Captain (un)spontaneous...

A hastily applied toupee - the lace line is clearly visible.

"Amazingly, [Shatner] never kept any personal photographs because he did not want to see 'the harsh reality of the passage of time etched in the unforgiving stills.'”

-Captain Quirk, The Unauthorized Biography of William Shatner, Dennis William Hauck.

We're reluctant to take the claims in this often sensasionalistic biography at face value, but this particular one seems highly credible. And if it is, does Shatner's toupee-wearing play a role in his apparent disdain for photographs of himself?

Bill Shatner with his first wife Gloria Rand.

Imagine you wear a toupee. Does that now make your real baldness a dirty private secret? Does that then mean that your public persona, however "false", is the one you wish to project at all times? What about private photos; must they now also be marked this choice? "But honey, this is just for us. If we wait for you to run upstairs for your rug, it will spoil the moment!" Surely, with this mindset, if a toupee-less photo ever leaked, the secret would be out...horror...panic!

"This is your father and that thing on his head is his toupee."

Sadly, the few private photos of Bill Shatner without his toupee were taken from Shats' home and sealed "for their own safety" by the Warren Commission, investigating Shatner's alleged baldness back in the 1960s. The Commission ultimately concluded that Shatner did not wear a toupee and that his hair is "thick and plentiful". The alleged toup-less photos will not be released to the public until 2017. Just kidding...

Since Shats would likely not have worn his lace in the pool, this photo is probably somewhat staged for the cameras.

Imagine you have to pose for a family photo. "Wait! Don't you dare take a picture of me like this!" Shatner then quickly rushes over and lays on his rug. His kids are wondering what that thing is that daddy keeps putting on his head. "OK, now you can take the picture." We have a few examples where presicely this scenario appears to have been the case. Or is it just the perfectly understandable selected projection of a public image?

"You just caught me taking a swim!" - not a chance.

Perhaps it is Shatner's appreciation for the evident falseness, weirdness, idiocy - you choose a word - that fuels his reluctance to look at pictures of himself - "That isn't me," he might say, "That is only the public me; the fake staged me." Does the real Shatner even exist?


Of course, there is another scenario. Imagine that cameras show up and you either have no toupee, a bad toupee or haven't had time to check the lace line in the mirror. Solution: wear a hat.

Perhaps below is the very same hat permanently stuffed into Shatner's left pocket in case of a toupee emergency...

At least when you are motorcycling, you can have the staged toupee picture taken...

Then rip the damn thing off and revel in the protection of your helmet....


Freedom from vanity at last!


UPDATE: A reader has commented, suggesting we have been a bit mean to our hero: "As a Hollywood actor, it's no surprise that there are many pictures like this. They are photo-ops, and the sort of thing I would imagine were quite normal in that day and age. Of course they are staged - that's the point!" The reader also adds, "While we can all poke fun at Shatner for his toupees, I think it goes beyond a line when you start making fun of him in some of the more personal photos."

The Batgirl and the toupee.

What did the Batgirl see and when did she see it? According to several accounts out there on the web, in her autobiography, Yvonne Craig, who delivered a fine performance in what is arguably one of Star Trek's worst ever episodes "Whom Gods Destroy" describes catching William Shatner without his toupee during the filming of that episode.

Here's one review of Craig's book From Ballet to the Batcave and Beyond which notes that the author describes "...the time she caught noted narcissist William Shatner without his toupee...". And here is a post at a Star Trek message board where a commenter suggests "I've heard Yvonne Craig boast about seeing Shatner in his trailer without the toupee during her week on "Whom the Gods Destroy." And here, a poster writes "She said Shatner was pissed at her during the taping of that episode because she was touching his toupee in one scene."


Here's the Amazon listing - as you can see this is a very rare and costly out-of-print book. Yet, we would love to be able to verify these stories. If anyone out there has access to the relevant passage in the book, or perhaps knows a Batman fan who might, we would certainly appreciate your help.

Thanks!

