Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Bill Shatner on women's hair.


Bill Shatner, touped-up, in a 1959 magazine story.

Bob Schnakenberg's Encyclopedia Shatnerica (click here for more on this book) features an interesting quote from Bill Shatner in its "Women" sub-category. A 1968 interview with the magazine Photoplay is sourced, in which Bill Shatner discusses his taste in women. "I am definitely in favor of the long hair trend in women," he states, adding "One of the glories of being a woman is long, luxuriant hair, whether it is used to run barefoot through or tie in pigtails." Shats then turns to the subject of a woman's appearance: "A girl who is particularly well built should wear miniskirts, if she has the right legs. If not, she should consider getting clothes to overcome these defects, not show them off for all to see."


The first sentiment is fair enough - a personal preference for long-haired women (a touch of jealousy perhaps?). However, it's when Bill Shatner turns towards the overall subject of how women should look that he arguably goes off the rails a little. Some of our female readers will probably find the latter comments to be outrageously sexist - we don't disagree - the only possible caveat being that they were made in 1968, not 2009.

But far more interesting from our point-of-view is the unwitting approach to imperfection that Bill Shatner reveals in the miniskirts comment. A woman with less-than-perfect legs should, according to Bill Shatner, "consider getting clothes to overcome these defects, not show them off for all to see." The word "defect" is a particularly strong choice of words - yet that is likely how Bill Shatner viewed his own baldness too. And in Bill Shatner's view, such defects should be covered up at all costs, both to protect others from their hideousness, and also to presumably protect the deformed person from utter humiliation.

Repulsive reality?

This belies an apparently very strong emotional reaction by Bill Shatner to his own hair loss. We know that when he was young, Bill Shatner in effect betrayed his father by choosing acting over the family clothing business. Perhaps as Bill Shatner went bald, echoes of being like his bald father, having to return home a failure because of his "inherent flaws" created a particularly strong psychological complex in him. Baldness was Joseph the clothier, not Bill the leading man.

A young Bill Shatner (left) with his father (top right).

On an interesting side-note, when, following the death of Michael Jackson, his friend Uri Geller was asked about the subject of Jackson's plastic surgery, Geller noted that he had once asked the singer why he was altering his face - "I just don't want to look like my father" Jackson told him candidly. Now, obviously Jackson's reaction to his face was a myriad times stronger than Bill Shatner's ongoing hair complex. And it could just be that Bill Shatner is stuck in the 1940s in terms of how "the star" should protect his image. Yet, we don't think it entirely out of place to try to understand the possible psychology behind words such as "defect" or the motivations behind the shabby surely-baldness-would-be-better-than-this "lost years" toupees from the mid-seventies.

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UPDATE: A commenter asked how old Joseph Shatner was in the above picture. We understand that Joseph Shatner was born in Austria on 31st May 1898. He died in Florida 17th January 1967. Since Bill Shatner was born in 1931, and he is about five in the above family picture (which also features mother Anna Garmaise Shatner 1908-1992 and one of his sisters Joy or Farla) that would make Joseph approximately 39 years-old, which is roughly how old Bill Shatner was during the end of Star Trek's run.

11 comments:

  1. In his autobiography Up Till Now, Shat relates how Yul Brynner kept kicking him in the pants on the set of The Brothers Karamazov. Could Brynner have been trying to get a message through to Shat through this physical bullying - that even though he was bald, Brynner would not yield to a young upstart just because they had hair?

    This could have reinforced the Shatner father/son dynamic in BillShat's mind. Brynner was the father figure and the idea that if Shat were to be successful as an actor he must not succumb to baldness if he wanted to retain his own sense of independence and identity.

    This may also explain why Shatner felt the need to ingratiate himself with another father figure in the person of Spencer Tracy (who had a full head of hair into his older years). That Tracy so thoroughly rejected Shat had to have been traumatic for the young actor. A non-bald senior actor giving Shat the brush-off had to make BillShatner question his own legitimacy and may have contributed to Shatner's insecurities that were to develop over the following years...

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  2. Looking at that family photo, even Shat's mother had thin hair in front. Young Bill's descent into future baldness was inevitable.

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  3. How old was Bill's father in this picture? Someone ought to photoshop the top of Bill's father's head in this picture, and place it on Shat's head at the corresponding age.

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  4. Thanks for your comment "anonymous" - we'll try to track down a date of birth for Joseph Shatner.

    We've been trying to ask commenters to sign themselves with a username, just so everyone has an idea of who is saying what. In the "comment as" tab below, you can select "Name/URL" and write in a username - anything you want. Thanks so much! -ST

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  5. At 39 I think that Bill had even less hair than his father. Don´t forget. The constant use of the toupee should have killed all the remaining chunks of hair

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  6. How do you run barefoot through long hair? That sounds kind of painful!

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  7. It likely Bill had no hair on the top of his head by 39. In pictures from the early 70's, his forehead appears to have a very smooth look, while the toupees appear very unnaturally thick.

    I'm sure stress was a factor too. He had just gone through a divorce, his TV show had been cancelled, he had no money.

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  8. Like most things in life its not the crime that gets you in trouble but the coverup. If we had a bald Shat, sans toup, this page would not exist. The real joy, the thing that makes its all worthwhile is the wonderful variety of toups sported over the years. Let's focus less on hairloss and more on these wonderful pieces, the inuendo, the outright lies that have been told denying these rugs ever exisited. That my friends is why we are all here

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  9. To see some photos (and a lot of data) on Shatner's ancestors, go to http://home.comcast.net/~pschattner/Schattner.html

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  10. wow his ancestors in those pics had a lot of hair! Too bad the Shat didn't get those genes...

    BTW I remember reading an interview or something fairly recently with the Shat were he admitted how sexist he used to be, saying that his first divorce was entirely his fault because of his sexism --- in those days, he believed (he now admits wrongly) that because he was the primary breadwinner, he could completely dictate what went on within the marriage and within his family.

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  11. It likely Bill had no hair on the top of his head by 39. In pictures from the early 70's, his forehead appears to have a very smooth look, while the toupees appear very unnaturally thick.

    I'm sure stress was a factor too. He had just gone through a divorce, his TV show had been cancelled, he had no money.

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