I was watching It's a Wonderful Life last night, as one does, and a couple of things occurred to me about the actors' ages.
Of course, Jimmy Stewart is too old to be playing 21-year-old George Bailey , but I can forgive that, since he has to also play fully adult George. That's not the problem.
In 1928, when Harry graduates from high school and their father has a stroke and dies... how old is Pop supposed to be? As a parent of high school- and college-age young men in the early 20th century, you'd think he could be as young as maybe 42, more likely something like mid-50s, maybe...
But Samuel Hinds (right), the actor who played Peter Bailey, was born in 1875 and was at least 70 years old when the movie was shot. Okay, sure, that's still possible. He would have been almost 50 when George was born.
Meanwhile, Thomas Mitchell, the actor who played Peter's brother, Uncle Billy (left), is said to be 55 years old when the movie takes place in 1946 (18 years later) — which means Billy would have been only 37 in 1928:
But brother Peter looked like he was (and actually was) 70 years old at the time
Of course, this is possible if they were real people and were half-brothers, but it's more likely just a weird artifact of casting the actors Frank Capra wanted to cast.
In reality, Thomas Mitchell/Uncle Billy was 54 when the movie was shot. He was made to look a bit older in the film (since he was only 16 years older than Jimmy Stewart).
Fun facts about Mitchell:
- he played Scarlett O'Hara's father in Gone with the Wind (a movie I've never seen),
- his nephew was Secretary of Labor under Dwight Eisenhower, and
- he was the first male actor to win an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony Award
You never know what you'll find when you start reading Wikipedia pages.
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