Why Patrick Stewart is bald

Gleaned from "Patrick Stewart: The X factor actor" (The Independent, April 30, 2006).

By the age of 19, he was bald (alopecia runs in his family). "Most of my hair went within a year and I was very depressed about it. But it was possibly one of the best things that could have happened. And of course it means I've got a head that's the perfect block for wearing hairpieces. I'm a wig makers' dream."

Just a silly bit of information that I thought would be amusing to highlight.

But seriously speaking, this paragraph about why Patrick Stewart is bald is tangential to the rest of the article, which analyzes of the life of a modern person as seen through the prism of "career". Patrick Stewart happens to be an actor, but the things the article discusses could apply to anybody with a career — the hoops one has to jump through to get to a reasonable position; the insecurities one has to battle before finally feeling empowered; the casualties suffered in one's personal life in the pursuit of careerial success (he is twiced divorced, and is a self-confessed "bad father").