BEING thin on top hasn't stopped Sean Connery from being voted the world's sexiest man. But for every Bruce Willis and Vin Diesel there's a William Hague and Bobby Charlton.
Some men just can't cope with the "fall out" when their hair disappears.
Teacher James Campbell claims it has ruined his life. The 61-year-old tried to sue Falkirk Council, saying pupils' taunts of "baldy" destroyed his confidence and made him scared to walk the school corridor.
His attempt to have his case heard under the Disability Discrimination Act were kicked out by an industrial tribunal.
Studies have shown employers are more likely to hire a man with a full head of hair than one whose thinning locks may make him look older than he is.
Joanna Vallely took to the streets to find out how Edinburgh men coped with hair loss and whether they saw their baldness as a disability – or an additional source of sex appeal.
'Everyone remembers my Afro'
LEE SHARP (pictured above), 32, manager of clothes store Xile in Princes Street Mall, used to be famous in his primary school for his eye-catching Afro.
The youngster grew his hair until it was several inches tall and wide, and his school mates used to love coming over and touching it.
These days, fashion-conscious Lee, from Leith, hasn't got a single hair on his shiny pate – and he says he is equally proud of his grown-up look.
With a broad grin, he recalls: "I had the Afro in primary school. I was so proud of it and it got a lot of attention, obviously with the Jackson Five having Afros.
"My mum is white so she was quite proud that I had it too. I was quite attached to it until the fashions changed and the Afro style was out."
Lee's once beloved hair started to recede when he was about 20 and he began shaving it immediately, which he now continues every two weeks.
Lee is just as happy with his clean shaven look. "I think black people get away with it better. It's a kind of rough and ready look. I think it suits me."
'I feared I'd lose my pulling power'
THOUGH the four-times married deputy council leader Steve Cardownie is not known for his retiring nature, when the 55-year-old started losing his hair in his early 20s he admits to suffering a temporary loss of confidence.
"In your very early 20s you think it might have an impact on your ability to pull so when I was going away to nightclubs with my mates I felt I'd be the one least likely, but that's just with being so young.
"Unfortunately it's not put people off marrying me! I suppose I must have compensatory features.
"I didn't wake up one morning like Kojak, it took its time, but nevertheless I could see the writing was on the wall.
"I did go to the hairdresser and ask him if he could give me something to keep my hair in – and he gave me a cardboard box."
As for getting pelters, as a councillor Steve says it comes with the territory.
"If someone's called me baldy before I've turned round and said I can always wear a hat, you're ugly. I make jokes about it myself.
"When you get older you realise that other aspects of your personality compensate for it. Personality and having a laugh are more important."
'I decked guy who called me baldy'
Thom McCarthy, 58, who owns the Crystal Clear store on the High Street, remembers losing his cool and hitting a shoplifter who called him "a bald-headed git".
Thom was in his early 20s and running a denim store on Cockburn Street, The Great Western Trading Company, when the insult sent him over the edge.
"It was a mother and son team of shoplifters. She distracted me and he was stuffing Levi shirts into a bag. I detained him and he called me a 'bald-headed git' and I decked him. He pushed me as well first." he recalls.
"No one ever called me a 'bald-headed git' again," adds Thom, who successfully prosecuted the man.
"It all happened in a flash but when he said that it was the final straw."
'I looked like Michael Bolton'
For tattoo artist Max MacAndrews, 35, having hair the length of his back was very much part of his heavy metal image and he believes it gave him "an edge" with women.
But when his hairline started creeping back at the age of 20 he shaved his head – and was sacked by his band.
"I was a heavy metal kid when it started to do the Michael Bolton thing and was in a widow's peak and tufty at the sides.
"I'd been growing it for seven or eight years and I didn't want to accept I was losing it – but I didn't want to be one of those guys with the rat's tail.
"I had a friend with Afro hair who really envied my long hair because it was dead straight. I had to get him p****d to do it, but he shaved it off for me."
And the worst was still to come. Max, who works at Old Town Tattoo, in St Mary's Street, was the singer with band Muppet Rabies. After he lost his hair his band mates asked him to leave because his look no longer suited their style.
"I think that it was because I lost my hair, but funnily enough I hadn't seen the guy who made the decision in years and then he came here recently asking for a full back tattoo." He adds with a wicked grin: "Revenge, he's going to get it."
'I started going bald at 18'
Alan Gordon, 35, from Longstone, had long hair as a teenager but when it started receding at the age of 18 he quickly cropped it.
The systems analyst recalls: "One day I thought, I've had enough messing around – at least now it will be easier to maintain."
Alan's fiancée Marion Preez, 28, shaves it for him every three or four weeks, "or else I end up with a bit of a fluffy look," he laughs.
The bonus for Alan is having a friend with a similar look in his new baby, five-month-old Emile.
He's had some teasing from his mates but doesn't let it affect him. "People might call me baldy b*****d or slapheid but it doesn't bother me. My cousin says it's a solar panel for a sex machine.
"One of my friends' hair is receding and he has a conehead so he's dreading it."
'It's only going to get worse'
Andre De Villiers, 24, a bar manager from Leith, misses being able to change his hairstyle since he was forced to go extra-short.
"I had a bit of a mullet at one point. Before that I had a wavy flop, but it was never longer than past the nose.
"I have always had a receding hairline since I was 16 or so. I thought that was just the way my hair was.
At the age of 18 I started to notice that it went further back. There was a time when I was getting fed up styling my hair so I shaved it all off.
"Over the last two years a bald patch has started to form in the middle which is getting annoying and I have to shave it on a more regular basis now.
"The worst thing is knowing it's only going to get worse and there's nothing you can do about it – it's not going to get any better.
"It's a scary thought imagining having sides only. I would shave it off with clippers if it came to that but not with a Bic as that looks a bit weird to me. Plus, I don't think that I'd suit it."
"I don't like going short-short, and would prefer to hold on to what I've got."
Andre says that he would consider having treatment for preventing further hair loss, although he wouldn't go to great expense.
"I wouldn't go for anything extreme like hair implants or surgery, but if there was a cheaper way to prevent hair loss I would take it."
Despite finding it boring and a pain to maintain, Andre sees the fun side of life with a shaved head.
He says: "When there's a fancy dress occasion you can have fun wearing wigs."
The full article contains 1448 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