The toupee tour de force.

If Shatner's toupee could talk and it was asked to pick one moment where it had exceeded all expectations and risen far above and beyond the call of duty, then it would likely select the underwater scenes in the 1986 movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

More than twenty years on, it is difficult to put into words the impact that Shatner's brief underwater scenes (near the end of the film) had on the world. Three years later, the Berlin Wall was gone and the Soviet Union was nearing collapse.

But just why was this brief scene where Captain Kirk heroically frees a pair of Humpback whales from a sinking Klingon ship such an earth-shattering toupee tour de force? Quite simply, because it caused even the most ardent toupologists to momentarily ask the unthinkable: "Could we have been wrong? That hair looks pretty real."

Just as with many magic tricks, the truth is surprisingly uncomplicated. Firstly, let's not forget that Hollywood, particularly before the days of CGI, had special-effects magicians who could make you believe almost anything you saw was real. Secondly, a toupee you can swim in is actually nothing new at all, especially if you have the magic of Hollywood to help you.

Anyway, Let's go step by step.

Is it really Bill Shatner? Except for one over-the-shoulder-shot where Kirk opens the escape hatch, it is indeed all Shatner underwater (he always loves doing his own stunts wherever possible).

Is it a hairpiece or is it really Shatner's hair? It is definitely a hairpiece; Shats' hair didn't magically grow back, no matter what potion he might have tried. And, if the hair was real, then what the hell were Shatner's hairstylists thinking during so many projects the actor had worked on during the 1970s? Were they trying to make his real hair look fake?

Can we see some bald patches during the swimming? No bald patches are visible since Shatner was completely bald at the top of his head by this time so everything at the top is a full toup. If you photographed a fully-haired person swimming underwater, then you would see the scalp beneath where the hair happens to part as the person swims, because human hair, no matter how thick, does not cover every square millimeter of the head. You see exactly the same effect with Shats, but in his case, the "scalp" beneath an exposed parting is actually the very thin base of the hairpiece to which the artificial hair is attached. Making a toupee base look like a real scalp is really the only way to do it (why would it be blue or red, after all?) and again, it is really a piece of cake for any Hollywood movie hairstylist.

The other question is how the hairpiece was bonded to the scalp in such a convincing and seemingly durable way. Hairpieces in which the wearer can undertake activities such as swimming are actually nothing new. Just watch a James Bond film with Sean Connery or Roger Moore for proof of that. The water tends to ruin them after a while, but for a few shots in a movie - no problem at all. Let's not forget that underwater, the camera tends to see far less detail than it would above-ground and we really don't see that much detail during Shatner's outing, despite a few closeups. As for the fastening, we don't know whether Shats ever had surgery on his scalp to aid hairpiece attachment. The website hairloss.co.uk notes that:

"There can be many benefits to having a permanent wig or toupee, including the decreased risk of the hairpiece falling off during activities and causing embarrassment. With many permanently placed wigs you can swim and take showers without this concern. However, one of the negatives of this is that the wig or toupee can become damaged or faded over time due to chlorine exposure, sun exposure, or repetitive washing. Another downfall of permanent placement wigs is that the application process can be somewhat painful, and in rare cases lead to infections on the scalp or in the hair follicle.

"In order to combat this side effect some wigs are held in place permanently by wire loops that are stitched into the scalp. Others can be permanently attached through a process called 'tunnel grafting'. In this method pieces of skin are cut out and make living loops for the wig. In either case however, cleanliness of the area can become an issue, and some pain or infection can occur. If a permanent type of wig or toupee does not sound right for you, you can look into purchasing its temporary counterpart."

That is an extreme solution, and given continued stories of Shatner's toupee falling off at times, it is unlikely that Shats ever went this far for the sake of a few shots in a movie. The underwater piece was likely attached in a similar way to his regular weave: tie it to his real hair round the back and sides and then secure it with tape or glue at the top. Let's not forget that every movie star, toupeed or not is attended to by hair and makeup people between almost every shot. If the toupee shows, the hair is fixed and another take is filmed. The magic of Hollywood - if only there was an Oscar for "Outstanding Effort or Accomplishment for an Individual Hairpiece in a Motion Picture"...

