Oh, trust me. We did shake our heads! We may have even rolled our eyes a little. Knowing how much we adore anything campy and/or tacky in The Underworld, one of our regular readers saw fit to send me as a birthday present, this delicious self-help book "Shake Your Head, Darling" published in 1982 by celebrity hairstylist Jose Eber. (As Mr. Eber points out in the earliest part of the book, it's "Joe-zey" not "Hoe-say" because he is French.) The book has a 20-Question quiz whose answers determine if you are a Life-Style Red, Life-Style Green or Life-Style Blue. (Reds are super busy, Greens work for a living and Blues are lazy bums and/or trophy wives. LOL!) What follows are most of the photos contained in the book, generally a two-shot of Eber with his celebrity pal and then one of the celeb in a posed portrait. We were happy to see four members of our (self-imagined) Disaster Movie Club along with two honorary members (thanks to
The Big Bus, 1976) and other assorted friends. Each two-shot has text written by the lady in question, often revealing and interesting. Let get shaking! First up, the Life-Style Reds:
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| Channing's questionnaire had personal remarks written across all but two of the answers! God only knows how he arrived at any determination of her Life-Style. |
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| Not too much to shake, here. The third sentence of her text made me snort! |
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| Ms. Fawcett was probably one of the celebrities most associated with Eber. |
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| She's the only one who ranked a second portrait in the book. What about this look?! I don't believe one was used in this case, but this sort of style was (semi)achieved all over the nation with the aid of "banana clips" if you remember those... A lady at work still has one and uses it and I always tell her that The Smithsonian is still waiting for her to donate it to them! LOL |
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| Marshall's text is hilarious and unsurprising, considering how glamour-proof she's always seemed. |
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| This might be the most glam picture ever taken of (the now ballcap-wearing) Marshall! |
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| Wow. Whole lotta shakin' goin' on! |
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| Next we examine the Life-Style Green ladies. What fun to see Sandra Dee included! |
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| Ms. Sinatra didn't write her own text like most of the other participants. I have never really understood what she did for a living! LOL There were a smattering of acting gigs and a producing job or two surrounding her father, but I can never zero in on why she's famous. The book says she "needs a hairdo that is easy to take care of, because she is so busy." ?? |
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| Too busy to smile? |
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| I love her expression in this photo! |
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| Ms. Walters is the sole participant who did not take a photo WITH Eber (thus denying him another opportunity to eye-fuck the camera - Ha!) She didn't take the quiz or write any text either. Frankly, I think this photo looks a tad ridiculous. |
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| Ms. Warren knew a thing or two about hairstyles, having once been the wife of famed snipper-turned-producer Jon Peters. |
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| Now the Life-Style Blues, starting with exotic Barbara Carrera, who co-starred in When Time Ran Out (1980.) |
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| Carrera was so elegant and mysterious, but I truly doubt that she ever shook her head (darling) at any point in this photo shoot! |
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| Johnny Carson's third wife shook him down for about $20 million if you asked him! In one of those "you can't make this shit up" moments, Johnny married a Joan, then a Joanne, then a Joanna! His final, successful marriage was to an Alexis. |
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| Another of Eber's clients who was closely associated with him and arguably THE most famous of the lot was Cher. But the biggest shock is that she was considered a "Life-Style Blue!" She was clearly busy as hell at all times if she needed a haircut at 1:00am. |
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| Dallas' Linda Gray is one of those people who always seems to be greatly enjoying having her portrait taken. Her enthusiasm always shows through. |
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| I love this photo of Gray! She did eventually cut her hair fairly short on the show, but grew it back out over time. Gray is the only famous actress I've ever seen completely naked in person! (LOL It was during her tour in the stage play "The Graduate.") |
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| This is also a really neat portrait of Ms. McCoo of The Fifth Dimension (and, to my generation, the host of Solid Gold!) |
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| I think this book just bounced off the camp-o-meter with the combination of Eber and Zadora! |
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| I've actually seen Family Dollar cashiers who still sport this exact same hairstyle more than three decades hence! |
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| Be sure to look at this back cover more closely as the photos are different from the ones inside (and thanks to the heavy 1980s makeup, far more garish looking in color!) |
16 comments:
This left me shaking with laughter. I said hoe-say for 30+ years and think part of the reason was the hat. I just assumed he was Hispanic and from the west. And funny you mention "The Big Bus" just watched and it must be by same people as "Airplane" so similar. Maid Adams gorgeous but her hair looks fried. Strange photo choice. Which could also he said about Suzy Cuelho fright 'do on cover. Jamie Lee's hair looks like her Mothers in "The Fog". Lol on banana clips, my Sister still has one. Agreed on glamorous Penny Marshall. I had never seen her look so good. I wonder if Lisa Hartman stayed with Jose on her later crazier hairdos? Too busy to smile also cracked me up. So fun! Thanks Poseidon
His most famous client of all was Liz Taylor, who no doubt encouraged him to torture her hair to new heights! They were also great friends and he was in her infamous wedding to Larry Fortensky ; )
Bonus Eber!
Here's Faye Dunaway making an appearance in a Jose Eber hair product infomercial. While it isn't as epic as Cher's Lori Davis informercials, I kept hoping Faye would scream at the model, "I'd rather have you go to school bald than looking like a tramp!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6Ki--2XthQ
Cheers!
