Does Bond have to have a full head of hair?
osris
Posts: 558MI6 Agent
If we can envisage an aging Bond as, at some point in the continuing evolution of the character, both onscreen and in the various “tribute” novels, being a feasible idea, and given the likelihood that older men will suffer some hair loss, is it out of the question that Bond could be portrayed as being bald?
Comments
My answer to 'is it out of the question', therefore, is 'yes, absolutely'.
I second the sentiment. It's out of question. There's not even a receding hairline mentioned for Bond, so I do not see why we should have one. And I also don't see the interest of seeing an old balding man doing stunts and action when Bond is supposed to be in his prime and healthy.
Bond isn't blond, he isn't balding, he isn't short, he isn't black, red or yellow. He's a WASP, he's tall, dark and handsome with blue eyes. And he has hair. That's the character and there's no reason whatsoever for it to change. I don't want to imagine or see an aging, balding Bond. Least of all on screen. That's for the last movie of the franchise to do. Or not even. Nobody would do that as you never know, things can always reprise even when you interrupt.
While I respect your opinions as purists, Fleming himself wasn’t a purist, giving Bond a Scottish father after being impressed with Connery’s performance as Bond. So at least in that respect we see an instance of Fleming modifying Bond in light of external influences.
Now that several authors have written Bond novels, the character’s immutability has become a debatable point, given these different authors’ takes on it. This has been par for the course in the films, of course, where we have seen drastically different portrayals of the character, and similarly varied physical representations of Bond—none of them with a facial scar, by the way.
Fleming created the character. In my opinion, Fleming, and he alone, has the right to alter the character as he sees fit. He did give Bond a Scottish father, but his parentage was never mentioned in any 'cannon' novel prior to this fact being reviewed. In that sense, it wasn't so much a change, but a reviewing of a new fact not previously mentioned.
Aging Bond has been done before. A View to a Kill, and the unofficial Never Say Never Again. Neither were particularly successful, were they?
I agree the character should stay the same, but does his hairline?
Also Fleming I think deliberatley does not over burden us with detail about Bond in terms of what he looks like, it's a sketch at best. Some people therefore feel that it's all up for grabs, and Bond could have a number of different looks and still be Bond. For my part its precisely the opposite, it's because Fleming gives us precious little detail that the ones that we do have take on an even greater importance. I can't estimate the number of times Fleming reminds us of Bonds thick 'balck comer falling over the right Eyebrow' but it's enough for us to view it as significant. As you have said, the same is true of 'tall' 'dark' & of course 'Handsome'. Some of these characteristics are capable of being matters of opinion. e.g. 'Handsome' DC has won enough style and world's sexiest man type plaudits for this to be a matter of preference and choice, as a he seems to divide opinion on this point.
It has been pointed out very cleverly by someone in another post somewhere else (aplologies I forget who) that in Dalton we have already had a receeding Bond. Even so, he was a (slightly) receeding tall & handsome Bond. Somethings are 'non-negotiable'
I read somewhere that Connery wanted to play the part bald in NSNA, but wasn't allowed to. Not that this swings the argument for or against, but had he played it that way, I don't think it would have been as sacrilegious as most here might think. I think a lot of this might just be too negative a view of baldness in men.
As you touch on, DC looks nothing like the novels' Bond, or like any of the previous Bond actors, nor is he as tall as them, yet he has largely been accepted. So given this, the whole baldness matter seems inconsistent--if not irrational.
Don't get me wrong, I think Bond should have hair, but not for the reasons mentioned to me, here.
The reason is that if he were balding he'd have to have a full head-shave in order to keep in with the contemporary male fashion for balding men, this would make him look like a bouncer. I’ve yet to see shaven-headed men (apart from Yul Brynner) who don’t look like bouncers, especially if they are well built, which Bond would have to be to some extent.
Connery, Dalton and Craig all have hairlines going. - In the end its irrelevant - the the presence of the actor and how well they play the role that counts. - Or alternatively, how well the book was written.
Its like arguing about the colour of the icing on the cake!
Re the issue of an "aging" Bond / action hero, that can be applied to all action films. Sooner or later the actor or actress has to ask if they are looking stupid because they are visibly older than the character they are playing. Hollywood is obsessed with turning back the body clock, to painful ends. Bond should not look like he is on a zimmer frame. - Equally he should not look like he has just finished primary school and not started shaving yet!
