Bette of Bette's Classic Movie Blog is hosting a blogathon in support of Movember, a charitable organization that raises funds to support education and research about prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men. I don't normally link to sites that solicit funds, but this seems a worthy one and Bette has come up with a terrific theme that's irresistible to this blogger, whose brain is at present spinning from writing about so many serious topics recently. Bette's blogathon theme—classic movie moustaches—is inspired by the annual fundraising activity of the organization, which takes place each November.
In the thirties and forties, the moustache became part of the persona of many well-known screen actors, from comic characters like Groucho and Chaplin's Little Tramp to worldly sophisticates like David Niven and Melvyn Douglas to he-men like Clark Gable. The moustache fell out of favor during the postwar years, but facial hair came back into fashion during the counterculture years of the late 1960s and early 1970s, no doubt helped along by men like Tom Smothers, Dan Rowan, and Sonny Bono in their popular television shows of the time—men who had an alternative air about them, but in a non-threatening way—only to go out of fashion again in the mid-seventies.
When I first started to think of classic actors who were associated with moustaches, I thought I would have difficulty, but within a few minutes I had thought of at least fifteen. When I started to think of what I could do for a post on the subject of classic movie moustaches, I decided to skip these men and focus instead on actors who were not associated with the moustache as part of their screen look, but grew or otherwise acquired one in order to create a specific character. I had no trouble coming up with ten and even threw in one more I've already written on as a bonus. Before I present them, I'd like to give some links that might be of interest:
• Bette's Classic Movie Blog
• About the blogathon
• About Movember
• Donate to Movember
«Henry Fonda, as Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine
«Alec Guinness, as Col. Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai
«Dennis Hopper, as Billy in Easy Rider
«Buster Keaton, as Sherlock, Jr. in Sherlock Jr.
«Gene Kelly, as Serafin in The Pirate
«Marcello Mastroianni, as Ferdinando in Divorce, Italian Style
«Laurence Olivier, as Maxim de Winter in Rebecca
«Gregory Peck, as Jimmy Ringo in The Gunfighter
«Robert Redford, as Sundance in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
«Peter Sellers, as Inspector Clouseau
BONUS MOUSTACHE
«Marlon Brando, as Emiliano Zapata in Viva Zapata!
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