Rick
It's the cast of Hair!
I think Chaz Dean might be the new Jose Eber.
By the way, your comment on Family Dollar cashiers perpetuating the Pia Zadora look is pure genius!
Jose was a bit of a hottie back then...or is it just me?
So much hair hilarity here. I agree that Penny Marshall has probably never looked better and Barbara Carrera looks sleek and stylish as she usually did but some of these women look just awful. Farrah, Pia Zadora Lisa Hartman and Valerie Perrine (most painfully since I love her) all have disasters on their heads.
Everybody else except Ali McGraw, who always looked better in shorter hair, look frizzy or over-processed.
That picture of Barbara Walters could not possibly be more poorly posed if they had tried!
Oh, that pic of of Barbara Walters is just cringey. It's so weird to see someone who is a sort of sexual void, who you couldn't even and don't wanna imagine having any kind of sex, trying to be alluring and sexy.
I laughed at the pic of Joe-zey and Ali MacGraw. It looks like he's trying to simultaneously strangle and drop her to the ground! Joe-zey was everywhere in the 80s it seemed. His cowboy hat intrigued me to no end. That wee feather is so whimsical! I have a sneaking suspicion he wore it constantly because he was balding!
Speaking of celebrity hairstylists, does anyone else remember the soft focus infomercials Cher hosted that aired constantly in the 90s hawking her friend and celebrity hair guru Lori Davis' products? It was set up like a talk show (to make viewers believe Cher hosted a pre-The View gabfest?), and also featured Cher's sister, mom (who is gorgeous by the way) and celebrity friends like Ted Danson (!). I watched it almost every time I stumbled upon it because it was hilarious! Davis looked a whole lot like Miss Piggy with her huge blonde ringlets. I saw some battered bottles of Lori Davis shampoo or something at Target on the clearance aisle years ago and then zilch! Apparently she's still around, shilling her wares online now. I wonder if Cher still uses the "Lori Davis system".
DevilYouKnow, Even funnier was the SNL skit where Christina Applegate did a fair Cher impersonation ("That's shh-ow exshhii-ting!) to Chris Farley's Lori Davis!
Gingerguy, I would never have guessed Jose as French without hearing him speak. He just seemed Hispanic to me, too! As you say, the western look only added to that. I was surprised that Susie Coehlo rated the cover of the book, but wasn't featured inside! Wouldn't a bigger star on the cover have helped to ensure marketing success?! One of the guilty pleasures on Star Magazine in the mid-'80s was seeing what fashion horror and out of the world hairdo Lisa Hartman was going to show up with at this event or the other. Unreal.
Rick, this book was before he worked on La Liz and I had completely forgotten that he was in on her jacked-up look of the 1980s and beyond! Surprisingly, Eber doesn't even rate a page at Wikipedia or I might have visited there and had my fading memory jogged. After her one stay at rehab, when she wrote "Elizabeth Takes Off," her look was sensational, but it got more and more insane as the years went by. Still, she WAS Elizabeth Taylor and could pull most of it off nonetheless. I LOVE the way Faye looks in that informercial clip. Thanks for sharing!
Scooter, is he the WEN guy? I hate when I stumble on an informercial and get sucked in to watching it all the way through... Glad you liked the cashier comment. It's true!
ric biff, it may or may not be you. Jose isn't my type of guy, but he clearly possessed some sort of allure and charisma.
Joel, Valerie Perrine had so much hair at this point that it defies the senses. Isn't California rather windy? Egads! I actually kind of like Ali's hair slicked back severely. But she also had some fun short looks, as you mention. Poor Baba Wawa...
DevilYouKnow, I think with Babs it was also a combination of the awful dress with those horrid pleated pinafore-like sleeves and panty hose (?) with her strappy shoes (complete with visibly scuffed soles.) There's even a little section of stray, curled hairs jutting out on the left (her right) in the photo... WHY?! On a hair book?? I was going to remark on the Ali MacGraw stranglehold and didn't for some reason! LOL As for Jose's hat & hair, I always think of my mom, who never failed to say, "Hairstylists always have the WORST hair themselves!" And YES of course I recall the Miss Piggy-ish Lori Davis and that groundbreaking Cher infomercial! And, Rick, that SNL take-off was hysterical. Chris Farley as Lori Davis was total comic genius!!!!!!!!!!
I forgot that he's to blame for all that frizzed out, over processed look. LOL.
Penny Marshall--wowzah!
That book is a trip!!!!
I hope it's on the Library of Congress ten best self-help books list.
Who’s the (seemingly) older lady in blue on the back cover under Sandra Dee and between Valerie Perrine and Lesley Ann Warren? I didn’t see her in the rest of the post.
Ross, I believe that's Jose's mother, if I recall correctly. He threw in a couple of non-celebs as well.
Paintbrush, not sure how I missed your earlier comment. Sorry about that! Glad you got a kick out of this! :-)
I have a autographed copy made out to Sally Kellerman. They were good friends and she helped him out with the making of this book. I like reading all the answers to his questions the ladies put in there.
That's awesome Megajeff. Thanks for stopping by and for commenting!
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