This morning a quote by Dolly Parton popped into my head; I’ve never been able to figure out exactly what she meant. Perhaps you can help.
This was about the time that Dolly was pursuing a movie career. She said something about actors just being normal, except for their “big heads”.
Did she mean that actors tended to be conceited, or that actors tended to physically have larger heads than normal? I could see it either way.
I have no idea how she meant it, but it certainly is both.
Hey! Yeah! I heard this when I was a child, and wasn’t entirely sure either. It may be both.
And it’s not necissarily that actors’ heads are bigger than normal so much as it is that they are super skinny to offset the “camera adds 5 lbs” thing that their heads looks so big.
But yeah, the ego thing is mega too.
It wasn’t Dolly Parton, it was Merv Griffin. He repeatedly said that people liked big headed actors on television more than people with smaller heads. That’s why giant headed Pat Sajac and and Vanna White got picked to host “Wheel of Fortune”.
Wait. Vanna White has a big head? I hadn’t noticed.
Oprahs head is exceedingly large.BTW.
I think Dolly probably meant conceited.
Directors had to use lighting tricks and camera angles to disguise the fact that Marlon Brando’s head was 3 or 4 times the size of a normal person’s head.
Only until he gained weight.
Yeah, he grew into his head.
The southern US vernacular meaning of “big head” would be conceited.
I saw Chris Berman eating dinner once, and the thing that stuck out to me the most was his enormous head in real life.
From the Merk Veterinary Manual:
This is my favorite Dolly Parton quote (which is probably apocryphal):
Dolly was having her handprints and footprints cast into the concrete plaza at Grumman’s Chinese Theatre, which is typical for many celebrities. When a news reporter asks her why she didn’t cast her more famous “appendages” instead, Dolly smiled and replied, “Aw sugar, I didn’t want some small kid to fall in them and get hurt!”