What do you think is the worst sin you can commit in showbiz and especially film and television? No it is not getting caught with a lady or gent of the night, taking drugs or being drunk. True, in the Hollywood of yesteryear that could have finished your career but today that can even enhance your popularity.

The biggest sin is to grow or look old. For some reason it is assumed that the public prefer those on screen to be perfect with a full head of hair, no wrinkles, white teeth and a slim figure. The fact that the vast majority of us do not match up seems not to be the point.

This is not new and I recall chatting to the late Oscar winner Ray Milland many years ago.

Ray told me: "I started my career, almost by chance, at Elstree Studios in the silent era of movies and a Hollywood scout spotted me and I was whisked off to Hollywood to become a romantic leading man. By 1949 I was losing my hair but the studio insisted I wore a wig. Eventually in 1970 I threw it away when I was cast as the father in the huge hit Love Story and afterwards my career flourished playing grumpy old men in guest star roles."

Ray was not alone in using hairpieces to please the public, with others including Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Sean Connery and Humphrey Bogart. Would you have accepted them going bald?

I loved John Wayne's comment when he attended a university in America and a student shouted out, knowing he wore a wig: "Is that real hair?" The Duke replied in an instant "Yes, it is real hair but it just happens not to be mine."

Stars of television such as Simon Cowell openly admit to using regular botox injections to remove wrinkles but why the need to cling to youth rather than embrace age?

Some stars of yesteryear decided to bow out at the top as they were unwilling to play the game of pretending they were the same as they had been 20 years before. They included legendary tinseltown names such as William Powell, Greta Garbo, James Cagney and Cary Grant.

However, if you decide to continue, why should you have to embrace plastic surgery to pretend to be younger? I suspect we all can name celebrities who look like they have just stepped out of a wind tunnel or who cannot register emotion on their faces. Sadly for them their necks and hands often betray the real passing of time.

I like stars such as Harrison Ford who looks his age and has earned a few wrinkles in becoming perhaps the most popular star of all time, in regard to the box office receipts of his films.

I met Tom Cruise about 20 years ago and he is a good looking chap. However the last time I saw him recently on television at an awards ceremony he looked, shall we say, different. Still good looking but perhaps not embracing the passing of years, or perhaps that is me being jealous.

In the UK I am told a quarter of the population is now over 60 years old. However, film and television tends to be run by young people. They seem to have been reared on the idea that age is a dirty word rather than embracing reality, that it comes to us all and should be reflected on screen.

Personally I have lost most of my hair, what is left including my tash is grey and my waist is two sizes too large. My teeth are not perfect but who the hell cares? I am relying on the preservative powers of alcohol and like to think of my wrinkles as laughter lines. So until next week my fellow travellers down Memory Lane, cling on to the wreckage!