Connery 32?


Just somewhat of an observation. Connery was 31/32 years old at the time this movie was made and released. Is it just me, or does he appear older than that...more like in his 40s? Not saying he didn't look good...just not quite as young as he was at the time.

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Yes, Gibson also looked much older than his actual age. Not so sure that "saggy old balls" is an acceptable comparison to an actor just looking older than his/her actual age without prosthetics/makeup...but so be it. Honestly, if Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon looked like "saggy old balls", well then let's have more of those saggy old balls!!! Gibson was HOT in Lethal Weapon...although I do agree looked older than his 31 years.

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Yes, Gibson also looked much older than his actual age. Not so sure that "saggy old balls" is an acceptable comparison to an actor just looking older than his/her actual age without prosthetics/makeup...but so be it.
...although I do agree looked older than his 31 years.


Besides, Gibson's cop character was a Vietnam veteran who HAD to be several years older than Gibson's actual age. I don't know of many people born in 1956 who did tours of duty in 'Nam.

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It's weird. People seemed so much more sophisticated and mature at an early age back then, as if they had to grow up faster. These days adolescence seems to extend into your forties.

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Connery has aged prematurely all his life, he started balding at 21 and by the late 50´s already had a receding hairline. He wore a toupee for every one of his Bond films. So yeah Connery was an older looking 32 yo but I think it just depends on the person not necessarily the era. Cary Grant is another actor from the same era (slightly older), who seemed to defy aging.

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Agree'd, though at some point it went in to reverse, like he is made from malfunctioning nanobots or something. For instance when he gets to boff Catherine Zeta in that cat burglar caper he looks like a respectable 55-year old when in reality by the millennium he no longer had to pay for a TV licence and would be receiving a subsidy on his heating bills.


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But I think Sean Conner is a smoker in real life which may have aged him faster? I think is why Gibson looked older as well, but maybe not?

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But I think Sean Conner is a smoker in real life which may have aged him faster? I think is why Gibson looked older as well, but maybe not?

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Mel Gibson used too look old for his age now like sean connery he looks younger now he is older when Mel Gibson was in Mad Max he was only 22 he looked 32 he was 30 in Lethal Weapon he looked 40 why don't today's 30 year old's look that mature.

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Yeah that is true he must have looked 24 25 when he was 14 15 people in their 30's looked so old back than people in their 30's don't look anywhere near as old as Sean Connery did when he was in his 30's people in their 30's today look younger 30's is the new 20's back then being in your 30's was like being in your 40's Sean Connery always had a Older looking face he must have looked 33 34 when he was 23 24 he started too lose his hair at 21 he started to age prematurely from a young age he was already 6ft 2in at the age of 12 that's a 1 ft 2 inches taller the average 12 year old.

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And somehow he's still alive at the age of almost 90.

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Drooch nailed it. People now-a-days confuse immaturity with appearing youthful. Anyone who comports themself like an actual adult is classified as 40-something. LOL

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If you look back at any number of actors who were in their early 30s back in the 1950s or 1960s you would think the same thing for most of them. I believe it is just a reflection of what we now look at as "young", more of a way of dressing and behaving. As a 32-yr-old Connery in the movie is dressed in a way that makes him seem like he is middle aged.

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I just found out not too long ago Victor Buono was 30 when he started playing King Tut on the old Batman series. Then there was Orson Welles in Citizen Kane (25) and Joan Leslie in Yankee Doodle Dandy (16)... Those two take the cake.

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Connery looked great in Dr. No and was in the prime of life as Bond, although he certainly seemed to age quickly by the time of Diamonds are Forever. He was only 40 or 41 here, which isn't old and is hardly middle aged, but compare him to Tom Cruise, Kevin Bacon or Brad Pitt, now in their fifties, or Frank Sinatra approaching 50 in Von Ryan's Express, and Connery appears to be older. It's a non-issue, of course; he was fit, handsome and at the top of his career in many ways. Elvis Presley also looked older than his years at 40/41, as did Orson Welles and Bing Crosby, Who seemed positively ancient in his fifties.

