Very interesting. What could be the reason for this? It is a subject worth investigating in terms of longevity.
Finasteride/Dutasteride (BIG for male actors)
Sunscreen
Tretinoin
For entertainment people, it is a vast array of plastic surgery procedures, skin products, hormone injections, and God knows what.
But for everyone else…maybe actually using sun block from childhood onward? Gotta remember that was not really a thing back then.
It was considered okay for men to have thinning / balding hair. Now if you can’t or don’t want to treat it, you’re expected to shave it. Shaving your head was a very unusual and counter cultural move until the 2000s.
If you feed ChatGPT with these images, it will estimate theirs ages quite accurate. The males look way older, but the females actually don’t.
The estimation by a human eye is also influenced by the people around the person to estimate. As a result, old looking men increase estimated ages of the whole group.
Paul Rudd Vs. Wilford Brimley: Why Do People In The Past Look So Much Older Than Us?
Is it perception? Is it science? Actually, yes to both.
Oct 09, 2022
If you type “Paul Rudd Wilford Brimley” into Google Image, you’ll be met with dozens of side-by-side photos comparing Ant-Man star Paul Rudd and Cocoon actor Wilford Brimley when they were 51 years old. The contrast is striking. In his early 50s, Rudd could easily pass for a man a decade younger, while Brimley at 51 could be mistaken for someone in his 70s.
Why is there such a marked discrepancy? As it turns out, there are myriad reasons. The most notable might be that, in the Rudd vs. Brimley comparison, the images of the latter were taken in 1985 during the filming of Cocoon.
Brimley, who passed away in 2020, was born in year 1934. Rudd, on the other hand, was born in 1969. Had the two shared a birth year, perhaps they would have looked more like peers in their early 50s. However, part of the reason people in the past look so much older than we do today, even at the same age, is because, biologically speaking, they were older.
https://www.goalcast.com/why-people-in-past-look-older-than-us/
There is an interesting question, however, as to what extent this is selection as to those people who are acting in films etc, vs changes in how people look.
I think two big factors are that people used to smoke alot more and that there was alot more lead in the atmosphere. These are probably also major reasons for the massive drop in heart disease rates over the last several decades.
It’s mostly men who look way older in these photos. In the 60s, life expectancy in men was 67 years in the US. It’s now 77 years: Life expectancy in men - Our World in Data So everyone was/looked 10 years older?
A doctor long retired mentioned that car pollution was much more harmful in the past. He was in manhattan and most of his patients had notable respiratory problems.
And for men it used to be shameful to do basically anything to improve your appearance.
And the fact that most people of my generation were not aware of the damaging effects of the sun. We had nothing marketed as sunscreen and SPF factor was unheard of. What we had was “suntanning lotion” which was mostly baby oil-based.
Sunbathing was very popular and every year there was a competition for the best suntan. Look back to the 50’s and 60’s beach movies. A deep tan was something to be admired.
That’s my thinking as well. Current culture values people looking young. Hence, there is selection bias. This selection bias applies not just to movie actors but also to other areas e.g. to politics. Tim Walz is an exception here and he got selected even though he looks old but is of similar age as Kamala. Besides selection bias, there may be other fairly superficial things like clothing, finasteride, neurotoxins, how people behave, etc that may make people appear to look younger than in the past. In my opinion people on average ( not everybody is taking rapa ) age at exactly the same rate as they used to 50 years ago. They may live on average a bit longer due to modern medicine but often not healthier lives.
Am I missing something…
“there may be other fairly superficial things like clothing, finasteride”.
Is finasteride being mentioned for just hair retention?
Granted, I have been using finasteride since I was about 32-33 years old.
Been taking 33 years, and yes, I still have my hair. And also… a small prostate and no cholesterol-arthrocleurosis calcium or plaque build up. Finasteride is good stuff for me.
What are the chances hollywood actors are taking rapamycin?
I would assume only a small % of actors take it as it is still an experimental drug for anti-aging purposes.
If you can take it safely the risk-reward is pretty favorable. What are even the possible downsides between 1 and 5 mg a week?
On the other hand…14 year old girls look much older now than in the past…careful there, it’s just a fact.
It depends. I’ve seen 14 year old girls who either look 11 or 23.
The selection bias in politics is towards age. We are a de facto gerontocracy. Even disregarding presidential candidates, the leaders of the House and Senate are in their 80s.