I’m worried that this is a rather tacky question, but I was wondering, and hey, that’s what we’re here for, right? Was it a consequence of his paralysis, or medication, or something entirely unrelated?
It may be that I’m in opinion territory, but maybe someone knows?
Supposedly his hair fell out in reaction to a medication he was given for one problem or another. While some of it grew back, it was really thin and scraggly so he went to shaving it all off because it looked better and neater.
The stress of being unable to move his body and the various health problems he suffered as a consequence of his paralysis may have also been a contributing factor.
What Broomstick said, though I don’t have a convincing cite either.
Many stronger medications are actually mild poisons which kill the pathogen that they are administered to combat before they can do any serious damage to the individual human. But they will have minor (or not-so-minor) side effects.
I think practically everyone has heard about a cancer patient whose hair falls out “because he has cancer.” No, it doesn’t, unless he has skin cancer of the scalp or something equally bizarre – it falls out because the chemotherapy that aggressively combats the cancer also combats the hair follicles, causing them to release the hair growing from them.
I got the info from watching an interview with Mr. Reeve, who gave that answer for his new “Lex Luthor” look. So I don’t have a cite, just a memory.
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks** Broomstick ** & Polycarp. I forgot that “chemotherapy” isn’t just for cancer.
Why was Christopher Reeve bald?
WAG Very simple question with very simple answer. He had no hair!
From his homepage (the November 26, 2001 entry), he had a form of alopecia (Alopecia Areata). As spingears said, he was bald because he had no hair.