Time magazine, 1949: Hair Apparent
Time, 1958: All That Jazz
Three American men who wore beards in the 1950s: author Ernest Hemingway, author Patrick Dennis (Auntie Mame) and musician Burl Ives. One who wore a beard in 1939: Orson Welles.
Again, Hemingway, Disney, and Ives chose their facial hair before WWII. Dennis was right on the borderline (he also didn’t serve in the army).
Men who turned 20 in the period 1945-1965 did not grow mustaches. Even the images of beatniks didn’t show them. Older men still kept them, but it was no acceptable for anyone in their 20s during that era.
I can verify everything you are saying. My thoughts exactly.
I remember being in 5th or 6th grade (that would have been about 1965), and being in the department store. We saw a youngish man with a beard (ie, not someone still pretending to live in the Civil War era) and I just stared. We thought it was one of the strangest things we’d ever seen.
“Doc” Ricketts of Cannery Row fame was known for being bearded.
I knew one dude with a beard and he was a folk-singer.
Not Hemingway’s beard.
I was just addressing the comment: “I do know that when I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, I can’t recall ever seeing anyone with a mustache except for a couple of great uncles of mine.” That didn’t say anything about eccentrics in the media or people who grew up after WWII. I freely admit that “normal” young men didn’t grow beards in the 50s/60s.
Seriously? How can you read Chuck’s statement as anything other than who he saw in his personal life? How much more obvious could this be?
My first thought upon reading the thread title was that scientists and professors wore beards.
I have a cruise book somewhere from when my dad was in Philippine Sea (CV-47) during the Korean War. I recall seeing some sailors sporting beards and moustaches. (One in particular had the waxed 'stache tips and a goatee.)
I think in sports they were very rare before World War II. I know baseball player Frenchy Bordgaray grew one in the mid 30s and was told to shave it off or else. When the film “The Natural” was filmed, baseball historian Cliff Kachline, an advisor to the film, said manager Wilford Brimley nor anyone else would be wearing a mustache in that period. But they didn’t listen to him, saying a veteran actor like Brimley shouldn’t have to shave.
I’d guess the majority of companies would have had official or semi official policies about being neat and well-groomed that would cut down on facial hair. I also think most men of that generation just didn’t care for it.
And Captain Kangaroo!
I think the beatniks and their goatees were first.
And (‘sing along with’) Mitch Miller!
Are beards really that popular even now on TV, though? And, in real life, I tend to see them mostly on older people and teens that just want to prove they can grow one.
Then again, I’ve worn at least a goatee for the last 5 years or so, and I’m 25.
And Stage Magicians.
Including The Amazing Randi!
And Walt Disney.
I would have thought “bearded actors of the 1950’s” might have had at least one webpage devoted to the topic, but if it exists I haven’t found it as such.
So these images come from all around and are just the guys I could remember from the era.
Errol Flynn
William Powell
Orson Welles
Zachary Scott
David Niven
Vincent Price
Sebastian Cabot
I wager there are others.
Don’t forget James Robertson Justice, who had several prominent film roles.
But he and David Niven were furriners, so they could get away with that.
As was Errol Flynn.
Don’t forget Norman Luboff!
Oooh man, that is a 'stache I gotta study.