With his shock of black hair and daft story about trying to fry a jelly when his housekeeper was away, he was the quintessential mad professor.

BBC: Sir Patrick Moore: Your memories

During his first week with the Derbyshire team, his blond hair was turned black after members of the senior team rubbed boot polish into his scalp, but it was not long before he was gaining the players' respect on the training pitch.

BBC: Davies call-up long time in the making

His thick black hair was combed forward, with a lock falling boyishly onto his forehead.

NEWYORKER: The Apostate

He was solid and dark, with jet-black hair spurting above his collarbone.

NEWYORKER: Luda and Milena

In certain lights, with enough Brylcreem on his hair and enough tight black leather on his limbs, he was as handsome as they were too, like a young Tom Courtenay.

ECONOMIST: Neil Aspinall | The

He took off his broad-brimmed straw hat so as to show off, or so it seemed, his full head of black hair with a few strands of gray at the temples.

NPR: Excerpt: 'World Made By Hand'

With his permanently tousled hair, dark eyebrows and pupils of black or gold ("It's the phosphorescence, " he sort-of explains), Pattinson comes in somewhere between Prince William and one of the more manly Greek gods.

CNN: Review: 'Twilight' needs more flash

He is described as being white, in his late teens, of average build, with dark short hair, and wearing black trousers and shoes and a black bomber jacket.

BBC: Bromsgrove man receives serious injury from snowballer

He climbed sometimes in skimpy black singlet and white jeans, sometimes in minute running shorts, with his long blond hair dangling as he inched across a layback or relaxed, hanging by his fingertips, for a while.

ECONOMIST: John Bachar, free-climber, died on July 5th, aged 52

Brocia may be worldly but he is no James Bond, with his wire framed glasses, faded black shirt, corduroys, and unruly salt-and-pepper hair.

FORBES: Spy store vs. spy store