Too close to call? - A contrarian view.

We were going to move on to other areas of toupology today, but we feel that the debate that raged in the previous post is difficult to ignore. Previously, we stated our belief (we attempt to be scientific here and try our best to avoid stating as fact things we don't know beyond a reasonable doubt - though in this case erred on that front on several occasions) that Bill Shatner had had a hair transplant in 2000. But there is a convincing contrarian view - and one that merits closer attention. This view is that in 2000, Bill Shatner, rather than getting plugs, merely switched to a different kind of hairpiece or hair system - the phrasing is unimportant.

One anonymous poster (we really do plead for you to use usernames, which are just as anonymous but merely give you a name so we don't have to call people "anonymous") wrote:

"I am very familiar with the hair piece Mr. Shatner is wearing. It is designed to be worn only once. They call it the "Saturday Night Special" The hair strands are inserted (no knots) into a very fine membrane which requires glue to adhere to the scalp. The membrane is as fine as a fly's wings. Transparent to the eye. Once the hair piece is removed, it must be discarded. Lasts approximately 3-4 weeks."

From a purely juristic sense, we have to ignore the first sentence. But the rest is very interesting.


Here is the main overriding argument for a toupee: There is simply too much hair on Bill Shatner's head to have come from his own head.

This remains a valid argument. In our previous post, we argued that a transplant could overcome that. However, upon closer examination of numerous Shatner images, we noticed that the hair on Bill Shatner's head remains suspiciously thick far more often than it is as thin as this:


The contrarian argument would suggest that the above was a rare ratty toupee.

Yet, there is also something unusual going on at the back - evidence of a patch of slightly longer hair. This would again point to the transplant theory - a harvesting area in which the hair is grown a little longer to hide the patches.


Or could it be both? A third option? Does Bill Shatner wear a toupee that is made from his own hair? This would (kind of) enable him to claim that he doesn't wear a toupee anymore.

We posted this extract as an update in our last post, and are interested in your thoughts:

" 'And no, it isn't a toupée,' [Shatner] says, tugging his hair." See here for more from this interview.

If it is a toup, then Bill Shatner was simply lying point-blank. Or was he parsing words like hair piece with hair system? Yet, so much of Bill Shatner's public and increasingly confident toupee jocularity (for example this and this) has seemed to stem from the post-2000 era in which the toupee was but a thing of the past. Could it all be an illusion? Is it just another toupee? Is Bill Shatner screwing with our minds?


There is another issue too. The times that we know that Bill Shatner is wearing a piece:


Is there really room up there to place a piece over plugs (yes)? That would likely make the scalp invisible.

Truth is, we don't really know - we find arguments from both sides to be persuasive on many points. Yet, we have decided that there is now enough reasonable doubt about the plugs to avoid stating them as being fact.

We do know that post-2000 Bill Shatner still wears a piece. But the real question is and remains, whether he has also had surgery. Like you, we are eager to solve this mystery.

UPDATE: See out Katz story for more info.

What is it?

A debate has been raging of late among some readers about Bill Shatner's current hair. What is it? Is it a transplant or some very, very fine and expensive hair appliance? How could Bill Shatner's real wrap of hair around the back and sides provide enough hair to fill out the top?


All very interesting questions. Many of you have also been pointing to some recent and high-quality close-ups of Bill Shatner at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center that were posted at the German shatner-news website - some of which we reproduce here.

We will now try to make a case (our pro-toupee counter-case is here and an important update is here) why Bill Shatner might indeed have had a hair transplant (plugs) and try to answer some of your questions in the process:

Imagine Bill Shatner's head were a three-sided sports stadium filled with people. The people are the hair at the back and sides and the pitch is bald scalp.


Would it be possible to fill out the green playing field with spectators without emptying the seats too much (let's overlook the relative stadium-to-pitch size issues)? Could an equilibrium be reached whereby the stadium looks relatively full and the seats still look relatively full too? Now imagine that if to that you added the fact that for every seat vacated by someone going to stand on the pitch, a new person eventually appeared to take their place (hair regrowth). The answer is yes:


This is what we believe Bill Shatner might have achieved. His hair all over is pretty thin in terms of hairs per square inch, and patchy in places too, but the image of a full head of hair is largely maintained.

