HAIR. Interesting to think about it aloud, especially for a person of color whose hair is very different and is the source of judgment in my own community as to what is beautiful or not. Being part of the classic films community, I’m in a world where, for the most part, I do not see my own image reflected back from the silver screen. But my
chosen life in this community has always been a curiously interesting compartmentalization of self-image and coveting. This was largely unarticulatable to me as a little kid; now, it's a given between me, myself and I. But I've learned to walk a mighty schizophrenic tightrope with my love for classic films on many fronts.
Hair is my guilty secret. I never question the skill of Navratilova or Sampras on the Wimbledon court, but I’ve been willingly known to bet against someone if Sabatini or Borg were on the other side of the net. (Borg was a real champion any way, whereas Sabatini...ack...she was mostly the hair). I don’t like Travolta and Harrison Ford as much as I used to b’cuz of their hairstyles. (Silly, but how can I lie? The current John Travolta masseuse gossip doesn’t bother me, but his current haircut...
Yuk!) I’ve never been a fan of the crew cut or actresses with very short hair. (Kim Novak is one of my very few exceptions). The coarse-looking or very tightly curled hair never attracted my attention though I love Jeff Chandler. No, I’m afraid I’m pretty pedestrian in my follicle tastes; shoulder length hair on women, long strands of hair on men. The 20’s and 30’s with their spit curls and tightly coiled hair was not an era I was crazy about for women’s hairstyles. But those Valentino wannabees were fine with me, even with their brilliantined hair shellacked within an inch of their lives with tons of Brylcreme. Yes John Ford made great westerns; but I confess, that sometimes I like to go back to the Olde West b’cuz my actors get to wear sideburns and have their hair on the longish side. Not a fan of wavy hair (Frank McHugh, Alan Hale, Dick Powell, Nelson Eddy, Gene Raymond, Cornel Wilde). But when the usually wavy-haired Dana Andrew appears in “The Ox-Bow Incident” with his hair is loose and unfettered...wowweeee!
Pictures are worth a thousand words, so let me show you examples of some of the hairstyles I moon over in no particular order, okay?
[u][color=#0040BF]CHARLIECHAPLINFAN[/color][/u] wrote:Thanks Theresa, I'd love to see your choices. It doesn't need to be limited to women either.
Alrighty then. You asked for it. I’ll start with the boys...and all bets are off when my first two come on the scene:
WOODY STRODE &
YUL BRYNNER - Shining, gleaming. I don’t know if I can logically separate their domes from their masculinity or from their acting. I don’t care. I just wanna plant little kisses on their bald heads.
CLARK GABLE - THE KING. I enjoyed his hair throughout his career. My two favorite Gable looks was in
“GWTW” and then as an older man with the distinguised grey on the sides of
“Mogambo.” The King...of hair? I don’t know about that, but what a man.
BRADLEY COOPER - I’ve watched Bradley’s career develop from when he was a real supporting player to now being a bonafide leading men. You don’t think his hair had anything to do with it? Ohhhhkay...what about those soft brown eyes? Uhmmm...his good comic timing?
ELVIS PRESLEY - The 50’s pompadour truly made famous by Elvis. That voice, those hips, but look at those sideburns and that glorious head of hair. I’d love to run barefoot through his hair. No wonder the girls screamed. Bobby soxers ain't got nuthin' on a hound dog.
GEORGE HAMILTON - What a tanned clean look he had. Preppy, yuppy, not a hair out of place. I guess I longed to muss that dark forest of perfectly combed hair. Can't you see the teeth marks of the comb?
GREGORY PECK &
JENNIFER JONES - Hmmm...I could go either way here. I love Jennifer’s wild mane in a couple of pictures. She seems to have always worn it down and loose and not in that 40’s pompadour upsweep thing. She looks better this way. But Peck’s my guy. Here’s where that western thing of mine’s comes to play. Making a western means letting his hair grow out longer and sideburns, and a 5-o’clock shadow. So I’m confused...I don’t know if it’s his hair, or being a bad boy.
KURT RUSSELL - I grew up watching Russell on tv and in the movies, with or without Disney...and saw the different lengths of his hair from
“Stargate” to
“Tombstone” to the mullet he wore in
“Tango & Cash” to the slicked back ‘do in
“Tequila Sunrise" (a la basketball coach, Pat Riley). But I never found him more handsome and rugged than as an older man with full hair.
ROBERT REDFORD - So sue me. Sue me! I loved that surfer boy look he rocked; carefully and purposefully & deliberately tousled perhaps. Say what you will, but no one I knew back in the day didn’t like him. Just saw
"The Way We Were" the other night. Yup, Streisand knew where it was at.
STEVE COCHRAN - He has my favorite kind of head of hair. Jet black and long.
TYRONE POWER - Come on, admit it. Don’t you want to run your fingers through his hair right now? Everything about him makes me want to swoon. His hair puts me over the edge.
WILLIAM HOLDEN - Basically I stopped and watched
“Rachel and the Stranger” because of how both Mitchum and Holden looked in this movie. Loretta Young had some choice. And see again, my Olde West theory comes into play. Look at Holden’s hair. Get him out of the stalag and put him in a western. Oh yeah, and unbutton those shirts! Thank you.
TIMOTHY BOTTOMS - Ever since
“The Last Picture Show” I had a crush on Timothy Bottoms. My favorite look of his was in
“The Paper Chase.” Doesn’t his hair look soft & fluffy? No product...(
Sigh! )
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ANN HARDING - She, and I believe Aline MacMahon, had the longest hair in Hollywood. Nope she didn't do anything crazy with it. Not bouncy or curly...just long and straight in a bun. Harding is like a fairy princess with flaxen hair, a very delicate beauty...but then hearing her speak in that alto voice, you took her seriously. (One of the actresses whose beauty was equal to Harding's was Anita Louise).
