Seeing Jane Fonda portraying a grandmother -- and of Lindsay Lohan, no less -- made me sit up and take notice.

Impossible. I still see Miss Fonda as 19 and visiting Pittsburgh to be the grand marshal for an Easter parade.

Yes, more than a few years ago.

I remember she had difficulty deciding what hat she should wear.

That alone tells you time waits for no one. Who wears hats today? What's an Easter parade?

These aging stars have to suck in their tummies -- or not -- just like the rest of us. I include Miss Jane, although she makes it look easier than it is for most of us.

The Fondas, the MacLaines, the Fields, the Keatons. They're us!

In the movie "Georgia Rule," Jane Fonda is grandma. This grandma wears jeans and has beautiful hair to her shoulders, but she also reveals wrinkles and crinkles. She'll be 70 in December.

In the film, Miss Fonda is mother to current popular actress Felicity Huffman, who in turn has the role of mother to Lindsay Lohan, yet another generation who may or may not make it past her 20s to portray, or be, a mother herself some day.

I'm suddenly aware of one-time leading ladies who have moved on. Here are others:

There's real-life grandma Polly Bergen, now 77, who was introduced in the season finale of TV's "Desperate Housewives," as the mother of the same Felicity Huffman.

Before this "Housewives" role came along she played the mother of 40-something Geena Davis on the short-lived series "Commander in Chief."

Diahann Carroll, 73, was Isaiah Washington's mom on TV's "Grey's Anatomy." What a beauty. She was once a leading lady.

Diane Keaton, 61, is always somebody's mother, although she's still a leading lady -- albeit a mature one -- in "Something's Got to Give" with Jack Nicholson.

She was also a convincing mom to a brood of grown-up children in "The Family Stone," in which current young star Sarah Jessica Parker was featured.

Will Miss Parker be playing mature moms on the screen some day?

What about Sally Field, 60, as the mother of five grown children in TV's "Brothers and Sisters"?

Is it possible Gidget is now cast as moms and Nanas? Yes, it's possible. She's also doing commercials for Boniva to combat the brittle bone disease of osteoporosis. That tells you something.

Sissy Spacek, 62, was Charlize Theron's mother in "North Country." Barbra Streisand, 65, is cast in mother roles, too.

One of the best and most beautiful, Gena Rowlands, 77, took on mother roles years ago with a vengeance, mothering (and beautifully) such stars as Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock in two films I can think of.

Meryl Streep, 58, plays an even older mother in the current film "Evening," in which her real-life daughter plays her as a young girl.

Angela Lansbury, 81, noticed first as the ingenue in "Gaslight," is also cast in mother roles today, not to mention her longtime role of Jessica Fletcher in the TV series "Murder She Wrote."

Shirley MacLaine, 73, a personal favorite, has mothered current movie cuties Cameron Diaz and Toni Colette and, memorably, Debra Winger, in "Terms of Endearment."

More recently we saw Shirley Jones, 73, move from the ingenue role of Laury in "Oklahoma" (1955) to the character role of Aunt Eller in the CLO production. She was just 36 when she was mother to the young Partridge brood on TV.

It seems like yesterday.

Recently Paul Newman, now 82, announced he was probably through with acting, a sad thing to hear. He said 50 years was enough. "Your memory isn't as good," he admitted. His wife, Joanne Woodward, 77, has also reached the age for older roles. She was wonderful in "Philadelphia" as Tom Hanks' mother.

A few years ago Newman was cast as the weather-beaten dad of Kevin Costner in "Message in a Bottle."

And Mr. Costner's time is coming. He's 52. Once a leading man, he is now moving into the older male roles, much as James Garner, 79, did (he was even grandpa on a TV series), among many others. Sean Connery, 76, left his James Bond role to be Harrison Ford's father in the "Indiana Jones" films.

Time waits for no one, certainly not actors, male or female.

Some, like those mentioned, do it with ease and grace. I wonder who among the so-called "stars" of today will do it as well.

I am in awe of the actors who have made it this far and still delight us and are unafraid to show their age. To be working at all is a good thing.

Age is just a number. But seeing them reminds us: Numbers are adding up.

That's our generation up there. That's the reality. We're looking at us.