Hair Loss

[Nobert]

Yes, he did wear a piece in At The Circus, and a pretty obvious one at that. I think that's the only one of the films he did it in, though. What makes it noteworthy for the show (I thought) is that they had already decided that he wasn't going to appear as the screen character, with the painted on mustache and the outfit (wearing the toupe may have been his concession for not wearing the full Groucho get-up).

 

[Stanley Doble]

Ah, a subject near and dear to my head.

My impression is that baldness was indeed more of a stigma back in the day, a flame fanned by the same bonfire builders of the ad world who made us live in dread fear of halitosis and b.o., from which we could be delivered by the benediction of products like Kreml and Jeris. The only bald guys you seem to see in silver screen movies are bankers, accountants, bumbling and doting old fathers, and other assorted nebbishes.

I know that Groucho wore a rug on You Bet Your Life, under pressure from the producers. If the producers were going to insist, he said, "then there will be the devil toupee."

Baldness was no stigma at all for most men. It was common place and accepted if you were no longer young.

That was a problem if you were in show business and played youthful roles. Hairpieces were not unknown among the population at large but were especially associated with actors.

There were restorative hair tonics and treatments but none did much good.

George Burns was probably the champion toupe wearer, at least in terms of longevity. He and Gracie Allen were known for their boy-girl flirtation act in Vaudeville, and he began wearing a toupe when he was 26 to preserve a youthful appearance. He wore them for more than 70 years.

Today a shaven head is an acceptable look, before 1960 it would be a sign you had just escaped from a prison or lunatic asylum.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Or were, in the case of a woman, a collaborator in wartime France.

As far as celebrity toupee-wearers go, Bing Crosby bitterly resented having to wear a "scalp doily" in his movies, and developed the habit of wearing a hat during his radio broadcasts so he wouldn't have to don one for the studio audience.

If the average man wore a hairpiece, he could count on people snickering about it behind his back. I knew a guy in radio who refused to admit to wearing a toupee, even though his real hair had turned grey and the rug was black. It looked like he was wearing a dirty pen-wiper on the top of his head.

 

[Zombie_61]

...If the average man wore a hairpiece, he could count on people snickering about it behind his back. I knew a guy in radio who refused to admit to wearing a toupee, even though his real hair had turned grey and the rug was black. It looked like he was wearing a dirty pen-wiper on the top of his head.

These are the people who have me shaking my head in wonder. A bad toupee is just as obvious as a bad dye job, and I have to wonder if they actually believe they're fooling anyone.

 

[Nobert]

These are the people who have me shaking my head in wonder. A bad toupee is just as obvious as a bad dye job, and I have to wonder if they actually believe they're fooling anyone.

My 11th grade math teacher strode into class one morning, his hair, which was usually dark chestnut, was suddenly raven black. Before any of us could say anything he turned to the class and said, "My wife bought the wrong bottle."

My notion that baldness was more looked down upon in times past was based on old magazine ads, but thinking about what Mr. Doble said, I suppose it's really no different from Rogaine or Hair Club for Men. I'm probably extrapolating from that to what I do get the sense was more of a dismissal towards eggheads and less obviously virile types in an era that loved its manly men. But that may not be connected to hair loss, specifically. It was probably worse in the 70s, when pretty boys with flowing locks became the popular ideal.

 

[Zombie_61]

My 11th grade math teacher strode into class one morning, his hair, which was usually dark chestnut, was suddenly raven black. Before any of us could say anything he turned to the class and said, "My wife bought the wrong bottle."

At my last place of employment I worked with a bunch of wisecrackers who weren't at all shy about good-natured ribbing when the occasion called for it. One of my co-workers, who already looked younger than his years, began dying the gray out of his hair when he started dating a woman who was more than a few years younger than he was. One Monday his hair was considerably darker than usual and, apparently, no one had commented on it, because while engaged in casual conversation just before lunch he suddenly said, "Okay, somebody say something about my hair!" lol

 

[Tomasso]

Magic!


http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4EjPi_MqO0U#

 

[Stearmen]

The ultimate, combover!

 

[Nobert]

Good Lord, that man appears to have actually been drawn by Dr. Seuss.

 

[LoveMyHats2]

The ultimate, combover!

Note whoever this Man is, his clothing is without a doubt off the rack from Lawrence Welk...

 

[Horace Debussy Jones]

The miracle of Shinola. Just hope ya don't get caught in the rain.

Magic!


http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4EjPi_MqO0U#

 

[Nobert]

Hmmf. I could go through one of those sticks like a sewer-worker through deodorant.

On another forum I was on someone once posted a list of interesting facts, one of which is that human hair is almost indestructible. I responded: "If my hair is so indestructible, then what the Hell happened to it?" Another member answered, "Same as mine, you just grew taller than it did."

 

[scottyrocks]

A number of years ago (the '80s, actually), I lived in an apartment building that backed a parking lot that housed a 'Hair Club.' I remember. any number of times, walking across the parking lot to head to a store near the Club, and seeing guys come out in their 'Members Only' jackets, looking like they were thinking they were the coolest thing since sliced bread. Meanwhile, they looked like they had a dead animal on top of their heads.

I am 'follically challenged' - have been since my mid-30s. In 1995, I had my head buzzed at a drunken July 4th party, and have kept it naked-buzzer-short ever since. I have always worn a hat of some sort, so no hair is not an issue.

