Columbo: "Butterflies in Shades of Grey" - a toupological analysis (and Columbo tribute).

"Butterflies in Shades of Grey" is a 1994 episode of the revived post-70s run of Columbo. William Shatner serves as the special guest star, appearing in the series for the second time - the first being in the classic 1976 episode "Fade in to Murder".


Fielding Chase (William Shatner) is a suave but ruthless right-wing radio talk show host and also the head of a mini L.A-based media empire.


His adopted daughter Victoria (Molly Hagan), of whom Chase is extremely possessive, is an aspiring novelist - though she is keeping those aspirations secret from her father.


Gerry Winters (Jack Laufer), an investigative reporter working for Chase, meets secretly with New York literary agent Lou Cates (Richard Kline), who appears interested in one of Victoria's manuscripts. Winters' motivations in bringing fame to his friend aren't romantic (turns out he's gay), but rather he wants to free Victoria from her father's domination, and in so doing, cause his boss some grief.

The ongoing professional animosity between Chase and Winters explodes after an investigative assignment yields nothing; the boss, certain a potential story was missed, fires his unruly subordinate.


Victoria finally tells Chase her secret - that she has written a novel and that Winters is helping her get it published. Chase pretends to be delighted and offers assistance to his daughter. But in reality, he is deeply perturbed.


Literary agent Cates calls Winters and tells him that his publisher actually ended up hating the manuscript - but that the man is also an acquaintance of Chase's. Coincidence? Could the father have intervened to disrupt his daughter's budding career?


Winters confronts Chase with this accusation. Chase dismisses this as a lie, calling his daughter's ambitions nothing but a "pipe dream". Winters then accuses Chase of having a less than fatherly attitude; Chase slaps and threatens to kill him - in front of witnesses.

Victoria learns what her father did, but he persuades her that his intentions were not to possess her, but rather to help her career.

Meanwhile, Chase devises a plan to kill his nemesis. Arranging for Winters to telephone him at precisely 4pm, Chase's answering machine records the entire murder - a masterful alibi.


Chase is pretending to be at home listening in as gunshots are fired by an unknown assailant. In truth, he is killing Winters himself, while meters away on the other phone in Winters' house.


Chase then plants some evidence framing a former lover of Winters' as the murderer.

Enter Columbo...


That's where we'll leave the plot.

In a break from custom, we'll move straight to the hair next before we review this episode.

Star Trek: Generations (1994).

Considering the excessive thickness on display in Star Trek: Generations (1994), the TJ Curly seen in this episode (made around the same time) is something of an outlier. It's less dark, less curly, less long, less thick, the hairline less harsh - far more akin to latter stages of the TJ Curly around 1999, when it began to gradually morph into the "Denny Katz" style (more on this gradual morphing in a future post).

The toupee cliché about a dark rug betrayed by greying hair around the sides appears reversed here.


Unusually, here the toupee is actually greyer and lighter than Bill Shatner's real hair at the sides.


Evident in the background in several shots is the notorious "peeling toupee" photograph.


In this case, it is altered to include a mustache.


But perhaps most fascinating of all is another piece of artificial hair on display - a false mustache.

Not only is the mustache in question occasionally crooked, but it also seems to drastically change color during the episode.

Very light:


Very dark:


The toup too appears to change at times. Sometimes a little longer, sometimes shorter.


And in perhaps the only example of interesting direction in the entire episode, there is a brief shot that appears loaded with subtle toupological symbolism.

The spikes of hair represented by the glass - Bill Shatner is between these spikes; the real-haired Columbo is behind. Toupological symbolism?

So, what to make of the overall episode? The story, though rather convoluted, is not too bad; the murder and Columbo's solving of it is not too bad either. But the whole thing is frankly average at best. Nothing special. Rather unremarkable. Why? Something crucial is missing...

1970s Columbo.

Many of us at WSSTS are unabashed fans of the original 70s Columbo and regard it, without hesitation, as one of the greatest TV shows of all time. It was intelligent; it was non-violent; it was occasionally funny and it broke many accepted rules. This from a great article on how the series was formed, written by the series' creators:

Martin Landau with Peter Falk.

