it was smoking to be honest. I think a lot of actors smoked back then and were not obsessed with vanity like todays actors.

[FindingNamo]

There was a time when young people wanted to be adults and not vice versa. It was a cultural value to be a grown up.

I'm sure diet and smoking were a big issue too.

[strummergirl]

It was definitely smoking and drinking and you do not have to go back too far to see a divide. Notice how teens in the 70s and 80s looked much older then their contemporary counterparts in general.

[SNAFU]

Like in Grease? LOL! Sorry couldn't resist!
Ha! George Reeves was Superman with a paunch! He remains my Superman however.

[Yawper]

drinking, smoking, less discretionary income to waste on personal care and health products since birth, less medical attention and knowledge, real life things that today's youth can barely imagine...

[dented146]

It's not just smoking and drinking. If you are a 30 year old actor in say 1955 you were born in 1925. You were raised during the depression. You had to work to support your family and likely you were involved in World War 2. You grew up fast and had alot more responsibility. It was a different world with different values. Real noses, real tits, real life, fewer gyms, less yoga, and a more judgement based on real human contact.

They didn't just look older; they were more mature.

[StageManager2]

I just watched an episode with EG Marshall and Jack Klugman from 1957. Both looked like they were in their mid to late 40's when they were in their mid 30's!

Marshall was 43 in 1957.

[SNAFU]

OK Stagemanager but he looks a lot younger then Klugman who is 35.

[TheatreDiva90016]

I blame bad lighting.

[PalJoey]

No Botox.

[SonofMammaMiaSam]

I just watched Singing in the Rain again last week and Gene Kelly had some major crows feet, even under pounds of make up.

[Gothampc]

It was the hairstyles. If EG Marshall had a mohawk, he would have looked years younger.

[Calvin]

And there weren't any American Apparels open yet.

[EricMontreal22]

I was gnna mention what Strummergirl said. When I was in elementary school in the 80s, I went to a school that went all the way to high school and so we got year books. Looking back at them the other day, my siblings and I all commented on how OLD the high schoolers looked compared to even pics from our year book when we went to high school a decade later.

However, drinking and smoking was mentioned, but I think a big reason as well is partly natrual--or societal, if that makes sense. People didn't have as long life expectancies, and many people think that bodies have changed slightly due to that--just like how before the last century, there wasn't really the teenaged phase that there is now--people actually think that when bodies had even slightly lowerlife expectancies, your body would age proportionately to that. (There's been some talk about how now the 20s are becoming something of a second adolescence for similar reasons, but there's argument there).

Combine with the societal aspect--this was mentioned in a discussion on Company, but even as recent as 1970, Bobby is seen as officially middle aged at 35. That simply isn't true anymore. In Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche is past her sell by date, and really is in her early 30s.

[Yawper]

The life expectancy for white women ~1939-1941 was just over 67 years, for white men it was just under 63 years.

[strummergirl]

This show was a while ago and only 6 episodes so my memory may be fuzzy but the show Thanks, a show that ran on the classic family sitcom pretense but took place in Plymouth, Massachusetts in the 17th century, had a joke at the expense of how the family matriarch, played by none other than Cloris Leachman. She, Grandma Winthrop, was said to be years younger than her actual age just to play on the fact that life expectancies would make her actual age very improbable and it was probably realistic that people that said age would look like Cloris Leachman in her 70s.

I swear only Sarah Vowell and I seem to recognize that show's entire existence.

[EricMontreal22]

I hav a hing for flop TV shows, particularly high/bizarre concept ones, and I swear I have never, ever, even heard a reference to that show before...

[strummergirl]

It really happened. It was DOA, premiering in August of 1999 and lasted the 6 episodes I presumed was initially ordered. Erika Christensen and Jim Rash, each pre-NBC circa 2012 level of television fame, were also both in it. But Cloris was the biggest name.



Summary of it:
http://www.tv.com/shows/thanks/
Sarah Vowell explains THANKS

[Wynbish]

In a slightly unrelated note, can we just stop and think about how this man is 86?

[henrikegerman]

^Perpetual obsequy can do that to a man.

[TheatreDiva90016]

And it was also the hair styles. Put any of those hair styles on a younger girl and they will look 10 years older.

[givesmevoice]

I never really thought about this until I saw Follies at City Center and realized Victoria Clark and Donna Murphy were roughly the same age Dorothy Collins and Alexis Smith had been in the original production. Styling is definitely a factor, but Clark and Murphy looked significantly younger than Collins and Smith.

[EricMontreal22]

Ha, I laughed at Henrik's comment. How I hate that man. Maybe he sold his soul, given all the second and third chances he's had in TV and theatre given his epic failure rate.

Givesmevoice, that's an interesting point. I also think it can reflect in how we see the actual show--while hardly washed up, with Collins and Smith back in '71, I assume y7ou would get more of the sense that they were entering the last stage of their life. You don't with Clark and Murphy.

[SNAFU]

"If you dress older when you're not
As your really age you look the same"

Lou Reed, Songs for Drella

Guess there is some truth to this.