Poor Liza. She looks so awful now. Why does the academy like to drag out old stars who look so bad compared to their younger selves that the public remembers?
Kirk Douglas. Mary Pickford. Myrna Loy. Fay Wray. They were all showcased on Oscar ceremonies looking & sounding like a decrepid shell of themselves in their prime. It's ghastly to see them in such terrible shape.
Imagine how they (stars) feel when they see their younger selves on the screen. It must be heart wrenching.
On the other hand, why do they agree to appear in public, when they are physical/mental wrecks? Something in them must crave the attention, or they are in some kind of denial.
Bette Davis, after strokes and mastectomies continued to appear on talk shows. She looked like a corpse. Always loved Bette, but it was damn difficult to watch.
Personally, I would have stayed home! 🙄
I think you hit the nail on the head with the craving part. I mean, can you imagine what it must feel like to be the center of attention and adulation and how it must be like chasing that high to feel it again and again.
Not only that, imagine what it feels like to be completely firing on all cylinders at once and more so and what a rush that must be (often I think of the music performers that once performed shows in sold-out stadiums and then late in their careers finding themselves touring small nightclubs trying to regain something they once had at their fingertips).
I get what you're saying.
I see old people I've never met and some look good, some don't, I don't think twice either way.
BUT I see some old celebrity who's young version is frozen in my head and I'm stunned, sometimes cringe.
Myself, I don't want to see anyone who knew me young after I'm old.