ALICE FAYE - A confection of cotton candy. It’s got the 40’s upsweep on top but falls past her shoulders.
ANN SHERIDAN - I’ve seen Sheridan with all manner of hairdoes. She looked 30’s in the 30’s and 40’s in the 40’s. But this wild look of hers is very becoming. I’m sorry it’s not in color to show off its titian beauty.
AVA GARDNER - Whew! Dark dark dark. The darkness you can drown in. Her most becoming look (IMO) was in
"The Killers" and
“Pandora & the Flying Dutchman.” Not enough? Okay...you can feast on Lancaster and Mason, greedy!
BETTE DAVIS - I thought Bette’s hair looked its absolute best in
“All About Eve.” The voluminous way it fell past her shoulders made Bette look fantastic and sexy.
CLAIRE TREVOR - Love her voice almost as much as I love her hair. Not her 30’s hair...but her 40’s hair. Look at it. Isn’t that the quintessential forties look grandma used to wear? Well ...nobody's grandma maybe looked like Claire Trevor. At one point in
"Murder, My Sweet" she hooks up with Dick Powell with her hair unpinned. What a cascade. I just loved what Anne Shirley calls her in the movie...'a big-league blonde.' Mmmmajor league.
COLLEEN DEWHURST - A distinctive voice and a strong actress, I love that shoulder length swept back look of hers. See her in
“Annie Hall.” She has that mature sexy look going on. Very nice.
DOROTHY DANDRIDGE - Without a doubt one of the great beauties of the fifties. Not so crazy about her poodle cut in the fiery
“Carmen Jones” and her hair was pulled back in a nice respectable schoolteacher bun in
“Bright Road” but check her out in
“Islands In the Sun” or
“The Decks Ran Red” or in
“Tamango.” Where she got hair relaxer on a slave ship in
that movie is beyond me. So I suspend my disbelief for ninety-minutes...
DOROTHY MALONE - To misquote Garbo:
“I vant to be Malone.” Here’s a brunette turned blonde (opposite of Joan Bennett who had a great head of hair herself, as did Hedy Lamarr) with a lovely hair do semi-curled to her shoulders. She looked great doing the Mambo.
ELLA RAINES - Famous for her widow’s-peaked pageboy, it’s clean, efficient and she looks like she means business. Oh, it
so suits straight shooter Ella. I absolutely love it.
EVELYN ANKERS - She was another gal whose hair was of its time, the 1940’s. Coiffed a lot in that part upsweep, sometimes her hair just falls softly like snow. Watch her in
"Hold That Ghost." (P.S., loved boy-next-door, Richard Carlson, too).
GENE TIERNEY - I like the nice clean look of her pageboy. It doesn’t compete with that beautiful face, but frames it. Her hair, her eyes. So much to look at with her. No one else looks like Gene Tierney. I know. You don't believe me...
"Leave Her to Heaven." Get back to me.
INGRID BERGMAN - One of the screen’s most beautiful actresses, she’s played her share of costumed heroines. But I mostly loved when she wore her hair out and loose.
JANE GREER - I don’t think I can separate Greer from “Out of the Past”’s Kathy Moffett. Her eyes and hairdo might also be the reason.
LENA HORNE - I’ll never forget watching “That’s Entertainment” (I or II) and how the audience murmurred a gasp when they showed a color clip of Lena Horne. She was beautiful. And her hairdo in “Stormy Weather” was my favorite.
LIZABETH SCOTT - She really is of her time (40’s)...and her genre: film noir. She might really have the best hair this side of Rita. Thick and healthy. It just completes the package with that voice.
RITA HAYWORTH - Iconic. Her hair toss in “Gilda” is a weapon of mass destruction. Oh no? Really... Ask your father.
BARBARA STANWYCK - She’s been around for a minute, and her hair has gone through many different styles, of course depending on her roles. But for me, my favorite way of Missy wearing her hair was natural as she did in “Meet John Doe” or “...Martha Ivers.” Her wig in “Double Imdemnity” is the only thing that keeps me from taking this film into my heart, though it IS a great story, a great cast and she, the model of femme fatalism in it.
BARBARA STANWYCK - I understand Stanwyck went grey early, and never hid that fact. My first time really seeing her was during her tv-show “The Big Valley” and then discovering her youth shortly afterwards. But look at Missy in this second picture. Isn’t she absolutely adorable? There’s no whisper of a hint of how’d she look in “The Thornbirds” some sixty years later. And even in that, her snow white hair and impeccable posture made her look regal.
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I’ve left off many favorites, including Jeff Bridges, Victor Mature, Esther Williams, Helen Walker and Ginger Rogers’ hair was especially wonderful in the 40’s. There was Veronica's silly peek-a-boo and the Niagara Falls of hair that was Dorothy Lamour's. But I won’t be able to live with this post if I don’t include The Technicolor Queen:
JEANNE CRAIN - One of the prettiest girls of the 1940’s, Gail Russell notwithstanding. (She had a sultry soulful look). Let me ask you, have you ever seen Jeanne Crain in color? It’s crazy. Look at
“State Fair” or
“Leave Her to Heaven.” Yeah, I know but
that Gene is beyond the beyond in that movie.
This Jeanne is much more down to earth.
HAIR. To quote a Doris Day song
‘...yes, I had a secret love. But my secret love’s no secret, anymore.’ Yeeeeeup, this post should just about do it. It should make me a firm candidate for the booby hatch.
