Hell-bent for lather: a new image

By Angela Taylor

» New York Times Service

NEW YORK-The hair-

dressers as a sex symbol?

Many American men

are convinced that a man who chooses a career of. fussing with women's hair

.

must be a homosexuali

and, therefore, no threat to them.

And then along came George. George is the Dor Juan hairdresser played by Warren Beatty in the movie "Shampoo," who rides his motorcycle from woman to woman with a hair-blower tucked into his belt.

He breaks down feminine resistance merely by saying "let me do your hair."

Whether George is a true representative of the profession has become a burning question around beauty salons. Although hairdressers are generally glad of a change in their old image, many of them feel that George is a caricature, brainless and tasteless.

"Before, we were supposed to be mincing queens,” said Vidal Sassoon, the British-born 'crimper. "Now we're machos. In truth, we're neither."

Sassoon, 46 years old, married to the former actress Beverly Adams and the father of three, said that George was supposed to based on his friend, Gene Shacove, a Beverly Hills, Calif., hair cutter.

"But whatever Gene does, he does with taste and wit," Sassoon said. "George is downright dullwitted and crude.”

Shacove, reached at his salon, said that George was indeed based on him, as he was in 1968, when Robb Towne, co-writer of the film, first got the idea for the script.

"He followed me around, watched what I did," said Shacove, who is listed as technical adviser for the film.

"Sure it was me then," he went on. “Now it's a lot of people. I think it's more Warren than anybody.”

However, George's behavior was dismissed as improbable by Savier Zeitournian of Cinandre.

Savier, a 33-year-old bachelor, said of George, "He never did any work in the shop. Maybe that's possible in the suburbs, but a New York hairdresser is professional and ambitious.

"Some customers. may get ideas, but you don't have time to follow through. I've known Don Juans, but they usually

Bruno of Le Salon

Pierre Henri of Saks

end up young working in motels in Florida."

By nature, the relationship between a woman and the man who does her hair is close.

"Where else do you have a captive audience for an hour?" asked one hairdresser.

.

"A woman trusts you. You're going to make her look better, therefore feel better about herself.

"Before you change the way she looks, you ask her about herself. What kind of life she leads. And that leads to openness, to mutual trust, and affection, even if it's only in-side your heads."

Sometimes lonely, frustrated women do make passes at their hairdressers.

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"I get some very strange phone calls," said one handsome bachelor. "But, if you've got any brains, you discourage that sort of thing. It's the

fastest way to lose a customer."

A happily married man said that he warded off advances by pretending not to understand them. "Then they think I'm homosexual and that saves their egos," he remarked.

It is, of course, good business for a hairdresser to ingratiate himself with his clients. It insures their returning to him and it pays off in tips.

Sometimes it means an extravagant present at Christmas (one hairdresser got a $1,000 watch from a wealthy client) and invitations to country houses and yachts. But usually, the gift is modest -"I get a lot of colognes," said a young hairdresser.

In the movie, the cuckolded husband is certain that a man who went to beauty school must be a homosexual.

a

What makes heterosexual male choose the profession? Beyond the fact that hairdressing can be creative, virtually all the men interviewed said they chose the field because they like women.

"I dig women and I like to be around them," explained Paul McGregor, who owns a chain of shops.

McGregor is separated from his wife and has six children. "I'm 40 now and I want communication more than sex, but I like to be close to women.”

Italian-born Bruno Demetrio of Le Salon has a mustache, green eyes and dimples, is married and the father of a 4month-old boy.

"I was 15 when I started working," he said. "When you're that age and you see all those women, that's where you want to be."

Pierre Henri Mittaud of Saks Fifth Avenue has a shock of premature white hair. He has two teen-aged children from his first marriage and now is married to a former hairdresser.

He was embarrassed at the movie and hoped no one recognized him in the audience.

“It was a shame, but it's true," he said. "There are characters like that, but they're' rarely successful in the long run. I never was a George, I'm too shy. If husbands think we're' like him, there will be trouble."