To err is human...

An interesting set of photographs (sourced here and here) of Bill Shatner visiting the US Tennis Open with his then wife Marcy Lafferty in September 1987. Interesting because they show a rare noticeable flaw in the "TJ Curly" exposing an area of scalp that hitherto toupologists (and philosophers) have only dreamed of being able to see.


Perhaps one of the most common critiques of Bill Shatner's last three major toupee designs (the "Lost Years", "TJ Curly" and "Denny Katz") is that the very thickness and perfection of follicular distribution presented by Bill Shatner (the subject) negates the possibility that they can truly be taken as real by us (the objects).

This presents something of a inverse and even paradoxical relationship. The subject assumes that the degree to which the toupee is taken as being real is directly tied to its perceived perfection. While for the object, the converse is true - it is that very perfection and excessive thickness which actually detracts from the believability of the toupee.

So what happens when there's a flaw?


Again, an inverse and contradictory relationship appears to present itself. For the subject there is probably alarm and dread - the very imperfection of the toupee could lead to the illusion being shattered. But for the objects, the reverse is true. The presence of a visual flaw actually increases the believability factor - the hair ends up looking more, not less like real hair instead of a toupee.


As to what exactly went wrong here, it is difficult to say. Or might it have been deliberate? Our staff are currently studying the position of the Sun relative to Bill Shatner's seat on that day. Could the actor have been deliberately blinding one of the players by tilting down and reflecting the Sun off this smooth, hairless piece of deliberately exposed scalp? Note this section of a report on the play that took place on September 12th 1987:

"Mecir broke Wilander's service seven times. But the usually consistent Czech made an incomprehensible 69 unforced errors to just 17 by Wilander." [emphasis ours]

Artist's impression of Czechoslovakian (now Slovak) tennis player Miloslav Mecir blinded by an unknown reflection.

Clearly there is so much more to study here...

Bill Shatner - looking guilty?

UPDATE:

Extreme close-up of the patch.

Two additional pictures of the same occasion via Getty (sourced here and here) show a rather famous celebrity - Johnny Carson - sitting to Bill Shatner's left. But perhaps more importantly, they appear to confirm that Bill Shatner's "hair" was indeed suffering from dampness on this day (perhaps sweat, perhaps rain...).


But do these images - showing the toup in a rare moment of excessive and prolonged public exertion - perhaps reveal even more? Notice what appears to be a real hair line at the sides covered by the toup:



Is the same "glue line" phenomenon perhaps visible at the top too (exacerbated by the damp conditions)?

As to the question of whether this is still a toup, we believe the styling of the hair at the top sides in the above image is pretty strong evidence that it is. We also examined Getty's previous April 1987 image of Bill Shatner and compared it with a subsequent image of Bill Shatner from Jan 1988. Both, we would argue, show very strong signs that the "TJ Curly" era continued pretty unabated here (with obvious room for some stylistic variations).

But we always try to be strictly scientific rather than dogmatic here and warmly embrace evidence that may suggest different conclusions...

Bill Shatner in January 1988.