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4 min read<\/p>\n4 min read<\/p>\n
Many women view the salon chair as a sort of confessional, but few stylists can say they\u2019ve served as a confidant to a client list as impressive as Peter Lamas\u2019s. Over the course of his decades-long career, Peter has worked with everyone from Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor, to Audrey Hepburn and Diana Ross. He was there for the shaping of Mia Farrow\u2019s iconic Rosemary\u2019s Baby pixie, a look he doesn\u2019t recommend for everyone\u2014\u201cPixie cuts, you have to be careful with. That’s a very daring, youthful look, and it doesn’t work on everyone. If you happen to be having a large frame or a round face, I don’t recommend it because a pixie cut pronounces the features.\u201d And he did Judy Garland\u2019s hair for her wake. \u201cPeter, will you make my mother beautiful one last time?\u201d her daughter Liza said to him. \u201cHow could I refuse?\u201d he thought.<\/p>\n
But perhaps his most significant working partnership was with Jackie Kennedy, a relationship he details in his new book, Jackie Kennedy\u2019s Stylist<\/a>.<\/p>\n Peter, a Cuban-born immigrant who moved to New York in his teens, found early success in the city working with some of the biggest names in hair. \u201cI had the opportunity to meet Vidal Sassoon and Paul Mitchell when they first opened up on Madison Avenue, and I became an apprentice. They were my mentors. They tested me. They saw my talent and appreciated what I had to offer,\u201d he tells T&C.<\/p>\n \u201cSassoon took a great interest in me and the rest is history. And then I joined Kenneth Battelle\u2019s salon. And that was as exciting as Vidal. With the kind of clientele Kenneth was bringing in, the models and the hip people and music, and so on, Kenneth Salon was the mecca for high society.\u201d<\/p>\n Naturally, that\u2019s where Peter met Jackie. Kenneth was known for styling the former first lady\u2019s signature bouffant (and Marilyn Monroe\u2019s iconic blonde locks, but that\u2019s another story). But one day, he was unavailable to work with her, and asked Peter to fill in.<\/p>\n \u201cHe said, \u2018I’m not going to be around tomorrow. You’ll be doing Jacqueline Kennedy\u2019s hair,\u2019\u201d Peter recalls. \u201cAnd I got all shook up, let me say, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n Jackie was a fan of Peter\u2019s work, and he started to fill in doing her hair whenever Battelle was busy. Eventually, when the paparazzi made it unbearable for Jackie to visit the salon (this was the late 1960s, when photographers including the notorious Ron Galella<\/a> were aggressively pursuing her in public, trying to take her picture), Peter became her go-to stylist, as Kenneth didn\u2019t make house calls.<\/p>\n \u201cI became the convenient, talented stylist that had scissors, would travel,\u201d he says. Those scissors took him all the way to Skorpios island in Greece in 1968 for Jackie’s intimate wedding to Aristotle Onassis<\/a>.<\/p>\n Jackie and Ari Onassis on their wedding day in 1968.<\/p>\n \u201cThroughout the celebrations, I noticed the complex emotions on display\u2014the Kennedy family\u2019s polite but reserved smiles, [Jackie\u2019s sister] Lee\u2019s somewhat forced enthusiasm, and Jackie\u2019s expression that was serene but not quite ecstatic,\u201d he writes in the book.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d gotten to know two Jackies over the years. There was Jackie Kennedy\u2014widow of JFK, perfectly composed, a little shy, dignified in a way that felt both natural and carefully guarded. When I worked on her hair then, she carried herself like someone the whole country was watching, which of course they were. She was quiet, gracious, aware of every gesture. Then she married Onassis and became Jackie O. It wasn\u2019t vulgar or anything like that. But something shifted.\u201d<\/p>\n Both versions of Jackie, he tells T&C, were confident. \u201cShe carried herself with an incredible attitude and femininity and personality, and she was intelligent. She opened her mouth and you wanted to hear what she had to say.\u201d<\/p>\n One evening, many years after the wedding in Greece, Peter did Jackie\u2019s hair for an event at Lincoln Center celebrating President Kennedy\u2019s legacy. As her hair processed, Jackie began to speak about the assassination, something she had never brought up to Peter before. She mentioned the Zapruder film<\/a>, and her fears in that moment that she would be killed as well, and that her children would be orphans. And she shared her thoughts on who actually shot JFK.<\/p>\n \u201cOswald was a stooge,\u201d Jackie said, according to Peter. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty obvious he didn\u2019t kill my husband.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter also recalls that Jackie believed Marilyn Monroe had been murdered. \u201cMarilyn didn\u2019t kill herself. She was murdered. You can bet on it,\u201d she said, in Peter\u2019s recollection, noting that the movie star was killed by \u201cthe same people who killed my husband.\u201d Jackie didn\u2019t offer any further details.<\/p>\n That conversation about the death of President Kennedy, is \u201chard to talk about\u201d even today, Peter says, but it illustrates the relationship he had with Jackie, and the trust she had in him.<\/p>\n \u201cI think most stylists will reveal this to you. We become sort of like a trusted psychotherapist, or a confessional priest,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen you’re doing somebody’s hair, doing their makeup, advising them on skincare, anything that has to do with their appearance, they become confidants. They trust you because you are handling one of their most important, valuable assets: how they look.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the stories gathered from decades of interactions with some of society and Hollywood\u2019s biggest names, Peter says his book isn\u2019t a gossipy tell-all. Rather, \u201cIt\u2019s my story, my humble beginnings. It’s my journey of having big dreams, and being able to help people.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Jackie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/4816a435-491d-4da4-84f9-1ccf45de7934.jpeg\" "\\"Jackie")
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