John Thaw was only 32..........

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Nah no medical condition, people just looked older than they were back then. Also he was a very heavy smoker, and we all know what smoking does to your skin!



''All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain .... Time to die''.

It's not true that people looked older than (sure nowadays Botox and other cosmetic surgery is pretty common among actors, but I usually don't think it makes them look younger only sort of "strange").
I think it was Thaw himself who once jokingly said that he was born looking like 50. Sid James would be another example of someone who always looked old.

People don't always look their age, there always are people who look a lot younger and some who look a lot older than they actually are. He was obviously one of the later. Surely one's lifestyle also has an influence (alcohol, smoking, too little sleep, too many worries, etc.) and his doesn't seem to have been the healthiest.
Plus not dying grey or white hair usually adds some years. Quite a lot of people have some, a lot or ompletely white hair - or are balding - before they are 40. Women usually dye theirs, but there have been some men whose hair went white while they were quite young and they didn't dye it e.g. John Inman, Peter Richardson, Nick Lowe, Steve Martin, James Coburn, Richard Gere, Bill Clinton, etc. and of course John Thaw.

But I guess it mostly has to do with ones DNA. My mother and my brother both had their first white hairs when they were teens and had completely white hair when they were 30 and both look older than they are - even with dyed hair some people mistake my mother for my father's mother because he (although he's actually older than her) on the other hand looks much younger than he is (and luckily so do I).

I'm in the middle of watching the episode 'Night Out' which was aired in Feb 1975, which makes him 33 when he filmed that, but he looks about 10 years older than that! He liked his booze and cigarettes like his Regan character, so I suppose that's what boozing and smoking does to your looks.


''All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain .... Time to die''.

Hard drinking and heavy smoker puts years on people plus stress too he looks a lot older than 32 more like late 40s

I know mate ! i was absolutely stunned when i found out what age he was during this series !

Well, it's a bit like Clive Dunn being in his late 40s, and then later early 50s when he played Lance Corporal Jones in Dad's Army. He was made to look about 70. I maybe wrong, but I'm guessing they did the same with John Thaw, making him look older than he actually was.