Cigarettes really are awful things

[Dr. Jack]

Due to this whole plague that Trump let wash over the country, I, like many of you, am stuck hanging around the house a lot. I've been watching a lot of older movies, from around the 1950's and 1960's to kill time. One thing that I am shocked by is how aged many actors and actresses look. There will be a character in a movie that I assume is like 55 years old but when I look up the age of the actor, they are always like 32 years old. It is so depressing and shocking to see. Of course when you look up their bio on wikipedia, most were very heavy smokers and died at like 52 years old.

Here is Rod Serling at 35 years old.

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Here is Guy Madison in his early 30's

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Here is Frank Sinatra in his late 30's

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They all look horrible for their ages. Good god, why would anyone smoke?!

[brush]

1. Sorry, I don't see it. It's like with old yearbook photos. Maybe it's the style of clothes...

but those three photos don't look so much older than advertised.

[Shermann]

3. Yeah I wish I looked that "horrible" lol nt

[Dr. Jack]

5. First off, I think they still look pretty terrible

Second, remember, these were guys that were always good looking with full heads of hair or expensive hairpieces that made them look better.

Third, they likely have caked on makeup to make them look better.

Even if all of that, they still look like shit.

[brush]

7. Better check your eyes. Those 3 guys in those 3 photos don't look like shit.

Whether it's make-up or hairpieces or whatever, they don't look like shit in the photos. They might look different without make-up or hairpieces but that's not what we're looking at.

[Shermann]

11. I feel like we're in the "Eye of the Beholder" Twilight Zone episode all of a sudden

Oh the irony.

[Baked Potato]

2. We are TV and movie buffs, it's surprising how many died young from cigs.

When I say young, I’m talking 40 years +.

http://tobacco.cleartheair.org.hk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Tobacco-kills-2-out-of-every-three-users.pdf

[Dr. Jack]

4. I am amazed how much more gracefully people age now than back then

As my username suggests, I am actually a doctor. I have tons of patients that are elderly and I think growing up in the 1990's seeing my relatives, who were all heavy smokers and drinkers, dying in their 50's and watching these old tv shows and movies really distorted my view of aging and health. Most of my patients are not smokers or if they were, they gave it up decades ago. And none of them are dropping dead at 55 from heart attacks and lung cancer. At 55, most of my patients are still working, in fairly good shape (although eating too much sugar is a problem for many but still no where near as bad as smoking 3 packs per day), go on vacations, go hiking and bike riding on the weekends. Meanwhile, I have tons of people that just keep chugging along into their 80s and 90s without much effort. It is fascinating that just eliminating smoking for most people has caused many individuals to not only keep active and healthy well into their 70s and 80s, but also seems to have added about 30 or 40 years onto the average person's life. I am very aware there are other factors too but just cutting out tobacco use looks like it eliminates about 85% of the health issues that people in the 1950s, 60's, and 70's were dealing with.

[Baked Potato]

6. Hi, yes, people are really valuing their lives now more than those days.

My dad smoked heavily those unfiltered cigs and eventually died at 62 from heart disease. I’m 63, so I have at least made it a year longer, lol. Mrs. Potato’s dad died at 62 also, again heavy smoker and heart disease. There were 11 kids in my dad’s family and all the women lived much longer except one uncle who is pushing 95, and I don’t remember seeing him smoke. I smoked from probably 15 until 17, couple years. There was so much influence from Hollywood, etc. to show smoking as glamorous and of course we all know the rest.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. Tobacco might be just part of it, and might not apply at all to some people.

I was looking at some old photos of my grandmother when she was my age (early '70s) and I was a bit shocked to observe that she looked at least 20 years older than I do now. She never smoked, and neither have I. Some of it has to do with clothes and hairstyles; Grandma wore frumpy dresses and clunky black lace-up shoes and got curly permanent waves and bluish hair dye, but I wear t-shirts, gym shorts and flip-flops and tie my hair up in a ponytail. It's like she tried to look old, but I think that in the '50s older women were expected to dress and look a certain way, which was old and "grandmotherly." Still, she was a lot wrinklier than I am. That might have been the result of a harder life in general - she was born in 1882, lived through the Depression, had to do housework without a lot of the conveniences we have now, and spent a lot of time outside without sunscreen, which didn't exist. She did live to be 98, though.

[samnsara]

15. i agree! I see photos of my grandmother at my age and its the clothes, the extra weight they

carried from eating all that comfort food, and having a bunch of kids starting at 16...and Im sure the hard life they had back then. Then I look at my mother who just passed at 85 and she smoked, but looked beautiful up until she passed...

[yonder]

9. Interesting link.

R.J. Reynolds Sr., pancreatic cancer; R.J. Jr. and R.J. III, both emphesymia. How ironic.

[Baked Potato]

10. I noticed that, too. Very ironic.

[alphafemale]

8. They look way older than 30's nt

[abqtommy]

13. I'm a tobacco smoker. I'm too old to die young. Now I'm wondering if I'll die from The Virus

or tobacco. Stay tuned...

[samnsara]

14. i too have emersed myself into comfort tv of yesteryear to get away from the hell of 2020..

..and i have also noticed how many of the actors have aged prematurely. My fav show to go to is Ozzie and Harriet, believe it or not. You Tube is now my best friend.

[hunter]

16. My grandma looked to be about in her eighties in her sixties, at the age I am now.

Her cigarettes and whiskey killed her, cutting her life short by twenty years at least.

Her non-smoking relatives lived into their nineties, a few passed a hundred.

She was able to quit the whiskey, but she was never able to quit smoking.

Cigarettes are a terrible thing.

[Aristus]

17. Welcome to DU. I'm a Physician Assistant in Primary Care.

And yes, cigarette smoking is devastating to one's health. You're absolutely right about that.

You're going to get a lot of pushback, even here on DU, which is top-heavy with intelligent and enlightened people, on the notion of the dangers of smoking.

I can't count how many times I've been denounced on a DU thread for begging parents who smoke to quit for their kids' sake.

I get the "I could die in a car-crash tomorrow" argument.

I get the "I only smoke six filtered cigarettes daily; it's okay." argument.

I get the "Churchill smoked like a chimney and lived to be ninety" argument.

What I never get is "Yes, I know smoking is deadly. I just don't have the stones to quit."

[Ron Obvious]

18. I was shocked to find out Carol O'Connor was only in his 40ies when he played Archie Bunker

I thought he was 20 years or more older than that at the time.

In addition to the smoking, it might also have something to do with our generation's improved nutrition post-war. Everything is fortified now. That, and improved hygiene and vaccines. Our parents and grandparents had much harder lives....