FACELIFT

Neil Patrick Harris took a scalpel to his clean-cut Doogie Howser, M.D. image for his latest role. The 24-year-old actor, best known as TV's precocious teen doctor, has a part in the West Coast production of the Tony-winning musical Rent . To play a grungy denizen of New York's East Village, Harris bleached his hair. "Physically I've changed a lot," he says in the August 18 issue of People. "I' m a blond now, and I may keep it. It's fun to have bleach-blond hair and funky clothes," The West Coast Rent is playing in La Jolla, Calif., before it moves to Los Angeles in September.

From Wire Reports, PEOPLE. , The Dallas Morning News, 08-11-1997