You know a big reason there had been so many aging (mostly male) stars still headlining movies up into the 1970s was the movie attendance demographics were still largely consisting of adult rather than teen and younger ticket buyers. The great shift to a true youth culture at the movies began as early as the late 60s and came into force in the 70s with all the big blockbusters like Jaws, Close Encounters, Star Wars etc. Also of course the advent of all those boob, penis, vagina, and poop-joke teen romps, as well as the slasher films. Anyway, that "older" and "family-oriented" movie audience of all those preceding decades grew up with stars like Heston, Wayne et al so the studios kept feeding the masses the same actors even as they aged (not so well for some). When the male stars started out they were fairly comparable in age to their female leads but that gradually changed to quite ridiculous age gaps as aging actresses were replaced by younger starlets.
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OswaldshotKennedy
15 years ago
You are right, turtletommy, the audience changed dramatically in the 70's. Last night I had the unfortunate experience of having to watch a 70 year old Clint Eastwood trying to make boogie with a 23 year old lass in "True Crimes". Clint didn't look his age .... he actually looked to be about 127, which made it even worse! And this movie came out only 11 years ago.
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
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markedjuan
15 years ago
And there was Fred Astaire in The Towering Inferno. He was 20 years older than Jennifer Jones. This kind of casting happened way before the 70s. In 1957, Astaire was paired with Audrey Hepburn in the musical Funny Face. The age gap was 30 years.
In the 1961 comedy The Pleasure of His Company, Astaire's ex wife in the movie was played by Lili Palmer, who was 15 years younger. Palmer's second husband in the film, however, was played by Gary Merrill, who was a year younger than her.
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