To backcomb for just a second, though, first. I'll say that my fascination with hair in the movies probably began when I saw The Three Musketeers (1973) in theaters at the age of six. I fell in love with Raquel Welch's headful (wig full) of auburn ringlets. Then there were the instances in which it was configured into a different look, with most of it formed into a high bun with braids and ringlets around it. At the lavish masquerade ball at the finale of the movie, Welch 
(playing dressmaker to the Queen) isn't permitted to wear one of the ornate silver-themed gowns, but she's in her own lovely dress and now has pearls woven into her hair, which is both up and partly down. She and the evil Faye Dunaway have a stand-off/fight scene that branded my baby eyes forever and left me a lifelong fan of catfights, but that's for another post. Anyway, this early glimpse of big hair (something that was not particularly popular in the early '70s when flat, flowing and free was more “in”) instilled in me an affection for hairstyles that go up and up and up (and, as Lana would have continued, “nobody's going to pull me down!”) 
The '50s had the teased and tormented beehives, but that's not exactly what I'm referring to here. I'm focusing more on the towers of curled hair that were in vogue for a while. These tall-haired looks probably got their start in those Italian sword and sandal muscle epics that usually featured a female or two from the classic period with Grecian goddess-like concoctions only now paired with ultra-heavy eye makeup and lashes. When Miss Elizabeth Taylor (goodnight, my beautiful love!) starred in Cleopatra in 1963, she was given a couple of heavy-duty hairdos and brought that major league eye makeup to a whole new plateau. 
As early as 1961, however, Audrey Hepburn had displayed a pretty significant up 'do in Breakfast at Tiffany's. The upwardly mobile style helped elongate her already lanky figure and showcase her famous swan-like neck. The race was on as stylists worked to create more and more elaborate, ceiling-scraping looks. One of the chief demonstrators of the sizeable, vertically-reaching bun or coiffured 
pony of curls was German actress Elke Sommer. In 1963's The Prize (opposite delectable Paul Newman, shown at left), she sported this look, a style she would continue to utilize in various formations for quite a while before ultimately opting for a shorter, almost Dorothy Hamel cut in the early to mid '70s. 
In the film Taylor made after Cleopatra (but that was released prior, due to the endless issues with the epic, much of which continued in the editing room), The V.I.P.s, Taylor showed off a bun that was fairly tall, too. The era was about to start in which it was seemingly impossible to limit just how high one's hair could climb. Ladies of varying ages and types, in pictures set in the present or period, were going to spend several years in this exercise and I couldn't be more grateful for it!
Marnie, released in 1964, had its star Tippi Hedren decked out in a bun that rode up the back of her head and featured little curly accents along the way. A rather simply designed and cut evening gown took a back seat to the hairdo, creating a memorable effect overall. Sadly, thanks to a dispute with director Alfred Hitchcock, who practically owned her (via contract) at the time, she would scarcely be seen on screen again for a couple of more years.
That same year, the Oscar-winning film My Fair Lady featured Cockney ragamuffin Audrey Hepburn being transformed into an elegant lady by linguistics professor Rex Harrison. Though set in the past, her hairstyle during the big reveal was inspired more by the trend towards height, height and more height. This one set an altitude standard that other gals could mostly only aspire to.
One person that year who came close, if not exceeding Audrey, in hair height was Shirley MacLaine in What a Way to Go! The film, intended to star Marilyn Monroe prior to her untimely death, concerned a woman who keeps marrying for love, but who ends up, time and again, widowed and with more wealth than she can handle. A plethora of name-brand male costars played her husbands along the way.
One segment of the deliberately spoofy film had Robert Mitchum and her arriving at and hobnobbing with guests at a party in which every time she turned the corner, she was in yet another eye popping costume with heaven-bound hair to match. Never very big on MacLaine's signature pixie cut (or the latter modified shag), this is probably my favorite film of hers in terms of how she looks.
