Howie Mandel looks unrecognizable with long curly hair in must-see photos on 70th birthday

Long before Howie Mandel adopted his signature bald head, he looked completely different, rocking long, curly brown hair.

The 70-year-old, who celebrated his milestone birthday on November 28, enjoyed a career as a stand-up comedian and TV actor long before he became a beloved judge on AGT, and his former luscious locks are worlds away from the smooth head he sports today.

Howie has shared several throwback photos in the past of his previous hairstyle, including one from 1972 when he was 17 years old and had long curly hair past his shoulders, along with curtain bangs.

In the ’80s, he continued to sport his curly mane but went through several variations of length, from shoulder-length to just below his ears with plenty of volume on top.

Last June, he posted a sweet throwback of himself and his wife, Terry, taken in 1993, which showed Howie not only rocking another curly hairstyle but a full beard too.

“We were young and beautiful,” he captioned the photo at the time, alongside the hashtags “wife” and “TBF.”

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Howie and Terry are childhood sweethearts who attended high school at William Lyon Mackenzie Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Canada.

They first met in line at McDonald’s when a 12-year-old Howie realized he hadn’t brought enough money with him.

“I actually borrowed money from her,” he said during a 2022 appearance on Today with Hoda & Jenna. “I didn’t know her, and I was short a couple of bucks for French fries, and she lent me money. 

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“She was, like, 14 at the time, and she lent me money. And I’ve been paying her back ever since,” he added.

It took Howie a few years to get Terry to agree to date him. “I started asking her out, and she said no until…I think the first time I dated her, I was 19. But she didn’t want to go out with me.”

They tied the knot in Toronto on March 16, 1980, and have since welcomed three children, daughters Jackelyn Shultz and Riley Mandel and a son, Alex Mandel.

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Howie revealed in 2009 that Terry’s sense of humor is one of the things that attracted him to her. “[Terry] made me laugh. It was wonderful to meet a witty woman,” he told Good Housekeeping. “Spending your life with someone who doesn’t have that wouldn’t be palatable.” 

As for turning 70, Howie has been living by a borrowed philosophy for years. “Nike has the best philosophy of life, aging, and everything, and that’s ‘Just Do It,'” he said in a 2022 interview with Health Insight.

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“Just get up and do it. We all have goals – I want to be older, I want to be taller, I want to be richer, I want to be famous, and so on. 

“And if you achieve any of these things you’re trying to achieve, they’re never the reason for your contentment or happiness,” he added. “Your contentment and happiness come from within, not anything you achieve externally.”