You assume he has dementia because he’s old and retired?

There seems to be a popular view nowadays that most old people grow to be senile (just look at any online discussion of old politicians for example). This is not the case!

	▲	Retric 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Old people do lose mental capacity just as they lose strength etc, dementia is a more extreme thing.

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HeinzStuckeIt 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Sad as it is, when stars from classic Hollywood stop being visible but are still known to be alive at a highly advanced age, dementia is often the case. Gene Hackman, Gene Wilder, and Jack Nicholson are notable cases, and I just assumed Beatty was similar.

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mattmaroon 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Do you think perhaps there is a sample bias because old actors who retire and don't have dementia don't get written about?

	▲	HeinzStuckeIt 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		By the time the actors I mentioned were written about as having dementia, many film fans had already assumed they were dealing with dementia precisely because they were no longer being written about or seen in the media much. Such speculation about Jack Nicholson, for example, was rife on film forums well before those paparazzi images appeared.