Hair Hall of Fame: Gene Shacove

While Jay Sebring is usually credited as the inspiration for Warren Beatty's "George Roundy," in Shampoo, the real inspiration was one Gene Shacove. He even played himself (uncredited) in "Wild in the Streets."

I had a charmed life once I reached the sunny shores of Los Angeles in 1967. A few weeks after I moved to California, I was sitting outside a restaurant on Sunset Boulevard when a man approached me. This started it all.

"You have beautiful hair. I would love to shoot a commercial with you," he said.

He turned out to be a famous hairdresser named Gene Shacove, who was later the inspiration for Warren Beatty's character in the 1975 film, Shampoo.

Gene practically invented the term "celebrity hairdresser"; made friends with world-famous personalities, often becoming their long time stylist and confidant, an association that granted him a movie star's social life.

Gene also owned the Candy Store, the 1960s and '70s-era nightclub he operated beneath his Rodeo Drive salon, a move that made him the center of social L.A ... I made a move myself—into Gene's home once I shot his commercial. We lived together for about a year in his beautiful Bel Air home on Stone Canyon Road.

That's from the incredibly titled "The King, McQueen and the Love Machine: My Secret Hollywood Life with Elvis Presley, Steve McQueen and the Smiling Cobra" - an excerpt of which I found here.

Here's a bit from his obit in the LAT:

"He was, in fact, the only rooster in a very beautiful henhouse," said Towne, who stayed for a few days with Shacove to study his lifestyle and mannerisms for "Shampoo." Hefner recalled that Shacove, a Los Angeles native who married many times but was more often single, "got into hairstyling because he thought it would be a wonderful way to meet girls." Clients of both genders poured into his spacious salon.

Aha! I knew I read somewhere that Peters lied and claimed that he was the inspiration for "Shampoo." Sure enough, it's on page 18 of "Hit and Run: how Jon Peters and Peter Guber took Sony for a Ride," by Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters:

" ... Peters found a new role model. Gene Shacove owned and operated his own salon on Wilshire Boulevard and Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills. Shacove was hip and handsome, a stud with a blow dryer, the real-life model for Warren Beatty's character in Shampoo. (Later, in embellishing his own legend, Peters would lead interviewers to believe that he, not Shacove, had been the inspiration for Shampoo. "That was me," he told Women's Wear Daily in 1978, "making love to a lot of women, but too afraid to communicate with any of them.""

This is a book I must get! From "Hair Heroes," by Bumble and Bumble founder Michael Gordon:

And then there's the poignant tale of Gene Shacove, the flesh-and-blood model for the womanizing hairdresser played by Warren Beatty in ''Shampoo.'' In an interview last week, Mr. Gordon described meeting Mr. Shacove, who died last year, as ''an eerie experience.''

''I realized what a brilliant acting job Beatty had done,'' Mr. Gordon said, ''because Gene's way of speaking and his language was exactly like Beatty's in the movie.''

In the book, Mr. Shacove says he was paid $1,000 for two days of film hairdressing on ''Shampoo'' but got no screen credit. His bitterness was sharp and tangy: ''I called Warren Beatty and said that the least he could have done is send me a new car. He said, 'What, are you kidding? Do you expect me to send every hairdresser in Hollywood a Rolls?' ''

Mr. Shacove summed up his life for Mr. Gordon: ''The women used to seduce me. And, at that age, I loved it. But there was a lesson to be learned. Like ''Swept Away,'' about the girl married to the rich guy. She gets shipwrecked and falls in love with the peasant -- eating, drinking and sleeping with him. She promises to give up the money and marry him, if rescued. Of course, as soon as they are rescued, she goes back to the money. Emotionally, I was used until I was drained, and then I was back to being just their hairdresser.''

Mr. Teazie Weazie: "I am homosexuality!"

While waiting for Mavis' copy of our newest sacred text to arrive, we've been doing more research on our latest hair god. Here's what we've found about "Raymond" (emphasis on the second syllable):

"In the beginning, there was Raymond 'Teasy-Weasy'. He was the first celebrity hairdresser, the first of the television crimpers, who got his name from the way he backcombed for his Saturday evening TV show back in the Fifties. 'We'll do a teasy-weasy here, and a teasy-weasy there,'"

"Every Saturday afternoon, in living rooms all around the country, whole families would sit transfixed by the feats of a man sporting a pencil thin moustache, lurid satin suit, scarlet nail polish and crimping tongs."

"In the Fifties the TV show Quite Contrary became a hit, and its star, "Teasy Weasy" Raymond, the first celebrity hairdresser. The format was simple. Every week he would wheel out a model exhibiting his latest gravity-defying hair-style. Mr Teasy Weasy would then dance around his living mannequin, explaining how to get a chignon "just so" in his faux French accent, trailing plumes of cigarette smoke in his wake."

