Brad Pitt just turned 60. He's the poster boy for Hollywood's shifting view on ageing

It’s hard to believe if you look at him, but Brad Pitt has just turned 60.

The Hollywood heartthrob celebrates his birthday on 18 December and is looking “better than ever,” according to the countless headlines about his youthful appearance.

While beauty standards have evolved tremendously since Pitt first graced the cover of People magazine as the “Sexiest Man Alive” in 1995, our obsession with beautiful people lives on.

And while there’s still a long way to go (the ‘sexiest men alive’ are still overwhelmingly white and thin), it’s encouraging that society is no longer shunning hot famous people the second they start getting a few wrinkles.

That said, Pitt is an interesting case study on ageing in Hollywood, as one of the quintessential sex symbols of the past decades.

As a young man, he became known for his rugged good looks despite himself, and his name became a synonym for handsome. (Remember Shania Twain’s iconic “That Don’t Impress Me Much”? When she teases a pretty boy suitor who did not impress her (much) by saying, “Ok, so you’re Brad Pitt…”?)

His love life became juicy tabloid fodder – Pitt and Jennifer Aniston ruled the early 2000s as one of Hollywood’s hottest couples, on par with Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. The media collectively lost it when he entered his Brangelina era after that – Pitt, Angelina Jolie and their children were swarmed by paparazzi at every turn.

But over the years, Pitt has shown he’s more than just a pretty face and love interest.

He proved he had acting chops in edgy cult classics like Fight Club and 12 Monkeys and became one of Quentin Tarantino’s golden boys with Inglorious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the latter of which earned him his first Academy Award for acting.

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