007 wore a wig?
Ali Tait
Posts: 7MI6 Agent
Is it true that Sean Connery wore a wig in all of his Bond films? If it is, what did he look like with the wig off? It certainly looks like he had more more hair in Never Say Never Again than he did in Diamonds Are Forever.
Comments
Yes,Sean Connery began losing his hair when he was in his late teens.And from the beginning of his acting career onward,he wore custom-made wigs.Connery used various hairpieces throughout his tenure as James Bond.They're all quite natural looking,and unless you're aware of them,they're difficult to spot.Conversely,the toupee Connery wears in Never Say Never Again is--in my opinion--the most obvious looking of all his wigs.
To see how Sir Sean looks minus his wigs,check out the movie The Man Who Would Be King.Sean usually wears hair of some sort,but in this one he's bald.
Major Garland Briggs, in TWIN PEAKS
Actually,Sean started wearing his toupees even earlier than in From Russia With Love.He's wearing one in Dr.No.It's probably the same one he wore on tv in the BBC productions of Requiem For a Heavyweight and Anna Karinina.Plus Tarzan's Greatest Adventure,Action of the Tiger(directed by future Bond master Terence Young) and the Disney movie Darby O'Gill and the little people.Sean began balding at an early age...;)
W.G.
Was Sean a complete slaphead by the time of NSNA then?
Hmm...Not bald at the sides or back of the head-just on top.Male pattern baldness.And incidentally,during the period Roger Moore played 007,he wore a small piece to conceal a bald patch at the crown of his head.This isn't a secret with him-like Connery,Sir Roger freely acknowledges his baldness-although in his case,it's considerablly less than Sir Sean's.
Incidentally,wigs aren't new for movie stars:Humphrey Bogart wore a large toupee-so did David Niven,John Wayne(in his later years),Jimmy Stewart,Fred Astaire,and Gene Kelly.You just can't fight heredity,although a well-made wig can certainly conceal it...:)
W.G.
Joe.
That's the beauty of wigs...when Mother Nature takes away your original hair,you can always buy more.John Wayne used to joke--when he was older and wearing toupees--that he had all of his own hair.It wasn't the hair he'd been born with-but it was real hair and it was all his.All bought and paid for.
And certainly the amount of hair an actor has on his head has absolutely nothing to with determining the quality of his skill as a performer.Look at Yul Brynner,Telly Savalas and Patrick Stewart,and Samuel L.Jackson,for example.Excellent actors every one.
While The Magnificent Seven was being filmed,Steve McQueen attempted to steal a scene from Yul Brynner.Brynner stopped that immediately,telling McQueen that,"All I(Brynner) have to do is take off my hat and no one will even look in your direction."
By contrast,there are a multitude of hirsute actors who are completely without talent whatsovever.Sadly,we've all seen them more than once.
W.G.
Wow, you people are informative. I knew that Connery wore a hairpiece at some point in his Bond career but I had no idea it was as early as DN! Or as early as his pre-Bond career in Darby O'Gill!
I've always thought Yul Brynner to be one of the sexiest men to ever walk the earth, and I always thought he looked more handsome and sexier bald than with hair! Same for Patrick Stewart. Great story about McQueen and Brynner on the set of Magnificent 7.
That list would be far too long....
Only joking of course,but I am a big movie and tv buff,and an active reader with broad interests.This is what happens after you double major in English and Humanities.:)) You're then qualified to be boring on a host of topics...
Hey!Check out Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City-I really think you'll like it.
That Yul Brynner story from The Magnificent Seven can be found on the Special Edition DVD.There are other great stories revealed in the documentary on the making of this wonderful film(why it didn't get Oscars,I'll never understand).For example,every one of the 7 stars thought the movie was all about them.Good thing they didn't have to walk through too many narrow doorways,huh?Their increasingly swollen heads would've gotten them stuck every time...;)
W.G.
I'm pretty sure Connery is playing at least 10 years YOUNGER than his actual age in ENTRAPMENT (in fact, I'd say that was the case with a number of the roles he has played since around the time of RED OCTOBER.) in ENT, Z-J has a discussion at one point with her superior and they say something to the effect that the guy is pushing 60, not 70.
That's still a three-decade difference in their ages, but shows how convincingly you can now shave years with Connery, who after a rocky-looking prematurely old patch (1967-1973), seems to have settled in comfortably before locking into a look that just seems perpetually ageless.
