There aren't many people who can boast going to the football with Vidal Sassoon; putting the ‘X' in sex appeal for actress Julie Christie; visiting Buckingham Palace with Paul Mitchell; tending the tresses of 60s icon models Jean Shrimpton and Penelope Tree; creating the biggest wig in the world for legendary photographer David Bailey; doing Sharon Tate's hair for her marriage to director Roman Polanski or have Kate Moss rearrange her travel and shoot schedule just to hold your hand. Harold Leighton can though - not that he boasts about his remarkable career - it's just how life turned out. By Jenny Burns.
British-born Harold Leighton is in his late sixties now and lives in Boca Raton, Florida with his beloved wife Maxine. He has many guises - author, inventor, photographer, and publicist - but it is his life as a hairstylist that has lead him down an extraordinary road, in the company of some of the most famous names history has ever recognised. His collection of photographs and memories are what today's hairdressers can only dream of - the fashion designers, the models, the actors, the photographers and of course, the hairdressers, who have crossed Harold's path sound like a chapter of Who's Who rather than part of a tale or anecdote that so casually slips off the tongue of this warm, charismatic man who, (with the exception of his adored wife) calls the ‘hair scene' his true life and love.
Harold began his life as a hairdresser at his Uncle Alf's salon on Harrow on the Hill in London, where he learned to "shampoo, wind permanents and slap on hair dye". He left at 15 for his next apprenticeship, which was at Romaine's of Park West in central London. After some months he found himself working alongside a new young man who had just come back to the UK after fighting the war in Israel. His name was Vidal Sassoon.
"There was a group of us and we all worked together and relaxed together," Harold recalls. "We went to football matches and the old-fashioned Turkish baths on a Friday night to unwind. It gave us time to meditate and plan for the coming months. We arrived around 10pm at night to sweat it out, get a great massage and plan our hairdressing lives. The next morning we'd be at work by 8am, then after work each Saturday we would be off to Stanford Bridge, the Chelsea football ground, for kick-off at 3pm. Afterwards we'd drive off down to Brighton in Sussex and let our frustrations rip on the pretty girls at the Saturday night dances.
"We had a ball! Eight young studs with only one car between us - it was an old Ford Pilot - how we got into it I shall never know! I remember so well the good-looking Vidal and his mate Joe Lynn - they were both really great dancers - and they'd get up on stage for the mambo, jive and cha cha and dance the night away!"
Four years later, Vidal left Romaine's and went to another salon called Dumas in Albemarle Street in Mayfair. Being located in the heart of central London between Bond Street and Berkeley Square, the salon attracted London's wealthy fashion and business crowds. Harold and his future salon partner Gerard Saper followed Vidal within 18 months, but had to re-learn the ‘Mayfair style' from the beginning - the only way to get into a posh smart salon like Dumas.
"These were the days of the big clientele and big profits for salons," Harold explains. "Clients would come in at least once a week; have a haircut once a month and trims in-between. Standing appointments were booked for months on end and comb-outs through the week for business women were the norm.
"At one time in the late 1950s, I would personally handle as many as 40 clients per day! Charges then were under a pound sterling, and that was for cutting, setting with rollers and/or stand-up pincurls. If you took 100 pounds sterling per week, you were a bloody marvellous hairdresser!
"We had a saying at the salon that we learnt from our bosses Frank Blashke and Maurice Gross. They taught us to tell clients: ‘You only touch your hair when you have paid for it. Once you have paid, the hair is yours!' We were actually instructed that should a client touch their hair once they had already been warned, we had to rap them over the knuckles with a comb. I promise you this is the truth!"
Harold says that during his time working alongside Vidal Sassoon, passing him bobby pins and holding the hair of his clients whilst he cut, he really did not realise the importance of how life would turn out.
"Whilst at Dumas, we turned our thoughts onto the fashion side of hair that had not been exploited yet," says Harold. "These were the ‘early days' for the greatest haircutter to come out of the UK, before he changed the look of hair around the world.
