The toups of happy chance...

Image sourced via eBay.

An interesting outlier toupee (toupees outside of the major categories such as the "Jim Kirk lace" or "Lost Years") from an original television play called The Skirts of Happy Chance starring William Shatner and Elizabeth Ashley. The play was televised on Wednesday May 28th 1969, five months after Bill Shatner filmed his last ever original series episode of Star Trek.

We couldn't find much out there on this particular project. Imdb.com doesn't list Bill Shatner among the stars for some reason. Time magazine's archives note that: "Workers on the committee of an antipoverty project include a war hero (William Shatner) and a poor girl (Elizabeth Ashley) who fall in love while dealing with politics and urban responsibility. The play's title: '... The Skirts of Happy Chance...' ".

Elizabeth Ashley in 1969 - image via eBay.

While this website notes that: "On NBC’s Wednesday night movie this week - William Shatner and Elizabeth Ashley in 'The Skirts of Happy Chance.' 'She’s an uncompromising rebel who thinks a woman’s place is on the picket line. He’s a well-meaning liberal who feels that her place, if not in the home, is across a table of a restaurant.' " Google's news archives have some more detailed (negative) reviews, for example here and here.


The toup seems at little gnawed-at at the front, but other than that it doesn't look too bad. It is rather similar in appearance to the one in the previous year's TV movie Perilous Voyage.

Perilous Voyage (1968).

Is it the very same toup? We think it is possible. Time and time again, we see a toupee premiering on one project then returning for another (did this one make a brief comeback as late as 1977?). The implications? What do we all often do with hotel towels? Enough said...


UPDATE: Reader "tintorera" observed (and linked to the below picture) that the above toup may have also been used in 1969's CBS Playhouse: "Shadow Game", which aired just a few weeks before The Skirts of Happy Chance. Our thanks to tintorera for this important toupological info!

William Shatner in "Shadow Game" (1969).

UPDATE II:

Peter Falk (1927-2011).

With love and respect from all of us at Shatner's Toupee. Rest in peace...