[Man-of-the-Wold]

Well, my understanding is that only the Noldor were invariably dark-haired, grey-eyed, excepting for Meadhros, perhaps. This is the coloration, with light skin, that JRR Tolkien also attributed to Luthien and to most of his favorite mortal characters. His wife had such features, it seems.<P>The Vanyar and elves such as Galadriel with Vanyarian ancestors were golden-haired, which is true of Marachian Men such as the Third House of the Edain, and the Eotheod.<P>The Teleri seem to have had more variation, with both light and dark-haired people. Both Thingol and Celeborn (and Cirdan possibly) are described as having Silver-Grey hair, although in Cirdan's case it may have been that he chose to age to some extent like an elder man. But in the other two cases, I would think it refers to the pale blonde color that we see with Film-Legolas, which would be appropriate. In Bombur's dream Thranduil is said to have had golden hair.<P>Indeed, the term Grey-Elves or Silvan-Elves may be a reference to hair color, although the former more likely signifies either raimant or an intermediate state between the Elves of the Light and those of Dark.<P>In any case, the Film's perponderance of fair-haired elves among the Silvan Elves of Lothlorien, which had at most only a small, separate number of Noldor, and the darker haired Elves that seem a little more common at Rivendell, is not without basis from the Books.<P>I think in some ways, even though they were certainly using a lot of Wigs for the male elves, the Film-makers had to deal with the reality of Anglo New Zealanders, which likely do not often have truly golden-blonde hair, or really dark hair, and wouldn't have looked right in dark wigs. Rather, they may have been stuck in casting good-looking extras by having to use some redheads, which are probably all to common there.<P>As a redhead myself, I've somewhat lamented JRR Tolkien's lack of reference to red hair, given the generally Northern European appearance of his charcters. Still, when he means golden, he may included light reddish hair in the Viking sense, too, as seems implied in the case of Hurin.<P>Given the difficult of finding loads of really strawhead extras, I like the Film's choice of using a lot of people with reddish and golden brown hair for the Rohirrim. This is in fact probably a very realistic take on how Iron Age people would have classified themselves tribally in terms of physical features, and that Tolkien may not have meant to be taken too literally in these regards.