New toupless photo.

We've managed to come across a new and exciting toup-less picture of Bill Shatner (above). The image is from 1957 and forms part of a publicity photo shoot undertaken by the National Screen Service for the 1958 MGM picture The Brothers Karamazov. This and the two images lower down this page were all likely taken on the MGM lot, with Bill Shatner aged 26 at the time.

Bill Shatner in The Brothers Karamazov (filmed in 1957, released in 1958)

Bill Shatner wore a bowl-shaped wig in The Brothers Karamazov, his first major movie performance. In television appearances of the time, he was still going toup-less - albeit with an increasing reliance on careful styling, sprays and the like - but by 1958 this would begin to change. The three images provide a rare example from this period when the hair was not so heavily styled.

Bill Shatner with his then wife Gloria Rand and actor Lee J. Cobb

The particular image we present here for the first time is the only one of the three to provide an overhead view of Bill Shatner's head. This unique view provides some pretty strong evidence of severe thinning taking place across the top of the head, particularly at the rear crown. The hair, already very sparse, thin, light and fragile is combed across (a partial comb-over of sorts) to provide the maximum possible illusion of thickness. Toupologically speaking, it's a remarkably revealing image and one that a mere few years later would have never been photographed for public consumption sans toupee.


UPDATE: Our top toupologists tell us that they are convinced beyond reasonable doubt that the above photo is indeed Bill Shatner toupless. For more on the methodology used by our toupologists, particularly for the crucial year of 1957, see our "Shatner and toupology" post.

That better not be my toupee!

In his book How Bill Shatner's Toupee Made Star Trek - The Real Story, producer Bob Justman noted a trick that he successfully used to add extra spice to Bill Shatner's performance:

"In the second season episode 'By Any Other Name' featuring actor Warren Stevens as Rojan, and the third season episode 'Day of the Dove' featuring actor Michael Ansara as the Klingon Kang, I didn't tell Bill that these actors would be wearing toupees that quite closely resembled the one that he wore. When those actors turned up on the set, there was an instant tension between them and Bill - almost as if someone was treading on his turf."


Bob Justman continued:

"Truth is, I knew that this kind of toupee hostility - Bill even suspected they were wearing one of his toupees - would add an additional layer of animosity and energy to Bill's performance, and I think that shows up on-screen in both of those episodes. There is a real visceral tension there."


While our intention here at Shatner's Toupee is certainly not to "out" toupee wearers...


...nonetheless, it is pretty clear that both Stevens and Ansara were/are indeed adherents to the philosophy of the universal piece.


However, unlike Bill Shatner, Ansara has been photographed toup-less and has also appeared bald on-screen (for example here):


But what really matters here is that in true Star Trek style, both "Day of the Dove" and "By Any Other Name" end with Captain Kirk and his nemesis finding a resolution to their conflicts.

Gene Roddenberry wanted to show how toupee squabbles can hinder mankind's progress

Peace triumphs over piece, while the universe proves big enough for more than one Jim Kirk-style toupee on the Enterprise. A truly uplifting message indeed.


note: Bob Justman never said or wrote any of the above.

Big Bad Mama - a toupological analysis.

Big Bad Mama is a 1974 low-budget exploitation movie starring Angie Dickinson, William Shatner and Tom Skerrit. It was produced by Roger Corman (who directed William Shatner in 1962's The Intruder) and is set in Depression-era America, telling the story of a mother and her two nubile daughters who reject a conventional life and instead hit the road, embarking on a huge and very brazen robbery spree.


Along the way, they pick up a bank robber (played by Skerrit) and the gambler William J. Baxter (played by Shatner).


Skerrit proceeds to bed all three of the girls.


While Bill Shatner only gets one - Wilma, played by Angie Dickinson. His description of filming his famous (or infamous) nude scene can be read in Up Till Now.


Though Bill Shatner's character certainly wishes for more...


The exploits of the gang of five become more and more audacious.

The name of the game is Fizzbin.

Ending with a bungled kidnapping and extortion attempt.


As with Bonnie and Clyde (with a slight twist of Easy Rider) it all ends with...


...a shootout.


What to make of a movie like this? The tone is that of a Benny Hill-esque parody all set to contemporary-era music.