I know I am always droning on about Joan Crawford and how she didn't get to make Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, but here I go again. I worship Joan and this look was my very favorite on her. There are just as many people who dislike Joan with her hair stacked up as there are people who like it, but, for whatever reason, I love it and wish she could have looked this way in a completed film.
How to Murder Your Wife, released in 1965, starred Jack Lemmon as a man who wakes up wed to the stripper who'd performed at the previous night's party. Virna Lisi, as the stripper, emerged from a giant cake wearing only “frosting” as her costume and showing off some voluminous blonde hair.
Television followed suit, of course, and the series Star Trek had the license to get coiffures as big,
tall and creative as they pleased since the series was set in the future. Sometimes they were really “out there” in terms of color and/or arrangement (Yeoman Janice Rand's basket weave comes to mind), but usually they were embellished versions of what was becoming increasingly popular. Thus, a few of the styles shown in this montage could've been seen at any fancy party during the mid-1960s as well. As a kid I loved Trek, not just for the amazing hair, but for its vividly colorful costumes, dramatic makeup and (in some episodes) gossamer guest star clothing.
Having exited Charlotte the year before, Joan Crawford stepped before the cameras again in 1965 to do a glorified cameo (albeit with top-billing!) in I Saw What You Did, the story of two mischievous teen girls who make prank calls and soon come to regret it! As an amorous neighbor of John Ireland, Joan wears her hair piled high (though, perhaps, not quite as flatteringly as in the Charlotte pics) and possesses a necklace that Gloria Stuart would have needed help in tossing over the side of the Titanic!
When the 1939 classic western Stagecoach was remade in 1966, Sydney Guilaroff opted to gussy up Ann-Margret's saloon girl character (played in the original by Claire Trevor) with hair for days. The top was pinned up and the back was long, long, long. After the initial scenes in the barroom, for the long haul in the title vehicle, her hair was decidedly less extravagant looking. She was immortalized in her initial look, though, by famed illustrator Norman Rockwell, who did portraits of the cast for the movie's poster as well as the credit sequence.
Elke Sommer was back in '66's The Oscar to show off more of her, by now, signature hairstyles, but the really big hair in that movie belonged to Merle Oberon, making a brief appearance as the Best Actor presenter at the film's faux-Academy Awards ceremony. Having been off screen for a couple of years, this was her chance to get her feet wet before a movie camera again.
The experience was enough to encourage
her to sign on for Hotel, in 1967, which was a multi-character drama about the ins, outs, ups and downs of a major New Orleans establishment. Playing the wife of Duke Michael Rennie, she pulled out all the glamour stops and was decked out in showy costumes, dripping with dazzling jewelry and occasionally wearing a tower of hair that, at times, felt as if it was threatening to topple her over! Naturally, I completely loved it.
Miss Taylor was back at it again in 1967, this time meaning business, when she hosted a party for husband Marlon Brando's fellow army officers in Reflections in a Golden Eye. Her character's long, raven hair was wadded and stacked up, accessorized with a prominent bow. It was this look she had going when she discovered that Brando had mistreated her beloved horse and went after him vigorously with a riding crop!
Underworld favorite Senta Berger (just one of the ladies in this post who has a tribute to her here elsewhere, others including Tippi Hedren, Merle Oberon and Joan Crawford) had been displaying pretty up 'dos in some of her period dramas/musicals, but in 1967 she did The Ambushers with Dean Martin. She has a seduction scene with him that features a flowy, colorful negligee, gigantic earrings and a hefty hairstyle that guarantees her a place in my heart for all time.
Valley of the Dolls could capture most interested parties' attention for its clothes and hair creations alone, apart from all the other gifts it offers (such as howling dialogue, backbiting bitchery and ear-bending musical numbers.) What Patty Duke didn't possess in physical height, she occasionally made up for in hair height, topping herself off with an inches-adding 'do just in time for her tangle with Susan Hayward (the one in which she memorably snatches Susan's wig off!)
In 1968's The Thomas Crown Affair, Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway played a game of cat and mouse with each other as well as a memorably symbolic game of chess. For that scene, Miss Dunaway had a pretty large attachment, a twist that added volume to the back of her head. Another brief bit, shown in long shot, had Faye strolling down an avenue with Steve, her hair mounted high on her head.
