Suspicion: "The Protégé" - a toupological analysis.

"The Protégé" is an episode of the Alfred Hitchcock-executive produced TV series Suspicion, which ran for just over forty episodes between 1957-1958. This episode aired in May 1958 and starred Agnes Moorehead as actress Katherine Searles, Jack Klugman as stage manager turned playwright Jason Thomas and William Shatner as theater director Eli Jack.


The story in brief: Prima donna Searles has a profound problem with alcoholism. On the opening night of a major Broadway production, she ends up too drunk to perform and has to be replaced by her understudy. The incident all but ends her career.


Ten years later, Klugman's character Jason tracks Searles down to a summer theater near a cottage he's been renting fifty miles out of town.


He watches her performances during rehearsals, including her quarrels with theater director Eli Jack (Shatner).


Searles continues to struggle with self-doubt; her memories of being an alcoholic closely tied with her life as an actress. Despite the best advice of her friend, the young aspiring actress Pamela (Phyllis Love), she decides to pull out of even this amateur production.


Meanwhile, Jason meets Eli and offers him the directing reigns of a major new Broadway play he has written.


But there's just one other thing - he's decided he also wants Searles in the lead role. Searles? The alcoholic? The self-destructive troublemaker?

Despite her doubts, Searles gradually realizes that she is perfect for the role: that of a tormented suicidal mother. The actress vows to gives her all to the performance.


She insists that she won't let everybody down by returning to alcohol - besides, she has a trick for that, keeping a gun in her home which reminds her that she would rather die than have another drink.

Just as rehearsals for the new play ramp up and everything seems to be going wonderfully, Pamela, in true Poison Ivy or The Babysitter-style, tells Eli that Searles is drinking again - maybe she would be better for the starring role instead! The vixen even goes so far as to plant a bottle of drink in Searles' dressing room.


The promise of greatness quickly morphs into frustration and desperation. A repeat of what happened a decade ago would be utterly disastrous:

As a result of the accusations, Eli changes his plans for the play, readjusting it to accommodate young Pamela in the lead role.


Katherine Searles witnesses these secret rehearsals and is immediately devastated.


The false accusations morph into a retreat back into the dark reality from which she thought she had escaped - she begins to drink again.


Somehow, Searles manages to shake out of it and convinces both the writer and director to let her perform this role after all. But will the opening night be another disaster? Wait a minute - that's not a prop, that's the actress' real gun!


And that's where we'll leave it...


In the 21st century, sometimes the idea of having to watch old black & white TV dramas from the 1950s can seem like something of a chore - until one watches them. As with "The Defender" and "The Glass Eye", we were thoroughly enchanted, engrossed and enthralled by the earnestness (that's five words beginning with "e"!) of the drama on display. Back in those days, TV was still finding its feet as an offshoot of the theater - and these kinds of stories are eminently theatrical: tightly written, expertly performed and made with a level of dignity and craftsmanship that one rarely finds these days on the "boob tube".


Klugman-isms and Shatner-isms are on full display here (its fun to see the two actors interact)...


...although it's really Agnes Moorehead as actress Katherine Searles who steals the show as a diva trying to escape a prison of self-induced tragedy by returning to the (dangerous for her) world of acting. She has managed to stay sober for years, but she has done so at the expense of her career. Are the two inexorably linked? Can she break the cycle?


Let's move swiftly to the hair. We recently documented the two apparently very different toupological philosophies of Bill Shatner and Jack Klugman. Perhaps this is why Bill Shatner, despite appearing on nearly every other 1970s cop show during his "Lost Years" period, never appeared on Klugman's iconic Quincy M.E. Instead, Bill Shatner very publicly went curly in the style of a rival TV detective:

Bill Shatner ultimately chose Peter Falk's hair over Klugman's retro-Kirk look.

"The Protégé" (interestingly this word has diacritics - essentially miniature hairpieces on top of letters - over its "e's" much like the word "toupée" has; though the accent-less "toupee" has become more common in recent times) is a very early example of Bill Shatner wearing his "Jim Kirk lace".


And though there are no toupological incidents to speak of, we wonder if this could this be the very first on-screen appearance of this iconic toupee. 1957's "The Defender" and "The Glass Eye" were still toup-less (see links above); "Playhouse 90: "A Town Has Turned to Dust" (from June 1958) shows Bill Shatner in a far more standard wig. However, appearances in The World of Suzie Wong had just been toupologically fortified with a piece very closely matching the "Jim Kirk lace". We can't definitively call it the very first on-screen appearance of this particular toupee as there are quite a few TV appearances from this time, which we have yet to analyze - but it is surely very close.