Being bald means that I don't have to worry about shampoo and conditioner, but there is more face to wash.

Zombie, your post literally had me laughing.

Sheeplady, props to you for your positive attitude, and strength keeping the 'Big C' at bay.

 

[gear-guy]

I am 'follically challenged' Same here Scotty and enjoy every minute of it. Years ago when I had hair I wouldn't wear a hat because it messed up my hair, now it's great, no hat hair. Sheeplady wonderful thoughts and attitude. I lost my dad after two bouts of cancer and he also kept a great attitude like yourself.

 

[Nobert]

Myself, I'm determined to hold onto whatever I've got left for as long as it lasts. "Do not go quietly into that bald night..."

 

[gear-guy]

View attachment 8848

Myself, I'm determined to hold onto whatever I've got left for as long as it lasts. "Do not go quietly into that bald night..."

:eusa_clap

 

[1mach1]

Not that I don't wish I had Cary Grant hair, but I will say that wearing a hat doesn't mess up your do!

 

[Edward]

Sheeplady - I hope your recovery continues to go well.

To be without hair today is far less dramatic than before. A lot of young, and younger men shave their head in order to have it short in accordance to high fashion standard. This is what I see in Europe, and among my younger working fellows, friends and comrades.

Shaving it off completely is certainly easier now that it would have been thirty years ago. I have the impression - but I could well be wrong, looking at it from the outside - that it didn't have the samed stigma for black men, but thirty years ago anyone who didn't take me for ex-military (and even many woh did) would have written me off as a racist skinhead. Then along came the nineties, and the average skinhead was as likely to lead you into a gay club as a far right meeting if you followed him. lol For all he's not my style, David Beckham really mainstreamed the look, and over tim,e it's no longer an issue. For my generation, and really since the mid nineties, it has become the norm once you go bald, with the bald on top / hair on back and sides of our parents' generation being regarded in the same way as they would have the sweepover. I always said I'd go for the full shave, though it came to me a good ten years earlier than I'd expected. I realised I was losing my hair when I was only twenty-eight, and four years of shorter and shorter buzzcuts followed before a number one twice a week was no longer hiding it... at that point, I went for the full shave. My only regret is that I didn't do it much sooner. Never looked back. I don't miss hair at all. I doubt, tbh. I had a bit of anxiety about it before I shaved.... after that, zip. I doubt it'd have bothered me to go bald but for the fact that it only goes on the top (seriously, nature, what the hell are you thinking with that??).

I remember that episode. I wonder if a lot of people then really did. My dad's convinced a lot of men in the seventies did. There also appears, from photos, that a lot of men just dealt with baldness and just worked with what hair they had left.

I think the latter is much more likely.

When I was a teenager in the 80's I often wore a trilby and my mum told me off, saying it 'will make you go bald'.

My mother used to make the same wild claims, but then she's fallen for a lot of old nonsense overf the years. Echinea tablets was just one thing...

And losing my hair is what prompted me to wear a hat regularly, not the other way around. A hat has now become an indepsensible piece of wardrobe functionality to keep my head from either freezing or suffering the most miserable sunburn one can imagine.

I went vintage a good year or so after I started shaving my head. I began wearing a cap regularly through the winter as an undergraduate because in Belfast by the time there was enough rain to be bothered with an umbrella, it was invariably so windy it wasn't worth the hassle. What changed as my hair thinned was that I wore a hat regularly into the Summer, with a brim to keep it off my neck. Partly for sensible reasons, but mostly because I've always hated tanning. (Generally I try not to go outside in July and August if its at all avoidable. I dearly wish the British Summer was as "bad" as so manyl ike to claim!).

i must say... it's much harder to find vintage photographs of bald men (and i don't mean just because they're wearing hats to cover it up)... men back then seemed to have fuller hair later in life.
i wonder if baldness is increasing with our modern (stressful) lifestyle and extended life spans ?

As a rule, I don't buy the notion that life is so stressful now, and in those simpler times everyone was always chilled out.... It is, however, a fact (saw some research to this effect some years ago) that my generation, Generation X (born November 63-May 77) are losing our hair, on average, ten years earlier than our parents. Premature male pattern baldness is also extremely common in academia, oddly enough.

Toupees and hair pieces were mainly for show business. It was about the only area where going bald made a difference. Men wore their hair short, and when they went bald they went bald. Some tried the comb over. A better solution was to just cut your hair short and ignore it.

And we all thought the media's youth-fixation was "modern".... Shatner was wearing a rug even in the original Star Trek TV days.

Exactly - one of the big advantages of hat wearing.

In true Cockney style: "Better a titfer than a syrup!"

Debateable.... Jack "the Hat" McVitie was so-called because he wore a hat even indoors, to hide his bald spot. It wasn't a cool gangster nickname: they were mocking him.

 

[skydog757]

To paraphrase George Castanza " I am not bald, I am balding!"

 

[Seb Lucas]

I think a short buzz cut looks fine if you are balding. Not keen on a shaven head. Only a few men look good that way. You need to have a tan and a good head shape. A number one or two looks better in my view.

Actors certainly wore wigs in the golden era but few of them wore them at home, I don't think Sinatra, Bogart, Astaire, Harrison, Wayne, or even Connery ever wore a piece in their real life. Wearing them was about an era wherein bankable stars did not go bald. Sad.