Is there anything more annoying than a man in his sixties with a full head of hair? Yes, there is. A man who wears his mop cut in 1970s boy band style, fringe flopping over his face with expensive highlights glinting in the Californian sunshine as he steps from the bubble of a helicopter. Which he’s probably piloted himself.
To all men of a similar vintage, such follicular showboating is not fair, funny or fraternally gracious. And yet here is Tom Cruise mounting a chopper cockpit, boat a little bit craggy and more lined these days, befitting his 61 years, but with a magnificent head of coupe sauvage Hollywood hair, as tousled, teased and tinted as a 1990s Ann Widdecombe’s, fearless under the brutal force of the rotor blade backwash — always a worry if you are Donald Trump — and without a care in the world.
Why is this irritating? Cruise’s new style isn’t just a new look. It is a Bloke Baiting Barnet Brag. A brutal hair strike, cynically telegraphing to the rest of the world’s male midlifers several messages: my hair can still survive the chaos of the chopper mistral. My hair is strong, thick and dense enough to undergo the brutality of the rubber highlights bonnet and hook-ended needle probe. My Samsonite hair is a symbol of my virility and global stardom. It is all mine. And it is better than yours. I win.
Every flick, histrionic hand rake and head toss is also a cruelly intended power move. The style, colour and sheer density of hair like this on a man in his seventh decade can only be construed as a weaponisation tactic designed to belittle, induce envy and engender awe.
And it is working. Has been for decades. The crewcut in the original Mission: Impossible, the K-pop shag for Vanilla Sky, grey and en brosse look in Collateral and a quite superb execution of sleek, chin-length, man-bun Jesus hair in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia. If there was an Academy Award for best male hair in a feature, Cruise would have won a mantelpiece full.
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And the rest of us ageing male civilians? We watch on with mild irritation and niggling covetousness, in quiet acknowledgement that more than his wealth, more than his success, more than his formidable motorbike and car driving skills, or his fearless, derring-do stunts, us men in our fifties and sixties are jealous of Tom Cruise because of his hair.
This new do, bouffanted especially for MI8 (Mission: Impossible 8), filming in London, though? It might be a MIsstep. A hair-don’t.
Yes, as Cruise will be well aware, a full head of hair is a best-life bonus. A get-down-on-your-knees-every-day-and-say-thank-you-God stroke of luck and/or hereditary blessing for any man in his sixties. But when the rev counter on the dials starts to wobble, the jowls drop, the eyes develop their own bags-for-life and the chicken neck begins to gobble, it is important that the curtains go with the furniture. That the pelmet is vaguely age-appropriate with the skirting boards. Hair and face of a similar vintage.
And the problem for Cruise is this: with his choppy, blond Nicky Clarke-alike tonsure, he looks less like a ruthless assassin called “Ethan Hunt” and more like, well … an ex-Blue Peter presenter called Anthea Turner.
Done right, in a style that cannot be given a name — see Clooney’s grey, Cary Grant-esque side part and back sweep, Michael Portillo’s patrician short back and sides, Brad Pitt’s country and western bed head — sixtysomething hair will frame the face, boost confidence, look good with clothes and open doors.
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Get it wrong — wear hair that is far too young for your face, flopping down over the eye, blond-frosted and styled like one of the S Club girls’ — and you will achieve something undignified and comedic, a style known across the music and entertainment industry as … OLD LADIES’ HAIR.
Boris Johnson’s straw-textured bowl cut is classic old ladies’ hair. Def Leppard’s Joe Elliot, now rocking a grey bob, and blowsy Steve Bannon, are apparently coiffed by the same salon as favoured by Cissie and Ada from The Les Dawson Show.
Liam Gallagher will be in the old ladies’ hair space in a few years’ time. Rod Stewart has been there for decades, and boasts in his excellent biography Rod that he had kept the same spiky, mulletish do “for 45 years” (55 now). “It’s what I have in common with the Queen,” he said. Which was great and mod and yobbo-tastic when he was in his twenties but these days, now he’s 78 and wearing gold buttons and fancy shoes and leopardskin collars with his carefully Elnetted tresses, Stewart actually looks quite a lot like the Queen as well.
Perhaps these are words of a delicately thatched jealous guy. Past a certain age, a man spends far too much time in vanity warfare, gauging himself against other men in terms of achievement, wealth, house size, girth, health, virility and, yes, hair density. We’ve moved with the times, though, learnt to respect, not ridicule, our fellows who spend money, take drugs and make sacrifices to hang on to/augment and improve their thatch.
With care, judgment and investment, a head of dignified, seventh-decade hair is a mission very possible. Even your writer imbibes oral finasteride daily and applies an occasional topical Minoxidil treatment, both now de-stigmatised along with the likes of Viagra, marijuana and Ozempic.
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The fashion for hair transplant holidays to Turkey is a summertime normal, and no one can argue that James Nesbitt now looks much more handsome since the top of his head had a bit of work. As Cruise knows, the man who dies with the most hair … wins.
