why did bilbo age so drastically yet gollum didint

[Rasputin]

well,i'd say gollum did age drastically (hundreds and hundreds of years). But when bilbo was seperated from the ring he seemed to immediatly become old and frail. but gollum was seperated from it for years and didnt die! is it because the ring has some sort of lasting effect on people or something?

[blacksilmaril]

when gollum had the ring, Sauron did not know it, not for a very long time. When Bilbo saw the ring, Sauron knew it was out there and the ring want to get back was far stronger. The ring did still have a bad effect on Bilbo, and you cannot know how quickly Smeagol was affected. smilies/eek.gif

[The Barrow-Wight]

Bilbo had the Ring for 50 years, was less affected by it because of his wonderful Baggins nature, and it still took him 20 years after losing it to become truly old.

Gollum had the Ring for more than 500 years, was absolutely possessed by it, and had been seperated from it for only 70 years (a much smaller percentage when you compare it against Bilbo). With such 'mutations' by the Ring, if he could have survived so long without it (and assuming it remained in existence), Gollum might have taken more than 200-300 years before the Ring's effects wore off to the point where he aged so much.

*** Do not confuse the movie aging of Bilbo with that of the books. In the movies, Bilbo fell apart in the span of seemingly only a few months.... and a year later he was almost dead. ****

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Gollum is described in the text to appear old at at least one point. Also, because he had the Ring for so long, he already looked rather 'strange' and so it may be hard for any observers to focus on how old he looked, rather than how strange he looked.

[Lord of Angmar]

*** Do not confuse the movie aging of Bilbo with that of the books. In the movies, Bilbo fell apart in the span of seemingly only a few months.... and a year later he was almost dead. ****

Yes, that is a very good point, since a 17-year time gap between the Long Expected Party was never even implied in the movies. He did have more than four years in the movie to reach the final dicrepid state he was in in the Grey Havens scene, but that is not nearly as much as in the books.