A pre-toupular combover.

Bill Shatner aged 25.

An interesting picture via a reader's tip from a program for the 1956 Stratford Shakespeare Festival (note: we've done some perspective correction, original via eBay here). At this festival, Christopher Plummer starred in Henry V with a young Bill Shatner performing a small role in the play and also serving as the actor's understudy. At three hours notice, Bill Shatner had to take over the title role when Plummer became ill, suffering from the effects of a kidney stone.


The actor recalls the incident in his biography Up Till Now:

"Could I go on that night? Replace Plummer in one of the greatest roles written for the stage? Absolutely. Without doubt. Of course. Clearly I was insane. I had never even said the lines out loud...It never occurred to me that I was risking my career - not that I actually had a career, of course - but if this turned out to be a debacle I was the one who was going to get the blame for it."

Bill Shatner's performance, full of highly original searching pauses (the actor was trying to remember his lines), won rave reviews. And the rest is history...

Christopher Plummer is deliberately photographed showing the contours of his scalp - a subtle message to his friend and colleague Bill Shatner?

Christopher Plummer and William Shatner would, of course, later be reunited in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).

Although a wig was already designed, Plummer insisted on appearing bald in ST:VI - another signal to his friend?

But back to the hair. The image underscores the thinning that appeared to kick in with great rapidity in 1956. We see the beginnings of a combover - fortunately, this style was not maintained as the hair began to really go in the ensuing years.

With a collation of empirical evidence, we can try to put together a time-line of toupular events:

-Up to the mid 1950s: Bill Shatner's hair is thick and plush. The young aspiring actor frequently takes to straightening out his curly hair.



-1955-66: The hair begins to thin rapidly. A bald patch becomes visible at the rear.

"All Summer Long" (1956).

Clever combing techniques begin to be used:


-1957: On-screen performances now require considerable intervention from hairstylists to bulk up the remaining hair. Roles that demand deviations from this - such as The Brothers Karamazov (1958, filmed 1957) - require wigs....


Underneath is this:


...Bill Shatner then grows his hair long in order to bulk up what remains.

"The Glass Eye" (1957)

-1958: The thinning reaches the point where hairstyling efforts become increasingly intricate and insufficient. Bill Shatner gradually and then decisively turns to the lace frontal hairpiece aka the "Jim Kirk lace".

"The Protégé" (1958).

-1958-1969: This single toupee style then sustains the actor for more than a decade.


As we discussed in our latest toupological analysis, there are still a few mysteries to do with the transition, but by in large, we think the time-line holds up.

Thanks to several readers for tips and pictures!