Why Did Classic TV Actors Look So Old?

When I was a kid, my grandmother wore her hair in tight curls with bluing, cat-eye glasses, and stockings rolled to her knees. I thought she was ancient, but she was much younger then than I am now. It's not your imagination- people did indeed look older in those days. The easiest way to see the effect is in TV shows. You can watch an old episode of All in the Family and assume that Archie Bunker was in his 60s, but actor Carroll O'Conner was in his 40s when portraying him. YouTuber TV Guess-O-Matic goes over some of the main reasons people used to look older. The comparison of Lucille Ball and Jennifer Anniston seems a bit of a stretch, because if you swap the hairstyles, the difference in appearance just disappears. It's the same with The Golden Girls, because their hairstyles made them look much older than they were. (via Laughing Squid)