"Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow"by Nelson Aspen
In honor of "SeptemBeard" --a witty celebration of facial hair intended to help raise awareness and donations in the fight against a leading killer of men, prostate cancer-- I am going razor-free for the next month. I wrote a blog article about Hollywood's hottest hirsute heartthrobs (including Jake Gyllenhaal, Gerard Butler, Hugh Jackman... You can read it here.) but I realized how woefully lacking the Daytime TV genre has always been in the Beard Department (that includes Talk & Game shows, too). Does the female demographic the Sponsors covet really prefer baby-faced heroes with shiny, plucked chests and androgynous good looks? Or might there be some viewers out there waiting to "Woof!" at the sight of some Au Naturel guys with some fuzz not only on their hands and feet, but right up there on their chiseled cheekbones or square cut jaw lines?
I remember first seeing Michael Woods when he played "Dr. Jim Reardon" on GUIDING LIGHT...during the Golden Years when kid sister Nola was running around Springfield causing mayhem and Philip Spaulding & Mindy Lewis were the picture-perfect teen sensations of Daytime Drama. Tall, dark and chiseled, Woods' matinee idols looks and manner brought sex appeal and authority to the Reardon clan and, as the son of a doctor in real-life, the actor thought he'd have some gravitas to play.