the list of 9 for november 29, 2006:
NINE ACTORS WHO WERE NEVER YOUNG - EVEN WHEN THEY WERE
You know how when you see an early Robert De Niro or Paul Newman movie, you get astonished at howyoung they once were? And you know how, with some other actors, you can see their work from the60's, the 70's, the 80's, the 90's and even today and they look like they were always perpetuallyfifty or sixty years old? This is a tribute to some of those performers, who in an industry whereeverybody else is obsessed with retaining their youthful looks for as long as possible were quitehappy with their "mature" faces, voices and characters.
- ANGELA LANSBURY. I'm amazed that this actress just turned81. "Murder She Wrote" kicked off in 1984, before she even turned sixty, and yet she seems likeshe was at least ten years older than that. Weirder still, you can see her as a teenager in moviessuch as Gaslight and National Velvet (both in 1944) and even there she somehowlooks old. And of course she famously played Laurence Harvey's evil mother in The ManchurianCandidate, though she was only three years older than her onscreen "son."
- GEORGE C. SCOTT. He of the gravelly voice and even moregravelly demeanor - notoriously turning down his Oscar for Patton because he claimed theOscars were not honest appreciations of an actor's work - was even younger than Lansbury(who has since outlived him; Scott died in 1999), but I can't believe that the man who playedGeneral Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove was only my age now - 36 - when that film was shot.
- WALTER MATTHAU. Like many successful male characteractors, Matthau didn't hit the screen until he was in his 30's. So I can't vouch for whether hehad a face like a basset hound back in high school. But those jowls were well in place by the timehe got his first big screen role, in A Face in the Crowd, shot when he was - like Scott -just 36.
- GLENN CLOSE. Eternally fortysomething Close became a starin the early 80's, also while in her mid-thirties. A quarter century has passed, and she looks nodifferent now.
- MORGAN FREEMAN. "The Electric Company" kept Mr. Freemanemployed throughout much of the 70's. Street Smart made him a star in 1987. Admittedly, hewas already fifty at that point. But he looked like he was seventy in 1989's Driving MissDaisy, and has remained close to that age ever since (his actual 70th birthday is in 2007).
- BEA ARTHUR. The 83-year-old Arthur finally appears veryold these days. But she managed to stay at a solid fifty-five for over two decades, which is prettyimpressive. (After all, Estelle Getty played her mother on "The Golden Girls," though Getty is twomonths younger!)
- JACK KLUGMAN. His major big-screen breakthrough was in1957's 12 Angry Men. He was that magic age - 35 - when that classic came out. He lookedfifty, and held onto that age for the next thirty years before fading from the scene.
- LILY TOMLIN. Becoming a star at the comparatively young(for this list) age of thirty on "Laugh-In," Tomlin appeared to be in her 40's and stilldoes today, over three decades later.
- DON KNOTTS. The late Knotts, who died earlier this year,had that high forehead, quivering tenor and wiry frame of his early in his long career, whichgained heat thanks to "The Andy Griffith Show," when he was... 36. Hmm. Perhaps at my age, Ishould start looking into a career as a character actor?
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