Ted Kennedy — Mature Hairline Example

Dear Dr. Rassman,

Thank you for your excellent, informative site. I’m 32 and still have my juvenile hairline, but like most men, I’m concerned about the prospect of balding in the future, and have considered starting Propecia just in case.

I’m writing because something occurred to me while watching the coverage of the passing of Ted Kennedy: he’s an excellent person for you to hold up as an example of a maturing hairline. Footage and photos of his first election in 1960, at age 30, show a pretty severely receded hairline at the temples, probably more severe than the average mature hairline. Anyone looking at him at the time probably thought he was destined to be bald. But, when he died nearly 50 years later, he had basically the same hairline — just replaced, of course, with white hair.

Thanks again.

I have assembled some photos of Ted Kennedy throughout his political career to reflect your insights…

In all three of these photos above, you can see that the shape of the hairline is convex (mature male hairline) rather than concave (which would be a more juvenile or female type). What is notable is that the forelock is lower than usual and this is often a hereditary issue. At times, a lower forelock (like with talk show host David Letterman) runs independent of the hair around it and becomes isolated. Ted Kennedy’s hairline is the shape that I like to obtain in my patients, but I often go slightly higher.