Flashback: Schwarzenegger and Stallone

   When I was a teenager back in the Dark Ages, Mae West would turn up on television once in a while, doing a guest spot on some comedy show like "Red Skelton" or "Mr. Ed". She was about 70 then, but she was still Mae West, posing provocatively with a hand on one hip in some anachronistic floor-length gown, and purring out what passed for risqué dialogue in the sanitized world of network TV. She was a gaudy testament to the combined power of chutzpah and cosmetics, too old, really, to be doing what she was doing, but shamelessly doing it anyway, a lacquered, tongue-in-cheek monument to herself. My mom always said that Mae West looked "well-upholstered." 
    A few months ago, I caught the trailer for the latest Sylvester Stallone movie, a beat-'em-up, shoot-'em-up actionfest called "Bullet To the Head". And there was Stallone, at 65 or thereabouts, hair blacker than coal at midnight, face close to immobile, bare arms an absurdly contoured relief map of bulging veins and muscles. He looked like a caricature of himself, a freak. 
    A few months before that, I caught Arnold Schwarzenegger on some TV talk show, doing P.R./damage control in the wake of a sex scandal that had brought about the breakup of his storybook marriage. And there was Arnold, at 65 or thereabouts, Grecian Formula hair perfectly groomed, skin all shiny and smooth, looking not quite as massive as in his body-building days, but still formidable enough for some nameless thug to give up his clothes and boots and motorcycle if Arnold asked for them. 
    And at some point it occurred to me: These guys are starting to look upholstered. 
    Growing old gracefully is not something all movie stars manage. Clint Eastwood seems to be doing it about as well as anybody, as long as he's not on stage at a political convention, talking to a chair. He's in his 80s now, and looks it, but genes, luck and a lifelong commitment to physical fitness appear to have paid off. He's also made a series of movies, starting 20 years ago with "Unforgiven", that have allowed him to grow older on screen gradually, reflecting on and often spoofing the aging process. 
    Meanwhile, Clint's contemporary, Burt Reynolds, has practically disappeared, the victim of one too many good-ol'-boy flicks ("Stroker Ace" usually gets the blame) and a shortage of suitable big-screen roles as he got into and beyond middle age. Charles Bronson, who was older than Burt and Clint, kept mowing down bad guys well into his 70s by sticking with a durable B-movie formula (infinite variations on "Death Wish") that allowed him to just go on being Charles Bronson.
    Bruce Willis, who's a few years younger than Sly and Arnold, hasn't hit Medicare eligibility yet, but he will. Willis has an advantage going forward that some action stars don't: He can act. "Die Hard" might be his meal ticket now, but he can also play comedy ("Moonrise Kingdom"), or creep you out ("Mortal Thoughts"), and he doesn't seem to mind taking smaller roles in movies that interest him. Also, he's already bald. Like Sean Connery, he can wear whatever hairpiece (or no hairpiece) a part requires. So he doesn't have the hair color issue to worry about. 
    Where does that leave Schwarzenegger and Stallone? It's not entirely clear. They're both established stars with iconic screen personas, but they're both pretty much doing what they were doing 30 years ago. At some point in the next few years, they're going to have to call it a career (as Connery and Gene Hackman have done), or figure out a way to act their ages while retaining the public's interest. So far, they seem to be avoiding both options, while looking more and more, well, upholstered.