"Put my hair over it!"

We've previously looked at one very overt mention of the toupee in Bill Shatner's autobiography Up Till Now, in which the actor ends his book by asking "Do I wear a toupee?". We've also looked at a far more oblique toupee inference in the book, in which Bill Shatner mentioned "my little makeup secrets".


Well, there is one more toupee-related mention in Up Till Now, in this case related to a stunt Bill Shatner performed during the 1980s that went slightly wrong:

"The most serious injury I've ever suffered doing a stunt took place when we were filming an episode of T.J. Hooker in Hawaii. We were shooting a fight scene on the top of a hill overlooking, I believe, the North Shore and the Pacific Ocean. It was about a thousand-foot drop off the edge straight down into the ocean. Now, I admit it, I'm afraid of heights...I'm terrified I'm going to fall."

Bill Shatner continues:

"This scene had been carefully choreographed by our stunt coordinator. We'd rehearsed it several times: the villain and I are fighting on the top of this hill, he knocks me down, and I roll to the precipice, right to the edge, then he takes a sword-a sword!-and slashes at my head. His sword comes down just to the right of my head, I move my head to the left, then he slashes to my left and I move my head to the right. Right-left, right-left. Got that?"


The action rehearsed, it's time to finally shoot the scene:

"Now I have never been certain whether I was to blame or if it was the stuntman's fault. I went one way, he went the same way and he slashed me right in the forehead. I started bleeding. The stuntman was mortified. 'Oh jeez,' he said. 'We gotta get you to the hospital.'

'I'm not going anywhere. I'm never going to be able to get this close to the edge again. Just patch me up and let's get this done.'

'But there's a flap of skin...'

'I'm not moving. Push it back, tape it down, and put my hair over it.' They stopped the bleeding and wiped off the blood." (emphasis ours)

There are a number of points that we can analyze here - the first being the decision to mention the hair at all. The story would still work without the hair mention and since it is a subject that Bill Shatner clearly does not enjoy people lingering on, the question arises: why mention it at all? Perhaps the answer lies in the actor's nature - he is a risk taker; he enjoys the thrill of the adrenaline rush, and what better way to peak a story than to add a sense of double jeopardy? Not only is Bill in danger, hurt, on the edge of a cliff - but now the toupee is brought into the mix too! Great storytelling!


Naturally, there was little chance that Bill Shatner was going to write "put my toupee over it", but the word "put" is interesting. Not "comb" but put. Perhaps subconsciously, Bill Shatner was revealing that his hair could be moved in ways that the hair of mere mortals could not be. It is detachable, flexible...

The phrase "my hair" we find to be entirely correct. It is his hair not because it is "of him" but rather because he paid for it! But more than anything else, it is the universality of the toup that comes through in the story. Not only does it cover mere baldness, but it also extends to covering wounds, perhaps even healing them. And during times of danger and injury, Bill Shatner turns to the toupee for an infusion of strength and resilience. Thus, it's not a glimpse of the actor's baldness that is revealed by this anecdote, but rather an extraordinary relationship to a toupee that truly provides Bill Shatner with universal coverage!

Shatner - it's happened now...

The other day, we received a great tip via email regarding a line uttered by Bill Shatner in one of the songs in his 2004 album Has Been. The emailer also requested a full toupological analysis! Well, we are happy to oblige...

The line is "fear of losing my hair..." and is contained in "It Hasn't Happened Yet" which is the second track on the Has Been album.

The song's lyrics are written by Shatner (with Ben Folds) and are in many regards deeply personal expressions of his inner fears - indeed, the entire album can be described as very personal and forthright, with one song ("What Have You Done?") entirely about the tragic drowning of Bill Shatner's third wife Nerine.

The "hair" phrase in "It Hasn't Happened Yet" comes in the midst of a torrent of personal anxieties expressed in the song that echo amongst each other: fear of failure, fear of falling, fear of freezing up. Listen to the clip below:

Click on the image below to read the complete lyrics of the song:

You can hear the full song on YouTube or buy the album here.