Our first scripts made their way to the network, and the response was not effusive: NBC had major "conceptual concerns" with our approach. How could we have made the terrible blunder of keeping our leading man offstage until twenty minutes into the show? Didn't we realize that Peter Falk was our star? The audience would expect to see him at once, and here we were perversely delaying his appearance. One of the executives called it, with considerable heat, "the longest stage wait in television history."

There were other complaints. What about this business about an unseen wife? And why a wife at all? Columbo should be free of any marital encumbrances so that he could have romantic interludes on occasion. Why hadn't we given him a traditional "family" of regulars? At the very least he should have a young and appealing cop as his assistant and confidante. And worst of all, the scripts were talkative. They should be enlivened by frequent doses of adrenalin in the form of "jeopardy."

There are only four responses a writer-producer can make to network suggestions: He can ignore them, he can cave in, he can argue, or he can threaten to quit. We opted for the last of these multiple choices.

Columbo keeps accidentally annoying an innocent old lady.

The above demonstrates that the fight to make something truly unique was at the heart of Columbo's greatness. But in addition to all of the above considerations of content, there was also a crucial aesthetic component. The 70s cinematography - sharp and very high-contrast film stock requiring a lot of light, with its very particular color relationships; this, plus the overall 70s aesthetic - the era of orange and yellow seat covers and minty green paint and still clean-looking post-war concrete architecture. That part made the city of Los Angeles itself seem strangely sleek and alluring (deliberately "mythical" according to Link and Levinson, the series' creators, as noted in the above article).


The airport, the hospital, the store, the chilli stand - Lt. Columbo inhabited a highly stylized and inviting 70s world. Even a trip to the supermarket seemed pretty cool...


There was also the direction - bold and distinct.


Often, murders would be filmed in highly abstract and stylized ways. Add to that the tremendous music (sadly, the series' soundtracks have never been released), full of recurring leitmotifs and diverse and distinctive instruments. Overall, Columbo's intellectual, wordy drama was balanced out by this aesthetic onslaught. Memorable. Re-watchable. Full of classic moments. Much like the original Star Trek.

A chess match with the great Tomlin Dudek brings nightmares.

So what if you took away the bold cinematography, direction, music and the overall awesome background of 1970s L.A. in addition to having an unremarkable script? You'd pretty much get "Butterflies in Shades of Grey." Some of the components are still there (though it is hardly believable that the great Columbo would not have been promoted or retired by the 1990s; his old battered car is also arguably a stretch too far), but these other crucial elements are missing.

Visually dull compared to the original series - "Butterflies in Shades of Grey".

Aesthetically speaking, the late 80s/early 90s were a pretty dire time for American television drama. Soft, pink-hued, red-biased cinematography, coupled with the styles of the times - shoulder pads, bad perms and all the rest of it. The era of lots of bad TV movies with names like Why Did She Die? The Jennifer O'Brady Story (we made that one up). Sometimes, old-fashioned stylistic boldness was even punished (see our piece on composer Ron Jones). TV, thankfully, eventually largely recovered from this aesthetic lull, with series like NYPD Blue and The X-Files leading the way.

Anne Baxter as actress Nora Chandler.

As for the content part (crucial - much 70s TV drama was pretty awful too), Columbo's drama harked back to the 1940s and its focus on the woes and wants of a post-revolution American aristocracy that had somehow managed to survive into the latter part of the 20th century. And what was Lt. Columbo in all of this? Disheveled, unpretentious, Zen-like - a stark contrast to all of that highly-strung decadence.

Columbo eats chilli.

On a more metaphysical level (yikes!!), Columbo perhaps also represented the human conscience itself. The murderers had committed terrible crimes. At that moment Columbo appeared, gnawing away at their repressed and self-destructive guilt - "just one more thing," he'd say, innocently irritating them beyond breaking point.

"Murder by the Book" directed by a young Steven Spielberg.

No matter how perfectly they planned their murders, how much they pretended to actually be helping Columbo find the real killer, how hard they tried to explain away his endless questions, their lives could never be normal again. And when they finally confessed, very stoically, in most cases their relief was palpable. The conscience, thankfully, won. Often the murderers were even likeable, charming people. Columbo, gallant as ever, would insist to the arresting cops that the handcuffs weren't necessary.

