Zac Efron wears a Rolex Datejust

The two-tone Datejust is a 1980s Texas prop. Sean Durkin directed The Iron Claw as a family tragedy about the Von Erichs, a wrestling dynasty from Denton, Texas, whose success was consumed by death after death. Zac Efron plays Kevin, the oldest surviving brother, and the Rolex Datejust ref. 16013 on his wrist, steel and yellow gold on a Jubilee bracelet with a champagne dial, is the watch a successful professional wrestler in 1983 would actually own.

The ref. 16013 was the standard two-tone Datejust of its era, and in the early 1980s it sat in a specific cultural space. It was the first real luxury watch most men bought, the car dealer's Rolex, the regional manager's Rolex, the watch you wore to your wedding if you had done well enough to afford one. On Kevin Von Erich, a man wrestling sold-out crowds at the Sportatorium in Dallas, it reads as hard-earned rather than inherited. The champagne dial and gold accents match the era's preference for warm metals.

Kevin Von Erich's Rolex is the watch of a man who made it, worn by a character who keeps losing the people who should have made it with him.