“Vidal Sassoon’s liberating approach to beauty didn’t just impact famous clients like Mia Farrow. The hairstylist, who was born in London in 1928 and grew up in poverty, rose to prominence in the 1960s with his innovative concept that short, geometric cuts were not only a modern approach reflecting the architecture of the era but”, — write: www.hollywoodreporter.com
In 1967, Sassoon earned major attention when he was hired by friend Roman Polanski to work on Farrow’s pixie cut on the Paramount lot amid production on the director’s horror classic Rosemary’s Baby. Shortly after Sassoon’s 2012 death from leukemia at 84, Farrow tweeted that the Paramount cut was a “publicity prank,” as she had privately shorn her own long locks — which she’d become known for during her time on 1964’s Peyton Place — with Sassoon merely trimming the hairdo for the photo op.
Sassoon himself was mentioned various times in Rosemary’s Baby when Farrow’s character tries to defend her extreme look. “It’s Vidal Sassoon — it’s very in,” Farrow’s character explains in the film. “Vidal claims [the name drop] brought his name to Middle America for the first time — and directly led to him starting a product line and taking over the US,” Craig Teper, director of the 2010 documentary Vidal Sassoon: The Movietells THR.
Sassoon, who also was famous for cutting Goldie Hawn’s and Jane Fonda’s hair as well as the five-point cut popularized by model and Vogue editor Grace Coddington, dealt with public criticism for cutting women’s hair so short. “Barbara Walters said I was making beautiful women look like boys,” Sassoon told THR in 2011. His enduring legacy includes salons, beauty schools and a line of hair products, but Sassoon told THR he never let his reputation get to his head: “I was always thinking of what I was going to do next and would it be successful and would I make a mess of it.”
This story appeared in the Nov. 19 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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