Sylvester Stallone

He is 61, but refuses to fade. Hollywood hunk Sylvester Stallone, who took the 80s generation by storm with the blockbuster franchises of Rocky and Rambo, is going great guns despite the grey. Following a lean patch after Cliffhanger and Demolition Man in the 90s, Stallone proved to the world why he is considered one of the biggest action stars of all time, bouncing back with two biggies. Rocky Balboa — the final installment of the series in which Rocky comes out of retirement to step into the ring one last time — was a huge commercial hit, and also won critical acclaim. Sly followed it up with Rambo IV in January 2008 — another box office success. But the war vet is now ready to hang up his boxing gloves and settle into the director’s chair, with a biopic on Edgar Allan Poe.

 

Jack Nicholson

Jack Nicholson, 70, has three Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and a Screen Actors Guild award stashed away somewhere. Only Meryl Streep beats (by one) his 12 acting nominations at the Oscars. From his early work like Chinatown, Easy Rider, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and The Shining to more recent films like As Good As It Gets, A Few Good Men, About Schmidt and The Departed, Jack remains the big boy of Hollywood. And there is just something about Jack that makes him cooler than the little boys of today — and the old guys too, such as Harrison Ford, who seem to be stuck in a time warp. That might be why no Academy Awards ceremony is over till the host has made a joke about the Joker. And ol’ Jack-out-of-the-box always laughs longest and hardest. He’s vintage.

Paolo Maldini

He is 40, going on 41; they are 18 going on 19. And yet, the AC Milan senior citizen keeps tackling those teenagers, year after year. It’s been a decade since most of his peers put those ageing, aching feet up and decided that the best way to enjoy a football match was to watch it. Try telling that to Maldini as he sweats it out in the middle for yet another crunch match. He has played them all and won it all, but for Paolo Maldini there are no full stops.

 

 

Helen Mirren

Anyone who saw Helen Mirren, 63, stride on stage during the 2008 Academy Awards would forget that she had any part to play in the yawn that was National Treasure 2. She radiates style, from head to toe, and what is more rare, grace. After a relatively low-profile career in which she was prolific on stage and the small screen, Helen was catapulted into the big league with her incredibly sensitive portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, which won her the Oscar in 2007. There are many more films to come — and, we are sure, stellar red-carpet appearances too.

 

 

Amitabh Bachchan

The mandatory four or more films a year, a dozen brand endorsements and regular off-screen appearances make the 65-year-old Bachchan (sorry Abhishek, when we write Bachchan, we mean your old man, your biwi’s ‘Pa’) more active now than ever before. Screen buddies Rajesh Khanna and Shashi Kapoor, Dharmendra and Vinod Khanna are in various stages of retirement, but Amitabh Bachchan is like an Amaron battery — lasts long, very long (ting tong!). Whether he is romancing a 19-year-old in Nishabd or playing an ageing casanova in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, Aby — baby no more — can carry it all off. And let’s face it, when he and bahu Aishwarya Rai Bachchan do a Kajra re, you really do believe the baritone as it yells out to her, “Madam, I am your only Adam!”

 

 

Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen was so cool when he sang Born in the USA that they called him “The Boss”. And he is as cool still — albeit in a more mellow, age-embracing way. At 58, he is touring with the E Street Band to promote his latest album, Magic. He had a three-Grammy haul in 2008, Radio Nowhere winning him the best solo rock vocal performance and best rock song awards and Once Upon a Time in the West earning the best rock instrumental performance award. That takes his total Grammy tally up to 18, to which you can add an Academy Award for Streets of Philadelphia. Music apart, Springsteen is known for his liberal political views — anti-war, anti-Bush and anti-nuclear power — that he isn’t afraid to air, going as far as to perform in the 2004 Vote For Change concerts, which had hoped to oust the Bush administration.

Sharon Stone

So maybe she isn’t hotter than she was back in those days, but she is still quite a scorcher. The 50-year-old star is of course best known for uncrossing her legs in Basic Instinct, sending a shudder of shock and awe across the globe. Basic Instinct 2 may have failed to ignite the same passion, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Sharon would reportedly have bared even more of her sexy self if she had had her way. And now she wants to direct and star in Basic Instinct 3. But not just for her formidable sex appeal does Sharon make it to this list — in films like Casino, Intersection and the HBO movie If These Walls Could Talk, she has proved that she can act. And that’s a Sharon we’d love to see more of now.

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