Besides- have you seen some of the girls who are 13 nowadays? They look 27.
From a distance, or in a photo where they are made up and lit just perfectly, some do.
From up close in a personal conversation: no, they don't. (Some may well still look 16 or so even up close; but not mid-to-late-20s.)
I gotta say, my personal "willing suspension of disbelief" had a harder time swallowing all of the adults that bought Rogers-is-12 than I did with Lemon-and-Curtis-are-women in
Some Like It Hot or with Andrews-is-a-man-female-impersonator in
Victor / Victoria. I couldn't begin to tell you why that was the case. I don't know the answer myself, because those are just about as ludicrous (or, in the case of Lemon putting on a women's bathing suit and going to the beach, probably even more ludicrous; although they did light and photograph that particular bit so as to minimize the problem).
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Phillip Marlowe
14 years ago
Billy Wilder addressed this in his biography by Charlotte Chandler (he spoke to the author for the book over a period of twenty-five years or so prior to his death). He noted that Rogers posing as a 12-year old was fine then but would look foolish now (speaking in the '80s or '90s). He said that it was never actually believable, but that didn't matter because audiences in 1941 were more generous. They came to enjoy themselves and were more willing to go slong with filmmakers.
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