"Raymond 'Teasy-Weasy' Bessone, was the first man to publicly announce he was gay, certainly on TV. Unfortunately he made a mess of his big moment, if you excuse the terminology, when he declared: "I am homosexuality"! ... Realising his mistake, he then laughed like a girl ... which didn't suit his urbane and debonair look"*

"From there, as I recall, he went to Raymond "Teasy Weasy". Raymond was a great cutter of hair but used to conceal his technique of cutting by working in cubicles with his clients and starting at different parts of the head to confuse anyone watching him."

*Note: I was not able to find anything else about this, and supposedly no copies of his show exist. Damn!

Here's a great photo and story from the photographer Roger George Clark.

Wait, "I am homosexuality"? Hmm:

"Even as late as the 1950s, Britain's first true celebrity hairdresser, Raymond "Mr Teasy-Weasy" Bessone, apparently still felt it necessary to adopt a transparently phoney French voice, sport a scarlet suit, red nail polish, a pencil moustache and an exaggeratedly long cigarette, and deck his Knightsbridge salon with gilt mirrors, chandeliers and champagne fountains despite, says Cox, being "born in Soho and, to put it politely, as heterosexual as they come".

"The massive increase was partly due to a new phenomenon, the arrival of the celebrity hairdresser. The first and most flamboyant of these was undoubtedly Pierre Raymondo Bessone, otherwise known as ''Mr. Teasy-Weasy'' Raymond. Born in Brixton in 1911, Raymond had learned his trade making false beards and moustaches in his father's barber's shop. Having honed his craft, he opened a salon in Mayfair and soon had a celebrity clientele. He was also the first hairdresser to showcase his talents on TV, wheeling out elaborate new styles on Saturday teatime telly. Millions of women were hooked by his outlandish outfits and false French accent. Overnight, he made British hairdressing glamorous and a trip to the salon an almost theatrical experience*. Read the rest of this article here.


From "Scum" 1979
Jackson: Oh look at that all over my hair!
Duke: Quiet, Jackson, or do we want Mr. Teasy Weasy in there with ya?
Jackson: Only washed it last night, Sir.
Duke: Quiet, you little poof and keep shoveling.

Mr. Teazie Weazie

We have our Mr. Ray and the British had Raymond, aka Mr. Teazie Weazie! You can see him here in action doing a "Spring." Mavis just found out about Mr. T-W and, like our Mr. Ray obsession, is off to the ray-ces. She just got his signed autobiography and sent me the following info:

"Raymond Bessone, aka Mr Teasy-Weasy, was the Nicky Clarke of his day. He had a salon in Mayfair and a list of celebrity clients that made his competitors drool.

Like a true maestro Raymond would pace up and down the salon waiting for a customer to attract his attention. He would then throw his hands in the air, exclaiming, "Madam, can you not see that I am meditating!"

...And they loved it.

Vidal Sassoon began his career as one of Teasy-Weasy's staff and obviously aimed to outstrip his master. In 1956 Diana Dors had caused press hysteria by flying Teasy-Weasy to the USA for a £2,500 shampoo and set. Twelve years later Sassoon flew to the US to give a $5,000 cut to Rosemary's Baby star Mia Farrow. Teasy-Weasy's fame has endured, and there are references to him in both Monty Python (Sir John 'Teasy-Weasy' Butler conquors K2) and Red Dwarf*.

(*Krizanovich - is this your doing?)

Mr. T-W also owned racehorses!

Teasie Weasie Raymond
Owner of 1976 winner Rag Trade, part owner of 1963 winner Ayala and celebrity hairdresser

Teasie Weasie, christened Pierre Raymond Bessone, was a celebrated hairdresser during the Swinging Sixties.

He was famous for his flamboyant suits, which irriated officials at Royal Ascot.

After winning the Grand National with Ayala in 1963, Mr PB Raymond, as he was known in the racing world, put some of his money into another Aintree contender, Rag Trade.

And much to Teasie Weasie's pleasure he struck gold once more, as Rag Trade, who beat Red Rum into second, won the 1976 race.

Teasie Weasie, who learned his trade making false beards and moustaches in his father's barber shop, was also famous for describing the Duchess of Windsor's hair as "dogmatic".

My Ears Directed My Body To The Sound

'It was Rocky Roberts and the Airedales -- the hottest band in all of Europe!'

You Tell Me Your Dream and I'll Tell You Mine

Go to Schadenfreudian Therapy to have a listen now!

Pookie!

Tommy Noonan: the poor man's Tom Ewell

with Marilyn Monroe in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"


with Mamie Van Doren in "Three Nuts in Search of a Bolt"


with Jayne Mansfield in "Promises! Promises!"*

*from Glamour A Gogo's Collection.