Movie Star Haircut

It was a plain little barber shop. Not one of those shi shi Brentwood salons, all high modern, black and white, in which the women stylists each appeared as if they, themselves, not their patrons, were the movie stars, but a plain red, white, and blue barber-poled, store-front shop, right out of the 1950s, with just two old-fashioned cracked leather barber chairs, and only one gray headed barber still working.

Max had been cutting hair in Santa Monica since 1970, which meant that he had seen quite a bit of history in men’s hair fashion and had cut some pretty important “heads”. Richard liked Max’s shop because it felt safe and secure and because Max didn’t expect a tip the size of the national debt each time Richard came in for a trim, which took about 8 minutes to complete, because Richard liked to come in every two weeks, so that his hair always looked perfectly neat.

“Hey ‘George Clooney,’ ” Max jested in Richard’s direction, as Richard walked through the small store-front door, and the little metal bell tinkled to announce his arrival. “Made any good movies lately?”