Originally published by L.S. Media. May 10th 2012
To some, Vidal Sassoon was the man who inspired a million haircuts, celebrity hairdresser to the stars and the man behind the liberation of women from the “tyranny of the salon” but there was another side to the hairdresser who passed away in his Los Angeles home on Wednesday 9th May 2012.
Vidal Sassoon was born in the January of 1928 in the Hammersmith district of London to Jewish parents, Betty (Bellin) and Nathan Sassoon. It was this Jewish heritage that would see the young Vidal become the youngest member of the 43 Group, a Jewish veterans’ underground organisation that fought against anti-semitism during the dark days of World War Two.
His early life was dogged by extreme poverty, especially when his Greek father left the family home when Vidal was three. Due to his mother’s poor financial state and being a single parent, she was forced to place the young Sassoon and his younger brother, Ivor, into a Jewish orphanage where they stayed for seven years. In the early days of the Second World War he was, like many other London children at the time, evacuated out of the capital to far flung parts of England, in Vidal’s case to Holt in Wiltshire. After his return to London, he left school at the age of 14 and worked as a messenger before starting on what would become his future life in hairdressing.
As part of the 43 Group, Vidal fought the Fascist movement in East London and one newspaper at the time described him as an “anti-fascist warrior hairdresser.” His aim, alongside the group of brave individuals, was to prevent Sir Oswald Mosley’s infamous far-right movement from spreading messages of hatred following the end of the war.
After spending a year in 1948 in what became the Israeli Defence Force, in which he also fought in the Arab- Israeli war, he came back to England and trained under Raymond Bessone in his salon in the high end market of Mayfair. From there Vidal Sassoon never looked back as he opened his own salon on Bond Street in 1958 and went on to revolutionise women’s hairstyles. He was finally made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2009 Birthday Honours.
Modern celebrity hairdresser, Nicky Clarke said, “He was one of the great icons of hairdressing.”
Married four times, Vidal Sassoon leaves his wife of 20 years, Ronnie Sassoon.
Vidal Sassoon, C.B.E. Born 17TH January 1928- Died 9th May 2012
Ian D. Hall