White-haired and weedy… the real Darcy
EXPERTS claim to have created the first historically accurate portrait of fictional heartthrob Mr Darcy – and he was nothing like Colin Firth.
Women swooned at the actor’s dark, brooding sexual magnetism in the TV version of Pride and Prejudice. In fact the character – not described in detail by Jane Austen in her 1813 novel – would have been pale with powdered white hair, sloping shoulders, a long nose, pointy chin and a physique ‘more ballet dancer than beefcake’ according to academics.
John Sutherland of University College London, and Amanda Vickery of Queen Mary University of London, looked at evidence from the time in their research commissioned by TV channel Drama and illustrated by artist Nick Hardcastle.