Die hardheaded? Aging action-hero stars hang on

"I'm too old to jump out of cars," laments John McClane in "Live Free or Die Hard." He kind of had to get out, what with the assault of automatic weapons shooting at him from a hovering helicopter.

Bruce Willis, who stars as McClane in the new fourth "Die Hard," is 52. Willis was 33 when the first, star-making "Die Hard" was released in 1988. Even he is realistic about how many more elevator shafts he can hurtle down.

"I don't bounce as well off the concrete floors as I used to," Willis told Vanity Fair. "There are those ouch moments that actually hurt. It gets really unfun on take two, you know?"

The Hollywood adage is: Men can age, women can't age at all. But the aging action star is something else. Audiences are willing to suspend disbelief, but they're not too comfortable seeing a kicked-in-the-head grandpa fight a phalanx of drug runners.

Apparently, Sylvester Stallone is not irked by any physical limitations. Last year, at 60, he released his sixth Rocky movie, "Rocky Balboa." Next year John Rambo returns in "Rambo 4."

Clint Eastwood, 77, knew better than to play a boxer in his last major screen role. He played a boxing trainer instead and was nominated for an Oscar in "Million Dollar Baby."

Sean Connery, 76, got out of the James Bond series when he was 40 ("Diamonds Are Forever"). But he returned in the unofficial Bond film "Never Say Never Again" 12 years later.

Connery's successor as Agent 007, Roger Moore, 79, hung on longer. He shot his Bond farewell, "A View to a Kill," when he was 57. It got a little embarrassing in the late going for Moore, because it was painfully obvious when the stuntman stepped in.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, who turns 60 next month, made "Terminator 3" when he was 55, then shifted to a new career path in politics. Presumably, that would count him out of "Terminator 4" in 2009.

One of the greatest test cases for audiences will come in May 2008 with the release of the fourth "Indiana Jones" movie. The film currently is shooting, and Harrison Ford, who turns 65 next month, has said he feels obligated to the character to perform most of the stunts.

Ford seemed perfectly fit 10 years ago throwing terrorists off a plane in "Air Force One" but looked a little grizzled last year in "Firewall." But now he's playing the whip-wielding Dr. Jones, who finds it even harder to die than John McClane.