She was, there is no doubt, hardcore, and with her older husband and coach, Jim, forever at her side, his outrageous toupee as skilfully plonked as Martin's wayward mascara, she was the face of serious women's boxing and he a slightly disturbing, lurking presence.
But the Tory image-merchants dismiss a plan for a Hague toupee as "obscene".
This morning I drove to Smallbone's to have my toupee steamed, stopped off at Stebbins's home to return his arch supports, then to my bagpipe lesson.
When Newhart explains that the toupee fell into some cheese dip at a party, Martin cracks up.
He consorts with various beautiful and mysterious women, exchanges quips with Oscar Wilde (who is "looking as usual like an overfed trout in a toupee"), investigates a baccarat-cheating scandal at the behest of the Prince of Wales and crosses paths with Sherlock Holmes and Otto von Bismarck, among other luminaries of the Victorian age.
The toupee tape ($4 for a box of 50 strips at Ray Beauty Supply, 721 Eighth Avenue, at 45th Street, 800-253-0993) also dependably holds last-minute hems and alterations in place.
An ex-Miss Switzerland wanted to climb Kilimanjaro to raise money for a children's cancer hospital; Prince William had worn a toupee for a portrait photographer, or so, at least, the newspaper claimed; an American had been put to death for a murder he had committed twenty-five yeago ago.
As Agassi tells it, he has, at various times, worn a mullet toupee, lost matches on purpose, stolen a stuffed panda from an amusement park, used crystal meth, smashed a sportsmanship trophy in the parking lot of a tournament, dated one woman twenty-eight years his senior (Barbra Streisand), and married another whom he didn't love (Brooke Shields).
