In 1989, my parents ended their marriage and I tearfully bid farewell to my father as he moved himself out of our apartment. In 2002, I was told that I had a mold allergy so chronic and debilitating that I would likely require regular surgeries throughout the rest of my life. And in 2005, I first started to notice that the part in the middle of my hair was starting to slowly spread wider and wider.
While the ensuing spiral into despair and self-loathing was unavoidable, one of my first acts (after crying myself to sleep, cradling pictures of my younger, more lustrously locked self) was to seek out as much evidence as I could that bald men throughout time had not only succeeded in life but had done so in a way that their virility was in no way challenged or lessened [1].
My main criteria for this list were as follows: it had to be made up of individuals who did all or the majority of their best work while demonstrably bald. So, while the physical deterioration of Stanley Kubrick over the course of his career is a reflection of an oppressively focused attention to his life’s mission, he is nonetheless excluded below (plus he made a couple stone-cold masterpieces with a full crown of hair). Also, anyone earning a spot had to do so on the strength of having owned their follicular challenges rather than hiding under a toupee or plugs.
I kept the list to five for the sake of variety. And also because who wants to look at that many disgusting chrome domes?
Sean Connery
Connery was bald as a beaked bean the whole time he was playing James Bond. I know this violates the “loud and proud” maxim I laid out above (which is why I give it an “Honorable Mention” instead of placing, so back off), but I nonetheless think it qualifies due to the fact that, while the production company wasn’t particularly keen on having the world’s most desired super-spy snapped with pate exposed, Connery himself doesn’t seem to have given much of a care [2].
Leonardo Da Vinci
Perhaps the greatest mind, artistic or otherwise, of all time. Which should probably be enough to satisfy the charge of this list in and of itself, but I believe just as strongly in padding content as I do in never settling for the bare minimum, so…
Georges Melies
One of the absolute most significant figures in the development of motion picture storytelling as we understand it today, this magician-turned-special-effects-pioneer made hundreds of films in his lifetime, including the influential A Trip to the Moon (as well as what is largely agreed to be the first porno), and was on the verge of being forgotten entirely by history, working in obscurity in a Parisian train station until his past accomplishments began to be re-discovered and re-introduced to the public. Martin Scorsese later re-introduced him to audiences yet again via his beautiful children’s film Hugo.
Luis Buñuel
I’m currently envisioning what promises to be an overlong, over-written gush fest on why Luis Bunuel is pretty much the best, so I’ll keep that all to a minimum here. Suffice to say that he’s one of the all-time greats, and that if I were forced to put together a list of my all-time top artistic influences (a list that may or may not be forthcoming, as I mentally scramble to decide who the other nine would be), he would reside firmly in the upper half. Bunuel had the kind of frequently-interrupted yet decades-spanning career that marks a man of supreme passion and imaginative fervor. Every one of his periods would be an enviable life’s filmography.
Robert Altman
Genetics and lifestyle choices are effectively conspiring to ensure that I approximate Altman’s general look once I hit middle age (by which I of course mean 32). I’m working as hard as I can to make sure that my talent and the quality of my creative output maintain pace as well. Beyond that, Altman in a lot of ways represents the ideal of a life very richly lived – constantly working within the company of devoted friends, family, and colleagues right up until his death in 2006.
Feel free to fill me in on your favorite balds in the comments below. Or, if you prefer, you may focus obsessively on one minor physical trait of your own and design an entire list around it.
– cs
[1] And by the way, the root* cause of baldness is in fact an excess of testosterone, thank you very much.
* See what I did there?
[2] Connery could also qualify for another potential list entitled “The Top Most Obvious to Everyone Else But Completely Inconspicuous To Me Toupees.” See Shatner, William and Letterman, David.
chrissailor.com 
I know Patrick Stewart seems like an obvious answer for Fave Baldy (well, obvious for the ’90s), but he can’t go unrecognized. I don’t have a crush on him in the traditional sense, but rather a healthy admiration for someone who so effortlessly demonstrates talent, social consciousness, and humor without ever seeming too high or lowbrow…and he’ll probably also never be guilty of uttering the words, “You’re the man now, dog!” like some people I know.
Also, I wanted to point out that some of us can’t make lists of inspirational famous people who share our own physical maladies. While you could make these lists all day about bald people, hairy people, underweight people, and overweight people, having a skin disorder is never going to be considered attractive and is never going to be celebrated (which it absolutely shouldn’t since it indicates illness). Even after finally curing my own acne this year (which I liken to a miracle), after TWENTY YEARS (that’s two-thirds of my life) of struggling, I still experience the residual effects on my self-esteem. Therefore, I will never be ready to identify with Seal, Edward James Olmos, and a legion of nameless (for a reason), dermatologically-challenged male (never female) actors who can only find work in villainous roles due to the way they look. (Okay, okay, Olmos “stood and delivered” that one time, but that’s about it.)
Olmos also Captained the Galactica, my friend, so I would say he did pretty well for himself. And if we’re going to talk about successful people with bad skin, let’s not leave Bill Murray out of the equation. But you’re absolutely right in that we’re dealing with a major double standard – if you’re a man with acne scars, you can at least have a very long career as a character actor and maybe even become a cult sex symbol (as in, someone that a niche audience finds sexy, not a human being who symbolizes the sexual proclivities of cults), whereas a woman with any physical defects whatsoever is either turned away at the check-in table or made-over to the point of being unrecognizable (speaking of which, did you know that Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino, and that Harry Cohn convinced her to de-Spanishize herself into a more American-looking redhead, a process which included altering her hairline and eyebrows via electrolysis?).
And Patrick Stewart is an oversight so egregious that I am straining myself to fabricate a legitimate enough reason for his exclusion.
Christopher Sailor, you are one very funny fellow. SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE NOTICE!!!!!