Major Garland Briggs, in TWIN PEAKS
And of course,you're right about Entrapment.Sean is playing younger.He did that in The Rock too-where he played a thinly disguised 007.Hey!Who doesn't if they can get away with it?
W.G.
That's true.Of course at that time,Sean was also preparing for his film Shalako,a western in which his character-a cavalry scout-wears long hair and a large moustache.:)
W.G.
My wife often wonders if Connery had some real top of the line surgery in 74 and again in the mid to late 80s, but I'm more inclined to think it could be traced to emotional happiness (2nd marriage) or maybe even pride in craft, along with pride in the projects he began getting.
I always consider WIND & THE LION to be the start of Connery as MORE THAN BOND (technically you could say that as far back as THE HILL, but starting with W&L, he has a pretty good streak including ROBIN & MARIAN and MAN WHO WOULD BE KING and a decent turn in BRIDGE TOO FAR before coming a cropper with METEOR and CUBA), or Connery Phase II. He really starts testing his limits in the 80s, and I think he kind of runs up against those limits in a scene in WRONG IS RIGHT (the scene with Robert Webber) and in PRESIDIO (the crying stuff), and he locked into a wider but credible range after that.
If he had done Merlin in EXCALIBUR and/or Thulsa Doom in CONAN (as Boorman and Milius had intended), it is possible that the showiness of those roles -- especially Merlin -- would have pitched him into a near-self-parody category, sort of like what Shatner became.
The Connery role that didn't happen which I most mourn is THE LAST HARD MEN, a end-of-western-era-western from the mid 70s where Heston wanted either Robert Shaw or Connery to play opposite him as a baddie, but they wound up with Coburn instead. I think Connery could have notched a really impressive villain at that point (maybe people would have actually gone to see the movie), and that would have widened his options (but also might have notched him in the 'aging star turns character actor' category.)
Major Garland Briggs, in TWIN PEAKS
After YOLT Connery did seem to age rapidly so that by the mid-1970s in films like The Man Who Would Be King, he doesn't look anything he did as Bond.
At 73 Connery looks healthy and well and that's the most important thing. Wigs etc don't matter at all.
I didn't know Roger Moore wore a piece? I am not surprised, but where did you learn that bit of information?
He did not wear one in "Dr.No" that was his own hair while slopping through the water & steam pipes and throughout the rest of the film.
In "From Russia with Love" SC was still using his own hair, but this time supplemented with paint on his scalp - an old but tried and true technique to help mask thinning hair.
By "Goldfinger" it was "wig" time. He wears two different ones as the PTS hair is far better than the hairpiece in the rest of the film - which is a "Bing Crosby Special" easily visable on this model is the cheesecloth at the hairline. This toupee is a real stinker and in my view looks absolutely horrid!!
In Thunderball. the toupee is slightly better styled, and comes and goes. Underwater you see SC's real hair, he also drops the toupee in the scenes just prior to getting in and out of the water.
In "You Only Live Twice" for the hike up the volcano and the dive in the water previous - again SC doffs the wig.
In "Diamonds Are Forever" the Toupee vanishes when SC takes a swim with Bambi and Thumper.
In his last outing as oo7, NSNA - there is a shot of SC swimming after Largo in the conclusion in which the toupee is missing.
All in all an interesting study in male pattern baldness - conducted over decades.
8-)
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
Name your source!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Just watch Dr. No and pay attention to SC's hair. You can see scalp through it, and there is no cheesecloth border on the forehead, toupee technology was not that good in 1960.
There are plenty of "off screen" photos of SC available that will document "Big Tam's" hair loss over the years. But I would think that would be a rather "daft" undertaking.
For a subject of REAL depth, how about eyebrows?
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
TBH, no matter how hard I look, I can never really see where the hair ends and rug begins!
To be honest, I think we should draw a veil over all this with more recent Bonds, it may be a tad disillusioning...
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Imagine what it was like being 10 years old during the thick of the 1960's Bond craze and hearing "James Bond wears a wig!", talk about devastation!
I used to look at the back of my Goldfinger LP cover (not even stereo) and shake my head in disbelief.
I survived though - but have developed a disdain for the use of "rugs".
8-)
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
Hmmmm, I thought the post was titled '007 wore a wig?', not 'Connery wore a wig' ! ?:)[/quote]