Meditations on Bert Convy’s Hair

Bert Convy had the most under-rated hair of the 20th Century.

This is something that came to me during two-plus days of watching the Game Show Network, oft-times with a fever. Despite the perceived impairment that comes with fevers and the type of debilitating illness that I’ve endured over the last three days…I make this statement with my full mental faculties and, proving my mental agility, with the awareness that Bert Convy’s hair must be compared with William Katt’s also very under-rated hair.

That being said, Bert Convy’s hair is quite a spectacle…and it, along with his genial smile and easy laugh, kept him in coin for decades. It also kept me, as a sick or summertime youth, entranced as I watched Super Password. Not that I didn’t like Alan Ludden’s very special flair for Password Plus. But that was Plus, and this is Super. Super. Plus. Kinda sounds like a panty-liner commercial, many of which could, not too ironically, be seen interstitially during game shows. And it was the daytime television of yore that I’ve meditated on these last few, woefully immobile, days. I took a tour through misspent days of youth. How many hours of Card Sharks had I watched?               I can’t recall my youth without making the Love Connection. Yes. Many hours of Love Connection. Now, Love Connection came on in the afternoon. After school, in fact. And, with the gang called the Fellas, I watched it daily. Enhanced, as it were, by a little after school experimentation. Okay. A lot of experimentation…like the National Science Foundation. Still, even in that “supposedly impaired” state…I knew that Chuck Woolery was a man of greatness. This, too, came back to me over the last few days. While he has very good hair, it doesn’t quite have the gravitational pull of Convy. It’s more Baptist Preacher, less satellite of Jupiter than, say, Convy’s. But Chuck’s greatness was there, on display for a half hour, five times per week. The Legs.

Chuck made it okay for heterosexual males, like me, to cross their legs in a gentlemanly fashion. Neatly folded, one over the other…rather than that frat boy, crotch wide open triangle we all felt compelled to make by oppressive, juvenile peer pressure.

No. Chuck gave a generation of young men the “go ahead” to cross those legs like their goolies weren’t even there. Even though they were. Because, say what you will about Chuck, he was manly. Although Bert Convy really wasn’t. Manly, that is. Or, more precisely, not perceived to be…even though he had two wives and three kids. Even though he was a star baseball player. Bert, in the final analysis, was…Bert. But his hair transcended all. Time. Space. The boundary between game shows. Yes, that’s the genius of Bert’s hair…it gave him access to the top row of Match Game.

And Match Games was…is…the greatest game show of all time. And during such a meditation as I’ve had during these fever pitched few days, to see Convy’s Hair at the end of the day, after seeing it at the beginning of the day? It was like the sun rising and setting. Plus, it led me back to Match Game…which lead me to my premier boyhood crush…Fannie Flagg.

Praise be to the Hair that raises the Flagg. Amen.

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'Meditations on Bert Convy’s Hair' have 12 comments

  1. December 23, 2015 @ 8:41 pm kathy

    That was the worst toupee of the 70’s.

  2. December 24, 2015 @ 10:27 am admin

    amazingly enough, it wasn’t a toupee. – nv

  3. October 7, 2017 @ 6:20 am Archie

    I, too currently watch the old game shows, and wondered if Bert Convy’s hair was real.
    Still not sure, as if one looks carefully, it appears to be a hairpiece.

  4. March 11, 2018 @ 3:24 am X-ander

    I have no axes to grind in regards to Bert Convy. However, in all candor…every time I have seen him in archival media footage. His hair seems to be overwhelmingly distracting. It looks like it’s from another realm of reality! I was…and still am uncertain as to whether it is natural or hairpiece. (?????????)

  5. March 13, 2018 @ 12:29 pm admin

    It was real. No hairpiece!

  6. September 9, 2018 @ 3:11 am Steve

    It was a hairpiece!!! Bert Convy introduced Burt Reynolds to hairpieces. Bill Bixby wore a hairpiece as well.

  7. December 31, 2018 @ 7:35 pm ANN PALMER

    Well, I did meet him in his “courting days” with Ann – we lived in the same apartment building — always pleasant, terribly nice looking — hair was certainly OK then — but NOW having watched “Tattle Tale” show, seems he has an OVER ABUNDANT HEAD OF HAIR, that TO ME — just DOES NOT LOOK REAL!! I don’t care what anyone says! I loved him as a host! Think he was great! HE died WAY TOOOOO YOUNG!!!

  8. September 14, 2019 @ 8:46 am Brian Arbenz

    If Bert Convy was genial and comfortable within himself, then he had the gifts that most of the celebrated, great charismatic entertainers lacked. Tattletales may not have been Saturday Night Live, but based on recollections by those who knew him, I’d prefer Bert as company to Chevy Chase or Bill Murray.

  9. July 23, 2020 @ 5:56 pm Aliza Newman-Walker

    BERT CONVY’s HAIR WAS REAL!! There is ample episode of Tattletales where a lady in the audience INSISTED that Bert’s hair was a toupee. She said, “ I KNOW you wear a toupee!” Bert let her pull his hair and she pulled the heck out of it and then Bert went back down by the couples and pulled his own hair for the cameras. In fact, Bert didn’t lose his hair until he started chemotherapy and at their point, Burt Reynolds has a toupee made for Bert. Bert didn’t even know about it, he was on Cedars at the time and the wig maker took the wig out to Bert in the hospital and he said Bert cried.

  10. July 23, 2020 @ 5:58 pm Aliza Newman-Walker

    ***Regarding my previous post about Bert Convy’s hair…So many errors! Sorry about that

  11. October 18, 2020 @ 7:26 pm Toni

    A lot of men in that time period permed their hair…altho I always thought his was natural.
    We need a total 2020 expose about Conveys hair..im in!!

  12. September 5, 2021 @ 6:27 pm Rebecca Theodora

    I am here because Google sent me, and Google did not fail… this time

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