Alois Alzheimer

Alois Alzheimer

German neuroscientist

Moustache type: Jay's

Born: 14 6 1864 (Markbreit, Bavaria)
Died: 19 12 1915 (Breslau, German Empire, aged 51, heart failure)

On the 3rd of November, 1906, Dr Aloysius “Alois” Alzheimer gave a speech to the South West German Society of Alienists. In it he described the case of Frau Auguste D., a recently-deceased patient of Frankfurt’s lunatic asylum, where Alzheimer worked. For five years Alzheimer had been obsessed with Frau D. who exhibited peculiar behaviour, including the loss of her short-term memory. After Frau D’s death, aged 56, Alzheimer analysed the patient’s brain and found the abnormalities that allowed him to present the first published case of ‘presenile dementia’, which would become known as Alzheimer’s Disease.

Alzheimer’s disease is today recognised as the most common form of dementia. It begins with short-term memory loss and degenerates to affect the victim’s ability to speak, move and recognise even close friends and relatives.

No doubt there are moustachioed scientists just as talented as Dr Alzheimer who have been omitted from this volume. To that one must counter, there lies the value of the eponym.

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

German prince

Moustache type: Nailbrush

Born: 26 8 1819 (Schloss Rosenau, Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld)
Died: 14 12 1861 (Windsor, England, aged 42, typhoid)

“Excessively handsome” was one compliment paid to Albert by his English cousin, Princess Victoria who, after she became queen, he married in 1840.

Albert became Victoria’s closest adviser and closest friend. When he died, the Queen was infamously distraught. She wore black for the rest of her life and erected The Albert Memorial and The Royal Albert Hall in his honour. Prince Albert wasn’t held in the same esteem by his wife’s subjects; he was disliked despite his instrumental involvement with the hugely successful and popular Great Exhibition of 1851.

Though it is named after him the “Prince Albert” piercing did not adorn the royal pecker. It is believed that Richard Simonton, an active participant in gay, sado-masochistic, 1970s subculture, invented the Prince Albert story to give genital-piercing a respectable heritage.

For the moustache-connoisseur a “Prince Albert” is of course a small, neat, light brown, rounded nailbrush moustache with a small central gap.

Dr Alfred Adler

Dr Alfred Adler

Austrian Psychologist

Moustache type: Trapezoid toothbrush

Born: 7 2 1870 (Vienna, Austria)
Died: 28 5 1937 (Aberdeen, Scotland, aged 67, heart failure)

Alfred Adler may not be the best-known Austrian psychologist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries but within his professional field he is respected as a great pioneer.

Initially on friendly terms with Sigmund Freud, the two grew apart as their ideas became stronger and more divergent. Adler rejected Freud’s centricity on sex and instead propagated theories that focussed on inferiority complexes and birth order within the family (eldest over-achieving, second competitive, youngest over-dependent). He believed that humans strive to compensate for their shortcomings and did not agree with Freud’s ideas about carving the personality into ego, superego and id. Instead Adler preferred to examine the personality as a whole – he called this ‘individual psychology.'

Freud and Adler are certainly two of the most famous psychologists history has to offer. Rather than lament the absence of one great psychologist from the world of moustaches, the reader should be positive, and delight in the inclusion of one great moustache in the world of psychology.

Ademir

Ademir

Brazilian Footballer

Moustache type: Pencil

Born: 8 11 1922 (Recife, Brazil)
Died: 11 5 1996 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, aged 73)

Ademir Marques de Menezes is one of only two men with a moustache to finish as the top scorer in a World Cup finals tournament. Ademir, also known as Queixada (‘The Jaw’ or ‘The Chin’), scored nine times during the 1950 tournament that was held in Brazil and won by Uruguay.

Ademir was a slightly-built forward noted for his pace, powerful and accurate finishing and remarkable ball skills which he could perform with equal splendour whether stationary or going at speed. He was Pele's hero.

Ademir’s 1950 World Cup goals came against Mexico (2), Yugoslavia, Sweden (4, in a 7-1 win) and Spain (2). Regrettably he failed to find the net in the World Cup final against Uruguay, the daft bugger. He played his club football for Sport Recife, Vasco da Gama and Fluminense.

It is notable that the World Cup top scorer in 1978 was Mario Kempes of Argentina. He was forced to shave his moustache by his coach, Cesar Luis Menotti, and scored six goals. Flavio Costa, Brazil’s more liberal coach in 1950 had no problems with Ademir’s tache. And Ademir scored eight.

