Every beard has a great story, most of the time involving feats of strength, adventures, and a considerable amount of time chopping wood. Last week, the team at Beardilizer talked about the great beards of the 70’s and how they should be inspirational to us all. One name that everyone kept talking about was Grizzly Adams / the bad-ass actor who played him, Dan Haggerty. We wanted to take this opportunity to honor the man whose beard was tough enough to chill with a bear.
In 1974, the indie film ‘Grizzly Adams’ came out focusing on a beardy dude who lived in Northern California, after fleeing from being accused of murder. Naturally, his best friend is a bear. The TV series also focused on Adams and his warmth for wildlife; refusing to hurt animals. Deep stuff! The beard and a bear named Ben became an overnight success and quickly became cult symbols. Haggerty’s epic beard, and man bun-less hair are now the modern definition of urban lumberjack. Really though, who wouldn’t want to retire to the woods of Northern California so that they could hang out with a bunch of their homies (in this case, they just happen to be wild animals)? That sounds a bit like every beard and moustache competition our team has been to! Grizzly Adams knew what was up! Eschew yourself from the weirdos and grow that beard out while you hang out with nature.
Haggerty’s beard never looked anything less than perfect, even without CGI or a contemporary production team. The creative team here at Beardilizer did some research and found even more bad-ass information about the Great Bearded One! Before the first Grizzly Adams movie, Dan Haggerty worked as a stunt guy and animal handler. Alright, so this guy is bad-ass enough to jump out of movie cars, be lit on fire and knows how to work with professionally trained animals?! Imagine going to work, looking fresh to death with your shaped up beard, standing around with a hawk on one arm and someone offers you a movie role. A small, independent movie role, that involves hanging out in the woods with animals. It’s no wonder that Grizzly Adams is such a hit – the guy LOVED his job and it’s not hard to understand why.
Clearly, looking good and keeping your beard in shape (even while you live in the freakin’ woods) isn’t hard. Cold spring water replaces what you would get out of your tap. Use a pinecone as a comb, if you’re really feeling ambitious. Find a bear and have them lend you a hand. Remember, after all, animals love beards, especially bears. Even at the age of 74, Dan Haggerty lived on a small ranch (still in California) with wild animals. All of these animals had been rescued from injury, or he had raised them since birth. How bad ass!
This week, in honor of Grizzly Adams, Team Beardilizer would like you to bow your head in silence and in appreciation for all things beardy. Imagine the party going on somewhere with Lemmy, David Bowie (who did have a beard at one point, but it was terrible), Alan Rickman, Glenn Frey (who was more of a moustache man), and now Grizzly Adams. So much bad-assery!