Sean Connery’s fifth 007 outing, You Only Live Twice, sees James Bond disguise himself as someone Japanese, and this gives away the actor’s secret. The disguise transforms Bond with the hope he can integrate among the locals to remain undetected by his enemies. But his disguise was a lot closer to home than some viewers initially thought.
Bond’s fifth adventure sees him in Japan, where he is tasked with blending in with the locals to hide from his enemies in order to locate the source of international terrorist activity. He was also required to marry a Japanese girl to substantiate the cover, and with this disguise, he was able to locate the villain’s volcano lair successfully. But there was another element that the disguise accidentally uncovered.
James Bond’s Toupee In You Only Live Twice Was Uncanny
You Only Live Twice’s Sean Connery was pitted against many enemies and involved Connery wearing a hairpiece to support the look of a Japanese man. With the hair delicately combed forward, rather than brushed back as Bond would normally have his hair to complete the look. Ironically, however, Connery was already wearing a toupee throughout all of his 007 films, due to the fact he was bald.
As far back as Dr. No, Connery was wearing a standard black wig for all his films. This meant that for You Only Live Twice Connery was given two hairpieces to wear, his basic Bond toupee, and another which played a major role in his Japanese impersonation. Together, the hairpieces actually become more noticeable and give away Connery's secret.
Sean Connery Began Losing His Hair Before 21
Somewhere between the age of 17 and 21, Sean Connery began losing his hair. By the time he reached the age of 35, he was bald. Connery was 31 years old as James Bond and at the time of filming Dr. No, which meant even by the beginning of his Bond run his hairline had significantly receded. Connery explains the process in his own words, in an interview with The Mirror, stating it wasn’t at all a problem for the actor to be wearing a wig throughout his 007 films:
“My hair went at 35. It’s not the end of the world and it’s not that important really. The really stupid thing is to see someone who has a whisper of hair about 8ft long and he’s curled it around the back of his head and it looks like a snake trying to take off. I never understand the point of it.”
Sean Connery turned down many major roles in Hollywood, but for the many he took and succeeded in he sought the help of Hollywood wig makers Keith and Margaret Shorte, of Hornsey Rise, Upper Holloway, London. The Shortes have also provided hairpieces for the likes of Anthony Hopkins, Kate Winslet, and Ewan McGregor. The hairpiece Connery wore in You Only Live Twice as a Japanese disguise was so different from the wigs he would normally wear in his James Bond films that, to the trained eye, it revealed just how easy it would have been for the crew to alter his hairstyle in such a dramatic way.