Local 706 - The Artisan

THE ARTISAN SUMMER 2021 • 63 Cher Comedy Hour. She at once said to me, "You are a keeper". Besides Cher, are there other memorable clients you would like to share about? In the beginning, I was mostly working on variety shows. I got the opportunity for a teleplay at Channel 28 with an English actress. I made the wig and did the tests and handed it off to the hair stylist. The next day, they called me in a panic because the hair stylist had restyled the wig from the sleek Veronica Lake look designed to a '40s musical showgirl style. CBS made a deal with Local 706 that I could be "per- mitted" to apply the wigs backstage until I worked 30 days and took the test to join the TV Roster. After I joined, I got an offer to work on a George C. Scott '30s period film called Movie Movie with tons and tons of wigs. Afterward, there was another movie in Vancouver with George. He was great. In those days, the make-up artist was still the head of both departments. This fellow was very upset about a wig design meeting I attended without him. In my ignorance, I asked him, "Do you make, style and fit the wigs? No? Then why did you want to be at the meeting?" He left me alone after that encounter. Working with Barbara Hershey and Bette Midler was memorable as well. Tell me about forming partnerships with hair stylists and make-up artists. It has to be a partnership! The first time I met Yolanda was on Down and Out in Beverly Hills. It was such a pleasure to work on. Yolanda started calling me for movies and introduced me to Ve Neil. We did a series of films like Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and the Batman films with Jim Carrey's Riddler and Danny De Vito's Penguin and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze. Those films had a lot of really fun looks. I took care of Cher again for Witches of Eastwick, Moonstruck and Mermaids. Leonard Engelman met her on Witches and did such a beautiful make-up on her. I really enjoyed working with Stan Winston on Interview with the Vampire. He knew exactly what he wanted. The way we worked together was such a pleasure. I remember Mike Meyers for Austin Powers and an odd but interesting film called The Cell. I also made wigs for some of the X-Men films with a lot of other wigmak- ers. Robin Williams had such a big head when I brought some wigs to try on him up in San Francisco for Mrs. Doubtfire, I had to cut them in the back to make them fit. You have to work together. We have to know about the finished hair style in order to make a wig. The hair stylist usually comes for fittings. They have to wrap the hair so I can fit the wig to the way they are going to wrap. Otherwise if the wig doesn't fit, you're in big trouble. For the final fit- ting, the hair stylist always has to be there. It's always a collaboration to make a wig. After all, a wig can only look as good as the hair stylist that applies it. I owe a special thanks to Kathy Blondell, Barbara Lorenz, Cydney Cornell and Melissa Yonkey for all our collaborations and patronage over the years. Do you have a wigmaking philosophy? Again, wrapping the hair is the most impor- tant part. Then creating the plastic wrap "bubble" is second and transferring the bubble to create the block, third. Fourth, by creating the lace foundation, you are halfway there. Selecting the hair color and texture is the fun part. Knowing style direction is a must. Even when you have a platinum wig, you weave a little dark hair to give it life. Color-blending reds is the most difficult. I learned to lightly weave a very bright orange to maintain vibrancy in all type of lighting situations. It is interesting and counterin- tuitive. With curly hair, for example, adding too much density doesn't allow for move- ment. At the height of your shop, how many people did you have working with you? I didn't have that many. When you get too big, you lose control. I had different ventila- tors do either the back or top depending on what they were good at. Sometimes I would switch them around. Tell me about procuring the hair? Having the right hair is crucial. At first, I got hair from a company in Germany, then the prices went up and the quality went down. Then I used Giovanni and Sons. The Russian hair started coming in (it was really from Poland) and again the prices went up … the quality went down. Nowadays, it comes mostly from India and Italy. Depending on how the hair is processed, the quality is affected. Sometimes you mix different hair batches trying to blend colors and they can fight

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