The image of an iconic bald leader — like Winston Churchill or Mahatma Gandhi — can be so powerful that it’s easy to think they never had hair at all. But all of history’s great bald men once had protection from the elements.
14 iconic bald leaders — with and without their hair
Phil Edwards is a senior producer for the Vox video team.
These are 14 of history’s most powerful bald men, with and without their hair, along with their thoughts on all follicular matters.
1) Dwight D. Eisenhower, bald and with hair
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Ike reportedly workshopped baldness cures with George S. Patton. Patton was once caught exposing his balding head to a strange blue light, and he admitted he bought the light because he thought it might stop him from going bald.
2) Winston Churchill, bald and with hair
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In The Last Lion, Churchill said, “A man of my limited resources cannot presume to have a hairstyle. Get on and cut it.”
3) Mahatma Gandhi, bald and with hair
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When he had it, Gandhi cut his own hair. In South Africa, an English barber refused to cut it because of Gandhi’s race, so he tried to do it himself. Apparently, he was bad at it — his friends joked it looked like rats had been at it. Gandhi took the joke, and he used the entire experience to extend his understanding of the untouchables in India.
4) Vladimir Lenin, bald and with hair
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Apparently, Lenin’s wife cut what remained of his hair after he went bald. After the Soviet leader’s death, his remaining hair was darkened to fix a very short haircut she’d given him.
5) Benito Mussolini, bald and with hair
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Mussolini claimed that his beard (and, presumably, his head) was especially tough to shave. According to the dictator, Gillette blades were the best for the job.
6) Nikita Khrushchev, bald and with hair
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Reportedly, Joseph Stalin often cleaned his pipe by knocking it on Khrushchev’s bald head.
7) Mikhail Gorbachev, bald and with hair
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Gorbachev’s birthmark became a meme before memes existed. People even got birthmark tattoos at the 1999 Venice Biennial.
8) Martin Van Buren, bald and with hair
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Apparently, Van Buren’s hair was blonde and curly when he was a child.
9) Dick Cheney, bald and with hair
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In his memoir, Cheney noted that his grandfather had white hair, so not all Cheneys were bald.
10) Vladimir Putin, bald and with hair
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Putin effortlessly completes the bald-hairy theory of Russian politics: that Russians unerringly alternate between bald and hairy leaders.
11) Rupert Murdoch, bald and with hair
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According to one biographer, Murdoch dyes his own hair.
12) Jeff Bezos, bald and with hair
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According to one Quora user, when Bezos lived in New York, he had “auburn hair and showed [coworkers] a funny hat that went well with his hair.”
13) Cory Booker, bald and with hair
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The Twitter-friendly politician considers his shaved head a cautionary measure.
My hair cut is a preemptive strike on an inevitable conclusion RT @mjv1975: Can u clear up my confusion? Are u bald or do u wear a bald cap?
— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) April 15, 2012 14) John McCain, bald and with hair
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McCain’s nickname was “the white tornado,” because he developed white hair relatively young.
Correction: This post originally featured a different image of Vladimir Lenin with hair, but it was a wig he wore during a thrilling escape.