Age of actors versus roles

This is an old post, but I just saw it.

You seem to be confusing life expectancy and life span. Life Expectancy is the average age of an entire population. Life span is the length of time someone can live.

Life expectancy is a deceptive descriptor. It is heavily influenced by the large child mortality rates prior to what we now consider modern medicine. Child mortality could be as high as 30%, especially in areas where access to doctors is limited.

Generally, for at least the last few millenium, life span is around 70; that is if you survive childhood and don't die from violence, you are likely to live close to 70 years.

Average expectancy confuses many into thinking those living a century ago died younger. Mostly they didn’t — IF they survived childbirth. The high infant mortality of the times dragged the averages down considerably. Plenty of people lived to a ripe old age.

Talking movie stars, most are in their 50’s — then, today, always. You can wonder why this is as I have. One reason is well shown here: to have gravitas, a man needs to have lived awhile and show it. Wayne embodies that in his confidence, voice, cadence, and stride. Stewart not so much here, but then he mostly plays a younger, more naive man (before becoming senator).

An old post here, but you are confusing life expectancy with life span. Life expectancy was lower because of the very high mortality rates for infants and children. Once past puberty, an adult was likely to live to their seventies barring accident or disease. This has been true for all of recorded history. The human lifespan is about seventy, improving in the last century as medical science has improved. However child mortality was high do to disease, accident, and nutrition.

I know many people don't like biblical information. However, a lot of information on everyday life is reliable. Biblically, the lifespan of a man was three score and ten, 72.

On the one hand, Wayne and Stewart WERE too old for their roles. However, Doniphan and Stoddard were written around their established personas and no one else COULD have played those parts and have them mean what they do in the finished movie. John Wayne for the only time in a Ford film is doing "John Wayne", but the point Ford is making with the character is that a Wayne character is necessary for taming a frontier or winning a war but can't function in a settled environment. Stewart is resurrecting his 30s persona, with the point THERE being that he's as necessary to settling the West as Wayne is, but CAN function in a stable society. However, over time such a character is going to lose much of his former idealism.