Apparently supporting this toupological thesis (or should that be plugological?), we have what appears to be visual evidence of areas that are harvested for donor hair - look at the temple area:


And possibly here too - a closeup from Mind-Meld (more here):


Now, if we look at the relative spacing of the hair, we see that certain areas are a little patchier and require additional work after a time - hair falls out and needs to be replaced. Would Bill Shatner, now prosperous and wealthy, ever be photographed with a hairpiece in such a bad condition?


Yet, we also believe that Bill Shatner still uses hairpieces from time to time. These are systems that are possibly placed on top of his plugs, likely when he is facing the harsh lights of a studio and his plugs aren't quite up to scratch. For example...


...this, we believe is a piece. One of the telltale signs is the sharp hairline at the sides and a little too thick hair at the top. Thus, what Bill Shatner has devised is a look that arguably allows him to get away with not wearing a toup most of the time, but still enables him to slip on a similar-looking toup when the demands of lighting and constant plug-tune-ups negate the possibility of the transplanted hair holding-up to scrutiny.

Plugs:


Piece:


The donor hair that Bill Shatner apparently provides is resistant to male pattern-baldness and so grows on the top and regrows at the back and sides. As this Q&A, linked to by "RM" in a reader discussion about hair transplants notes: "Hair transplants are permanent because the hair used is from the back of the hairline which is usually resistant to the normal hair loss progression of male pattern baldness. However, you will not get a full head of hair from this. It will fill in, but never be as rich and full as it was in youth."

***

UPDATE: " 'And no, it isn't a toupée,' [Shatner] says, tugging his hair." See here for more from this interview. If it was a toupee, then that would make Bill Shatner a liar. Now, Shats has been a little dishonest in the past, but not in recent years - instead he now parses and plays with words when it comes to the subject of his hair. So the above statement would be a little brazen and out-of-character for Bill Shatner if it were not true. See all our Shat-no-meter rulings for more.

What's that at the back?

Recently, a reader pointed out an interesting patch of sparse hair at the back of Bill Shatner's head visible in the 2002 DVD documentary Mind Meld - Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime (see here for more on Mind Meld and buy here).

So just what is that strange bald patch in a part of the head that even in Bill Shatner's case, is likely still covered with his own real hair?

Was it a source site from which hair follicles were extracted and "plugged" into the rest of his head (a common procedure in hair transplants) to replenish areas where transplanted follicles had fallen out? Or is it an area that was left untouched by surgery?

We simply don't know...

Now, finally some more general analysis of the "Denny Crane look":

Bill Shatner in July 2000,
still wearing a tight-fitting weave or hairpiece.

William Shatner, we believe, ended his "TJ Curly" weave or hairpiece use between 19th July and 7th September 2000. Incidentally, this is the same time that he began seriously seeing what was to become his fourth wife Liz. A connection? Very likely. After the tragic death of his third wife Nerine a year earlier, perhaps a new hairstyle to impress a new girlfriend (and we don't mean that frivolously in any way) seemed like the logical choice - a way to spruce up to impress a new lady. And why not?

Bill Shatner with his future wife Liz in early September 2000,
following what was likely an expensive hair transplant.

To see more on how we came upon the above dates, look at the middle of the page in the Getty Image sequence here.

UPDATE: A reader asks, if the above is the case, then how come Shats appeared to return to the toup during 2006 (and possibly in a few other instances too)?

That's an interesting question. Perhaps the new style needed some tuning-up and so Bill Shatner decided to very briefly resort to a hairpiece again. In the above picture, Shats is very likely wearing a piece on top of his plugs. And as another reader points out, surgical work could be undertaken, perhaps in stages, while a toup concealed the entire effort. As to whether it's a hair transplant (plugs) or a new kind of toup, that remains an open question...

Disclaimer: we have uploaded two watermarked Getty Images in this post - we're uncertain if the company's watermarked images are freely available or not. Nonetheless, if Getty asks us to take them down, we will certainly do so.