In the midst of the 2007-2008 TV writers' strike that left audiences stuck with reruns and TV personalities without jokes, Conan O'Brien took a stand—by growing some facial hair that actually rivaled the gingerly swirl that sits atop his head. During his returning monologue, O'Brien addressed his audience and hairy chin, saying, "I know this looks fake. It looks like it ties on in the back, but believe it or not, I actually grew a beard… I never grew a beard in my entire life. I grew it out of solidarity for my writers, and to prove that I have some testosterone." O'Brien was eager to assert his manhood again recently after losing The Tonight Show to Jay Leno. This week, O'Brien showed off his beard while vacationing with his family. On the other hand, a $32 million settlement can buy a lot of razors.
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He may have lost the 2000 election, but Al Gore gained some whiskers in the aftermath. Following the chad-fest that ended his presidential aspirations, Gore came back from six weeks in Europe for a couple of quiet appearances in Tennessee, appearing, as Hardball's Chris Matthews said, "like a Bolshevik labor organizer." It's not difficult to understand why the Green politician would seek something more than peach fuzz to camouflage his defeat, but the patchy-gray beard actually earned Gore additional attention. The New York Post called it "scrawny," The Boston Herald suggested the beard "might cover up some of the added chin heft," and The Guardian compared the look to "dethroned eastern European monarchs who used to haunt the salons of London or Paris." Perhaps the crushed presidential candidate was just following the advice of a famously chic Manhattan hairstylist, who mused in February 2001, "If Al Gore had a beard, maybe he would have been president."
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In a theoretical attempt to promote his film Two Lovers on The Late Show, Joaquin Phoenix, who had recently announced that he was walking away from acting, showed up on David Letterman's couch with a beard worthy of a moonshiner. "You've got a nice beard going… Is it comfortable, is it itchy, are you pleased with it?" Letterman asked. "I'm OK with it but now you're making me feel weird about it," Phoenix said, scratching his chin. Phoenix defended his look as an effort to break away from "the public Joaquin Phoenix persona," but literally fell on his nest-covered face at his first musical performance. His rumored career change sparked plenty of interest, with one Web site making a list of the top 10 items Phoenix was hiding in his beard, including Suri Cruise—and his sanity.
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Saddam Hussein had been hanging out in a spider hole until he was finally captured just before Christmas 2003. The former Iraqi leader was barely recognizable through his long beard that surely could have earned him a spot in a ZZ Top cover band. It's not difficult to understand why a man who's been overthrown by his country, lost his high-ranking status, and is hated internationally would find solace not only beneath the ground, but also under a beard. (Plus, it makes for a good disguise when you're on the run.) As a military officer debriefed reporters on the arrest, a video of doctors examining Hussein rolled, revealing his unkempt facial hair in action and leading The Daily Show's Jon Stewart to deem Hussein " Bad Santa."
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In the summer of 1969, Jim Morrison decided his trademark brown locks could use a counterpart on his chin. The Doors' lead singer tested his sex appeal with a mountain man look that gave the rock star newfound confidence. "He was
one hairy bastard when it came to the beard," Morrison's former bodyguard Tony Funches said. "The guy could grow a full size Russian beard in two days!"
Morrison's mass of facial hair soon became more than just a new look—it was a coping mechanism, along with drugs and distancing himself from the band and fans who brought him fame. But two years after debuting the beard, the rock icon exposed himself by leaving the Doors and shaving his whiskers in Paris, where Morrison moved with his girlfriend Pamela Courson, who didn't approve of his scruff. That was the beginning of the end for the music legend, who was found dead in his bathtub in July 1971 at the age of 27.
In December 2008, then President-elect Barack Obama nominated New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as secretary of Commerce. But it wasn't all celebration for the newly elected American leader, who was also in mourning. "We're deeply disappointed with the loss of the beard," Obama joked with reporters about Richardson's former facial hair. The current U.S. president "thought that whole Western, rugged look was really working for him." Though Obama suggested a reason for the shave ("Maybe it was scratchy when he kissed his wife"), one could guess it was actually Richardson's career upswing. But just a month later, amid an investigation into improper business dealings in his home state, Richardson announced his decision to withdraw his nomination and let that beard flow again. "I grew a beard as a rebellion against those consultants who told me I had to comb my hair, shave, lose weight," he told Esquire. "I said, ‘You know, I'm gonna do what I want now.'"
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Brad Pitt's beard sports its own jewelry, has prompted petitions in tabloids, and has a series of bewildered fans watching its every move. His facial hair is essentially a celebrity itself. Pitt first displayed the scraggily look alongside then-wife Jennifer Aniston in Los Angeles in 2002. Perhaps the perceived golden couple's marriage was already dimming before Angelina Jolie stepped into the picture three years later. But when trouble reportedly reemerged in his highly tabloid-touted personal life in 2009, so did his beard—looking like a hybrid between Captain Jack Sparrow and Captain Lou Albano. "Who am I without creative facial hair?" the actor once pondered about his then fledging ‘stache. Though it was speculated that Pitt's billy goat scruff was due to an upcoming film, The Lost City of Z, a source from the studio says, "There is no film-related explanation I can give you." And thus, the mystery continues.
