Gavin Hodge; Hairdresser noted as much for his elopement with a 16-year-old debutante as for his skills with the scissors
Hyfler/Rosner
Gavin Hodge, who has died aged 65, was one of the first
celebrity hairdressers, and became known as much for his
sexual conquests as for his skills with the scissors; his
era was the 1960s and 1970s, when the crimper emerged from
the shadows of the salon to become a sought-after man about
town.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/celebrity-obituaries/6469294/Gavin-Hodge.html
Hodge first came to public attention aged 23, in July 1968,
when he eloped with a 16-year-old debutante and aspiring
show jumper, Jayne Harries.
The daughter of a self-made multimillionaire, Jayne climbed
out of her bedroom at her parents' Surrey home at 2am
clutching a mink coat and fled with Hodge to Portugal,
causing a sensation in the press. On August 2 1968 they
married in Gibraltar, Time magazine describing Jayne as
"Britain's runaway of the year"; but the union was not
destined to last.
Gavin Robert Hodge was born at Bromley, Kent, on October 2
1944, the son of a Fleet Street proof reader who later
worked for The Sun. Aged 15 Gavin left Quernmore School,
Bromley, to be apprenticed at Evansky's, a hairdressing
salon in Chelsea.
Five years later he was taken on by Leonard, which was
then - with Vidal Sassoon - one of the two most fashionable
salons in London. At that time a woman might have her hair
done every day, and Gavin showed a particular skill for
putting up hair in the style then required for balls and
other formal parties. It was at Leonard that he first
encountered Jayne Harries, who came to him frequently when
she was doing the season.
Hodge and his bride spent lots of money, partied at Arethusa
and crashed their new E-type Jaguar near Sloane Square.
Then, after only 15 months' marriage, she left him. (Within
six years she was to die of blood poisoning after injecting
herself with heroin from a dirty needle.)
Heartbroken by her leaving, Hodge drove to Marbella on his
motorcycle, where he opened a salon called Gotama and had a
daughter, Miranda, by a Swedish model called Kirstin
Widlund. He was later to describe this period as "lovely - a
bunch of freaks carrying on with the Sixties in the
sunshine, taking lots of acid". After three years he
returned to London, opening a branch of Gotama in the King's
Road.
In 1975 Hodge married his second wife, Jan Burdette, whose
ball-gowned figure had caught his eye when he was driving
along Chelsea Embankment in his camper van. They were to
have two daughters.
In common with plenty of others of his generation, Hodge now
began to invest more energy in having fun than in his
career. Gotama closed in the early 1980s, and in between
parties he cut the hair of favoured clients at his home in
Battersea. His friends during this period included the
Marquess of Blandford, Tony Hicks (of The Hollies) and the
rock music publicist Tony Brainsby.
In a tabloid newspaper article in 1980 Hodge improbably
claimed to have slept with 2,000 women, and to have been the
inspiration for the film Shampoo, starring Warren Beatty. He
later admitted: "The article was mostly bull****. But I was
off my trolley then doing drugs. My main addiction is women.
Give me a female and I'm happy."
Exhausted by long-term overindulgence, in 1983 Hodge checked
into the rehabilitation clinic Broadway Lodge. The treatment
was successful, and he emerged to open a chain of eponymous
salons, in Covent Garden, Soho and Camden Town. He also took
over Sweeny's, a well-known hairdressers in Beauchamp Place,
Knightsbridge.
For a time all seemed to be going well. Then, in 1989, Hodge
was devastated by the sudden death from a virus of his
youngest daughter, nine-year-old Candy. He started drinking
again, and gradually his salons closed down; he was also
suffering from arthritis, a common affliction among
hairdressers. He continued, however, to preside at Sweeny's,
where women came to impart their secrets and hear the latest
gossip.
In 1994 Hodge bumped into Diana, Princess of Wales, in
Beauchamp Place (Sweeny's was next door to the clinic where
the Princess underwent her colonic irrigation). They had met
a few days earlier at a party given by Tatler magazine, and
the old rou� confided: "I wanted to ask you to dance, but
you were surrounded by men." "You coward! They were all
duds," replied the Princess.
He finally closed Sweeny's in 2000 and effectively retired,
although he continued privately to attend to the hair of a
few close friends.
Gavin Hodge died of a pulmonary illness on October 22. His
marriage to Jan Burdette was dissolved in 1992, and he never
married again; he is survived by his daughters Miranda and
Gavanndra.
La N
"Hyfler/Rosner" <rel...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:hcli5u$k0o$1...@reader1.panix.com...
>
> Gavin Hodge, who has died aged 65, was one of the first celebrity
> hairdressers, and became known as much for his sexual conquests as for his
> skills with the scissors; his era was the 1960s and 1970s, when the
> crimper emerged from the shadows of the salon to become a sought-after man
> about town.
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/celebrity-obituaries/6469294/Gavin-Hodge.html
>
>
What a story. What a life.
- nilita
Kris Baker
news:jcsHm.51176$PH1.540@edtnps82...
His life may have resembled that in the film Shampoo, but
the film was based on Jon Peters' and Jay Sebring's Hollywood.
Kinda makes you wonder what Jay Sebring's later life would have
been like, if he'd not been with Sharon Tate the night the Mansons
did their creepy-crawly.
Kris
La N
"Kris Baker" <paralle...@ggmail.com> wrote in message
news:7l71rpF...@mid.individual.net...
>>
>> What a story. What a life.
>>
>> - nilita
>
> His life may have resembled that in the film Shampoo, but
> the film was based on Jon Peters' and Jay Sebring's Hollywood.
Bingo! I figured there was something not quite right about his claiming to
be the inspiration.
>
> Kinda makes you wonder what Jay Sebring's later life would have
> been like, if he'd not been with Sharon Tate the night the Mansons
> did their creepy-crawly.
>
Yes. Forever young they will be in people's memories.
- nilita