And this carries over to celebrities. What prompted this post was a movie and a young Clark Gable without his pencil thin mustache. It took me a while to place him. The same with David Niven. And who knows what Jeff Bridges might look like without his oily mop.
Not that I am opposed to same, I have often over the years grown my own scraggly attachments, ever mindful of that old Army saying, "Why cultivate on your face what grows wild on your ass?"
It's just that facial hair can so dominate a person's projected personality that it's hard to imagine them without it. Anyway, here's an interesting contrast.
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| This young man looks concerned. |
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| Now it's we who are concerned. |
The mouth was altered. That is more than the soul patch.
ReplyDeleteAnd the hair was changed, but who cares? The point is beautifully made.
ReplyDeleteTwo men come to mind who doffed their mustaches. One was a love of my young life whose face was just made for that fringe. When I saw him many years later without it, there was a face I never would have fallen for. I still have a dream of his old pirate's smile. Another man was a colleague who had a mustache through all the years that we worked together. I saw him recently without it; along with taking up marathon running and dying his hair, he'd shaved it off in an attempt to look younger. I wanted to beg him to grow it back out of pity for the rest of us.
If a man wears a certain configuration of facial hair for many years and then makes a drastic change, it has the same kind of impact as a nose job on the face of an actress we've come to love. Think about Jennifer Gray.
Yes the mouth and hair were altered, that's the point. If I could have, I would have made him smile.
ReplyDeleteNance, what always got me every time I shaved off a mustache or beard it took my family hours to notice.
What grows wild on my ass grows wild on my face and most people say there is no difference in the look of the two spots. Now personally I just count up all the money I don't spend on deodorant, after shave, razors and, shaving cream.
ReplyDeleteMight not be a bad idea for your social life to not exclude deodorant.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago I ran across a profile photo of a young Hitler, sans bush. It struck me that he was the spitting image of my then employer, who was of German extraction. Their personalities were also quite similar.
ReplyDeleteGlad you made it out alive JJ.
ReplyDeleteSaw a documentary about Hitler once that had a small part talking about his mustache and how that style was common until he made it infamous. The documentary was a bit off the wall but it listed several people including Charlie Chaplin that wore that style.
ReplyDeleteEgads. That's it BB. Old Adolph must have seen the Little Emperor and had delusions of grandeur.
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