life?
I realized that if there was even the slightest possibility that people screaming obscenities at me from balconies was going to become a regular occurrence, I had to decide right now how I was going to handle this. There was no room for error. I had to take charge of the situation. I knew that whatever I did at this very second was going to set the tone for all future interactions. If I caved now, if I allowed myself to be intimidated or to show an ounce of fear, I was done for.
There was only one thing to do. I stopped, stood up straight, turned toward the sound of her voice, stuck out my chin, and said as loudly and bravely as I could manage: “ THANK YOU!” And then, as if I were onstage, I bowed, deeply. For the first time in my life, I marched into school with my head held high.
I realized I would have to become much more durable if this show was going to continue—and so was my hair. After a few miserable weeks of sleeping in the dreaded curlers (which my nonhairdressing mother fumblingly crammed into my hair before bed after slathering my hair with Pantene setting lotion) and arriving at the studio at 4:30 in the morning to be tortured with curling irons for hours, someone on the set finally came to their senses and decreed that the only solution was to design and create a wig.
This task was assigned to the lead hair stylist, Larry Germain. Another overly tan and weathered veteran of the golden age of Hollywood, Larry had worked with everyone, too, but his show-stopper credit was Bette Davis. He told me how one of his very first jobs at the studio was washing Bette Davis’s hair. What a thought! At the time, he was young and inexperienced, and had been told only that Miss Davis would be coming in for a shampoo and that he’d better see to it that her needs were met.
Her reputation was already legendary, and he had no idea what she would want. He said he gathered up every brand of shampoo and hair product he could find in the entire studio makeup department, hoping that he had her favorite brand, gathered towels, cleaned up the place, and waited in fear. As she swept into the room, he tried not to stammer when he showed her the array of shampoos.
She ignored the entire lot, grabbed a towel, and headed for the sink. “That’s okay, honey,” she said. “I’ll just rinse it out in the sink with some Dreft!” And the great Miss Bette Davis proceeded to wash her hair, right in front of him, with a box of Dreft laundry detergent. He said that they became great friends after that, that she was utterly down to earth and straightforward and never gave him a minute’s trouble.
So it was only fitting that Larry would be the one most instrumental in designing the infamous Nellie wig. Larry called in a wigmaker, not just any wigmaker, but the famous “Ziggy,” aka Siegfried Geike, “Wigmaker to the Stars.” It was the first time I’d ever seen anyone in real life with a Salvador Dalí mustache. He was, after all, an artist. He arrived with an enormous black case filled with mysterious gear and numerous samples of hair. His aura was all very mad scientist.
Ziggy and Larry sat me down in the makeup chair and began to design the wig, right there on my head. They placed a plastic bag on my head, wrapped it around my skull, taped it in place, and cut off the excess, making a plastic wig cap. They then began to draw on it with a black marker.
They talked about how there would need to be a comb in the front and drew a large black symbol on the front of my head. They selected the site for each ringlet, making mysterious black markings accordingly. They continued with great solemnity conferring with each other, disagreeing occasionally on the location of a curl, negotiating each detail of this elaborate project. They um-hmmed and tsk-tsked and nodded as they went, Larry with his ever-present cigarette clenched in his teeth, drawing away on my head as if I weren’t even there.
When they were done, my head was
I realized that if there was even the slightest possibility that people screaming obscenities at me from balconies was going to become a regular occurrence, I had to decide right now how I was going to handle this. There was no room for error. I had to take charge of the situation. I knew that whatever I did at this very second was going to set the tone for all future interactions. If I caved now, if I allowed myself to be intimidated or to show an ounce of fear, I was done for.
There was only one thing to do. I stopped, stood up straight, turned toward the sound of her voice, stuck out my chin, and said as loudly and bravely as I could manage: “ THANK YOU!” And then, as if I were onstage, I bowed, deeply. For the first time in my life, I marched into school with my head held high.
I realized I would have to become much more durable if this show was going to continue—and so was my hair. After a few miserable weeks of sleeping in the dreaded curlers (which my nonhairdressing mother fumblingly crammed into my hair before bed after slathering my hair with Pantene setting lotion) and arriving at the studio at 4:30 in the morning to be tortured with curling irons for hours, someone on the set finally came to their senses and decreed that the only solution was to design and create a wig.
This task was assigned to the lead hair stylist, Larry Germain. Another overly tan and weathered veteran of the golden age of Hollywood, Larry had worked with everyone, too, but his show-stopper credit was Bette Davis. He told me how one of his very first jobs at the studio was washing Bette Davis’s hair. What a thought! At the time, he was young and inexperienced, and had been told only that Miss Davis would be coming in for a shampoo and that he’d better see to it that her needs were met.
Her reputation was already legendary, and he had no idea what she would want. He said he gathered up every brand of shampoo and hair product he could find in the entire studio makeup department, hoping that he had her favorite brand, gathered towels, cleaned up the place, and waited in fear. As she swept into the room, he tried not to stammer when he showed her the array of shampoos.
She ignored the entire lot, grabbed a towel, and headed for the sink. “That’s okay, honey,” she said. “I’ll just rinse it out in the sink with some Dreft!” And the great Miss Bette Davis proceeded to wash her hair, right in front of him, with a box of Dreft laundry detergent. He said that they became great friends after that, that she was utterly down to earth and straightforward and never gave him a minute’s trouble.
So it was only fitting that Larry would be the one most instrumental in designing the infamous Nellie wig. Larry called in a wigmaker, not just any wigmaker, but the famous “Ziggy,” aka Siegfried Geike, “Wigmaker to the Stars.” It was the first time I’d ever seen anyone in real life with a Salvador Dalí mustache. He was, after all, an artist. He arrived with an enormous black case filled with mysterious gear and numerous samples of hair. His aura was all very mad scientist.
Ziggy and Larry sat me down in the makeup chair and began to design the wig, right there on my head. They placed a plastic bag on my head, wrapped it around my skull, taped it in place, and cut off the excess, making a plastic wig cap. They then began to draw on it with a black marker.
They talked about how there would need to be a comb in the front and drew a large black symbol on the front of my head. They selected the site for each ringlet, making mysterious black markings accordingly. They continued with great solemnity conferring with each other, disagreeing occasionally on the location of a curl, negotiating each detail of this elaborate project. They um-hmmed and tsk-tsked and nodded as they went, Larry with his ever-present cigarette clenched in his teeth, drawing away on my head as if I weren’t even there.
When they were done, my head was
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