The HAIR PEOPLE

In 1977 I got a call from a reporter I'd worked with on a bunch of stories for various publications. He was writing some press releases for a public relations client of his and needed some photographs. Frederick Meyer was the client, a hair stylist with a shop about a block away from the Playboy Club and perhaps two blocks from the Palm Bay Club, a bastion of "Old Wealth" on the shores of Biscayne Bay, with luxurious big yachts tied up at the dock. His clientele was a curious mixture of sexy young babes and exquisitely dressed white haired elderly women with more money than God, plus a few hookers from the neighborhood.

Frederick was also president of the hairdressers association, and he needed somebody to photograph styling shows. We worked out a deal that made both of us happy, I ended up picking up the Palm Bay Club as a client and got to photograph private parties on some of those yachts. Those were some wild parties.

When Frederick and I both split with our wives at about the same time we became room mates for a few years. He cut my hair for the dozen years or so before I met Vivette Thomas, then she was rather insistant that if we were going to be a couple Vivette's Ultimate Hair Design was where my hair was going to be cut. No arguing with a woman!

Eventually Frederick closed the shop and I lost track of him, although Claudia said that she saw him up in Dania four or five years ago. At any rate, between Frederick and Vivette I've only had perhaps a couple of haircuts by other stylists in over thirty years. It's been six years since Vivette and I parted ways, but she still cuts my hair.