At last, someone who agrees with me.
The drawing that Fleming had commissioned of Bond shows a man with fine, straight dark hair whose hairline suggests it may be receding (or, like Craig's, just high on the forehead . . . his hairline hasn't changed much in years even if the hair length and style have). There's no reason to believe that the right actor couldn't pull off the Bond character even with less hair.
I think I know the drawing you mean. Yes, it does suggest a receding hairline. Men of Fleming's generation didn't seem to have an issue with baldness. Not many men then wore hairpieces, for instance. So they were less concerned about being follically challenged than we are today.
I'd like to think that the "real" James Bond's noble character allows him to go on with life while thumbing his nose at society with a "to hell with you" attitude. But unfortunately, I don't think Fleming shared this view in his Bond stories, which began in reaction to his own mid-life crisis and were written at a higher level of mythical "reality" in which good and virtue were represented by the handsome and beautiful people and in contrast, the vile and villainous were ugly, scarred, deformed, short or abnormally tall and often, bald, e.g., Le Chiffre (CR, who was based on Aleister Crowley), Mr. Big (LALD), Drax's rocket plant henchmen (MR), Dr. No, Sluggsy (TSWLM), etc. It's also interesting to note how Bond to the end of the series had that comma of hair that defied staying put and how his best friend, Felix Leiter, had that mop of straw colored hair, which in the universal male experience were symbols and tokens of youth and virility.
I think there was a healthy level of self-awareness that Fleming wrote into his character despite the "cypher effect" he might have attempted, in contrast for example to the truly faceless and nameless hero in Len Deighton's "Harry Palmer" novels. Henry Chancellor in James Bond: The Man and His World emphasized how post-war London was smattered with commercial adverts that promoted fashion and luxuries for men and women alike, in which one would often see illustrations of squared-jawed, Hollywood leading men types flashing white-even teeth and thick, neatly coifed locks of hair. Fleming himself described many times through the voices of different characters how handsome Bond appeared. I think there was some conceit involved and Fleming knew the effects his own looks had on women, which is why I believe he had some of his own features in mind when he envisioned Bond's looks. Here's the referenced sketch that Fleming commissioned for the image of Bond that he proposed for the Daily Express comic strip, with a receding hairline not unlike his own:
I think the receding hairline was okay for Bond as far as Fleming was concerned, since he himself had this, but Bond's hair loss wouldn't have gone any further which is where fiction separates itself from real life as some of us can attest (ahh, I miss the days when my hairdresser complained how my hair was too thick!) ...and, as discussed a couple of years back, it's unlikely that Fleming envisioned Bond having ugly, brown teeth despite the 70 cigarettes he smoked every day...hey, it's fiction!
I'm begining to think that anecdote about Fleming honoring Connery by giving Bond a Scottish heritage is becoming a really sore example of Bond urban legends running amok. Charles Helfenstein in his book, The Making of On Her Majesty's Secret Service documents Fleming's earliest intention to incorporate a Scottish background into Bond's backstory when he commissioned research with the College of Arms for OHMSS, which predates the EON production of Dr. No, which is the earliest time possible when Fleming could have seen Connery in character before the film's release.
It's also known that Fleming was very kind and even gregarious with the press when he was asked about the film adaptations of his novels, including what he thought of Sean Connery's portrayal by stating that "it was hard to imagine anyone but Connery in the role." But nonetheless, Fleming did not change his character's own history in reaction to Bondmania, since afterall, Fleming was said to be very proud of his own Scottish roots.
For a film an actor's hair can be made fuller or cropped away - depending on what the film is trying to say about that particular charecter. So a balding Bond is possible, and has been done in NSNA - but why?
In NSNA they were goiing for a "look" that would suit an older Connery. He would have appeared just awful if they had stuck the toupees from Goldfinger, Thunderball, YOLT or DAF on top of his greying pate. The choice they did make seems right for the Bond charecter, and in line with how he appeared in previous Connery efforts.
It's clear that the current producers are not going to stick with an aging actor in the part of Bond. That's one reason Brosnan was canned. The old days of sticking with someone like Roger Moore out of love or loyality seem to be over.
Fleming was clear about one thing - that Bond was intended to be perpetually somehere around 35 years old.
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond