How come so many white old hollywood stars had black hair but the white stars of today don’t have black hair?

Marlon Brando is another.

they were white adjacent!

Back in the day men always had tons of some hair grease in their hair which made their hair looked darker than what it really was on BW film. And we obviously have tons of dark haired male actors these days as well, but obviously OP knows that.

Barbara Stanwyck is another one.

R3 Name A list white actors with black hair working today.

Humphrey Bogart

I bet it had to do with black and white film. Jet black hair and white skin really pops.

R5, Tom Hanks, Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Robert Downey Jr, Keanu Reeves etc etc. Are you really this dense or what are you after? People with raven dark hair? Like mentioned what you saw on screen wasn't necessarily the true color of the hair.

Only their hairdresser knows for sure.

Is Timothee blond OP, you idiot?

Fake set up by OP.

You don't associate white people with black hair?

Where have you been living for the past 1,000 years, Finland?!

Remember me? "Skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony."

When everyone is white...black hair makes you stand out. I do see a lot of women do that here in Transylvania and they also get keratin treatment because, in a world of people with light brown to blonde and ginger hair, it makes them look "Brazilian". They do the bronzer, lips, eyebrows and mink lashes too and sometimes wear it in a high 1960's style ponytail. It's a thing because they think it's "exotic". Also, they don't want to look "washed out" as they refer to their natural color. Probably was the same back then when human beings with naturally black hair just weren't around.

Ava Gardner, Vivien Leigh, Jean Simmone, Tyrone Power, Britain's late Queen Mum, Ricky Nelson, Merle Oberon, Joan Bennett, and tens of millions of other not so famous Caucasian humans in whom very dark hair is not only common, but far more common than naturally occurring red or blond hair.

Did I forget Scarlett O'Hara (go look up Mitchell's description of her on the first page of GWTW)?

Oh, and Anna Karenina, with her charming black curls.

You wouldn't be the Italians Aren't White Troll, would you, trying to slip you extreme racist tropes past sharp-eyed DLers?

^^*Simmons (not Simmone)

The threads around here keep getting worse and worse.

I'm sure many of them had light brown hair or reddish hair or were dirty blonde, but B&W film/photography (plus hair product, which dampens the hair) made their hair appear darker. My grandmother had natural strawberry blonde hair, but in many B&W pictures of the time, she looks brunette.

I'm reminded of an early 1900s footage I saw on YouTube and someone asking why everyone wore black back then. I took the time to explain that they did wear a lot of color in the old days, but that the reds, blues, greens, etc. come out looking black in B&W. I thought that was common knowledge.

In black and white, anything that isn't white or light blonde or light red looks black. Barbara Stanwyck and some others mentioned did not have black hair.

Clark and Vivien: brown hair, not black.

Audrey: brown hair.

Marlon: dark brown hair.

Of those listed, only Olivier and Cary Grant look as though they really had black hair (it's hard to tell, because when they were young any "color" photographs seem to be hand-colored).

Oops, Elizabeth Taylor, too. She did have black hair and those stunning black eyelashes.

[quote] I don’t normally associate white people with black hair so it stood out to me.

WTF?? Dubya really left a generation of children behind.

on a sidenote: i wonder how grey tom cruise hair really is? i mean the guy is pushing 60 and now a single shred of white/grey hair?..

All dem whites gots da black hair. Thievery!

R24 that reminds me of something my little brother once asked our mom when he was 5: "Is Grammy ever going to get white hair or is she going to have brown hair forever?" (Our other grandmother called Nonna was very gray.) My mother's matter-of-fact response: "As long as there's Clairol." 😂

Farley Granger looks like he had black hair too.

Isn’t the term tall, dark, and handsome used to describe tall white men with black hair?

R14 Obviously Italians are white. None of the people I listed are Italian though.

This really is one of the stupidest questions ever asked on Datalounge.

[quote] Isn’t the term tall, dark, and handsome used to describe tall white men with black hair?

Not necessarily. It could also be for men with dark brown hair.

I should’ve asked why were white stars more attractive and distinctive looking back then.

R22 The white women of today have nothing on Elizabeth Taylor in her prime.

Howcum the movies were in black and white when we all know the world is actually in color. So weird!

OP, many actors have dark brown hair. It is not black as Chinese, although some Irish have that tone of hair. But aren’t all these kids dark, almost black haired: Timothee, Jack Dylan Grazer, Finn Wolfhard, a bit older Taylor Lautner, then British Fionn Whitehead (seen him in Dunkirk), Andrew Garfield, Irish Colin Farrell. Then Clooney before he got grey, Daniel Day Lewis was also dark haired. And many more that I can’t remember right now, I don’t know what are you talking about.

Eg 1 Jack Dylan G.

Eg2 Finn W.

Eg 3. Fionn W.

Josh O’ Connor

Day Lewis before his hair got grey

What about Colin?

when you get older, you either go gray or go darker or a mixture of salt n pepper, check Ryan Reynolds now, the hair more "black" than ever!

Tom C.

DL fave Timothee

Lots of people are clueless about the difference between black and dark brown. Most of the photos above are dark ash brown, not black. Black has a higher % of blue relative to the red and yellow. In brown, the blue % is a little lower and red a little higher. You will notice that black hair reflects blue undertones in sunlight. Brown hair does not, and reflects at least a slight red undertone.

