Watching this series the other night, I noticed that Patrick Stewart (as Sejanus) has a full head of hair. Where just a few years later as Picard in ST-The Next Generation he is almost completely bald.
Did he lose most of his hair between the two series? Or did they put a hair piece on him during the production of I Claudius?
More like ten years before TNG.
I believe it was a wig. He was already balding in FALL OF EAGLES.
I wonder why they thought he needed to have a wig for playing this character.
shareI suppose 1976 people still thought any type of male baldness was unattractive, although Sean Connery was starting to break the trend.
shareQuite the contrary. I've noticed that today every Tom, Dick and Harry has to have a rug or hair plugs, whereas in those days, going bald was what older, more experienced men did. Almost all the older men around us were bald or balding. Only men who wore makeup for a living felt compelled to wear hairpieces. Sean Connery usually wore a hairpiece back in the 1970's, but when a regular guy did it -- and a few did -- it marked them as insufferably vain.
We even had *gasp* bald anchormen! Bald news commentators! Balding Presidents!!!! Biden started going bald fairly young, and didn't feel compelled to cover it up until just recently, when baldness apparently became a failing and "Boomer!" became an insult.
Men should learn that it's easy to spot the hairpieces. It's one of my favorite pastimes. And there's no point in trying to cover up. Balding is a natural part of aging, and with it should come some hard won experience and wisdom.
There are some who get it and just shave their heads, but most are plugging away, or wearing those pathetic rugs thinking they are fooling people into thinking they have hair like Bill Melugin.
I wonder why they thought he needed to have a wig for playing this character.It is because surviving contemporary effigies of Sejanus show him with a full crop.
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I think it was an afterthought, I'm sure the bust of Sejanus for sale at the market scene is bald, but you don't see it close up unfortunately.
His hair did look ok in the next episode when it was curly and grey, better than that episode in TNG.
Well, here's a bust of someone named Sejanus, I think it's the Sejanus of Tiberius's era. Full head of hair on display.
http://sites.psu.edu/cams101tiberius/wp-content/uploads/sites/7437/2013/10/tiberius.jpg
I don't promise that it's the correct Sejanus, and in fact, I'd be mildly surprised if any busts of the correct Sejanus survived his downfall. Sejanus became so powerful that prominent Romans probably thought it was a good idea to buy a portrait bust of him and display it in their homes as a sign of political loyalty, but after he was executed for the highest level of treason, it's not something you'd want the Emperor's spies to know you kept. But then, it's easier to hide something like that in the basement than to smash it with a hammer...
Cool find, Sejanus has always interested me, thanks to the book and this show.
Did you ever see this article?
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/21/21395115/roman-emperors-photorealistic-portraits-ai-artbreeder-dan-voshart
Augustus looks like Daniel Craig, whilst Claudius is the spitting image of Sean Pertwee!