By Preston Fassel

You never know who’s paying attention.

It’s a piece of advice that’s true across all walks of life. A patient who feels exceptionally well treated may turn out to have a wide social circle or realm of media influence, leading them to drive a large amount of business your way. A frame rep with whom you develop a strong rapport might be well-connected with the company. In my case, I never know who’s reading my writing. That was certainly the case in 2015 when I received an email from the director of a small English film festival. He’d unexpectedly read the niche article on the niche actress I’d had published in a niche movie magazine in 2014. What I thought would be a kind tribute to a prematurely deceased minor 60s icon instead landed me a trip to Surrey to serve as keynote speaker at a regional film festival.

You never know who’s paying attention.

Something similar happened recently, when I received a LinkedIn message from a 20/20 Reader replying to an article I wrote nearly a decade ago. Hollywood Browlines documented the mysterious non-history of a specific model of browlines worn by both Michael Dougals in Falling Down and Bruce Willis in Death Becomes Her.

I’d been one of the first proponents of browline glasses enjoying a fashion renaissance all the way back in 2012, an article that, aside from being influential, has been mercilessly plagiarized on any number of online opticals now extolling the virtues of browline glasses. (Did I help the comeback? This is my article, so, I’m going to go ahead and say yes). Beig obsessed with all things browline, it fascinated me that two high-profile, major studio productions from within the same year both prominently featured the same obscure model. As I pointed out, they bore no hallmarks of any of the few major manufacturers still operational at the time. Remember, by the early 90s, browlines had faded into obscurity in a way few other styles have, and became the object of great scorn and ridicule in the process. Who had designed such a unique pair, at a time when fashion dictated they were on their way to the rubbish pile of history? How had they ended up on the faces of two of the era’s biggest names?

You never know who’s paying attention.

In this case, retired IT professional Stephen “Steph” Sempson was paying attention—and he had some answers.

“I saw your article in 20/20. I worked at the University of Waterloo. Way back in the 1990's I saw the movie Falling Down and was enamored with the glasses,” Sempson wrote to me in a LinkedIn DM. “The university has an optometry clinic. I went in and they had them there… I liked them and went to order. They tried to talk me out of it… I went back the next day and ordered two, one for glasses and one for sunglasses/spare parts.” (The optician’s effort to talk Mr. Sempson out of the glasses speaks to browlines’ general reputation circa 1993. Imagine an ECP today trying to talk someone out of an ophthalmic Clubmaster!) Mr. Sempson was kind enough to provide me with photographic proof, which he’s given me permission to include here. Though some of the identifying text has faded with time, it can now be confirmed the “Hollywood Browlines” were manufactured by Ralph Lauren Polo, model 516/N.

“If you ever come across more, I am interested in buying two... The left temple on both of my two pair needs to be replaced.” Sempson asks me to note here.

This answers quite a few questions while raising more. Most simply, who was manufacturing Polo Ralph Lauren frames at the time? How did pairs make their way into the hands of two different wardrobe departments?

This wasn’t the case of one wardrobe person deciding they liked the frames and carrying them over to another movie. Each production was handled by legendary wardrobe mistresses: Death Becomes Her was helmed by Joanna Johnston, the go-to wardrobe person for Stephen Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis (the latter of whom directed Death). Falling Down, meanwhile, was handled by the prolific Marlene Stewart. Her CV dates back to the 80s, when she got her start outfitting Madonna in the Material Girl music video before moving on to Terminator 2, Tropic Thunder, Top Gun: Maverick and dozens of other major motion pictures. (Notably, Stewart also worked on Oliver Stone’s JFK, another movie with browlines on the poster, though for that film she chose more readily available Shuron Ronsirs).

Even moving beyond that, why were these Johnston and Stewart’s choices? Willis plays a once-prominent Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, so it makes sense for him to wear something as high-fashion as Ralph Lauren, but how did Douglas’ utilitarian, paramilitary defense contractor end up sporting designer specs? With some of the core components of the mystery answered, we can move on to trying to solve these riddles—and, perhaps, in the process, nab both Steph and I some deadstock frames (or at least gently used, like new pairs). Perhaps something will come of this article running the way it did the first.

You never know who’s paying attention.