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Six Movies With Actors Too Old For Their Roles

By Matt Prigge

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted May. 11, 2010

Song of Bernadette (1943): Classic Hollywood had a strange habit of casting adults as girls. Ingrid Bergman did Joan of Arc at 33, Norma Shearer played Juliet at 34 (opposite a 35-year-old Romeo) and Greer Garson was Elizabeth Bennett at 35. And as the 14-year-old who saw 18 visions of the Virgin Mary, there was 24-year-old Jennifer Jones, winning her Oscar.

Lord Love a Duck (1966): Adults will always none-too-convincingly play high-schoolers; currently, 90210 has 31-year-old Trevor Donovan. And while most point to 33-year-old Stockard Channing in Grease as this trend’s nadir, the record is Roddy McDowall, 38, playing a mischevious student.

Ando Noboru No Waga Tobou To Sex No Kiroku (1976): In Private Parts, Howard Stern mocked the idea of the 43-year-old shock jock playing himself in college. Even he had nothing on Noboru Ando. A yakuza in his teens, he switched careers after a prison stint and became an actor. In a series of films he made about his yakuza days, he stars as himself despite being middle-aged. In this installment, Ando relives the 35 days before his arrest, which he spent fucking everything that moved.

The Wiz (1978): Judy Garland was, at 17, a touch old to play a pigtailed Dorothy Gale. Diane Ross was twice that age in the all-black musical version.

Sorority Boys (2002): Collegiate students have about as good a track record as high-schoolers. Dustin Hoffman was a 31-year-old Graduate (seduced by a 36-year-old Anne Bancroft). But Harland Williams, in this cross-dressing yukfest, was about to turn 40.

Robin Hood (2010): Aware of how ridiculous it was to have a 45-year-old Robin Hood—the same age of which Sean Connery portrayed an aging version of the bandit in 1975’s Robin and Marian—Russell Crowe went on a crash diet. But, hey, at least he has the accent.