Olive Lee Benson, Hair Stylist Who Received National Acclaim, 72

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Olive Lee (Battle) Benson, the Vidal Sassoon of Boston's
[Massachusetts] African-American community, died Sunday in her
Brookline, Massachusetts, home, at the age of 72.

A vivacious woman with a national reputation and a devoted local
clientele, Mrs. Benson was the proprietor of Olive's Beauty Salon on
Boylston Street in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Pop vocalist Diana
Ross, actress Ruby Dee, and local TV journalists Sarah-Ann Shaw and Liz
Walker were among her clients, and a trip to her salon was a rite of
passage for countless up-and-coming young professionals throughout the
Greater Boston area.

"She was a wonderful free-spirited woman who was committed to the hair
industry and uplifting people's spirits," said Donna Adams Chaplin of
Boston, a stylist who worked with Mrs. Benson for 17 years.

"She could transform people so they had the hair they always dreamed of
and that was a talent and a gift," her daughter Stephanie Aguillard of
Jamaica Plain, a manager of the salon, said yesterday. "There are
people, particularly biracial people who have never had their hair done
right. I've seen people cry they were so happy after she did their
hair."

That is not to say all her customers were African Americans.

"Nappy and kinky hair are associated with black hair, but regardless of
your skin color you can have excessively curly hair," Mrs Benson said
in a story published in the Globe in 1999.

As Mrs. Benson often pointed out, she and her staff were trained to do
any kind of hair.

Mrs. Benson often shared her hair care tips with Essence, Vogue, and
other magazines. Some of the advice she shared with Essence readers:
"Don't sleep in rollers;" "Use a satin pillowcase, wrap or cap instead
of a cotton one which absorbs moisture and oil;" and "There is no such
thing as zero-maintenance black hair."

She was raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "I was the ninth of 10
children and my father couldn't afford to send me to college," she said
in a story published in the Globe in 1974. "He gave me $50 when I got
out of high school and told me to do what I knew best."

That was styling hair. "Since I made money fixing my neighbor's hair as
a kid, I figured I might be able to make a living as a hair stylist,"
she said.

After she graduated from the Wilfred Academy of Hair and Beauty, she
took a job in Cambridge, but the owner fired her because she was too
popular with the customers, she said. When the same thing happened at a
second salon, she decided to open her own shop.

She applied for a loan from a Cambridge bank and was turned down. She
financed her shop on Concord Avenue with $800 of her own savings.

When she outgrew the Cambridge shop, she wanted to expand on Boylston
Street in Boston, but the real estate agent said the spaces she was
interested in were already rented.

She called her friend, attorney Lawrence Shubow, and told him she was
being discriminated against.

"He rented it, then told them it was for me and that they had violated
state law refusing to rent to me. So they didn't bother me anymore,"
Mrs. Benson said in 1993.

Later, when she failed to win style competitions, she switched from
black models to white models and began winning first prize. When the
local hairdressing organization passed her over as chairwoman, she
enrolled in the National Cosmetology Association, which later named her
to its hall of fame.

In 2004, she was selected to be codirector of hair styling and makeup
for the speakers at the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

"Every time a door closed on me, I opened it," she said in a story
published in the Globe in 1993.

"She had dreams and goals and wasn't going to let her race or gender
keep her from where she wanted to go," said her daughter.

But she never forgot that the customer always comes first. "She loved
people and she loved making people feel good," said Chaplin.

In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Benson leaves three children, Debra
Ann St. Louis of Florida, Thomasine E. Walden, and Diana L.; six
siblings, Henry B. Battle Jr., Anita P. Reed, Philip S. Battle,
Virginia N. Turner, Lillian C. Christmas, and Edith B. Gonsal-Wilson;
and four grandchildren.

Boston Globe

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