Cincinnati Kid
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As we know, celebrities are constantly under the spotlight and are forced to look their best at all times otherwise some photographer that has been hiding in the bushes outside their house for five hours will snap a photo of them not looking their best and sell it to TMZ for a hefty sum. For male actors, being bald all but eliminates the possibility of ever being a leading man. I'm a major cinephile, so this is the sort of thing that I have begun to ponder since my descent into male pattern baldness. Usually, as a bald actor, you can be an important side character like the ones played by the always outstanding Stanley Tucci, or you can just end up being the ugly henchman that someone like David Dayan Fisher always seems to play.
Bruce Willis seems to be the major outlier to these universally accepted fact, but even he had a decent amount when he landed his breakout role in Die Hard. Willis maintained leading man status throughout the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s in a variety of different film genres. My question is this... in an age in which looks are under scrutiny 24/7, will there ever be another bald leading man that can breakthrough the superficial barriers and become the type of actor that is always in demand for all kinds of roles -- even ones in films geared toward women? We can count out Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Vin Diesel because -- as awesome as they are in their films -- they are almost exclusively cast as action stars in films geared toward male audiences who don't give a rip about how much hair the protagonist has so long as he kills a lot of bad guys and blows some stuff up. Even Vin Diesel had to don a rug when he tried to play it straight in the utterly forgettable 2006 drama Find Me Guilty alongside Peter Dinklage.
To me, I have a hard time believing the barrier will be broken again given our society's need for stars to be major sex symbols like Chris Hemsworth. I honestly thought the late, great Heath Ledger could've broken the barrier. He was only in his late 20s when he unfortunately succumbed to an accidental overdose, and he was clearly suffering from hair loss prior to his untimely death. Given that he might have been the most gifted thespian of his generation -- even disregarding his most well known performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight -- he was the most likely candidate to have taken the mantle had he not chosen to go the Matthew McConaughey/Johnny Depp route and get a hair transplant along with popping Propecia like breath mints. I find it hard to believe we will ever see a bald man play the love interest in a romantic comedy. At best they might get lucky and land the lead in a TV series like Michael Chiklis has done for years. This isn't another "oh poor us" thread. I'm just thinking out loud here about the chances of a bald movie star that isn't typecast as an action star or as a supporting player.
Bruce Willis seems to be the major outlier to these universally accepted fact, but even he had a decent amount when he landed his breakout role in Die Hard. Willis maintained leading man status throughout the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s in a variety of different film genres. My question is this... in an age in which looks are under scrutiny 24/7, will there ever be another bald leading man that can breakthrough the superficial barriers and become the type of actor that is always in demand for all kinds of roles -- even ones in films geared toward women? We can count out Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Vin Diesel because -- as awesome as they are in their films -- they are almost exclusively cast as action stars in films geared toward male audiences who don't give a rip about how much hair the protagonist has so long as he kills a lot of bad guys and blows some stuff up. Even Vin Diesel had to don a rug when he tried to play it straight in the utterly forgettable 2006 drama Find Me Guilty alongside Peter Dinklage.
To me, I have a hard time believing the barrier will be broken again given our society's need for stars to be major sex symbols like Chris Hemsworth. I honestly thought the late, great Heath Ledger could've broken the barrier. He was only in his late 20s when he unfortunately succumbed to an accidental overdose, and he was clearly suffering from hair loss prior to his untimely death. Given that he might have been the most gifted thespian of his generation -- even disregarding his most well known performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight -- he was the most likely candidate to have taken the mantle had he not chosen to go the Matthew McConaughey/Johnny Depp route and get a hair transplant along with popping Propecia like breath mints. I find it hard to believe we will ever see a bald man play the love interest in a romantic comedy. At best they might get lucky and land the lead in a TV series like Michael Chiklis has done for years. This isn't another "oh poor us" thread. I'm just thinking out loud here about the chances of a bald movie star that isn't typecast as an action star or as a supporting player.
