Costner's 'Bodyguard' coif draws snips from critics

Date: December 16, 1992
By Steven Rea, Knight-Ridder Newspapers

From The Houston Chronicle
Submitted by: Larry A.


The critics are unanimous!

"The Bodyguard," Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston's brooding melodrama, which has earned a hefty $ 51.3 million, has generated a ream of reviews -- about Costner's hair.

Nearly every scribe who put fingers to word processor found it his or her duty to say something about the laconic Californian's severe centurion coif. Maybe it was because there wasn't much else to note about the dumb-o-rama thriller starring Costner as a sulky ex-Secret Service guy hired to protect Houston's flighty (and toothy) pop superstar. Many reviewers who saw "The Bodyguard" -- penned by Lawrence Kasdan 20 years ago with Steve McQueen in mind for the title role -- interpreted Costner's haircut as his homage to the late action star.

"Costner, we're told, is a big McQueen fan," wrote Glenn Lovell in the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News. "Which is why he shortened his hair (for a near-flattop)."

"In fact," noted the Baltimore Sun's Stephen Hunter, "so modeled upon the McQueen presence is the Costner imitation that he's had his hair sculpted in tribute to McQueen's bangy Caesar style."

But Judy Gerstel, writing in the Detroit Free Press, opined, "Costner is no McQueen. He may have the haircut, but he doesn't have the hormones."

Whatever deep meaning could or could not be combed out of Costner's locks, the drastic haircut did make for some great, er, clips.

In The New York Times, Janet Maslin described the Costner 'do as "the close-cropped haircut he must have had in grade school." Gary Thompson of the Philadelphia Daily News wrote that the star's "ridiculous "I, Claudius" hairdo does not help matters." USA Today's Mike Clark called it the actor's "Dances With Wolves scalp job, a haircut that goes beyond standard Secret Service cranial issue. Already it's eliciting comment, as if a bad trim were the chief problem with this too-dull-to-be-campy catastrophe." Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman observed that Costner's "performance might seem utterly dull were it not for his medieval-monk haircut, which just about martyrs his handsomeness. You can bet this won't be starting any fashion trends."

The Washington Post's Rita Kempley wondered, "What does the perky pop diva see in her lichenlike bodyguard, Kevin, a former Secret Service agent who apparently has a goat for a barber? Not with that hair, bucko."

And Los Angeles Times critic Peter Rainer played off the film's marketing campaign with his review, which began:
"According to the ad for "The Bodyguard," the three golden rules for the job are:

"Never let her out of your sight."
"Never let your guard down."
"Never fall in love."
Having seen Kevin Costner in the title role, we may now add a fourth:
"Never get a really bad haircut."