Gomez Addams

Gomez Addams

Spanish-American sitcom character

Moustache type: Dandy's

Portrayed by John Astin in the American comedy series The Addams Family (1964-66)

Gomez Addams, the patriarch of The Addams Family was created, along with wife Morticia, daughter Wednesday and son Pugsley, for a comic strip in The New Yorker magazine in 1937 by Charles Addams. The family’s forenames, however, were not given to them until the TV series began in 1964.

Gomez is, like his kin, descended from a long line of freaks and ghouls. He has a monstrous butler called Lurch and keeps an animate severed hand called Thing. He is a millionaire and lawyer, albeit one who takes a perverse pleasure in losing his cases.

Gomez is a cigar smoking, sword fighting, knife throwing, juggling romantic. His amour for his wife is aroused by her smallest action, becoming especially ardent when she speaks French.

In the films of the early 1990s Gomez was played by Raúl Juliá.

Gomez’s always immaculate attire is capped off perfectly by his trademark black moustache.

Abbas the Great of Persia

Abbas the Great of Persia

Persian Shah

Moustache type: Handlebar

Born: 27 1 1571 (Herat, Persian Empire)
Died: 19 1 1629 (Mazandaran, Persian Empire, aged 58)

In my introduction I wrote that some men who wear moustaches “are great, some good, some bad, some, indeed, downright bastards.” And so we begin with a great man who could equally have been called Abbas the Downright Bastard. In 1588 he revolted against his father, imprisoned him and seized power for himself. To avoid history repeating itself with his own progeny, he murdered his first born then blinded two other sons and sent them to be raised in a harem.

To his greater credit, he did make Persia one of the early 17th century’s most powerful empires. By his death it stretched from the Tigris in the west to the Indus in the east. One wonders if he honoured the horizontal extremes of his empire by growing this magnificent handlebar moustache.

We must be thankful to an accident of alphabet that this man who spoke and wrote in Farsi should have his name Latinized as Abbas. His is a fitting example to begin the catalogue, and would be an excellent choice for readers who have ambition, patience and vast levels of testosterone.

A Note on Qualification

Some men who do have a moustache are unfortunately disqualified from being entered in the catalogue. They include Rene Descartes, Emperor Franz Joseph I, Karl Benz, Robert Louis Stevenson, Honore de Balzac, Diego Velazquez, Christopher Marlowe, John Bunyan, John Millington Synge, Butch Cassidy, Alexandre Dumas, Charles “Black Bart” Boles, Harry Paget Flashman, Frank Zappa and Lemmy from Motorhead. These men scuppered themselves by wearing, along with their moustache, either “burnsides” or a “royale”.

Burnsides are named for the American Civil War General Ambrose Burnside, whose facial hair consisted of a moustache joined to his sideburns (also named for Burnside). Royales, or soul patches, are normally square or triangular and are worn beneath the lower lip but above the chin.

I found it necessary to be fascistic about what exactly determines a “moustache”. I felt at an early stage I could not include men with beards. Sadly this ruled out several of my heroes including Charles Dickens, Edward “Blackbeard” Teach and Mr. T. No-one would look at these or other bearded men and say “he has a moustache”. They would say “he has a beard”. The assumption is that anyone with a beard has a moustache unless expressly stipulated to the contrary – Abraham Lincoln or Michael Eavis for example.

So beards were out. I was then left to decide what exactly defined a moustache. My conclusion was that it should be the only facial hair on the face with the exception of sideburns, unless the sideburns joined the moustache to create burnsides. My decision has caused me some heartbreak as Flashman, Bolles, Vlad the Impaler, Brandon Flowers and Carlos Valderrama would have been proud additions to the catalogue.

As it is they must take their resting place in the moustache cemeteries that will be posted as appendices at the end of the catalogue.

The Death of the Moustache

As a young boy growing up in the 1980s I knew what made men and ladies different:

Men had moustaches.

My father had a moustache, my uncles had moustaches, my friends’ fathers had moustaches.

Television confirmed my assumptions about the fundamental difference between the sexes. Father Flump had a moustache, Dick Dastardly had a moustache, the Mayor of Trumpton had a moustache and Captain Pugwash had a moustache (and a little beard too). And these weren’t just any old characters. These were the alpha males, the main characters. It was apparent to me that if you wanted to be the head of the family or the mayor or to be captain of your own pirate ship you should have a moustache.

