Ever wondered why celebrities such as Julia Roberts, Ariana Grande and Ed Sheeran always appear to have such lustrous locks? Perhaps their beautiful barnets owe as much to careful nurturing as they do to nature! Our resident Stephanie, who was a three-times Emmy-nominated hairdresser to the rich and famous and a masterclass guru, can no doubt tell us all a thing or two about that.
Having been taken along as a young girl to film sets by her hair stylist mother, Stephanie knew very early on that her she wanted to follow in her mother’s footsteps. At the age of 24 she began training at the prestigious, world-renowned Wig Creations of London, run by Stanley Hall who created wigs for screen legend Mae West, among many others. The company designed and supplied hairpieces to the BBC, ITV, theatres, opera companies and film studios. Its creations featured in such well-loved favourites as My Fair Lady and Cleopatra, while its hair stylists tended to the hair needs of Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh, Katherine Hepburn, Sophia Loren and many others.
Young Stephanie made wigs for both Princess Margaret and her husband Anthony Armstrong-Jones, later breaking into film hairdressing. In the course of her forty-year career, she worked on the set of over 150 films directed by the likes of Michael Winner, David Lynch, Ken Russell, and Sir Richard Attenborough, tending to such big screen luminaries as Lawrence Olivier, Lauren Bacall, Vanessa Redgrave, Rachel Welch, Orson Welles, Omar Sharif, Dame Maggie Smith, Oliver Reed, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Hopkins, Roger Moore and Sean Connery.
Stephanie also shared her wisdom and knowledge of period hair styling via a series of intensive masterclasses.
“I really enjoyed my career,” she says. “I met so many wonderful people and worked on some really interesting films.
It’s tempting to ask who was the nicest film star she worked with. “There are quite a few but I have to confess that Anthony Hopkins was a particular favourite,” she admits.
Alongside her stellar career, Stephanie married and is the proud mother of Mark and Sam, and she also has two grand daughters.