Blue Bloods' Tom Selleck Without Mustache Looks Just… Wrong
How can the absence of facial hair make a person so unrecognizable?
Blue Bloods is famous for its complex storylines, strong ensemble cast, family dinners and, of course, Frank Reagan's mustache. In fact, any show starring Tom Selleck is bound to benefit from his signature mustache, which has garnered quite a fan base over the years.
The 78-year-old actor has been sporting his iconic stubble since the 1980s when he landed the role of lovable detective Thomas Magnum in Magnum P.I. The role made Selleck and his stache famous.
"After Magnum I went 'oh my gosh!' I'm going to live with mustache questions for the rest of my life,'" Selleck revealed during an appearance on the CBS series The BUILD.
And sure enough, he was.
Selleck's iconic Chevron mustache has become a household name and gotten a number of dedicated social media accounts. Every once in a while, you can see Google searches like "How long does it take to grow the Selleck mustache?" Heck, we are sure there are viewers who watch Selleck's shows just to get more of the live-giving mustachio.
Frankly, it is hard to even picture Selleck bare-faced. But while some viewers are sure the actor was born with his gorgeous facial frock, longtime fans know there were actually several projects starring Selleck without his upper lip hair.
The actor shaved his mustache for the 1992 film Folks!, the 1997 hit In & Out, 2000's Running Mates, 2004's Ike: Countdown to D-Day, and a number of notable TV shows.
Now, a trivia question: did Selleck sport his stache while playing Monica's boyfriend Richard on Friends?
The answer is he both did and didn't. Who doesn't remember the hilarious scene in Season 2 when Chandler grew a bad-looking mustache to look like Richard? But when the handsome ophthalmologist returns in Season 3, his signature stache is nowhere to be found. This is probably why the couple didn't end up together. Richard just wasn't the same without his facial hair.
The same could certainly be said of Tom Selleck. Many viewers who have seen him clean-shaven would agree that he looked unrecognizable and... wrong. Not ugly, he is a handsome man with or without a mustache. But just very, very different. Maybe that's why CBS executives forbade him to shave off the iconic stache for the role of Frank Reagan, even though the actor wanted to.