The far lesser known police drama Madigan, which starred Henry Fonda and Richard Widmark, is a high-hair touchstone. Sheree North has a role in the film and shows off a respectably full head of manipulated hair. She's nothing, though, compared to Widmark's wife, lovely Inger Stevens, who sports a neck-straining appendage of glamorously arranged curls! This is my kind of lady. Ha!
Mayerling, a 1968 remake of a 1936 film, is another Hall of Famer 
when it comes to big ol' hair. The story of the tormented and ill-fated love affair between Austrian Archduke Rudolf (Omar Sharif) and his young love Catherine Deneuve, she is, naturally, exceedingly lovely and occasionally depicts some moderately tall hair. However, Sharif's mother, The Empress Elizabeth, has what I consider the ne plus ultra
of cinematic hair. The real life lady, affectionately known to her subjects as “Sisi,” truly did have enviable long hair that she loved showing off, but it's doubtful that it reached quite the level that Sydney Guilaroff brings to the proceedings here. Ava Gardner's studio-trained elegance helps make it all seem far more natural than it ought to be (and look how slim and trim she is here, a mere six years prior to Earthquake.)
Now, when one thinks about serious big hair, Dolly Parton is hard to beat, but Priscilla Presley was no slouch in the early days with Elvis! She claims to have transformed herself this way so dramatically because she knew that this was the look he preferred his girls to have. (I guess he and I have more in common than I thought, that is if we're referring to her look on the left and not so much the one on the right, taken, by the way, when she was just a teenager! Love those crazy painted eyes.)
And, yes, big hair could sometimes be taken too far. This is not one of the towers I've referred to, for unless the woman fell to the ground, and maybe not even then, I'm not going to complain. I just think Miss Marjorie Lord, from the 1966 Bob Hope film Boy Did I Get A Wrong Number, doesn't look too hot with all this hair going on. It's a moment where less would have been more.
Of all the skyscraping looks I've remarked upon today
(and there are probably a lot I have overlooked. What are your faves?), the one that dazzled me the absolute most wasn't shown in a movie. It was on an episode of the lavish TV series Hollywood Palace, a weekly program devoted to music, comedy routines, unusual talent and even dramatic readings. On the episode in question, host Engelbert Humperdinck welcomed the charming, talented and very beautiful Miss Nancy Ames to sing a medley, two songs on her own followed by a couple more with him in duet. He's lucky he escaped with his head as they moved around to the choreography!
I have never seen hair like this, before or since, that wasn't meant to be intentionally comic. I love it, though! It doesn't hurt that Ames was a particularly lovely girl to begin with.
Look at those eyes... Somehow or another, she pulls off this hysterical, gravity-defying look and with one click on youtube.com, she became a heroine (a “hairoine?”) in The Underworld. Now an event planner (if I remember right, down in Texas), I tried to get in contact with her to profess my newfound adoration, but got no response. After having seen her perform admirably on
Password and then having caught her in this doozy of an appearance, I have to forgive her for ignoring me, the sting of it aside, because she is just that fabulous and shouldn't have to make time for li'l ol' me.
They say variety is the spice of life? Then I have a few spice girls to show you today. This post started out as a visual tribute to the sometimes elaborate hair of female guests on 1960s variety shows, but soon evolved into a general appreciation of the whole package: the carefully coiffed 'dos, the elegant gowns, the sparse yet glamorous sets, colorful lighting, etc... For the most part, variety shows (ala The Ed Sullivan Show, Hollywood Palace, etc...) are dead now, but in their hey-day one could spot a lovely lady coming out on stage all decked out and singing a song or dancing. Like many folks, I love scampering through youtube and coming upon things like this. Bless the people who take care to upload them. Sometimes it's amazing, sometimes less so, but they nearly always LOOK interesting! Ha ha! I've attached links so that you can witness the performances yourselves should you wish to.