Interestingly, Bill Shatner's live performance of "It Hasn't Happened Yet" (not sure where/when) simply omitted the "fear of losing my hair" line as the clip below demonstrates:

There are three possible explanations for this. The first is that Bill Shatner accidentally skipped the line - even though he had the entire lyrics printed in front of him as he performed the song (unlike his pal Leonard Nimoy, Bill Shatner has a bad memory and it is getting worse with age!). The second explanation is that the line was purposefully removed for non-toup related reasons; echoing voices can be produced in abundance in a recording, but presented live the situation is a little different and could clutter the delivery. The third explanation is that although he felt comfortable delivering such a line in the studio, Shats was not quite ready to do so in front of a huge audience.

But let's back up a little and try to analyze the significance and meaning of the "hair" line contained in "It Hasn't Happened Yet". Crucially, this is the only real example we have here at this blog in which Bill Shatner is reflecting on the hair issue in a non-comedic way. That is hugely significant in and of itself. No jokes, no rhetorical joviality - this is dead serious. Indeed, if one reads between the lines of the song, Bill Shatner has actually placed hair loss and the apparent horror that it represents as one of his most potent fears. As soon as we hear "fear of losing my hair" we hear the echoing line "falling, falling..." There is poeticism in this wordplay as "falling" is supposed to represent another fear related to the rock that the subject of the song, Shatner himself, is climbing. But the other meaning is clear: it is the hair that is falling, falling (out). And in so doing, the nirvana and serenity that the author so desperately seeks is again undermined. If only all these fears weren't plaguing me, expresses Shatner. I have the adulation; I have the success and am recognized by strangers in the street; I have climbed the mountain - so why won't these niggling inner fears go away?


In a sense, Shatner is reflecting upon something that many a celebrity finds - a truth so obvious that it has become a cliché, yet is still so often ignored by those who find fame and fortune. The adoring masses - even a million people - can all yell "We love you, Michael!" (for example) and yet the real and meaningful love that the subject of this popular adoration so desperately craves remains elusive. Screaming fans simply can't supplant that. Yes, money, fame and success are not the panaceas our society repeatedly claims they are. And, as Shatner notes, even self-prescribed achievements like climbing a rock at Yosemite don't really do the trick. Real contentment remains elusive, and unpleasant human fears remain.


Here, Bill Shatner's most famous alter-ego Captain Kirk may help with an answer. In the Star Trek episode "This Side of Paradise" Kirk noted: "Maybe we weren't meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through; struggle, claw our way up; scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute, we must march to the sound of drums." In other words, that desperately sought contentment will likely never come - and if it does than that would actually be worse than death. "I don't want my pain taken away. I need my pain!" noted Kirk in the mostly dreadful Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Yet, within this turkey, we again find a few explorations of Kirk that are pure Shatner: "I've always known I'll die alone," he says. That thought is taken to its logical conclusion in (sadly, another turkey) Star Trek: Generations, when Kirk really does die alone. "Oh, my" he says, reacting to the unfinished business of the newest distraction - I was so busy, I almost didn't notice that it's over. But even then, at the moment of finality, death is too horrible to really contemplate. Best to focus on earthly affairs until the very, very end. One suspects that that is the way Shatner himself hopes to go too.


As we have noted before, Bill Shatner, 78 as of this writing, is a human dynamo. There are very few people in the world that could release a succesful pop album in their seventies; then a ballet documentary. Boston Legal is over, but there is still Shatner's Raw Nerve and then the next project and the next. Shatner won't stop. He can't. But one day...the grim reaper will finally catch up with him and based on what he has expressed in his works including Has Been, he dreads that day and how alone he will feel. Will all the achievements and adoration mean nothing? Will he still find himself worrying about failure or losing his hair?

"At my age, I need serenity. I need peace. It hasn't happened yet," concludes Shatner in the song. It likely, and perhaps thankfully, never will.