Ruth Gordon in Columbo.

70s Columbo had endless classic episodes (and only a handful of stinkers): the one with the twin brothers; the Nimoy one with the sutures; the chess one; Robert Vaughn on the cruise ship; Jackie Cooper as the senate candidate; the one with the sweet old lady (Ruth Gordon); the one with Ann Baxter as the archetypal diva; three episodes each for arguably the best villains Jack Cassidy and Robert Culp; the one where Columbo actually goes after his own boss; the one with Johnny Cash! The list goes on...


...and certainly includes Bill Shatner's classic role in "Fade in to Murder". But in that role, Shatner's character was tragic and complex, in need of salvation and forgiveness. Much more suited to Bill Shatner's acting and character. In "Butterflies in Shades of Grey" the murderer is really without any redeeming or even interesting qualities, and frankly, so is the episode.

Bill Shatner in 1976's classic "Fade in to Murder".

Irrespective of the merits of the revived Columbo (which ran sporadically between 1989-2003 and certainly had some strong episodes), the original series is undoubtedly iconic and was also a comfortable home for many equally iconic stars, including The Prisoner's Patrick McGoohan. Its star, Peter Falk, with his deep and unerring Leonard Nimoy-like protectiveness about the series' quality, passed away at the end of June after battling for several years with Alzheimer's disease. Falk had a varied career as an actor, but like Bill Shatner's Captain Kirk, he will always be remembered for his most famous role - that of the legendary Lt. Columbo.

Peter Falk (1927-2011).

Sheepish Shatner.

The word sheepish when used in conjunction with the word toupee seems to conjure up all sorts of fusion imagery. However, puns aside, in this post we are sticking to the dictionary definition:

Sheepish: affected by or showing embarrassment caused by consciousness of a fault. (Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary).


That is exactly how Bill Shatner looked in the 1976 Columbo episode "Fade in to Murder" (we previously examined a particular hair issue here) as the character he played, actor Ward Fowler, alias famous TV detective Lt. Lucerne, described a small concession to vanity to Lt. Columbo. In this case, it was wearing "lifts" (basically thick soled shoes) to increase the character's advertised height. The incident was a rare insight into how Bill Shatner himself might appear when explaining or revealing his toupee use in private:

"Yes, well I would appreciate a certain amount of discretion in that matter, Lieutenant. Public image, you know."

During "Fade in to Murder" Lt. Columbo sneaks into Fowler's dressing room. He tries on part of Lucerne's costume, namely his hat and his shoes, which he discovers are "lifts". This plot point is crucial to the episode as the murderer was described by a witness as being shorter than Fowler (alias Shatner) appears to be.


Bill Shatner had been wearing "lifts" for years in order to increase his height on-screen. Somewhat amazingly, a hitherto non-public aspect of Bill Shatner's private arsenal of on-screen self-improvement tricks (usually focused on hair, height and weight) wasn't merely made public, but was actually thrust right into the very center of the plot of Shats' most important performance in years. And there's more still...

Fowler, ostensibly an actor from Canada (Bill Shatner is Canadian) is also struggling to keep his weight down, chomping on celery and carrot sticks:


We even see the character, sensitive about his image, in a makeup chair:


And, diverting slightly, there's also a very rare sight indeed - a bit of bald scalp showing through the toup:


Add to the above the many differences between Ward Fowler's on-screen persona Lt.Lucerne and the far more flawed actor who portrays him and the clear echoes of Shatner/Kirk or Shatner versus on-screen performer are difficult to ignore.

So what does all of this mean? Importantly, we believe that Bill Shatner's performance in "Fade in to Murder" was a seminal moment in the actor's return to the mainstream after the "Lost Years" period - and one that is often overlooked.