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The unofficial leader of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, Matthew Fox's Dr. Jack Shephard, had a razor while stranded on Lost's infamous island, but chose to skip on the shaving [SPOILER ALERT] after he returned to the mainland. Shephard, left some of his fellow fliers behind, a decision that plagued him to the point of full-frontal beard growth. Along with the facial hair, Shephard also gains an addiction to Oxycodone, a serious case of depression, and a penchant for hitting the bottle in the show's fifth season. The distressed doctor decides to take on the Sisyphean task of flying roundtrip every Friday with his Oceanic airlines golden pass, hoping to once again crash on the island to right his wrongs. When the possibility of returning becomes a reality, Shephard ditches the beard to save those he abandoned. But the real hero of this story is not the man, but the beard he wears—diehard fans have grown tribute facial hair in its honor and mock Twitter accounts pay homage as well: "Shaved my beard. Ben said just because I looked like Honest Abe didn't mean Kate would believe me."
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The man charged with killing three people and injuring many others may be better known for the beard he wore than the crimes he committed. The Harvard-educated math genius and serial mail bomber, better known as The Unabomber, was arrested in April 1996 in a small cabin devoid of water or electricity in the middle of Montana. His unkempt hair and matching matted beard are still etched in the minds of Americans nearly 15 years later. Kaczynski's facial hair has long been associated with recluses and was an important factor that played prominently in his conviction. "Without seeing him without the beard, it's hard to say," the Unabomb Task Group case manager said of Kaczynski's arraignment. Like the handlebar moustache of the 19th century, bushy-chinned men and corruption have since gone hand-in-hand. "Ted Kaczynski, the BTK strangler, and Osama bin Laden are each notorious beard wearers," one college paper noted. "All evidence considered, the connection between facial hair and criminal activity is obvious."
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On the eve of the release of Apocalypto in 2006, fallen actor Mel Gibson unveiled a lethal weapon—a plentiful skunk-like beard. Just six months after he was arrested for driving under the influence and making anti-Semitic remarks to the arresting officer, Gibson appeared in public to promote the film he directed, produced, and wrote, hiding behind a two-toned nest on his chin and cheeks. Despite all of his woes, Gibson's signature loner beard was not the nail in coffin of his career. "I should set my beard ablaze over Mel Gibson?" one Esquire writer jokingly pondered of the disgraced star. "Please… This guy, in short, is the ultimate goy."
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Like Ted Kaczynski and Saddam Hussein before him, Radovan Karadžić, the notorious Bosnian butcher, truly understood the clout one beard could carry. While on the run, the accused war criminal, who allegedly attempted Srebrenica genocide, covered his face in white hair and worked under the alias Dr. Dragan David Dabić. Karadžić's ample ashen facial hair (and large spectacles) allowed him to conceal his identity and openly practice alternative medicine, despite the fact that he was in hiding. "It never even occurred to me that this man with a long white beard and hair was Karadžić," said Goran Kojic, editor in chief of Belgrade's Healthy Life magazine, which Karadžić (as Dabić) regularly contributed to. "My jailers wish to remove my beard and hair," the now clean-shaven accused criminal wrote from prison in 2008. "This saddens me. I grew both three years ago. Serbians understood that I was not a man to be recognized."
By the beard of Zeus, it was Ron Burgundy's groovy ‘70s facial hair in Anchorman that launched the term "suicide beard." Defined as "thick, usually ungroomed facial hair grown by an individual when he has ceased to care about life," the 2004 film features Will Ferrell as the fallen newscaster who sports a so-called suicide beard when his life reaches a new low. Burgundy loses his job at the fictional KVWN-TV and a motorcyclist punts his beloved best friend, his dog Baxter, off the Coronado Bridge, leaving him wandering the San Diego streets with soothing liquids in hand (i.e. warm milk). That, indeed, may have been a bad choice, as it trickled down his bushy chin.
It's only fitting that one of Time's 10 most reclusive celebrities appeared on its cover sporting one of the most scraggly beards in history. Though Hughes was one of the richest, most powerful men in the world, he was the ultimate enigma, hiding in the penthouse suites of luxury hotels from continent to continent. In 1950, Hughes became a self-imposed hermit, rarely emerging as rumors of Valium addiction and growing, grotesque fingernails swirled. "He lived a sunless, joyless,
half-lunatic life in those same hideaways, a virtual prisoner walled in by his own crippling fears and weaknesses," Time wrote, all of which seemed to be concealed behind the hanging white facial hair Hughes had when he died in 1976.
"I think what people know is the old man locked away in the hotel in Vegas, buying all the hotels he can buy that he can see from his view," actor Leonardo DiCaprio recalled of the man he portrayed in the 2004 film,
The Aviator. "
This insane man with the long beard."