Yet, the line "fear of losing my hair" isn't as direct as it may appear to be on the surface. As we have noted on two other occasions, Bill Shatner continues to employ some clever and elusive wordplay in this stage of his public statements related to the issue of his hair. And the example in "It Hasn't Happened Yet" is no exception. "Fear of losing my hair" actually implies that the fear is of a future event that has yet to transpire, whereas in reality, this was an event that was an issue for Bill Shatner more than fifty years ago. That is, unless we read yet another level of poeticism into the line - a literal fear of losing his hair. Meaning, the fear that Bill Shatner would have had for forty-three years before his hair transplant of his toupee being detached in public and the perceived humiliation that this would cause. Forty-three years of that kind of fear and terror is difficult for a non-toup wearer and non-public figure to imagine.

Finally, if we study the waveform of the "fear of losing my hair" line (cleaned up to enhance the voice), we see considerably less stress than in our previous analysis of Bill Shatner asking "do I wear a toupee?" in his autobiography Up Till Now. Whereas in that example, we detected a great deal of stress and discomfort, here we actually detect confidence and honesty:

Notice how the word "hair" is both elongated and increased in volume compared to the previous words in the phrase. The intonation given to the phrase exudes honesty - as if we were listening in on a private conversation with a close friend. Therefore, and despite the slightly elusive wordplay, we read this as being the most honest and genuine expression from Bill Shatner with regards to his hair that we have encountered. We applaud and salute it!

And on a very final note, we should also add that Bill Shatner appears to give the very last line of the entire album (in the final song "Real") over to his hair (at least, one can interpret it that way) - specifically his new transplant talking to us, the audience:

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm real!"

Bill Shatner says the word "toupee"

Thanks to the audio version of Bill Shatner's autobiography Up Till Now, we have perhaps a singular opportunity to hear the actor saying the word "toupee".

Thus far, the chronology of Bill Shatner's public acceptance of his toupee use follows a line from outright denial to allowing himself to be publicly "roasted" on the matter, even jokingly asking "how's the hair?". On a separate occasion, he has even poked fun at himself by comparing director George Lucas' thick locks to his own.

Bill Shatner being teased about his hair in 2006's Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner

The latest stage in this path was the very final line in Bill Shatner's 2008 autobiography, in which the actor wrote: "And while in my lifetime I've seen science make extraordinary inroads into solving the most complex questions of life, after all this time I admit that I am thrilled that there are some things that forever will remain a mystery. For example, do I wear a toupee?"

It's pretty shocking for Bill Shatner to end an autobiography this way, even though the author would have known that the question could only yield one correct answer: "No." No, you say?!? Thanks to implants, he doesn't anymore, but he did for around forty-three years (1957-2000). See here for more on this kind of clever wordplay from Shats.

Yet, a fair use presentation and toupographical analysis of the audio recording of the "do I wear a toupee?" line yields some very interesting findings: for Bill Shatner, the subject is still a deeply uncomfortable one - despite the indirect jokes, a full and open discussion of the hair Raw Nerve style is still some years away at best.

Firstly, Bill Shatner's voice drops around 10 decibels between the comfortable assertion "I admit that I am thrilled..." and the phrase "do I wear a toupee?":

By the time we reach the phrase "do I wear a toupee?" Bill Shatner is not only almost whispering, but his voice is beginning to crack up too. Here, we have increased the volume of the single toupee line:

Notice the relatively smooth delivery of the word "I" - the vocal chords are still able to contract:

Now compare this with the dreaded emotive word "toupee" - Bill Shatner's voice, now full of sub-conscious tension, discomfort and stress, is breaking up; the emotional dissonance causing a rasping, whispering sound on the "pée" syllable:


The conscious delivery of and intonation given to the crucial line is perhaps also revealing. The word "toupee" is delivered with great (forced?) restrained neutrality - not a hint of a self-deprecating nod, nor a barely suppressed sprinkle of magniloquence is evident. Considering Bill Shatner's years of toupee use, this kind of emotional suppression is worthy of Spock at the height of "Pon farr".

