Bogart's Face

[wackyvorlon]

Something I find interesting, is that a lot of these 'hunks' from the 40s and 50s, are actually rather funny looking. For example, Fred Astaire. Generations of women have swooned over him. But he was balding and had an oddly shaped face.

By no means what many today would consider handsome. But, Audrey Hepburn(most beautiful woman to ever live, IMHO) even had a cardboard cutout of him in her bedroom, with grey flannel applied to it. That's something. All his attractiveness came from within.

 

[The Wingnut]

Many of the stars of Hollywood's golden age wouldn't have a fighting chance in today's Hollywood. I still think Bogie was an attractive guy, and so was Fred Astaire. Society has taken star worship to such a level that they expect perfection from them...most of Hollywood is populated by the 'beautiful people', the rest are character actors and people whose personalities are so bizarre that they've been able to become stars on that merit.

I'd like to see that book.

 

[Doctor Strange]

This kind of thing happens in waves - recall that a number of stars emerged in the 60s and the 70s who were also kind of homely, average-looking folks: Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Richard Dreyfuss, etc. None of them could become stars in today's youth-and-beauty-obsessed world: they'd be considered character actors.

I'd like to think the pendulum will eventually swing away from the superficial attitude of today and back to substance-over-style becoming acceptible again, but it seems awfully unlikely!