"Vidal was a young man with the strength of a lion and the stamina for 20-hour days. He was a keep-fit fanatic but it was his direction with hair at this time that was staggering.
"Since he was often annoyed or upset by his clients' lack of understanding, Vidal's mood swings and changes of direction happened many times. He would throw his comb or brush across the salon (never a pair of scissors thankfully) and walk out, leaving the receptionist and me to pick up the pieces. I happened to be the lucky one, becoming his ‘stand-in', just like the movies! It worked great for me, as I understood him more than most people and got to understand his moods."
After nine years working alongside Vidal, who left Dumas to join the Raymond salon in Grafton Street around the corner, Harold and Gerard opened their first salon coincidentally named ‘Hair by Harold & Gerard' in Harrow on the Hill in Middlesex, around 12 miles from the centre of London. Being some of the very first breed of hairdressers to go to the suburbs after the war years, the young single pair built a very successful business and attended to many of the wealthy set and fashion industry families from London.
"These were revolutionary times!" Harold exclaims. "We dropped the 8-inch long scissors and chose the 4-inch style; threw away the razor and went into the opposite techniques of what we were taught. We worked on blunt cutting against tapering hair and found that hair could move in the breeze or on a pillow. Hair did not need teasing to be held into shape, only a little hairspray did the job. We stopped teasing hair when clients would allow it - although it was hard convincing the clientele that change was on the horizon. It was really tough as hair felt so different with this new approach."
Harrow was also the place where Harold met the love of his life, Maxine, who came into his salon as a bright and beautiful 16-year-old. The pair courted for a year or two, broke up and then a year later got back together and eventually married.
Harold and Gerard parted ways in 1958 and Harold finished up owning two of his own salons - one in Wembley, Middlesex and the other in Hampstead Heath, on the outskirts of central London and artfully fashionable, as Greenwich Village is to New York.
In the interim, Vidal had opened his own salon too, in Bond Street, and he began to teach his own team and create his own publicity in the development of his blunt cut bob.
"That ‘change on the horizon' that we had told our clients about was finally here," Harold says. "Vidal changed the format and idea of how hair would be cut for the coming generations of hairdressers. Hair was swinging now, not rigid and firm as it was up to this period. Hair became a feel, hair to go to bed with! It would swing and move freely and blow in the wind.
"The cut was the most important part now of having one's hair attended to. Sharp lines, yet hair fell back into its shape without spray, teasing or a hair net. Vidal created this new look on the best face in the UK, Mary Quant, the swinging sixties mini-skirted fashion designer, as well as Grace Coddington (now creative director for Vogue USA). Then he famously cut actress Mia Farrow's hair to a short gamine for the movie ‘Rosemary's Baby' and the world took notice."
Vidal opened a second salon, again in New Bond Street next door to Asprey, the Queen's jewellery shop, which became the number one salon in the UK and eventually the world.
"He groomed and trained so many stars of that era," Harold says, "including Leonard Lewis, Roger Thompson, Christopher Booker, Stephen Way, Tony Beckerman, Keith Taylor-Sharp, Maurice Tidy and Christopher Pluck, who passed on their talents to Trevor Sorbie, Paul Mitchell and Joshua Galvin, who in turn passed on their talents to John Frieda who in turn trained Nicky Clarke. So many stars that shine so bright today and continue the story of great training and wonderful creative hair that started their careers with Vidal Sassoon. And I was fortunate and lucky enough to be mates with many of them."
In 1959, Harold took to writing for ‘The Hampstead & Highgate Express', a local upscale newspaper, which enabled him to travel to Paris with a press pass that took him into all the top designer shows. His wife Maxine was always being photographed with London's elite designers, so she was a welcome addition with the French fashion set.
