Hairdresser to the Stars Giuseppe Franco

Where do celebrities go to get their hair camera ready?

If you answered Beverly Hills, you would be correct. But if you expected a soft-spoken, foreign stylist in a peaceful serene salon you would be mistaken.

When I first met the Beverly Hills hairdresser to the stars, Giuseppe Franco, he wasn’t at all what I expected.

Giuseppe Franco with client and friend Arnold Schwarzenegger

I’d been going to his salon for years where my hairdresser Claudia provided beautiful highlights to my long blond hair. In the decades of visiting the Giuseppe Franco Salon in Beverly Hills, I witnessed Mickey Rourke, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and dozens of other famous actors walking through the tattooed attractive hairdressers stations while rock n roll classics played as they climbed up the stairs to Franco’s chair. It made me wonder why so many celebrities came to this little loud outspoken man from New Jersey to tame their manes. I also wondered why the famous stylist still came to the salon daily. He could, like many stylists to the stars, just do celebrity cuts.

Strolling in Beverly Hills with Sylvester Stallone

To find out I sat down with the master hairdresser for a chat, which ended up lasting several hours. Sitting across from Franco, I thought he could easily pass for Al Pacino’s long lost brother, except for the tattoos and leather pants. People notice when Franco enters a room, with his perfectly coiffed jet-black hair, Italian good looks and Jersey accent. He’s tiny but his voice can be heard throughout the salon.

Franco grew up in Union City, New Jersey and enrolled in beauty school by circumstance. “I was in high school and accompanied my then girlfriend to Manhattan to visit a beauty school where she wanted to apply. I was approached by one of the staff who liked the way I did my hair and encouraged to enroll,” he said. Because Franco’s father was a shoemaker and his mother was a seamstress, he qualified for a government grant to cover tuition. “I never aspired to become a famous stylist. I loved the feel of hair and I new I was good at styling,” said Franco.

“After beauty school I changed mentally and physically. I saw people in New York and started dressing more Manhattan than Jersey,” he said. At 18, he knew he wanted to work in the city. Franco applied for jobs at Vidal Sassoon and at Jean Louis David at Henri Bendel. “I was offered both jobs, but I wanted to work with long hair and was impressed by David’s sexy styles.”

Shortly after joining David’s staff, Franco was sent to Paris to train and started working on photo shoots.

In 1977, Seventeen Magazine called Franco to style a photo shoot with then star Kristy McNichol. “We became fast friends, “ said Franco. “I took her to my mom’s for dinner in Hoboken.”

A few years later Franco received an urgent call from McNichol to fix a botched perm on the set of the movie “Little Darlings.” Franco flew to Madison, Georgia on his day off to rescue her hair. McNichol called a few days later to offer Franco a full time stylist job on the set of her show “Family,” but his boss refused to provide a temporary leave for Franco. “She then made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Franco says with a laugh. “I quit and began a four year stint as McNichol’s stylist, best friend and roommate.”

After driving through Beverly Hills with McNichol one sunny afternoon, he fell in love with the neighborhood. “I knew I wanted a salon here as soon as I walked down Rodeo Drive,” he said. “I wanted to open a salon on my own and I am very old school so although Kristy offered to loan me the money I refused. I wasn’t going to take money from a girl,” said Franco. He did take a loan from good friend Mickey Rourke, 34 years ago, and Franco flew his cousins in from New Jersey to build what is now the back area of his salon.

Rourke, who was becoming famous in Hollywood, also provided Franco’s first celebrity referrals. He started with an eight-chair salon and quickly expanded. Word spread about the unconventional handsome hairdresser who was more Tony Soprano than Warren Beatty’s character in “Shampoo.” In a few weeks, Franco will take over the wine store next door to his salon and again expand his empire.

When asked about his success, Franco says, “Everyone has a gift. I was lucky enough not to get sidetracked and found mine early in life. I love doing hair and I’m good at it.”

His famous clients include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Ashton Kutcher, Brad Pitt, Mena Suvari, Drew Barrymore, Sharon Stone, Adrien Brody and dozens of others. I soon found out why, with a long A list of celebrity clients, Franco still comes into the salon at 7 a.m. every morning. “My favorite clients aren’t the celebrities. They are the receptionists, the housewives, the everyday people that want to look and feel good,” he said.

I realized that Franco’s appeal isn’t simply that he can make anyone look like a star, but that he makes everyone feel like one.

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All photos provided by Giuseppe Franco.