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A bowler hat, also known as a derby (US) or billycock, is a hard felt hat with a rounded crown originally created in 1849 for Edward Coke, the younger brother of the 2nd Earl of Leicester.[1][2] This list notable people who wore the bowler hat includes the cultural references to a bowler hat in both real life and in fiction. Many of these people and characters are known or recognized primarily for their headgear.
Notable historical figures, including politicians
edit- Simon Koch, musician and TV writer
- American automata-maker Dug North wears a bowler and has adopted the bowler as part of his logo image
- Lucius Beebe noted early- and mid-20th century boulevardier, author, journalist, gourmand, and railroad enthusiast
- Aviation pioneers, Americans Orville & Wilbur Wright, and pioneering French aviators Alberto Santos-Dumont and Louis Blériot
- Porters at Cambridge University and Christ Church College Oxford
- The Plug Uglies, a notorious street gang of 19th century Baltimore, MD, wore the bowler hat (called a "plug hat") which served as a helmet and occasional weapon in fights
- Sir Winston Churchill, British politician
- Wavy Gravy, American political activist
- Jose Rizal, Philippine national hero. He wore a bowler hat at his execution
- Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 19th century French painter
- Butch Cassidy Old West Outlaw. Pictured wearing a bowler in a well-known photograph with his gang, The Wild Bunch. In homage, Paul Newman wears a bowler in the classic western, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"
- Bat Masterson, Old West adventurer, lawman, and writer, wore a bowler and carried a cane even while working as a lawman in Dodge City with Wyatt Earp
- Willie "The Lion" Smith always wore a Derby because his mother said it made him look "dignified."
Notable live entertainers and comedy characters
edit- Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, the slapstick comedy duo Laurel and Hardy of the 1920s and 30s
- Charlie Chaplin, a comedian from the early part of the 20th century
- Bowler hats were among the trademark props of choreographer Bob Fosse. Liza Minnelli is portrayed wearing a bowler hat on the cover for the motion picture Cabaret, which Fosse directed, and is also seen wearing it several times during the movie.
- Downtown Julie Brown wore a bowler hat on MTV's hit dance show Club MTV, which aired from 1985-1992.
- Lou Costello wore one occasionally in films, but was always seen in a too-small derby on television's The Abbott and Costello Show.
- Ian Anderson was seen wearing a red bowler hat at numerous performances with Jethro Tull
- In the Three Stooges short Disorder in the Court (1936), when a bowler-wearing Curly is asked by the defense attorney to "kindly speak English and drop the vernacular", a puzzled Curly looks at his hat and famously replies, "Vuhnaculah? That's a doiby!"
- Matthew Beard, who played "Stymie" in the Little Rascals movies (he was given his original bowler by Stan Laurel)
- Comedian John Valby has always worn a black bowler hat on stage
- John Cleese in the infamous Ministry of Silly Walks
- Dominic Monaghan, actor of Lord of the Rings and Lost
- Madness (famous music group)
- Clarinetist Acker Bilk
- The rapper Nate Dogg usually wears a bowler hat in his music videos
- John Hartford, American Bluegrass musician and singer-songwriter, wore a bowler during many of his performances
- Jack White , of the White Stripes, wore a bowler hat in the music video for "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground." He also wore a bowler hat during the "White Blood Cells" era.
- Keith ‘Monkey’ Warren of The Adicts: the bowler is part of his costume
- Brian Viglione, drummer of the self-proclaimed "punk cabaret" duo The Dresden Dolls, wears a bowler as part of the group's miming tradition.
- Stuart Murdoch of the band Belle & Sebastian
- Eddie Jordan, former District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana and former Federal Prosecutor who successfully prosecuted Edwin Edwards. Jordan is well known for almost always wearing a bowler hat when appearing in public.
- John Bonham drummer of the English rock band Led Zeppelin
- Detlef Soost, a German dancer, used to wear a bowler hat in a German TV show. Based on this the term "Mr. Soost's hat" became part of German youth slang.
- Actress Keira Knightley wears a dark brown bowler hat in her advertisements for Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle campaign, in which she plays Coco Chanel.
- Tom DeLonge appeared in the Angels and Airwaves Everything's Magic Short Film wearing a bowler hat
- Paul Smith, lead singer of the British Indie band Maximo Park
- Tom Waits eschewed his famous porkpie for a spiffy bowler on the 2008 Glitter and Doom Tour
- Demi Lovato teenage, singer/songwriter & actress (Camp Rock) occasionally wears bowler hat
- Tito Jackson of the Jackson 5
Fictional characters in print, film and cartoon, including antagonists
edit- The character Oddjob in the James Bond novel Goldfinger used a metal razor-edged bowler hat as a concealed weapon. It appears more of a flat-topped top hat in the movie, but still has the metal edge and functions as a weapon.