"I was writing the catwalk commentary for shows including Dior, Cardin, YSL, Ungaro, Paco Rabanne and Courreges," recalls Harold. "We stayed in a small pensione hotel called ‘The Elysee' on Rue du Surene with all the top English models, photographers, David Bailey, Brian Duffy, Terry Donovan, Clive Arrowsmith, Barry Lategan, Bert Stern and his American mates - so many talented icons of each creative circle.
"It was a really exciting time for us. Maxine was always being photographed with London's ‘in' designers like Mary Quant, Jean Muir, Jeff Banks, Zandra Rhodes, Barbara Hulanicki and Jasper Conran, whom we came to meet at the home of our dear friends, interior designers Tom Ellery and Ken Moore. These two guys had the best parties in London with the most ‘in' people - editors, art directors, beauty editors, plus actors and pop stars such as Michael Cain, Peter Sellers, Lulu, Cilla Black and Dusty Springfield - the most incredibly talented names that Britain had to offer."
At this stage, Harold was working at Vogue Studios in Hanover Square every week, and was generating some serious publicity via his social connections and volume of session work. To compete with the enormous publicity his friend Vidal was generating, Harold developed his own softer style and became known as the ‘sexy hairdresser' by photographer David Bailey.
"My work has its own style," Harold says. "Soft, sexy, sharp edges - be it long hair, curly hair, straight hair, chignons or party hair. These were extraordinary creations, because I was never in fear of creating with any type of length. I feel that this gift was given to me when I became a session hairdresser. One had to be spontaneous with hair to be called back to the studios to work for these wonderful creative photographers who inspired me to come out of the box. Not to mention the fact that the press were completely absorbed with my friend - no names mentioned!"
During the 1960s Harold became one of the first session hairdressers working for the top photographers of the day such as Terry Donovan and Barry Lategan and doing hair for Max Factor, Revlon, Yardley and Goya, earning 100 to 500 pounds a day - an amazing amount by hair show standards.
Harold recalls one of his more memorable session jobs with the inimitable David Bailey and the love of his life at the time, Penelope Tree.
"I had worked with Bailey for around two years now, creating hair for his editorial pages, his books and his advertising shoots," Harold says. "His models were always the best in the world - Jean Shrimpton, Sue Murray, Celia Hammond, plus all the pop and film stars, lords, ladies and many queens! When I went to his studio in Hampstead you could always count on bumping into Terence Stamp, a Beatle or two, David Putnam and a lot of very pretty young girls that all wanted to be models and pose for him.
"Anyway, this particular job for American Vogue was to be shot at Saint Ives, Cornwall. I would meet with Bailey to discuss his vision for this story - and you cannot ever be ready for such a creative photographer. Little did I know at this early stage that I had the whole of the editorial pages with around 36 looks to complete. Anyway, within a week we were on a train to meet the American Vogue crew in Cornwall.
"I had done Penelope's hair many times for Bailey and UK Vogue. One always had to have lots of false pieces in their kit, as at this time in the late 60s, the fashion was ‘big hair' and loads of false hair was the essential part of creating great looks. But on this shoot, there were tears, heartache and more tears for Penelope, as Bailey wanted her to be and look like the greatest model in the world. She had the biggest eyes, like saucers, and with false lashes they looked like plates! But they were always full of tears on this shoot.
"Bailey was stretching his limits with his assistant John Swanell, (now one of the top photographers in London in 2007) and me. From 7am to twilight we worked out on the fields on the cliffs of Saint Ives, in the stables with pregnant horses (which when disturbed can go a bit wild as we soon found out); but we got some of the most bizarre shots I have ever done with a photographer.
"At one point, when I had done Penelope's hair, we were due to go to the cliff's edge and have this dramatic skyline and sunset in this wonderful wedding gown, her hair as large as the skirt on the dress. On checking out the shape of her hair in the camera, I hollered out ‘just a minute, I need to fill a gap in the hair.' I walked over to Penelope and titivated the hair and went to step backwards and check, as one does. Fortunately for me, John was standing near me as I slipped on the rocks and into a hole, saving me from falling down the cliff!"
