The secrets to hiding celebrities' hair loss

October 2005

Maybe Steven Tyler shouldn't be surprised when he feels the air through his thinning hair. The Aerosmith frontman is, after all, 57 years old.

And if Bono's mane has gone from mullet to meager in his past 20 years with U2, well, that sometimes happens when you're 45.

But it's rumored that these aging rockers are no more at peace with their disappearing tresses than are younger stars like Heath Ledger, 26, or Jude Law, 33.

"Anxiety about hair loss is rampant among Hollywood's elite," according to an August exposé in Details magazine.

Before they go onstage or before the cameras, balding performers are camouflaging with combovers, sprayed-on fillers and dyes, plugs, extensions, toupees and creative haircuts.

"If there's a little hair to deal with, I airbrush a lot," reveals Jennifer Turchi, a makeup artist for movies and TV shows such as "Still Standing" and "How I Met Your Mother."

She mostly uses Reel Hair Scalp Shadow, a theatrical makeup product. "It's kind of like that bad infomercial where the guy takes a can and spray-paints the bald spot," she says with a laugh. "We do it in a little more genteel way."

In other cases she uses Super Million Hair, a powdered fiber that builds up the look of whatever hair is already there.

But when things go from bald to worse, some celebs drop up to $15,000 for a hair-transplant procedure pioneered by a Fort Lee physician.

Dr. Robert Bernstein - recipient of the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery's 2001 Platinum Follicle Award - has been a frequent guest on the daytime TV circuit to talk about follicular unit hair transplantation. It's available at his Center for Hair Restoration and in major cities around the world.

Bernstein's colleague, Dr. William Rassman of the New Hair Institute in Los Angeles, performed the procedure on four "Extreme Makeover" contestants (see before, during and after shots at newhair.com/feature/extreme/).

Perfectly comfortable with his own balding pate, Bernstein says he nevertheless understands why his clientele of more than 5,000 male and female patients - he can't name names - has included major players in theater, politics and high finance.

"Men's hair is a sign of youth and virility," he says, "so for those who lose their hair at a young age it's very disturbing because it's not in balance with their body's other aging processes."

And although some men appear no less virile with a cueball head (think Bruce Willis or Ed Harris), most really do look better with a full head of hair. If nothing else, it broadens their possibilities.

"Hair is a great means of identity and self-expression," says Bernstein. "It can easily be manipulated by cutting, styling and dyeing. So men who are losing their hair feel they can't look cool anymore, and it stereotypes them as being a bald person. That's especially difficult for people in a competitive job market like theater and TV."

Hair transplantation has its limitations, though, because it just moves existing hair from the back of the head, where it will regrow, to the front.

"The next step is hair cloning, but that's five to 10 years away," says Bernstein. "It will be the next major breakthrough."

In the meantime, Johnny Depp, Owen Wilson, Matt Damon and other follicle-challenged celebs will have to depend on their stylists' sleight-of-hand techniques to avoid bad-hair - or no-hair - days.