Why was everyone so...greasy back then?

Was it the makeup? The hot studio lights? Some kind of "healthy, tanned" 60s thing? Lack of powder? A visual marker to indicate "evil villain"?

WHY WAS EVERYONE SO GREASY?? I MUST KNOW!!

 

Hot studio lights. Film stocks of the era weren't as good at low light levels. Plus, all the winky blinkies on the bridge generated a lot of heat on top of that.

Question answered. Can we lock this now?

 

Genuinely thought this was a new starter's first post when I clicked on it rather than an 18 year veteran.

 

I think it was also the makeup they used back then (wasn't that still when they had to design the makeup so that the actors would look distinctive in both colour and black-and-white?), which could also be a factor why everybody looks so old.

 

My mother put this in my hair until I was six and in first grade (1970) and didn't want to be so greasy any more. Brylcreem TV Commercial 1950's - YouTube

 

Even today on a stage, hot lights can cause a lot of sweating, especially bright lights, which is what TOS largely used. The lighting then accentuates this sweat, thus creating a circle.

Additionally, back then makeup was used more so than today. Shatner in particular, in early episodes must have had eyeliner of some sort.

 

What...you never had a question occasionally dance around in your mind until you finally asked it?

I always figured it was a combination of pancake makeup plus a generation that didn't avoid sun damage like we do now. But then you have cast that don't look so oily, so... Just made me curious.

 

The only time I recall a trace of eyeliner on him was for some (not all) of Evil Kirk's scenes in "The Enemy Within"
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x05hd/theenemywithinhd182.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x05hd/theenemywithinhd756.jpg

Also, I don't think the greasy look in that second image is from sweating. It's just the type of makeup they were using back then. When they applied it heavily to achieve an effect, it got shiny.

 

Well, makeup, lighting & film stock were factors like everyone else has been saying, but looking old? A lot of why relatively younger people looked older than they do today is because they were damn near all habitual smokers & drinkers. That shit ages the hell out of you. It's why guys like Rod Serling looked 55 when they were 38

 

When Dapper Dan Mitt Romney fell in the Gulf, they had to start all over with the Corexit sprays again

 

They all wore eyeliner!!!! Shatner, Nimoy both even DeForest Kelley in the early episodes at least! I can't say I noticed James Doohan with it or Walter Koenig but George Takei definitely had it in City On The Edge of Forever and The Naked Time!
JB

 

Eyeliner didn't bug me, and TBH it ought to make a stylistic comeback as this century's been too bland'n'banal so far, but all that goopy hair gel made everyone look like 1950s' greasers. Especially in "The Way to Eden", where I was expecting a bunch of bridge personnel to don leather jackets then break out in crooning doo-wop ditties.

 

I don't see it on Shatner, even in most scenes of Evil Kirk. Here's Evil Kirk's entrance:
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x05hd/theenemywithinhd073.jpg
And here's Regular Kirk in COTEOF:
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x28hd/thecityontheedgeofforeverhd061.jpg
No eyeliner.

I think what you're seeing is the men's actual eye lashes:
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x28hd/thecityontheedgeofforeverhd035.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x28hd/thecityontheedgeofforeverhd038.jpg
I still have eyelashes, and I'm older than they were.

They did wear makeup, and Spock more than most (including eye shadow on his upper lids sometimes), but I'm just not seeing eyeliner outside of a few Kirk scenes in "The Enemy Within."

 

There are a few instances I seem to recall. How about the scene outside the Jefferies Tube when Kirk attempts to explain the inappropriateness of hitting a woman to young Charles Evans?

 

Here's the shot:
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x02hd/charliexhd189.jpg

It's possible. I think that's just the way his lower eyelashes were photographing at the moment, but it's possible.

 

I remember commercials in the 70s telling men "the dry look" was in. Joe Namath?

This aged look is true in music and baseball pics too. Life was harder in a physical sense for many people growing up pre-midcentury. Farm life, making ends meet through physical labor. Not that things are perfect now. But I see old b/w baseball cards and the players -- in their 20s often -- look . . . wizened.

Also, and I read about this in an interesting book called The Sibling Society if I recall . . . the idea that in your 20s you grew up and became a grown up, wore grown up clothes, drank scotch, settled into family life, whatever; not the eternal childhood. Compare what the men wear in Bewitched or TZ to contemp sitcoms, shlumpy untucked shirts. I don't watch new things but Raymond and King of Queens brought that home to me years ago. We are all siblings now. (As opposed to grownups.)

Eh, just thinking here after eating my cheerios. Be well.

 

Could this be an example of the Mandela effect in action, perhaps? (for me, yup, it was...) Or transposing "eyeliner" and "eyeshadow", though I thought they had worn eyeliner? Much thanks for the screencaps!

(Granted, for now my previous statement of eyeliner remains; 21st century men could be doin' it as cool as the miners from "The Robots of Death" had it going on:



Yes, when the 1970s had more style than the 20xx's... )

 

I just assume it's because of all the vaseline smeared on the lens for the close ups of any female character

 

You have to remember, when it comes to eye liner and eye shadow and that, they need to put those on male actors as well as female actors, because the studio lights will bleach their skin. So without makeup on a white actor, for example, the person would appear “white as a ghost” and all detail would be gone. Also, sometimes actors will be standing just off the Center of their key light, or just outside their light, so to make facial details stand out in the lower lighting, they’ll draw the eyes and wrinkles and add color.