HEADS-UP ON HATS
THEY’RE BIG AGAIN ON SMALL SCREEN,
In CBS’ fall crime drama Vegas, Dennis Quaid, as Las Vegas sheriff Ralph Lamb, will be sporting the latest in TV-hero accessories: a broadbrimmed hat.
From Dallas to The Walking Dead, men in classic American headgear are fighting, scheming and conniving their way through epic story lines, and show creators are tipping their hats to a re-emergence of a trend that has always been part of popular culture.
“Every culture has its iconoclastic imagery,” says novelist Craig Johnson, whose books about Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire are the basis of A&E’s new Longmire, with Robert Taylor. “The Japanese have the samurai, the Europeans have the knight in shining armor. For better or worse, the stereotypical imagery of America has always been someone with a cowboy hat.”
Greg Walker, Vegas’ executive producer, says that when he was imagining Quaid as Lamb, a real-life Stetsonwearing sheriff who fought the Mob in the 1960s and ’70s, “there was always a hat in there. I love what hats do to a
“Every culture has its iconoclastic imagery.”
man and a hero, especially a hero who’s reluctant and kind of intense. It focuses your attention on their eyes.”
And, he says, “when we have somebody with such intensity of expression as Dennis Quaid has, it really amplifies that intensity.”
These are not all traditional Westerns. AMC’s The Walking Dead, about a small-town sheriff’s deputy who leads a ragtag pack of survivors after the world is overrun by zombies, takes place in Georgia, and FX’s Justified is Kentucky-based. Elmore Leonard, who created the character of Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), calls the show “an eastern Western.” Givens wears a light-colored Stetson.
“People writing about the show called it a Western even though it was set in Kentucky,” Leonard says. “His hat did it. I think it must have.”
No matter the locale, the head gear has its roots in the American West. In the mid-20th century, men in hats were ubiquitous, as TV viewers could watch justice meted out in 10-gallon doses on Bonanza, Maverick, Wagon
Train and Gunsmoke. Why are they back? “In uncertain times, people have the tendency to try to look for things that provide some stability and some certainty,” Johnson says. “Certainly a hat is not the only thing you need to do that, but it can be indicative of that type of character, somebody who feels very strongly about things.”
Then there is the anti-hero, like J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman), the troublemaking patriarch reborn on the new TNT series. “The cowboy hat is part of his regalia,” says Rachel Sage Kunin, costume designer for Dallas and Long
mire. “The custom-made Butch Dorer hat oozes J.R.’s wealthy businessman persona. A hat can help show a man’s character, but we all know that with J.R. and his cunning ways, he is not just a hat rack.”
J.R. sports a classic cattleman crease; one of the Butch Dorer hats costs $10,000. Between takes, Hagman’s personal costumer can be seen holding the hat, which Kunin calls “iconic” and “a treasured possession.” As for Dallas’ younger generation, J.R.’s son John Ross also wears hats, usually a Stetson, but none like his daddy’s. “John Ross hasn’t come into his own,” Kunin says, “and neither has his hat.”
Andrew Lincoln, who stars as sheriff’s deputy Rick Grimes on The Walk-
Longmire author Craig Johnson
ing Dead, gets props for TV’s most embellished big hat. It’s emblazoned with a big seven-point badge, and the crown is wrapped in a long, decorative cord that ends in two points just above his face. And its symbolism abounds. When he passed it on to son Carl in Season 2, it represented his realization that pre-apocalypse laws no longer apply in a world of zombies.
Other TV sheriff hats are simpler but also speak volumes. Longmire “has that Western rugged handsome look,” and his custom sienna-colored hat “is part of his everyday life. It’s glued to his head (and) gives him some contrast to everybody else,” Kunin says.
“There’s something very alluring about a man in a hat,” she says. “It hides part of the face and often
times add mystery.”