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Where premature aging is concerned, Warren G. Harding must have been the youngest old person who ever lived: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Warren_Harding_c1882_age_17.jpg 17 going on 55.

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Interestingly, Moore is actually older than Connery, but didn't really start looking too old for the part until For Your Eyes Only (where they actually lampshaded it with Bebe), maybe even Moonraker.

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Just finished watching it and I thought the same. He looked 40+. I had to come online to see what year he was born. He's always looked old for his age.

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People who lived through the 30's and 40's had a hard look on them even at a young age. I think it had something to do with living through a major war and a depression.

You have to remember that people smoke, drank, and didn't eat very well back then.

That's why they have a hard look on them.

Cary Grant was an exception. He seemed to defy aging. Sophia Loren is the same.

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People just looked older back then. When I see pictures of my late grandfather in his 30's he already looked old. He was in WWII, so I'm sure that had something to do with it. But today people just look younger at an older age. There is a lot of truth now to the term "40 is the new 20."

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incidentally, Lazenby was only 29 in OHMSS, yet looked well into his 30s.

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I've always thought the same thing. You see pictures of older actors back then and they were 32 going on 42. The weird thing is that they look more their age later in life. When Connery was 65 he looked about 65...

I think a lot of it is our psychological perceptions of our elder generations..our parents generations. Im 24 and i see pictures of my dad at 24 and he just seemed older..I can't put a number on it...he just seemed older tho. I think the main reason for this is because the image of our parents we've always had, ever since we were little kids has been this patriarchal, older people to us. We were the kids and they were the grown-ups...almost like we could never imagine they were ever young people. We as young impressionable kids knew one day we'd be grown-ups...but those grown-ups were never kids. (in our young minds).....and so when we see them as younger people, yeah the hairstyles were different and all that, the clothing, the black and white pictures, etc but there is something indefinable about it all as well. We look at people from the older generations when THEY were young but there is just something about the older image we've always had of them that we subconsciously project onto the younger image of them. On the flip side, I feel like my parent's, while they've aged, they still kinda look the same now. I see a pic of my dad at 40 and, while he looks about 40...he still looks old...Idk its some weird stuff. My dad is 56 now...he looks that age but at the same time he still looks the same as then

but with Connery its more extreme. Most actors didn't look that old at 31-32. James Dean died at 24 and looked in his mid 20s...people also started their independent lives earlier then. men were often married at 22, kids by 24....now everything today is suspended til later.

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Sean Connery looked rather old looking at 32 at the time.

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You have to remember Connery spent a lot of time outdoors (he was an expert swimmer and body builder). Plus smoking and drinking makes you look older. I am late 50s and never smoked (only drink occasionally and in moderation) and I look as young as Connery did in Dr. No. Of course I don't have his "coolness" factor or look as handsome. But who does?

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Laird Cregar and David Janssen also looked older than their ages. Bogart too. As I recall in the 1940s Cregar played middle aged villains while he was in his late twenties. 1930s actor Guy Kibbee also tended to play characters 10-15 years oldr than his chronological age. An older looking actress was Valerie Hobsen, who always seemed to essay characters about ten years beyond her chronological age.
As for JB, as I understand the character was supposed to be permanently frozen at thirty-five, but to me in those early Bond films Connery always looks about forty-ish, even though he was in his early/mid thirties. His smooth baritone voice, perhaps, or the ever present hint of five o’clock shadow, or the sophisticated manner and suave wardrobe?
Somewhat related, and echoing earlier comments: athletic heroes from earlier generations, especially the 50s and 60s, to me still look older than their chronological age at the time.
As has been mentioned also, today people look (and act) younger because of various factors: better nutrition, not as many of us smoke or drink, etc. Maybe there’s something to the vanity of the boomers and the search for perpetual youth. Along with this the fact that, for many of us, life simply hasn’t been as tough, or stressful, as it was for prior generations, thus we don’t age as fast.

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