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Q: Has Patrick Stewart ever had hair on screen? He's bald in all the roles I remember, but maybe he wore a wig or had hair early on.

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Author: 
Adam Thomlison / TV Media

To hear Patrick Stewart himself tell it, he started going bald at age 19 and had trouble coming to terms with it -- he sported a lot of hats and, he admits shamefully, a "horrendous" comb-over for a while before finally accepting his fate.

Fortunately for him, perhaps, this all took place while he was a stage actor, before the permanent recordings of his screen career. In his earliest film role, 1975's "Hennessy," he's already sporting his characteristic bald top with short back and sides.

But you're onto something with the wig angle. As is the case with most actors, even those with full heads of hair, he has been called upon frequently to wear wigs.

Thus, for example, he was seen in the 1976 miniseries "I, Claudius" with a seemingly full head of gray, curly hair -- a year after "Hennessy."

Thus also his more infamous hairdo in the 1984 sci-fi flop "Dune": a bald top with long hair at the back -- a style that's sometimes known as a skullet (combining "skull" and "mullet").

Amazingly, he almost ended up wearing a hairpiece for his famous role as Capt. Picard in "Star Trek: The Next Generation." According to TV-geek legend, when he was trying out for the role, the show's producers asked him to wear one to a meeting with the executives from Paramount Television who would make the final casting decision. The executives loved him, but they hated the wig. And so a bald hero was born.

 

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