The British actor Marty Feldman wasn’t very successful as a young star. In fact, he was a dime a dozen. Then a boating accident, a thyroid condition and a car carsh in his youth battered his face rather badly. And Feldman’s eyes kept growing larger, and further apart, until his appearance became rather grotesque…
If you see pictures of Feldman as a young man, he was actually rather handsome. But as he aged, his appearance became more and more bizarre. And it was for this reason, above all others, that he became famous. He refused surgery to make himself look “normal”, however:
"If I aspired to be Robert Redford, I'd have my eyes straightened and my nose fixed and end up like every other lousy actor, with two lines on Kojak. But this way, I'm a novelty."
Now this man wasn’t the epitome of male beauty. Wasn’t some rugged moviestar or classically handsome, at least not for the largest part of his career. And he actually benefitted from it. And still got a ton of female attention, too, according to all his friends in the business, as he was a rather charming and confident fellow in his personal life.
Yes, looks matter. But, ideally, you’d be very good-looking, or funny-looking to such a degree that you can make money off of it. There’s a sweet spot, where either you’re fine to look at or odd but intriguing. You just have to carve out your niche and run with it.
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