30 Facts About Vidal Sassoon

Vidal Sassoon was a British hairstylist and businessman.

Vidal Sassoon was noted for repopularising a simple, close-cut geometric hairstyle called the five-point cut, worn by famous fashion designers including Mary Quant and film stars such as Mia Farrow, Goldie Hawn, Cameron Diaz, Nastassja Kinski and Helen Mirren.

Vidal Sassoon quit school at age 14, soon holding various jobs in London during World War II.

Vidal Sassoon sold his business interests in the early 1980s and began funding Israeli think tanks with his profits.

In 2009, Sassoon was appointed CBE by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.

Vidal Sassoon was born to Jewish parents in Hammersmith, West London, and lived nearby in Shepherd's Bush.

Vidal Sassoon's mother, Betty, an Ashkenazi Jew, was born in Aldgate, in the East End of London, in 1900.

Vidal Sassoon's family had emigrated to England from Russian Empire in the 1880s to escape the antisemitism and pogroms then prevalent.

Vidal Sassoon's father, Jack Sassoon, a Sephardi Jew, was born in Thessaloniki, in the northern part of Greece.

Vidal Sassoon's father abandoned the family for another woman when Vidal was three years old.

Vidal Sassoon remembered often standing in line to use it in freezing weather.

Vidal Sassoon's mother was only allowed to visit them once a month and was never allowed to take them out.

Vidal Sassoon attended Essendine Road Primary School, a Christian school of about a thousand children.

Vidal Sassoon arrived in Mandatory Palestine in April 1948, a month before Israeli independence.

Vidal Sassoon fought in the Negev against the Egyptian Army.

Vidal Sassoon opened his first salon in 1954 in London; singer-actress Georgia Brown, his friend and neighbour, claimed to be his first customer.

The hairstyles created by Vidal Sassoon relied on dark, straight, and shiny hair cut into geometric yet organic shapes.

Peggy Moffitt's hairstyle, an asymmetrical bowl cut created by Vidal Sassoon, became known as the "five point".

Vidal Sassoon sold his business interests in the early 1980s to devote himself to philanthropy.

Vidal Sassoon had a short-lived television series called Your New Day with Vidal Sassoon, which aired in 1980.

Vidal Sassoon was twice a guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, on 27 June 1970 and 9 October 2011, when he was Resident Thinker on the Nowhereisland art project.

Vidal Sassoon was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in the 2009 Birthday Honours.

Vidal Sassoon was married four times, first to Elaine Wood, his salon receptionist, in 1956; the marriage ended in 1958.

Vidal Sassoon's third wife was Jeanette Hartford-Davis, a dressage champion and former fashion model; they married in 1983 and divorced soon after.

Vidal Sassoon started the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, or SICSA, in 1982.

Vidal Sassoon was active in supporting relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina.

In June 2011, it was reported that Vidal Sassoon had been diagnosed with leukemia two years earlier.

Vidal Sassoon died from the disease on 9 May 2012 at his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, in the presence of his family.

Vidal Sassoon was definitely the most innovative person ever to enter the industry.

Vidal Sassoon led the way for the celebrity stylists of today.