When I was five my teacher instructed me to draw a picture of my dad. I remember attempting to visualise him and the one thing I knew was he had a moustache. I couldn’t remember whether moustaches went under the nose or on the lips themselves and plumped for the latter. While this clearly demonstrated that biologically and artistically I was no prodigy, it indicates that the main male figure in my life was represented not by his job or his car or his ability to read me a story but by his moustache.

As I grew older I realised that moustaches did not grow on the lips but above them, and I was further convinced that men of status wore a moustache. Daley Thompson had a moustache, so did Ian Rush, Michael Fish, Mr Taylor the deputy headmaster, Des Lynam and Jesus.

Then came the epidemic.

Around about 1994, men stopped having moustaches. They became clean shaven or had goatee beards. They had designer stubble.

After approximately 150 years, moustaches were suddenly no longer in favour. In fact, it was more than that. In the mid-20th century the moustache was “no longer in favour”, but there were still proud and prominent representatives – Sir Anthony Eden, Terry Thomas, Joseph Stalin, David Niven and Charles de Gaulle to name but a few. In the 1990s the moustache was not just out of favour it was deeply, deeply unfashionable.

My friend’s father shaved his off. So did two of my uncles. John Aldridge grew a goatee. So did Gareth Hale. Kenny Sansom went clean shaven. So did Graham Gooch.

The trend has continued to this day. Once proud moustache-wearers like Ian Rush, Jeremy Bowen, Phil “The Power” Taylor, Eric Knowles, Mark Lawrenson, Peter Mandelson, Ruud Gullit, Nigel Mansell, Ringo Starr, Graeme Souness, John Kettley and Barry Chuckle have all sold out.

Nowadays to have a moustache is to be seen as eccentric, German, or homosexual (yet only one man in this volume is all three).

It is time for the renaissance of the moustache. To re-establish it as hirsute shorthand for manliness, dignity, style and authority.

Over the last few centuries moustaches have been worn by hundreds of famous, or infamous, men.

United by their choice of facial hair, these moustache wearers otherwise stretch across the entire spectrum of man. Some are great, some good, some bad, some, indeed, downright bastards. They span history and occupations. They comprise gunslingers and footballers, authors and wrestlers, artists and actors, politicians and murderers, scientists and potato-based toys.

Some of their moustaches are pugnacious, bristly affairs that warn potential muggers and loquacious Americans to stay back. Some are huge, unyielding brutes – demanding of their owner the kind of attention normally reserved for a show dog or vintage motor car. Some are dandified, curled, scented, waxed works of art. Some are meticulously sculpted, shaved and etched into the most delicate of lines. Some stretch across the face to tickle the ear lobes. Others droop beneath the chin. Some are simply grown, left unstyled, unshaped and only occasionally trimmed.

Some moustaches define the man – Jimmy Edwards, Michael Attree, Rollie Fingers or Sir Claude Macdonald. Some men define a moustache – Adolf Hitler, Salvador Dali, Fu Manchu or Friedrich Nietzsche.

It is time for more great men to grow moustaches. More importantly it is time for more men to grow great moustaches.

To play midwife to this renaissance I lay before you here, assembled for the first time, a catalogue of every* famous** man*** to have worn**** a***** moustache ever******.

I hope you see one you like.



* I may not have included every famous man. In my exhaustive research for this book I was frequently delighted by finding a new moustache. Should you be struck dumb by an eye-piercing omission please accept my apologies and notify me of my near-sightedness. But wait until I have reached the end otherwise I will bite you.

** Fame is of course, somewhat subjective. I have included Eugen Sandow, who for historians of bodybuilding is undoubtedly famous, yet have omitted David Battie, who is no doubt much-loved by viewers of the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow. Ultimately vagaries won the day. An interesting character, or a fantastic moustache was often the decisive factor.

*** Anatomists believe that Frida Kahlo was a woman.

**** A few men in this book do literally wear a moustache. The Tramp, the popular image of Charlie Chaplin, wore his moustache. Groucho Marx’s moustache is neither grown nor worn but painted. In a slightly different way so is the moustache of the gentleman who graces the Pringles tubes.

***** Some men have worn different styles of moustache in their life, or have worn a moustache throughout their life and seen its colour change. Wherever possible I have included the moustache worn at the height of their fame, or simply chosen what I consider to be an excellent example of a moustache.

****** Some men have worn a moustache but with such irregularity or for such a short time that I have considered them unworthy of inclusion. Examples include David Dunbar Buick, Bryan Ferry and Ian Beale off EastEnders.