If we once again compare this line to Bill Shatner's "I am thrilled" then we can sense the difference. "I...am...THRILL-ed" emotes Shatner, albeit subtly. The word "for-ever" in "forever remain a mystery" is also emphasized. Conversely, "do I wear a toupee?" rolls down in volume, breaking up along the way and by the end, it has dissipated from a vertiginous, perhaps even resipiscent whisper into an eternal endless silence. It's over!

Despite the lighthearted rhetorical question, "do I wear a toupee?" is clearly not something that Bill Shatner is yet ready, nor prepared for you to ponder with any great alacrity. Maybe soon...

William Shatner makes another oblique toupee inference.

The 2008 autobiography Up Till Now - written by William Shatner with David Fisher.

There was an incident during the run of the original Star Trek that caused some friction between William Shatner and co-star Leonard Nimoy. The pair quickly made up and have since become very close friends, but back in 1967, William Shatner took exception to a makeup room photoshoot in which the application of the Spock makeup would be made public. The incident has been dealt with in several Trek-related books and Bill Shatner has previously conceded that his own jealousy of Nimoy's popularity (who is the star of this show?) was at the root of his angry reaction. It is something, he says, that he had to struggle to come to terms with in the early days of Star Trek.

But was the anger not just about popularity but also about Shatner's toupee?

The photoshoot that caused friction between Shatner and Nimoy. Sourced from www.mystartrekscrapbook.blogspot.com

In his brilliantly entertaining 2008 autobiography Up Till Now William Shatner tells the story with an additional twist he has never alluded to before. There is a secret at play. What might that secret be?:

"Leonard felt that Freddy [Phillips, Star Trek's makeup artist] had prevented Spock from becoming some kind of visual joke. So when a magazine wanted to do a photo story about his makeup process, featuring Freddy, he agreed. But nobody told me about it.

"We began filming every morning at 8 a.m. Leonard reported to makeup at about 6:30, but I got there about forty-five minutes later. One morning I came to work and found the photographer in the makeup room snapping away. I didn't like that at all; I was concerned all of my little makeup secrets were going to be revealed. And no, I can't tell you what they are. That's why they are secrets. So I asked someone, justifiably, I thought, 'What's the photographer doing in the makeup room?' (emphasis ours)

"The photographer quietly left the room. Leonard and Freddy waited for him to return but he never came back. Eventually Leonard was told that at my insistence an assistant director had forced the photographer to leave. Leonard was furious. He immediately came to my trailer to confront me. 'Did you order the photographer out?' he demanded.

'Yes,' I admitted, explaining, 'I didn't want him there.'"


Now what were those secrets? It it very likely that Bill Shatner is referring to the fact that he would come into work bald, sit down next to Leonard Nimoy in the makeup room, and then have his hairpiece applied. He understandably didn't want those secrets (Captain Kirk is bald!) appearing in some magazine.

If we do the simple maths: Bill Shatner arrived at makeup a full forty-five minutes before he was due on set and forty-five minutes after Nimoy arrived to have his latex ears arduously applied. If he just had basic makeup applied, then he could have come in later. But during that forty-five minutes, the intricate process of laying on the rug was also undertaken.

In the book Inside Star Trek: The Real Story Desilu head of production Herb Solow recalls the same incident:

"Jimmy Doohan was there too. He recalls that 'Bill's hairpiece was being applied. The top of his head was a lot of skin and a few little odd tufts of hair. The mirrors in the makeup room walls were arranged so that we could all see the laying on of his rug.'" (page 236)

So in summary: Again we see that Bill Shatner is slowly thawing from the days of outright toup denial - instead peppering his recollections with inferences, albeit still oblique ones, to his hairpiece. Perhaps he had read Herb Solow's account of the Nimoy incident and didn't want to lie about or ignore the toupee factor.

Who knows, maybe in a few years he will openly discuss his baldness in an interview without the subject hitting Shatner's raw nerve.

By the way, we haven't read any of the biographies by the "gang of four" (Doohan, Takei, Koenig and Nichols). If anyone out there has and spots a toup reference, please let us know.