New toup-less picture.

We understand this image was taken in late January 1959 during Bill Shatner's stint on Broadway with the production of The World of Suzie Wong. That makes it the most recent toup-less picture we have found thus far. On-screen, he was already wearing a toupee at this point.

Notice how Bill Shatner's real hairline is rounder than the more pointy look that the lace created (this observation was recently made by these folks). That wouldn't last long as he soon started to recede at the front too. If you look closely at the top of the head, it appears that the hair is very short (unable to grow longer), fluffy and thin. The top of the crown (which we can't see) is likely displaying some very noticable signs of baldness.

William Shatner at age 27.

Could Shats be using some kind of spray to thicken up in the above photo, or is he just fortunate not to have been photographed under a strong light? One year and two months earlier, he already looked very fluffy on top:

Above pictures - Studio One: "No Deadly Medicine" (late 1957)

Soon after the 1959 photo was taken, Shats would shift to both on-screen and on-stage toup wearing, as evidenced in the below photo:

William Shatner with actress Julie Harris in the 1961-1962 stage production of A Shot in the Dark.

UPDATE: Two images in this post have been replaced.

More on the toup-less pics.

So what is the deal with the two toup-less pictures that we presented in the previous post? We've been spurred to investigate further thanks to a reader who pointed out that the images were likely taken in 1957.

The bearded gentleman in the above picture is actor Lee J. Cobb. A joint venture search at Imdb.com reveals that Shatner and Cobb worked together three times: On the TV series Studio One - episode title "No Deadly Medicine" (1957); on the movie The Brothers Karamazov (1958) and in a 1965 episode of the TV show The Virginian.

Cobb is pictured to the left in the above image from The Brothers Karamazov (which was filmed in 1957 and released in early 1958). In Karamazov, Shatner wears a cap-like wig - he was portraying a novice in a monastery, after all.

The likeliest scenario for these toup-less Shatner pictures is that the actor brought his wife to the studio while filming Karamazov and they took some snaps during a tour of the MGM lot. After all, this was Shatner's first feature-film role and he must have been very excited to be in such a movie. The married couple had moved to Los Angeles specifically because of Shats landing this role.

On a separate note, we've managed to add a more detailed and enhanced section to the first photograph - we tracked down a close-up of part of the image and connected it to the rest. We should note that the original (the first picture we ever posted at this site) was sourced here.

The greater detail reveals the extent of the thinning taking place at the front and the missing section at the top rear. Bar one attempt at growing longer hair and combing it over (see here), while in front of the camera, this thinning would start to be concealed with a variety of toupees and hairpieces for the rest of Shats' career (until the Denny Crane "plugs" phase).

As for whether the pics were taken on the same day, it seems likely, although Shats' thinning hair does seem a little shorter at the top in one picture, but that could be a trick of the light.

New toup-less picture.

New toup-less pictures of Bill Shatner are quite rare finds indeed. In some cases, we've found pictures where we weren't entirely sure, but in this case we are pretty certain. This is a picture we've dug up (and slightly enhanced) circa 1957 of Bill Shatner with his first wife Gloria Rand.

If we compare Shats in this photo with his on-screen visage at around the same time (see below), we can see a distinct difference between the two. The on-screen Shatner wears a toup to thicken up the front and cover baldness at the top of the head. The off-screen Shatner is balding at the top and rapidly thinning at the front.

The Twighlight Zone - "Nick of Time" (1960).

UPDATE: The photo at the top of the page may have been taken on the same day as the photo below (unless the couple wore the same clothes on another day, which can't be ruled out either).

UPDATE II: A reader has made a convincing case that the above picture was taken in 1957. More on that in our next post.

New toup-less photo?

We've managed to find an unusual photo of Bill Shatner at the mysterious website memory-prime.de. The picture is from an article chronicling Shats' marriage difficulties relating to his first wife Gloria Rand. That would likely date it at late 1968- early 1969. The pair eventually divorced.

But what is with the picture? The first question is: did Bill have his own thin frontal swoosh that he grew long in order to cover up his otherwise very acutely receding hair? We've seen this effect before in two photographs from the book Captain Quirk: An Unauthorized Biography:

Yet it appears that Shats is wearing some kind of hairpiece in these pics, but could they merely be to cover a bald crown? Something that would create an effect similar to this?:


Such hairpieces would be far easier to wear, eliminating the need for the frontal lace being glued to the forehead.