Towards the end of the 60s decade, Harold's wife Maxine opened a French boutique in his Hampton salon, which in a very short period of time became the best French boutique in London, selling ready-to-wear clothing to most of the top film and pop stars of the sixties including Dusty Springfield, Ursula Andress, Faye Dunaway, Marlow Thomas, Sharon Tate, Lulu and Julie Christie - most of whom turned to Harold as their hairstylist. By 1970 the highflying duo had generated so much publicity for their business, bigger things were just around the corner.
Harold was soon headhunted by Dorothy Gray, a cosmetic house in Conduit Street behind Bond Street. He closed his own salons and moved back into central London, opening a new shop that Maxine designed. The publicity for the infamous duo continued to grow, with Harold spending more and more time out of the salon on his session career, nurturing his image of long hair and soft, sexy haircuts for his film star clientele.
He was headhunted again just six months later in 1968 by the Seligman & Latz group, which was spending $3 million revamping the Harrods salon and wanted a star name to front the business. They approached Harold to be the front man - and since Harrods in Knightsbridge was known as the number one store around the world - the opportunity was too good to miss.
Harold spent the next 20 years as creative consultant and creative director to Essenelle (Selligman & Latz) and Glemby (now Regis), based out of Harrods London, The Elizabeth Arden Bond Street and Fortnum & Mason in Piccadilly London. He travelled throughout the world, working in some of the most prestigious stores including Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdales, Bergdorf Goodman and Kaufhauf, teaching and promoting the ‘London Look' with stage shows and photographic shoots. A publicist's dream, Harold appeared on national and international television, newspapers and magazines.
From 1984-1996, Harold and Maxine owned the John Paul Mitchell Systems product line in Europe, developing the image and name of the brand with partners Paul Mitchell and John Paul Degoria in the UK, Europe and the USA. Harold had been experimenting with photography over the years, so also produced many of the photographic looks for the brand during this period.
"Paul first came into my life when I was the ‘new kid on the block' doing hair in Romaine's of Park West in about 1952," Harold recalls fondly. "He came in with his mum, Jenny, who opened the conversation with: ‘Harold, you have such a reputation now at such a young age and Paul wants to know how you got there so quickly, as he admires you and your creative style of work.' Then Paul chimed up: ‘Harold I love your creativeness and want to follow you. Let's be friends and do it together.'"
Despite periods of absence in each other's lives, Harold and Paul Mitchell were good friends, right up until Paul passed away in 1989. Harold still misses his comrade dearly.
"One of the most rewarding jobs I did for Paul and JPMS after his death and with the help of John Paul Degoria was to develop a shrine for him in London's ‘Hyde Park' on Rotton Row," Harold says. "This is where Paul loved to go horse riding whilst in town. On the south side of the park just a few hundred yards from the Serpentine lake and art museum I planted 15 trees in a circle, a bench with seven trees and two bollards and a gas lamp with his name - Paul Thompson Mitchell - and the name of John Paul Degoria and the company name. That will be there until London needs the metal to melt down again!"
Despite hairdressing being his first love, as a photographer Harold has shot plenty of famous names including President Ford, James Coburn, Pierce Brosnan, Christopher Reeves, Martin Landau, Margeaux Hemmingway, Julio Iglesias, Pablo Picasso and Princess Diana.
And despite residing in Florida for the past four years, life certainly hasn't slowed down for Harold Leighton. He has written three books, two on hair, and in the last, ‘From Salon to Celebrity - the history of British hairdressing 1950-2004', he photographed 75 of the best hairdressing icons in the world that live on both sides of the Atlantic. For his next book, ‘Salon to Celebrity 2', Harold is planning on capturing the American icons and lifting the number to 100. He is also working with his new company, ‘DreamON Research', on inventions for the hair industry.
"I still have a yearning to do some more show work before I am ‘too wise'" Harold laughs. "The hair scene has been my life and love and it still is. Without a doubt!"