When a celebrity adopts an unconventional new hairstyle, it always makes headlines, and nothing attracts curiosity or comment more than a shaved head, especially when the head in question belongs to a woman.
But the words “shaved” and “bald” tend to be thrown around too often these days, for haircuts that bear little resemblance to baldness, haircuts that would never be called shaved if they were on a man. If we want to be picky, a shave demands a razor and baldness usually means a smooth head. Is it because we are so obsessed with the idea that women need long, luxurious braids that anything substantially less than that is bald? Is it just a creative hype from the press? You make your own decision.
To illustrate, here are a variety of famous women who reportedly went bald at some point in their careers. Let’s see who was really shaved and who wasn’t?
Persis Khambatta (Star Trek: The Motion Picture) – Unmistakably clean shaven and completely bald. She would go so far as to declare Persis the benchmark for female celebrity baldness. She had a smooth dome, bald and totally naked. She doesn’t come much smoother than the circa 1978-79 model and former beauty queen. Years after her death, it remains the image most associated with her.
Britney Spears – She put it on her skin, but Britney stopped short of shaving the back of her neck. Why, of all the dumb things Britney did at the time, is cutting her hair off considered the ultimate proof of her insanity? It is undoubtedly one of the most benign.
Natalie Portman (V for Vendetta) – A really nice combination. Someone who already has a following of horny fans, and is generally considered hot, gets cut for a movie role and sports the stubble beard both on and off screen. There are definite parallels to Persis, and Portman might as well have done for women’s heads what Persis did for bald women, but let’s be perfectly honest. Natalie Portman was not bald.
Amber Rose: Bleached blonde hair creates an illusion of baldness to the casual observer, and she has worn it quite close to her scalp at times, but she is not bald. As a model and celebrity girlfriend, she seems to receive some criticism for her extreme hairstyle. I think she looks fantastic, even though she’s not the type of girl she’d take home to meet her mom.
Cassie, Rihanna and the rest of the girls on the buzzed side – the side with the single razor is an interesting look, it draws attention, but come on. That’s not remotely close to a bald head.
Sigourney Weaver (Alien 3) – Buzzed very close, but not smooth. I admired her reaction when she was asked to remove her hair for the film. She wanted more money. Good for her. I can never decide if Sigourney looks good in a buzz or not, but I can never decide if she finds Sigourney attractive or not. Her attractiveness seems to change from movie to movie, and I can never figure out why.
Maggie McOmie (THX 1138) – Maggie might be up for debate. She shaved clean before shooting began, but on screen we see her sporting different amounts of peach fuzz. I guess she counts as shaved, because she really did have a shaved head.
Demi Moore (GI Jane) – This is another gray area. I was not bald for the film. She snipped it off on screen and spent the rest of the movie just a bit of a beard, so she didn’t technically go bald. However, after Demi finished filming the movie, she shaved her head at her own time and appeared in public with her dome shaved. Very cool.
Bai Ling (Anna and the King) – Shaved, sure. Bai Ling is another one with real guts, as her raven hair was past her butt when she shaved her head, and it was just because of some real baldness on screen.
Joan Chen (You Seng: Temptation of a Monk) – Joan not only shaved her head, but we also see a bit of razor shaving without lathering in this Asian film. Chen’s character, a bounty hunter of sorts, poses as an initiate to infiltrate a temple where a fugitive general is posing as a monk. Chen shaved his head for only a brief part of the film. Again, a truly bald dome, and not a bad movie either.
Samantha Morton (Minority Report) – Although portrayed in the media at the time as bald or clean-shaven, Samantha Morton was excited about the role of Agatha, one of three psychics enslaved by police from the future to predict criminal acts earlier. they happen. She is definitely not bald.
Annie Burgstede (Smallville) – A bald head seems like a reasonable move for a character homicidally obsessed with Lex Luthor, but doing it for real, and doing it for real, is more than I expected from Smallville. I have to salute any woman who shaves her head completely for the final act of an hour-long television episode. That goes double for Burgstede, when it’s a teen drama full of beautiful people, and she’s the crazy bald head sharing a scene with Erica Durance, perfectly coiffed. quite brave
Virginia Hey (Farscape) – In Mad Max 2, she was the hottie with the crossbow and big golden hair from the ’80s. And in the ’90s, she adopted a bald pate to play an alien hottie (shades of Persis by there) in the Farscape series. She was already enamored with the role when the topic of shaving her head came up and she was ready to do it. What is really impressive here is the commitment. It’s one thing to shave your head for a movie role or a single episode, but quite another to do it for a series that might require you to stay bald for the better part of the next four or five years.
Linh Dan Pham and Simona Maicanescu (Dante 01) – Both the women and the entire cast were shaved to the top for this French sci-fi film. I’m not exactly sure why, other than to give things a sterile, dystopian look, and it was reminiscent of both THX 1138 and Alien 3.
Delphine Chaneac (Splice) – With all the digital tricks the filmmakers used to turn this lovely French actress into a genetically modified human-animal chimera, you’d almost have expected them to fake the bald head as well, but it’s the real deal. Chaneac apparently had no qualifications for shaving his head and enjoyed being bald. And despite the somewhat unnatural nature of her character, she manages to be very pretty, in a creepy way.
Robin Tunney (Empire Records) – Not shaved, but onscreen with a razor cut for the role of a troubled teen. A memorable scene in an otherwise forgettable movie.
Judith Light (Wit) – Judith Light, from the 1980s sitcom Who’s the Boss, shaved her head for the role of Prof. Vivian Bearing in this drama, as many other actresses have done to star in many productions of the work over the years. A professional play is another potentially long-term commitment to going bald, and this was a drastic change from the fluffy blonde hair of the ’80s that we all remember.
Emma Thompson (Wit) – Thompson shaved clean for the role of Bearing in the HBO TV movie Wit.
Sofia Vassilieva (My Sister’s Keeper) – The teen actress shaved off her hair and eyebrows for the role of a cancer patient. Vassilieva said at the time that she was the least she could do for such a wonderful character, and that gave her a better idea of what her character was going through. She compares that to her co-star Cameron Diaz, who opted for a latex cap that gave her a bloated, droopy alien head. And yet, the anything-but-realistic-looking Diaz managed to capture headlines for his “bald” look. Go figure.
There are, of course, many more women in show business who have had their hair shaved or shaved, whether in public, on stage or screen, or in the media, but the ones listed here explain it enough. good. If you know others, decide if they really shaved.
Just remember, there are shaves and shaves, but bald spots never count… ever.