As I said, even the Mediterranean people have mostly dark brown, not jet black hair like Chinese or Japanese. But old movie stars mentioned in the thread had dark brown hairs too.

I think there has been an epidemic of blondes and bottle blondes since the 70's. Even in real life, so many white women I know have long blonde hair into their 60's. It's so boring.

There have been a few ivory-skinned raven haired beauties of the modern era: Jennifer Connelly, Demi Moore, Natalie Portman, Winona Ryder, but they are not as common as blondes or blond-adjacent.

Nastassia Kinski

Here is one of he greatest "black haired" Italian movie stars Marcello Mastroianni, you can see his hair is dak brown too.

CZJ...forever young

Patrick Dempsey

And Sofia Loren.

And so does Monica

You expected his tone in white actors?

R47 Totally forgot about Winona. Her hair always looked black to me.

R47 Blondes are boring to me.

R47 and R56 Real blondes are extremely rare. It is mostly the bottle blonde.

R13 White people with dark hair and colored eyes are more striking than blonde haired blue eyed white people.

My favorite are blonde or light brown haired with hazel eyes.

Jennifer Jones

R58 Case in point: Farley Granger

R58 I don’t agree

R62 I liked Leo’s dark hair in The Wolf of Wall Street.

Brad would disagree.

Respect to brunettes, but gentlemen prefer blondes.

Lots of posters continuing to post pics of people with dark brown hair as examples of black hair.

[quote]There have been a few ivory-skinned raven haired beauties of the modern era: Jennifer Connelly, Demi Moore, Natalie Portman, Winona Ryder,

Winona is a natural blonde. She has dyed her hair black for most of her career.

Most of these stars dyed their hair black or actually have dark brown hair.

Real black hair is not uncommon in the Mediterranean, Germany, Eastern Europe, The UK and Ireland. It has to do with melanin and genetics. Nonwhite people tend to have jet black hair more often because they have more melanin overall. But even still many Native Americans, Asians, Pacific Islanders and Black people can have reddish or dark brown hair or even blond hair too.

Did you know The Bride was really red-haired?

I've seen black people with white hair before - how do you explain that?

[quote] There have been a few ivory-skinned raven haired beauties of the modern era: Jennifer Connelly, Demi Moore, Natalie Portman, Winona Ryder, but they are not as common as blondes or blond-adjacent.

I would also add Her Majesty Catherine Zeta Spartacus Douglas Jones, The Queen of Wales to this list. And Rachel Weisz, whose dark brown hair often looks black in photographs.

[quote]Marlon Brando is another.

Brando was blond as a child.

Even as an adult his hair was not that dark.

Brando didn't have black hair, it was light brown.

Eva Green of Penny Deadful and Casino Royale.

[quote] [R5], Tom Hanks, Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Robert Downey Jr, Keanu Reeves etc etc.

Are you retarded? All of the people you named, except for Keanu, have brown hair.

[quote] Timothee, Jack Dylan Grazer, Finn Wolfhard, a bit older Taylor Lautner, then British Fionn Whitehead (seen him in Dunkirk), Andrew Garfield, Irish Colin Farrell. Then Clooney before he got grey, Daniel Day Lewis was also dark haired. And many more that I can’t remember right now, I don’t know what are you talking about.

I don’t know what YOU’RE talking about as every single person you named has brown hair. Are you color blind?

Black hair is really uncommon among Caucasians. Nearly everyone who has been named on this thread is simply a brunette, ie they have dark brown hair (often paired with fair skin, which makes it look darker). Nearly all the photos posted have had the person standing with the light in front of them or in shadow, which makes everything about them look darker.

If people are photographed with the light shining through their hair and it still looks dead black, then it is, but none of you have produced one of those. In the picture of Elizabeth Taylor, you can clearly see the edges the sun is shining on are brown. As another poster said, guys with haircream in their hair are going to look like they have black hair because the cream plasters it down and prevents the light getting to it.

If you were a brunette woman you would have had conversations with your hairdresser about whether your dark brown hair throws red or gold highlights. It will be one or the other. Black hair doesn't throw highlights at all because black just absorbs light. I would think that for that reason alone Old Hollywood would have been inclined to dye true black hair, especially on a pale young leading lady for whom plentiful hair was a feature. They might, for example, have dyed Helen's hair black in Jane Eyre because it would have made her pale face pop and the character look more tubercular. In the case of the naturally brunette Vivien Leigh, who actually had TB, it was definitely a bridge too far. (Black hair also looks very ageing against pale skin unless you're under 25.)

OP it was black hair in the old days because they didn't have color tv.

"I don't normally associate white people with black hair..." That's because you're a moron OP. Of all the stupid, inane observations to make...

Surely Hedy Lamarr's hair was black?

The real Clyde Barrow (of Bonnie & Clyde fame) had reddish dark blonde hair and hazel eyes (he was towheaded as a child), but he is often portrayed with dark hair and brown eyes because that is how he photographed in many of the black and white pictures of the day. Look at his mugshot and description in the wanted poster below and compare to the photo on the left with him and Bonnie. (Click on image to enlarge.)

Bonnie Parker was also a blonde but often dyed her hair red while on the run which came out looking dark in B&W. Pictured below with her husband Roy.