There is one other element of this story that is particularly poignant. In real life, Bill Shatner's third wife Nerine was an alcoholic; it was a tragic addiction that would ultimately cost her her life. Ironically, it was recovering alcoholic Leonard Nimoy who tried to tell his friend the true import of what this meant. Bill Shatner writes in his autobiography:


Leonard recognized the symptoms immediately. The next day he called me and said, "Bill, you know she's an alcoholic?"

"Yes," I said "But I love her."

"You're in for a rough ride then."

I didn't understand what Leonard was saying to me. I didn't have the vocabulary. I was so certain that by loving her enough I could cure her...I tried to understand her addiction. If I said anything about it she would immediately become defensive, she'd respond by becoming furious with me. "I'm not drunk," she'd say in a slurred voice."What makes you think I'm drunk?"

Nerine Kidd-Shatner (right).

The story depicted in "The Protégé" is ultimately a far happier one than that which Bill Shatner tragically experienced in real life. Yet, watching a young Bill Shatner act out scenes which would be eerily similar to his own life decades later (the emotional entanglement with another person's addiction; the fear that the alcoholic has broken their promise and returned to drink) is both moving and somewhat unsettling.

"The Protégé" is highly engaging entertainment and well worth watching. Sadly, it is not available to buy commercially, but was available to watch at the website museum.tv - although it appears to have disappeared from their archives! We'll keep you posted.

Vanity Fair goes straight for the toupular.

As many of our readers will know, Bill Shatner has been all over the media lately promoting his new sitcom $h*! My Day Says. Among the more interesting pieces on the actor is a New York Times piece entitled "The Many Iterations of William Shatner" as well as the answering of 10 fan submitted questions for Time magazine. And then there is a recent Vanity Fair piece entitled "William Shatner and Betty White Are Making a Sex Tape for A.A.R.P." The article, which includes an interview with Bill Shatner, ends with the following exchange:

Q: O.K., one more question. You wear a toupee. We all know it, it’s obvious, but you won’t admit it. How long are you going to hold on to this ruse? Is it a mystery you’ll be taking to your grave?

A: Probably. But if it’s any consolation, that’s not very long from now.


We've long been pressing for interviewers to probe the toupee issue in more detail - but not like this! The entire interview feels awkward, with interviewer Eric Spitznagel seemingly doing more to put himself center-stage than actually seeking to elicit a decent interview from his subject. The toupee question (at the very end) feels like a dare was made with a friend - will he or won't he ask?- rather than a genuine attempt seeking to broach such an incredibly important issue.

We have also often suggested that there are numerous signs that Bill Shatner is actually now willing to talk toup: from ending his autobiography with the question "Do I wear a toupee?" to all kinds of hints about the issue. And by hosting interview shows such as Shatner's Raw Nerve and Aftermath, it's entirely possible that Bill Shatner is again signaling how such a potentially uncomfortable subject as his toupee could be delicately addressed - if the interview is conducted properly: "Ask me about my toupee the way that I ask my guests about their complex issues," he seems to be saying.

Bill Shatner interviewing actor Kelsey Grammer

So it's a shame that despite these subtle signs, the toupee subject has essentially been left to the realms of the gimmick-provocateur interviewer rather than the true professionals, resulting in uncomfortable exchanges like the one above (or this).

Bill Shatner, discussing Raw Nerve, once told The Winnipeg Free Press:

"My impulse was...that [my interviewees] would feel confident enough to reveal themselves a little bit more than they have in the past. And I felt that I could effect that because I was speaking to them on their own grounds....I had no agenda, I wished not to hurt them, I didn't want to do any tabloid stuff. I very specifically kept away from tabloid matters and talked about things of the heart."

The legendary 1977 Frost/Nixon interviews lasted for 12 days.

The toupee is not a tabloid matter and should not be treated as such. For more than fifty years, Bill Shatner's heart (and mainly his head) have drawn upon the powers of the piece. It's a remarkable, moving and ultimately life-affirming story (the joy of the "Jim Kirk lace", the sweaty despair of the "Lost Years" toups, battling middle age with the "TJ Curly" and finally settling down and finding greater self-ease with the "Denny whatever-it-is"); whoever succeeds in gently coaxing this story from Bill Shatner will quite possibly have - in the words of Perry White from the 1978 movie Superman - "The greatest interview since...God talked to Moses!"

