Aging is weird, isn’t it?
I caught up on “Only Murders in the Building” this weekend, featuring the dynamic duo of Steve Martin and Martin Short. The comedic legends, now well into their 70s, are still paling around onscreen after more than three decades. In the show, Short and Martin play a mismatched pair of past-their-prime entertainers that end up getting hooked on solving murders while leaning into the fact that they are of an elder generation.
Martin Short, oddly enough, actually looks like the man in his 70s that he is. This is in stark contrast to his general public appearances, where you could easily mistake him for a man in his 40s. Of course, show-biz being show-biz, it’s hard to tell if they’ve “aged” Short up for the show or if make-up miracle workers are working overtime to maintain his youthful look in his off-screen appearances. Probably both, now that I think about it.
Steve Martin, meanwhile, looks more or less the same as he’s looked since the 1980s.
To confirm this, I had a long overdue re-watch of “Three Amigos,” which was one of my favorite movies as a child and also happens to be Martin and Short’s first collaboration (alongside Chevy Chase, who has definitely aged since his mid-80s heyday.)
It’s bizarre. Looking at the three of them you would never guess that they are all within eight years of each other, then or now.
Martin I think has benefited from going completely grey at some point in his 30s. Sporting a head full of silver hair since at least 1985, he got one of the most obvious signs of aging out of the way early, which I suppose has contributed to maintaining a static appearance for the last few decades.
Patrick Stewart has benefited, if you can call it that, from a similar phenomenon. Bald since his 20s, the now 81 year old actor hardly looks all that different on Star Trek today than he did when he began 30 years ago. Both Stewart and Martin looked like they were in their 60s while they were in their 40s and continue to look like they are in their 60s to this day.
Short, meanwhile, benefits from a baby face and perpetually looks at least a decade younger than he actually is. He was in his mid-30s when filming “Three Amigos” but you’d be forgiven for mistaking him for someone in their 20s. You certainly would never believe that he and Martin were only four years apart.
I can relate. I spent most of my 20s getting mistaken for a teenager. Oh sure, it’s a welcome ego boost every so often, but having to explain to people that I wasn’t writing for the high school newspaper got a little old after the second or third time it happened.
Even into my early 30s I would occasionally get carded at the store… for a lotto ticket.
Only recently, as I inch ever closer to 40, do I feel like my appearance is finally starting to catch up. A silver streak has appeared in my beard and more than a few grays are cropping up on my head. Put me in some glasses and a button-down shirt and I begin to look my age, which is weird because I’ll see my reflection when I’m out and about and not recognize myself. I feel like I’m wearing a disguise when I look like the middle-age adult I’m becoming.
But hey, maybe if I’m lucky I’ll have many years to get used to my new look.
Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and is still young at heart.