And yet, other pictures appear to tell a somewhat different story of more uniform thinning:


Could Captain Kirk's famous frontal swoosh be nested upon a far thinner real swoosh? Were the two somehow integrated?

Despite appearances, the above picture is indeed of Shats with his usual frontal toupee glued in place.

So just what is going on?


In this case, we have so many questions and so few answers. But if we had to guess, we would say that the mysterious picture is either a toupee so worn out (or ruffled by rain?) that it is simply looks very bad or it is indeed a toup-less or semi-toup-less picture (meaning that the frontal hairline, if not the rest, is real). And would Bill, sensitive about appearances, really smile like this for a photo if he wasn't wearing a toupee? That is why we are inclined towards the first, badly ruffled toup theory.

Let us know your thoughts.

When did William Shatner start wearing a toupee?

The short and simple answer is sometime between 1957 and 1958. From that point onwards, he would never again choose to be photographed professionally without wearing a hairpiece. The decision may initially have been only for television and film work rather than theatrical productions - but that distinction didn't last long...

Studio One - No Deadly Medicine. (1957)

Above we have two photographs of a still toupless Shatner in December 1957, performing in a TV show called Studio One - No Deadly Medicine.

The World of Suzie Wong (1958)

Perhaps the last time he was ever photographed acting without a toupee was during the long theatrical run of The World of Suzie Wong (see above and also here).

Playhouse 90 - A Town Has Turned to Dust. (1958)

That same year, the toup (albeit a rather shabby-looking one) made an appearance in a TV show called Playhouse 90 - A Town Has Turned to Dust (see above). We also have a photograph from a year earlier (see below) from Studio One - The Defender (1957) in which Bill Shatner appears to be already wearing a hairpiece. Was this the first ever first toup appearance? The point here is that it likely wasn't entirely black & white - during the crossover period, Shats may have worn a toup in one show and still relied on sprays and combing techniques in another.

Studio One - The Defender (1957). The first toup appearance?

And of course, we also saw Shats in the movie The Brothers Karamazov (released in 1958, but filmed in 1957) - although his toup in that film is perhaps better described as a stage wig.

The Brothers Karamazov (1958)

After 1958, the toup never ever went away and by 1959, the classic Star Trek: TOS look was essentially born with Shatner now wearing an (expensive) front lace toup as well as a hairpiece that covered the crown (the pieces may or may not have been separate). These toups were almost certainly provided by the productions Shats was working for, rather than anything the struggling young actor could afford to buy for himself - the latter would likely not have been particularly suitable for filming.

However, Bill Shatner was doing a lot of very low budget TV at this time, so perhaps with the money he had made from The Brothers Karamazov he also decided to fork out for his own personal toup in case the budget of a particular production could not cover this expense - Shats may have also felt that it helped his chances at auditions. Star Trek (which was a considerably higher budget TV production) producer Bob Justman later noted that Shatner's "Own 'personal' ones were too ratty-looking [to be used in front of the cameras]." (see here).

Shatner in CBS's The Story of a Gunfighter (1959)

So, if we want to celebrate Bill Shatner's 50th anniversary of wearing a toupee, I am afraid we are a year too late. But maybe better late than never: Happy "Golden Toup Anniversary" to you...!!

More from 1957's "The Glass Eye"

Some screengrabs from a 1957 episode of Alfred Hitchcok Presents called "The Glass Eye". We would venture to say that Bill Shatner is still toupless here. The front hairline is evidently receding, but the real key is what is happening at the back. Whereas the rear toup that he soon started to wear smoothed over the crown in a rather singular fashion, here we don't see that effect yet at all. Instead, it appears that Shats has grown his front hair a little longer and is combing it back over the area of thinning.




A year later, (see previous post), the rear thinning became too prominent to conceal.

William Shatner bald-patch picture.

This is the first ever photo we've been able to locate of a toupless Shats in which we see signs of baldness in the crown area (sourced from the often factually innacurate E! True Hollywood William Shatner documentary). The picture is of a 1958 production of The World of Suzie Wong in New York. Bill was just 27 years-old at the time.

Here is the bald area closer up.

And here we enhance to highlight contrasts.

Only known picture of William Shatner without toupee (or not - we've since found more).

William Shatner with his first wife Gloria Rand circa 1957. The pair divorced in 1969. Photograph sourced from here.

UPDATE: See here for more info on the above picture.

William Shatner with his wife and daughter.

In the above picture, Shatner is wearing a toupee, but not of the expensive lace variety. This is likely one of Bill Shatner's own toupees which would have been considered unsuitable for filming.