Rottentomatoes.com is almost split 50-50 in terms of positive-negative reviews as are other review sites. The movie is perhaps best described as a silly romp, not to be taken seriously. Some may like it, others may think it an ultimately unrewarding experience.


Bill Shatner only appears in the second-half of the movie, and affects an interesting southern accent.


Now, to the hair...


Bill Shatner's hair here is very much of the 1973-74 curious piece variety, as seen in movies such as Impulse and Pray for the Wildcats.


It is probably the least flattering toupee-era of the actor's entire career (or was it the "T.J."?). Perhaps thankfully, the actor spends much of the movie in a hat, and generally resembles his mobster-persona in the Star Trek episode "A Piece of the Action".


Toupological moments center around various ruffling of the hair induced by Newtonian principles.

There are quite a large number of these in the movie.


Here's a clip with a couple more ruffle moments:

There are more of these during the character's death at the end.


Big Bad Mama is available on DVD - neither great, nor awful - somewhere inbetween.

Bill Shatner: "It's my hair I was worried about!"

An interesting moment during an April 27th 2010 interview by Joy Behar of "The Joy Behar Show" (on CNN's sister network HLN), with Bill Shatner. After showing Shats a clip from the Star Trek episode "This Side of Paradise", Behar asks:

"Tell me - does [Nimoy] ever regret that hairdo?"

Shatner laughs before replying:

"It's mine I was worried about!"

Watch below (fuller exchange here in which Shats, seemingly lightening up in old age, also cracks a joke about his weight) :

The question is: what did Bill Shatner mean by that? Truth is, the statement seems like one of those completely meaningless jokes a person makes from time to time in public; once you've made it and seen the other person inexplicably laugh, you wonder what the hell you just said. In Bill Shatner's case, making a joke about his hair adds a whole other layer of meaning.

Surely, Bill Shatner wasn't saying "I'm the one that wore a toupee! It's worrying about that, which consumed my time, not Nimoy's bowl-shaped do!"?

Or was it, conversely, an affirmation of the 'hair is real' falsehood: "I, with my very real hair had an interesting hairstyle too."?

Entire books could be written about this tiny exchange (The William Shatner School of Toupological Studies is already working on several), analyzing both overt and unintended meaning. What was consciously said? What slipped out unconsciously? Did Bill Shatner, as he appears to, realize the weight of what he had said the second it came out? One thing is sure: Bill Shatner is a master of his craft - like any great performer, his toupee revelations always leave the audience wanting more!

The fluffy syndrome.

During the entire run of the original Star Trek, Bill Shatner stuck to a long-established toupee style, which we call "The Jim Kirk lace". But there are a few examples within Star Trek's run in which Kirk's hair was altered. One such example, perhaps the most subtle, is the third season episode "The Paradise Syndrome".

In the episode, Captain Kirk loses his memory and is left stranded on a planet of primitive yet contended Native American Indian-like people. Kirk inadvertently becomes their god, Kirok, and also falls in love with Miramanee (pictured below).


Crucially, Bill Shatner's transformation into a softer, gentler character in the episode is also reflected by the subtle transformation of the toupee. It becomes less greasy and just a little bit more fluffy. The sideburns - are they real or not (probably not)? Does the hair look more or less realistic overall? Conversely, these kinds of dilemmas cleverly direct the viewer to never become too contented with Kirk's new reality - after all, fluffy toupee or not, the entire planet he is on faces destruction from an asteroid if Spock, up on the Enterprise, fails to halt it.

And on a side note - an interesting bit of trivia: Bill Shatner's moccasins are without the "lifts" that his regular boots contained to make the actor appear taller - thus, Bill Shatner appears noticeably shorter in parts of this episode:

"Jim, have you shrunk?"

Image sourced from Trekcore.com

Anyway, we think that "The Paradise Syndrome," written by Margaret Armen, is one of the highlights of the often dreadful third season of Star Trek and possibly of the entire series. Most notable is its portrayal of a surprisingly multi-dimensional and emotionally mature Captain Kirk (the episode ends not with the usual humorous banter, but with Kirk facing the death of his wife and future child), underscored by a uniquely soft and sensitive toupee style.