Patrick Stewart Reveals How Desperately He Tried To Prevent Going Bald

Star Trek actor Patrick Stewart had his first experience of thinning hair as a teenager in the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and subsequently employed several methods to prevent going bald.

The English actor, who is famous for his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the sci-fi series, was concerned that his hair loss would affect his career negatively, prompting him to go to extreme lengths to maintain his hair.

Patrick tried to earn more for his lack of hair

The 83-year-old movie star recalled having to earn more money despite being on a scholarship in order to afford hair treatments. “I decided, despite the fact that my scholarship was very generous, that I needed to make some extra money,” he said. “Why? Because I was rapidly losing my hair, and I wanted to be able to pay for treatment at a hair clinic in Bristol.”

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At 17, he started to notice a rapid decline in his hair volume and coincidentally found a place on the way to school that remedied such problems. “I noticed this place that had in its windows before and after photos of balding men restored to their virile, pompadoured former selves,” he continued. “The more hair I lost, the more attention I paid to the clinic.”

He eventually embraced his hair as an actor

After Stewart worked as a bricklayer during the holidays to afford the clinic bill and went through four to five sessions of scalp massages, creams, and even electrode patches in his hair, nothing changed. “The clinic treatments in Bristol that I’d invested my hard-earned bricklayer money into achieved nothing,” he recounted.

Thankfully, he began to see how his baldness could be an asset to his acting profession. “As I reconciled myself to my fate…I realized that I had been given a strategic advantage,” Patrick added. “It became my custom to audition to wear a delicate little hairpiece… and then remove it for the director— ‘See what you’ve got?’ I said. ‘Two actors for the price of one.’”