- Malcolm McDowell's character Alex wears a bowler hat in A Clockwork Orange
- Superman villain Mr. Mxyzptlk
- Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost, a fixture in comic books, also wore a "doiby."
- Moon Mullins
- Captain Peacock of the television show Are You Being Served?
- Captain George Mainwaring a fictional character in Dad's Army played by Arthur Lowe
- Agatha Christie's famous detective character Hercule Poirot regularly wears a bowler hat.
- The villain in Erich Kästner's children's novel "Emil and the Detectives" is known only as "The man in the bowler hat"
- Corporal Thaddeus Aloysius Cadwallander "Dum Dum" Dugan, of Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos
- Yuber from the Suikoden series wears one in Suikoden 3
- There are bowler-wearing Characters in many paintings of Belgian Surrealist artist René Magritte, notably his painting The Son of Man.
- In the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair starring Pierce Brosnan, Crown uses numerous doubles wearing bowler hats to trick his pursuers; inspired by Magritte's Surrealist painting The Son of Man.
- In the surreal movie Being There, the innocent character Chauncey wears a bowler, possibly in homage to The Son of Man.
- Leopold Bloom in James Joyce's novel Ulysses
- Jakob Dylan of The Wallflowers
- In Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, the only description of costume is that all four major characters wear bowler hats
- Patrick Macnee as the character John Steed, on the British series The Avengers
- In the 1986 film Pretty in Pink, Duckie wears a bowler hat
- Valet-extraordinaire Jeeves, particularly the version played by Stephen Fry, always wears a bowler.
- Big Smoke in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- High significance is placed on Sabine's bowler hat from the novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera and it is depicted in both the novel's cover artwork and the one sheet for the film version
- Green bowler hats become a laughable fashion trend in Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
- Batman villain The Riddler
- The Harry Potter character Cornelius Fudge is rarely seen without a lime-green bowler. Mad-Eye Moody also wears one when he needs to conceal his magical eye.
- The detectives Thomson and Thompson (originally Dupont and Dupond) in The Adventures of Tintin are easily recognizable by their trademark black bowlers
- Mr. Potato Head from the 1995 film Toy Story and its 1999 sequel Toy Story 2 has a black bowler
- The fictional character Homsar in the Homestar Runner online cartoon series wears an orange bowler hat, which often pops up into the air and moves around, yet almost always returns to his head; several other bowler hats are seen in the Homestar Runner universe
- Cartoon character Mr Benn, usually seen wearing a pinstriped suit and bowler hat
- "Bowler", the host of the Norwegian entertainment program for children called "Kykkelikokkos"
- "Brooklyn" (Dan Turpin), a member of the Golden Age comic book crime-fighting team the Boy Commandos (in the WW2 era), wears a bowler at all times and is nicknamed for his native borough in New York City
- Mr. John Smith, a fictional character from the Nickelodeon series Hey Arnold!, lives in room 13 of the boarding house with Arnold and his family. His only distinguishing characteristic is, in fact, his bowler.
- The television series Firefly featured a recurring character named Badger, a rogue masquerading as a respectable businessperson, who wore a bowler hat
- Doiby Dickles, a cab driver who assists the Golden Age superhero Green Lantern. A native of Brooklyn, Dickles has nicknamed himself for his derby hat, which he pronounces "doiby".
- Lord Bowler, bounty hunter in The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
- Mr. Tusks, of Dinosaur Comics, occasionally wears a tiny bowler hat in his capacity as the (vice) mayor of Tiny Towne.
- Bowler Hat Guy (aka Michael 'Goob' Yagoobian) is known very well for his evil robotic bowler hat named DOR-15 (aka Doris) in the 2007 film, Meet the Robinsons
- Otto Šimánek as Pan Tau in a children's television series of the same name
- 'The Bloke' from the movie, 'The Sentimental Bloke'
- Ding-a-Ling, the diminutive sidekick of Hokey Wolf
- Addams Family member Cousin Itt
- Peter Clemenza from The Godfather film and novel is depicted to always wear a bowler hat.
References
edit- ^ Hat Glossary
- ^ "The history of the Bowler hat at Holkham" (PDF). Coke Estates Ltd.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help)
- The Man in the Bowler Hat: His History and Iconography by Fred Miller Robinson; University of North Carolina Press, 1993.
- From Brass Hat to Bowler Hat Francis Wilfred De Guingand; Published by H. Hamilton, 1979.
- The History of the Hat: Line Drawings by Vernet from Contemporary Sources Michael Harrison; Published by H. Jenkins, 1960.
- Bowler Hats and Stetsons Colin Rickards; Published by Whiting & Wheaton, 1966.