Vidal: The Autobiography
Vidal: The Autobiography by Vidal Sassoon Pan MacMillan HK$260
Vidal Sassoon has his mother to thank for introducing him to two of his lifelong passions: hairdressing and Israel. Betty was a robust and resourceful woman from a Jewish family that had fled the anti-Semitism of Kiev for London's East End. In the aftermath of the second world war, she cajoled him into picking up the scissors and hosted Zionist gatherings in their home. One was a counter to poverty, the other a response to the Holocaust.
From very modest beginnings in Petticoat Lane, Sassoon went on to become one of the most recognisable names in the crimping trade as well as the high-profile sponsor of a Hebrew University research centre for the study of anti-Semitism. Sassoon follows this arc in Vidal: The Autobiography, a book that is dedicated to his third wife, Ronnie, but reveals a true devotion to his mother.
Sassoon's life begins in poverty in 1928. Abandoned by her husband, Betty is forced to send her two sons to an orphanage, where Sassoon stays for about seven years. Although he describes periods of sadness and hunger, his biggest deprivation is the lack of a father.
The second world war reunites the Sassoon boys with Betty, who has since remarried, and the family make a go of it in London as German bombers rearrange the streets daily. Sassoon has ambitions to be a footballer but Betty has a premonition that his future lies among the heavily lacquered heads of 1940s England. Sassoon takes some convincing but he persists with an apprenticeship with Adolph Cohen, hairdresser and wigmaker extraordinaire to the women of Whitechapel Road. He learns the essentials of shampooing, clipping and colouring at various salons over the next few years before restlessness and the Arab-Israeli war lead him to the frontlines for the Israeli army.
The new state takes a hold on the 20-year-old but Betty calls him back to help the family make a living. And, with that, Sassoon embarks on plans to open a salon in his artistic image. Hairdressing would be an art form and backcombing, teasing and lacquering would be consigned to history. Bone structure, geometry and ease of care would dictate form, eventually resulting in the signature 'five-point cut', the Nancy Kwan bob and the Mia Farrow goddess look. It was an outpouring of creativity that defined the times as much as Mary Quant's mini and Twiggy's skinny frame.
Along the way, business booms, celebrity friendships are forged and marriages come and go. Sassoon takes his technique to the US and stamps his brand of glamour on Madison Avenue and Rodeo Drive. Michael Caine, Peter O'Toole and Sammy Davis Jnr make appearances, as does Gore Vidal - albeit through a mix-up over an enema. Elizabeth Taylor even plays a part in the Middle East peace process. Sassoon finds love in all sorts of places but Betty remains a presence throughout it all.
Vidal is a breezy race through the decades by a man who struggles to say a harsh word about anyone. Tragedy does cast personal shadows, however, and at his 80th birthday Sassoon touches on those he has loved and lost to addiction, illness and age. But his allegiance is to the future and, family aside, his biggest regret seems to be not inventing Frizz-Ease.
