It's not true that people looked older than (sure nowadays Botox and other cosmetic surgery is pretty common among actors, but I usually don't think it makes them look younger only sort of "strange").
I think it was Thaw himself who once jokingly said that he was born looking like 50. Sid James would be another example of someone who always looked old.
People don't always look their age, there always are people who look a lot younger and some who look a lot older than they actually are. He was obviously one of the later. Surely one's lifestyle also has an influence (alcohol, smoking, too little sleep, too many worries, etc.) and his doesn't seem to have been the healthiest.
Plus not dying grey or white hair usually adds some years. Quite a lot of people have some, a lot or ompletely white hair - or are balding - before they are 40. Women usually dye theirs, but there have been some men whose hair went white while they were quite young and they didn't dye it e.g. John Inman, Peter Richardson, Nick Lowe, Steve Martin, James Coburn, Richard Gere, Bill Clinton, etc. and of course John Thaw.
But I guess it mostly has to do with ones DNA. My mother and my brother both had their first white hairs when they were teens and had completely white hair when they were 30 and both look older than they are - even with dyed hair some people mistake my mother for my father's mother because he (although he's actually older than her) on the other hand looks much younger than he is (and luckily so do I).
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