1. Joseph Fuqua as J.E.B. Stuart in Gettysburg. In real life, J.E.B. Stuart was a dandy with eccentric facial hair. But this stick-on beard reminds me of the fake beards worn by the women in Monty Python’s Life of Brian so they could participate in an execution by stoning. But, in Life of Brian, the beards are intended to be part of the joke….
2. Jack Nicholson as Stoney in Psych-Out. The cheesiest aspect here is that Jack is wearing his regular Jack haircut with a ponytail somehow pinned on behind. From the front, you can’t even tell that he is supposed to be a Summer of Love Haight-Ashbury hippie. At least Dean Stockwell and Bruce Dern went Full Hippie in this movie.
3. Tom Hanks as the title character in Forrest Gump (running beard). This beard couldn’t get him into the Taliban.
4. Mel Gibson’s mullet as the title character in Braveheart. The origins of the mullet are unclear. It certainly did not originate in 13th century Scotland. This is like Mel Gibson having William Wallace drink Mountain Dew in a trailer.
5. Gordon Liu as Pai Mei in Kill Bill: Vol.2. Okay, I know that this is an intended over-the-top joke by Quentin Tarantino. But cotton balls?
6. Phil Gramm as Virginia Delegate in Gods and Generals. In a celebrity vanity cameo, the former US Senator gets his Confederate Amish comeuppance.
7. Richard Jaeckel as Kip McKinney in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Richard Jaeckel was one of my favorite character actors. He always did a competent job in the WW II movies and Westerns of my childhood. Unfortunately, Sam Peckinpah somehow thought that it was a good idea to put a 1775 Paul Revere wig on Jaeckel’s 1881 New Mexico character.
8. Kim Darby as Mattie Ross in True Grit. There is a lot wrong with the 1969 version of True Grit (Glenn Campbell, for instance), but Kim Darby’s haircut is near the top of the list. Then called a “tomboy”, more recently it’s the “Justin Bieber”.
9. Robert Wagner as the title character in Prince Valiant. This wasn’t Robert Wagner’s fault. As you can tell from the comic below, fans of the Sunday morning funny pages all knew what Prince Valiant looked like and had their expectations for the movie. But it still looks really silly.
10. Anne Baxter as Nefertiri in The Ten Commandments. Okay, so I wasn’t around in 1250 BC, but I just don’t buy this as ancient Egyptian royalty. Note: The character is Nefertiri (NOT Nefertiti), based on the real Queen Nefertari, pictured at bottom.
Bonus: Mick Jagger as the title character in Ned Kelly. Mick plays the legendary Aussie desperado in this forgettable 1970 Western. Forgettable except for Mick’s Amish beard, that is.
Bonus: Frank Sinatra as Captain Tom Reynolds in Never So Few: Somehow Frank thought it was a good idea to wear a goatee in a WW II movie. It makes him look like a combo Crocodile Dundee and Maynard G. Krebs.
Here he is with Dean Jones.
And that’s him standing to the left of Charles Bronson, pouring himself a Scotch.
Bonus: John Doucette as Whitey in Rancho Notorious: Here, the reliable character actor John Doucette has been forced to don a platinum blonde pageboy wig. When shot in the back at the campfire, he gets to die with his boots on – and with his pageboy.
EVERYTHING in The Ten Commandments looked fake, not just Nefertiri’s hair!