During an interview with Parkinson, Sir Patrick Stewart tells all about his male pattern baldness. a The star icon and professional actor recalls the challenges he had as a young adult, including losing his hair at the age of 19 and being terrified of potential relationship and professional troubles.

He was horrified when he began losing his hair at such a young age, but everything changed the moment he embraced his sudden baldness.

The interviewer asked: “Was that when you lost your hair, at 19?”

To which he replied:

“Yes, 19, it all happened in the space of a year, I thought everything was over, especially one aspect of my life – ladies. Finished! No-one is going to want me. It actually didn’t end up that way, but I felt like I was inhibited by it. I would have been bolder in my relationships with young women than I was, and it was probably all for the best.

“Stewart concedes that it didn’t end up this way, but he still felt hampered by his baldness. He makes light of the fact that becoming bald is becoming fashionable. “Yeah, and it was nice for a while, I saw all of these shaved heads, but it began to irritate me frankly. People that shave it all off, I somehow feel like they are infringing on my territory.”

Stewart, who is now acting in Logan, revealed that he had a terrible comb-over that affected the way he walked because he didn’t want to draw attention to his receding hair.

“I wore hats all the time, caps, especially if it was windy,” Stewart told Michael Parkinson.

The actor was later asked if he had ever worn a toupee, to which he replied:

“I did yes, I never wore one socially, but I used to wear one when I went for job interviews. The one occasion where it rebounded on me was when I got an audition for the national theatre for Laurence Olivier, and I went down to their set-up.”

“I wore the toupee to the audition which looked really good, actually entirely natural. I went in and did my first piece with the toupee. He was sitting there right infront of me, it was a nerve wracking experience and I eventually unclipped the hair piece for the second set, and immediately I realised I didn’t have his entire attention, he was looking down at the floor, directly at the toupee. When I finished, he said “do it again”, and I said, you want me to do one of the pieces again? He said “no, put your toupee back on and take it back off again.”

“So I did, and he said “marvellous, that’s marvellous”. And I swear, it was the only thing about my audition that he remembered.

“Those days are now past, and I can relish what I have.”

A reporter once asked Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, during a press conference, “look, it doesn’t make any sense, you’ve got a bald actor playing this part, surely by the 21st century they will have a cure for male pattern baldness.” Roddenberry responded “no, by the 21st century, no one will care.”