The kind of drama that the 1970s Columbo represented was far more in line with what Bill Shatner had initially dreamed of when he became an actor. But by the 1960s, the old studio system evaporated and the "leading man" model changed significantly (even Star Trek moved away from the exclusively Shatner-centric model after the first thirteen episodes or so). Yet, Columbo represented a rare island where the old style lived on. Terrific guest actors such as Anne Baxter, Jack Cassidy, Robert Culp, Ruth Gordon and Donald Pleasance were given the kind of theatrical, hyper-dramatic roles that an old-school actor would die for. And in 1976, Bill Shatner was welcomed into this company with open arms. It must have represented a moment of salvation for Shatner after all the drek the actor had been making during the mid 1970s.

He and Falk got on very well, and that camaraderie is evident on-screen too. Interestingly, Shatner plays one of those villains whom the audience suspects Columbo actually has affection for. After his confession, Fowler even beckons Columbo to have sympathy for him.

On a side note, Patrick McGoohan, who like Shatner was an exile of the old-school, also found comfort in the Columbo formula, having "escaped" Britain after completing his wonderful 1960s series The Prisoner. Both Shatner and McGoohan would return to the (we think nowhere near as good) revived Columbo series that ran from 1989-2003.


We don't know whether the writers crafted the Ward Fowler role for Shatner or whether he seemed perfect for Fowler/Lucerne once the role was written. Nonetheless, Bill Shatner, sporting a new, still somewhat scruffy "TJ Curly-style" toupee to underline the significance of the occasion (a style, however artificial, that actually matched Bill Shatner's real curly hair - underlining the birth of a new more mature, less-insecure Shatner) rewards viewers with a sensitive, introspective performance. But not only that - he also rewards us with a story that openly deals with previously taboo issues related to Bill Shatner's own height and his weight.

The more theatrical Shatner of the old Star Trek series, for whom such subjects would have been a serious threat to the public image, was finally buried. A new more vulnerable performer was born. Shatner's Captain Kirk in the Trek movies continued and accentuated this transformation. The rigid walls between public image and private insecurities were crumbling, and that is exactly what was demanded of actors in the post leading-man age that Shatner now found himself in. This dose of honesty actually turned Shatner into a far better actor. Sure 60s Shatner could give an outstanding performance, say in Star Trek's "The Enemy Within", but could he have tripped over his chair and said "Klingon bastards killed my son!" (from 1984's Star Trek III: The Search for Spock) with such emotional conviction? Ironically, it took a trip to a television show that celebrated the old formula for Shatner to finally become comfortable with this new more sincere style of acting in which personal insecurities could be mined rather than supressed.

"Fade in to Murder" can be bought as part of this Columbo DVD box-set. A classic episode of the series.

***

And on a final weird and totally unrelated note, we think that for some reason Shatner's occasional goofy expressions in "Fade in to Murder" bear a striking resemblance to...


...his animated Star Trek counterpart...

Shatner's raw head.

William Shatner (right) in the 1976 Columbo episode "Fade in to Murder"

Earlier this week, the entire senior staff of the William Shatner School of Toupological Studies was summoned to an emergency meeting. The meeting took place in the middle of the night; our toupologists had apparently made a huge discovery. For the next few hours, we frantically discussed the implications. Today, we publish our findings.

A series of images from William Shatner's guest stint on Columbo ("Fade in to Murder") back in 1976 appears to show evidence of severe traction alopecia - hairloss caused by prolonged tension and traction placed on the hair follicles. By this time in Bill Shatner's career, the actor had been wearing toupees of various kinds for almost twenty years. Had the methods of fastening - aka weaving - Shats' toupees to his real hair, coupled with the simple strain on the scalp of constantly sweating under a series of wigs damaged Bill Shatner's remaining real hair?

Below are a series of screengrabs from another scene in the episode. Again, the evidence of traction alopecia is very strong. The hairloss is seemingly far too low down on the scalp to account for regular male pattern baldness (androgenetic alopecia).

Here is a video of the above scene with the area of interest enlarged by 400%:

It is important to note that there could be other reasons for this patchiness of the hair: stress, medication, scarring from a motorcycle accident, another form of alopecia (as an example, Superman actor Christopher Reeve suffered from alopecia areata since he was a teenager, causing bald patches to appear on his head from time to time) or even an unusual manifestation of regular male pattern baldness. But given Bill Shatner's prolonged and constant toupee use, traction alopecia, we believe, is a very likely cause.