  By relying on recently improved Hipparcos parallaxes for the Hyades, Pleiades
and Ursa Major clusters we find that stellar models with updated physical
inputs nicely reproduce the location in the color magnitude diagram of main
sequence stars of different metallicities. Stars in the helium burning phase
are also discussed, showing that the luminosity of giants in the Hyades,
Praesepe and Ursa Major clusters appears to be in reasonable agreement with
theoretical predictions. A short discussion concerning the current evolutionary
scenarios closes the paper.
