There’s no sugarcoating the awfulness of going bald, especially when you’re young.
I lost my hair – first slowly, then all at once – when I was in my late twenties. I had it worse than most, but better than some. I’ve had decades to get used to seeing my fivehead in the mirror.
At this point, I probably wouldn’t take my hair back even if I could. I have what people tell me is ‘a look’. I would describe this look as ‘prop-scarred manatee in expensive eyewear’.
For anyone growing up, as I did, in the 1960s and ’70s, there were, for sure, bald icons: Telly Savalas, Yul Brynner and Isaac Hayes on the cover of Hot Buttered Soul. Then there was the Hollywood talent agent Swifty Lazar, famous for his Oscar-night parties. In The Vanity Fair Diaries, Tina Brown observed that the back of Lazar’s head resembled ‘crinkled foreskin’.
I like reading about the time the gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson ran for sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, in 1970, that peak hippie moment. Thompson shaved his head so that he could refer to the right-wing candidate, in debates, as ‘my long-haired opponent’.
In general, though, bald was not a look to aspire to. It was unsexy. Men kept their hair puffy on the back and sides, and it looked awful, like half an expedient doughnut. This style made even great sports stars, NBA heroes, absolute studs resemble dentists. No kid wanted that poster on their wall. My father was among the many men who parted their hair on the side and combed long strands across the balding part. He made it look pretty good.
A pox on toupees. One reason I love John D MacDonald’s thrillers so much is that his hero, Travis McGee, gets so much delight out of snatching the FAKE HAIR off bad guys.
Things got better for the balding man in the 1990s. The buzzed look arrived. Andre Agassi, who shaved his head in 1995, is often given credit for ushering this new world into being.
Agassi went from looking like a poodle, to a poodle in a hat (a poodle in chemo), to ideally bald, almost overnight. He looked fantastic. He was free, reborn.
I am an American, not a Brit, but I have read that when Neil Kinnock shaved off his combover, it was a breakthrough moment, of sorts, on your shores for the bald guy.
Now there are proudly head-shaven men, young and old, wherever you look. This look is so ‘in’ that I have a friend, a well-known journalist, who shaves his lustrous skull even though he has a full head of hair. He thinks he looks better this way, and he may be right.
I’m happy for these guys, all of them. But also they make me uncomfortable. I always fear one of them is about to head-butt me, like Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 World Cup. The late, great Bobby Charlton, King of the British combover (just ahead of Gregor Fisher in the Hamlet ad, failing to pull off a flattering picture in a photo booth with his combover), never produced that intimidating effect.
There are so many proud baldies now that we’ve lost the artful combover, or the absent-minded flop.
Do watch the excellent recent documentary Turn Every Page, about the biographer Robert Caro and his longtime editor Robert Gottlieb (1931-2023).
Gottlieb was a legend in publishing circles. He’s a legend to me, also, because he kept his combover looking fine for decades. It was superb: casual, offhanded, intellectual, shabby chic. I would kill for Gottlieb’s combover, but I don’t quite have the head, or the hair, to pull it off.
I am not in favor of all combovers – certainly not Donald Trump’s. It is the flying camel, the double axel, the triple toe loop and the death spiral of combovers, all at the same time.
When I’m watching television or films from the ’70s, or thereabouts, though, I see many balding men who I’m glad never went for the buzzed look. Dick Cavett was among them. He would have looked beady, interviewing John Lennon, Norman Mailer or Joni Mitchell, with a shaved head. Then there is Woody Allen, whose balding yet anarchic mop reflected the anarchic mood of his early films.
I am a terrific fan of literary combovers of bygone days, the shag of yore. Owners included my friend the man of letters Nicholas Delbanco, who is now in his eighties.
He has written many wise and elegant books, and he taught a generation of major writers, including Bret Easton Ellis, at Vermont’s Bennington College. When he was young, Nick dated Carly Simon. The song You’re So Vain, she has said, is in part about him.
For a few years, Nick also possessed perhaps the most seductive combover of the second half of the 20th century. It’s fun to kid him about it now, but no wonder Carly fell for him. Other owners of literary combovers included Anthony Burgess, James Dickey and Pat Conroy. The swirls of hair kept their brains cool.
All it will take is one brave bald celebrity to bring the ideal combover, the artful flop, back. Prince William, the Dalai Lama and Jude Law, are you in?
