How Brad Pitt has become a real-life Benjamin Button! The star turns 60 today but seems to be ageing in reverse

It is a truth universally if grudgingly acknowledged that there is a certain type of man who, like a fine wine, only gets better with age.

It is astonishing to think that Brad Pitt, who first made women and probably quite a few men sit up straighter in their cinema seats as the amoral cowboy in the feminist road movie Thelma & Louise, is 60 today. As his (almost) astral twin, I have to say that the Oscar-winning father of six wears his years extremely lightly.

It helps, of course, that he has kept his hair, and has not 'let himself go' in the paunch department. This may be due to the fact that he has given up drinking, and has apparently followed a vegan diet for the past six years. But his existence is not entirely joyless as there is a new woman in his life who is only 32. Perhaps she is keeping him young.

There may even have been a few tweakments; but if so they are of the discreet variety: not for Pitt the waxy sheen of Putin, Simon Cowell or Nicole Kidman — the last time I saw Pitt on screen in Babylon, all his facial muscles seemed to be moving.

I suspect the secret to Pitt's box-fresh at 60 status is down to good genes. I met him once on a film set when he was in his 30s and dating Gwyneth Paltrow. Unlike many film stars, who turn out to be tiny in real life, Pitt looks much the same off screen as on. He is tall, 6ft, and unlike many actors who look uncomfortable when not in character, he seemed very comfortable in his own skin.

Pitt once played Benjamin Button, a character who ages backwards after being born an old man, getting younger as the years pass, and his role seems quite prescient now.

In fact, having gone back to look at his performance in Thelma & Louise, I think I actually prefer him at 60 than at 30. In that film he looked like an angel who had drifted, but now the baby face is happily weathered and he looks gloriously human. He has also graduated from the unfortunate bumfluff period and has ditched the bucket hat.

Unlike Tom Cruise, who looks like a 60-something teenager, Brad Pitt has matured from boyish to manly.

Perhaps one of the reasons that Pitt still looks so good is that he is no longer involved with an actress. His first marriage to America's sweetheart Jennifer Aniston ended when Pitt fell in love with his co-star Angelina Jolie in Mr & Mrs Smith. They had three biological children together and adopted two more (she adopted one child before their relationship, who Brad later adopted). Their marriage famously ended in acrimony — and it seems likely that the marriage breakdown was precipitated by Pitt's drinking.

He has talked publicly about going to AA, and how he has found common ground with his co star in Legends Of The Fall, Anthony Hopkins, over their mutual addiction problems. But all this turmoil doesn't seem to have left a mark on Pitt's face. If by 60 a man has the face he deserves, then Pitt must have been extremely good in a past life.

Pitt's new squeeze Ines de Ramon is, apart from being 29 years younger, a jewellery designer, which sounds reasonably un-neurotic. The world loves a movie star combo like Brangelina, but the double dose of attention is a huge strain on the relationship unless one half of the duo is prepared to accept lower billing.

When Jolie and Pitt met they pretty much had equal billing as stars who could 'open' a movie, but while Pitt has gone on to do some of his best work since their split, and an Academy Award for his hilarious turn as a stunt man in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Jolie's last blockbuster was the Disney prequel to Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent in 2014.

To be married to someone who is as famous good-looking and ambitious as you are, is not likely to end well.

One of the few showbiz marriages that lasted the distance was between Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, because Woodward was not jealous of her husband's fame, and perhaps because he knew he wasn't going to do better than her. As he famously said, 'Why go out to eat, when you can have steak at home?'

I wonder if Pitt still considers himself a sex symbol at 60? For my generation of women he will always be in the top ten and he has aged much better than my other big crush, Russell Crowe.

I realise that I would be the first to howl with outrage if I were to read an article by a man that classified female stars by how well they are ageing.

Talking about Pitt in terms of his looks is demeaning and takes no account of acting skill, business acumen and formidable philanthropic clout, but I suspect that Pitt couldn't care less. If you are born with that level of genetic advantage as a man you probably don't worry too much.

I have met very few beautiful women who aren't at some level insecure about their attractiveness — as Rita Hayworth, the famous red-headed Hollywood star who played a vamp in Gilda said, 'They go to bed with Gilda, but they wake up with me.'

Beautiful men don't worry about being objectified in the same way because they know in their hearts that they deserve their good looks. It's a man thing.

So Happy Birthday Brad. Stick to the kale and enjoy your big day, safe in the knowledge that you've still got it. Maybe you are making a lot of midlife men insecure, but somehow I doubt it.