More toupee madness.

A reader alerted us to a third season episode of Star Trek called "The Cloud Minders" in which some major Shatner toupee displacement (followed by an amazing act of self-re-combing) is visible.

Self-recombing parodied - see here for more...

The "post-fight re-arranged and fixed but still made to appear ruffled" hair look.

Since we're not here to just point and laugh, let's try to explore the context of this particular toupee calamity. As fans will know, the third season of Star Trek was notable for a major drop in quality compared to previous years. While the focus has often been on what happened to the character of Spock or the sets, this decline is equally evident with Captain Kirk's character - as well as with Bill Shatner's toupee.


In the first season, our main protagonist Captain James T. Kirk was photographed as a handsome leading man, with "baby spots" picking out his eyes and intricate camera moves following each emotional turn. But by the third season, budget constraints had changed things considerably.

First season leading man Shatner. Beautifully photographed like a 1940s movie star; the actor loved every minute of it.

Now, the (somewhat pudgy) star was carrying a show that had gone from heavily stylized melodrama to an increasingly crummy cheapo TV show heading towards inevitable cancellation. And rarely in Shats' career is more unflattering toup displacement visible. Toupee rules that would never have been broken during the first season were suddenly cast aside for the sake of expediency. Hence "The Cloud Minders" fight scene.


In this episode, we can also see a contrast between the lighter toupee of the first season, which mostly just covered the top and front of the head, to one that now increasingly extended to the sides as well. Seemingly, the hair-loss had intensified throughout those years. Shats' hair is also longer - presumably this made attaching a hairpiece easier, as anchoring a toupee to existing hair adds to its resilience in the face of the elements - that is also behind the principle of the "weave" that Shats started to wear around 1976, which was actually knotted to his real hair at the back and sides.

The lighter toupee worn during the second Star Trek pilot - see here for more.

In general, the Star Trek years back in the late 1960s are some of the most fascinating for many Shatner toupee watchers. Whereas in later years, the toups were far more rigid and difficult to ruffle, Star Trek, guided by creator Gene Roddenberry's vision, presented a kind of eternal wonderment as to the "infinite diversity in infinite combinations" of Captain Kirk's hair. As long as certain rules were respected, and sometimes bent but not broken, the viewer could enjoy the many facets of Shatner's toupee. However, by the third season, the rules were often broken, leading to some less-than-pleasant toupee moments.

Koko the toupee snatcher?

Not only has Bill Shatner invented his own acting style, but he has pretty much invented his own style of martial arts. Remember the Captain Kirk drop-kick, double karate-chop to either side of the neck followed by a throw to the floor? Well, those finely-honed Jackie Chan-like reflexes can be just as geared towards toup protection as anything else. Case in point: "In 1988, to help the Gorilla Foundation encourage Californians to contribute to its Endangered Species Campaign, I was permitted to visit Koko the Gorilla in her quarters. Koko was an extraordinary animal who had learned to communicate with human-beings." (From Shats' autobiography Up Till Now).


This was a very moving/terrifying experience for Bill Shatner and he recalls it in detail in his autobiography. But something else happened that isn't mentioned in his book. Below is a video that features an interesting clip of the encounter, narrated retrospectively by Shats for the audio version of Up Till Now. If you study the footage at 1:00 minutes, you will see a finely-honed toup-protecting block from Shats. Thankfully, Koko was likely not making a move to pull off the strange creature nested on her new companion's head, but rather simply giving Bill a warm hug. But Shats' instinctive move to prevent a potentially humiliating scene is highly evident in the clip.

By the way, we promise we'll look at the underwater stuff from Star Trek IV soon! And thanks as always to our readers - a mistaken attribution from the previous post has now been corrected.