A Denny for your thoughts...

Of all the extremely important debates that we've had about Bill Shatner's hair, perhaps the one that has elicited the greatest amount of discussions and opinions is: what exactly is Bill Shatner's current "Denny Crane" look? Is it plugs or is it another piece?

"Bill, are you trying to copy my hair?"

But setting aside this debate somewhat, our toupologists have been studying a notable phenomenon at the back of Bill Shatner's head that leads us to some other crucial and equally important questions. The actor's current "Denny Crane" look is usually quite uniform (though it can get a little patchy). But there is an area at the back of the head that stands out in stark contrast to this. At the back, the hair is often longer and a little more unruly.


In observing various images of Bill Shatner's current hair look (from 2000 onwards), this phenomenon is something we've seen again and again...


...uniformity versus a greater degree of freedom.


On numerous occasions, this mysterious area appears to be the only one showing a strong streak of rebellion and independence. Is this Bill Shatner's way of saying that although he is getting older and is settling down a little, that he is still a rebel at heart?


The below image is an example of the slight patchiness we referred to - likely the result of a long day coupled with an aging piece in need of replacement, though some might argue that this is actually indicative of a hair transplant.


But setting aside that debate (just a little)...


...the image also provides yet another example of the mysterious unruly patch of hair at the back.


And above too. So what is it? Is this an area of real hair? We believe it may well be. If so, is it used to harvest hair (seems quite small for that task) for the rest of the head if Bill Shatner has plugs? Or if Bill Shatner wears a piece (we're increasingly inclined to believe he does, though we think he may have tried plugs at some point) then is the area at the back the only place where the piece does not reach?


What about the sides? Why is the hair so uniform there almost right down to the sideburns? If it is a piece - a custom made glue-on membrane covered in hair that lasts for several weeks before being thrown away - then has it been designed to end just by the sideburns at the sides and a little higher at the back, allowing a small patch of real hair to remain?


So many questions (see here for an earlier brief analysis of this sparse patch). Our toupologists clearly still have much work to do...

Bill Shatner in deep thought, possibly about toupees.

UPDATE: A video posted at Bill Shatner's YouTube page shows this very area of hair (and only this area of hair) being combed - what is Shats trying to tell us?

Poles and polls: we're back!

The "TSS Shatner One" sails away from Antarctica back to the WSSTS.

We're finally back from our groundbreaking return trip to Antarctica! Although, as expected, we didn't find any direct information about Bill Shatner's toupee, we did manage to conduct several interesting experiments, which examined the thermal and insular properties of replicas of Bill Shatner's key toupee stages. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the "TJ Curly" with its extremely thick and curly TFSISR (Toupular Follicle to Square Inch of Scalp Ratio) proved to be the hands-down winner.

Deforest Kelley needs a visor, but Bill Shatner only needs his toupee to stay warm. Image sourced here.

Now, turning to our most recent poll...


...40% of voters stated that the shockingly thick (and curly) look of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) is what first aroused your toupee suspicions. Only 10% started to suspect while watching the original Trek series, while almost a quarter if voters say late-night TV jokes, press reports and other forms of satire is what made them suspect Bill Shatner's hair wasn't as real as they had once thought. Thanks for voting!

Shatner's Toupee: Antarctic expedition.

Shatner's Toupee is taking a two week break as our staff head out to Antarctica. Naturally, the William Shatner School of Toupological Studes has already conducted numerous prior surveys of this region in pursuit of our goal of seeking out all possible information about William Shatner's toupee. However, in a recent report, one of our top toupologists discovered that we had missed a five square-mile area located by the arrow in the below image:


The William Shatner School of Toupological Studies takes its role as one of the world's foremost scientific and research institutions extremely seriously, and thus almost as soon as the oversight was discovered, we put together a comprehensive new expedition to the area in question. Sadly, our previous trips to this region yielded no concrete information, although several animals in Antarctica do appear to have fur which closely resembles Bill Shatner's current "Denny Crane" look. Coincidence?


Anyway, fingers crossed this time. Thanks, as always, to our valued readers for your interest, insights, tips and thoughtful comments. We'll be back in two weeks!