40 years of Paul Edmonds London: the go-to hair stylist for film and TV

After his Knightsbridge salon became a hit with the 'It' crowd, Paul went on to work with A-list celebrities on hundreds of showbiz projects.

This week, we're continuing our series looking back at Paul's illustrious career as we mark 40 years since the launch of the Paul Edmonds London brand.

After starting out as a hairdressing apprentice in the Midlands, Paul moved to London and opened his first salon in 1984. 

He was asked by Pam Meagre, a make-up designer at the BBC and a client of Paul's, to teach BBC trainees how to cut the classic 'short back and sides' technique to suit period dramas, plus contemporary cutting techniques.

"I ended up teaching for a month every year at the BBC for quite a few years," Paul says. "I was then asked to create refresher courses for the make-up designers. They had seen what I was doing with the trainees and they liked how I worked. After a short while they started bringing their lead artists into the salon and we built up our trusted relationship."

Instead of visiting the sets of TV shows, Paul would cut the actors' hair in salon before shooting began, while his then-wife Liz would do the colour, then the pair would do trims and colour touch-ups throughout the production.

"I remember feeling fairly confident with what I was doing - learning, listening to feedback and adapting how we worked to understand what was needed on screen and having an eye for detail," Paul recalls.

"Although it was a big deal to be doing actors like Michael Gambon, Joanne Walley and Allison Steadman in The Singing Detective, we were rising to the challenges. At this time the team and I were also doing all the main leads in popular T V series such as Casualty, Monarch of the Glen and Lovejoy."

The team also looked after comedy superstars Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders (as well as French's husband Lenny Henry) while they were doing their TV sketch show.  

"It kind of grew from there," Paul says. "I also did John Thaw for Inspector Morse and Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect which had both gained a huge cult following. At the time I sometimes felt like 'Oh my god, are we really doing all this?' I think it was my imposter syndrome kicking in!"

Within a few years, the BBC had closed down its in-house make-up department and all the make-up designers Paul had been working with went freelance, but continued to call upon his services for their TV and film projects.

"I'd made a name for myself and the salon team as hairdressers they could trust to deal with the stars," Paul says. "It's that thing where you're lucky to begin with, then you have to hang on to that luck and come up with the goods every time - you're only as good as your last cut or colour."

LEARNING ON THE JOB

Working on a huge range of entertainment industry productions was a fantastic learning experience for Paul.

"I learned how make-up designers break down a script," he explains. 

"When they're given a script they start looking at the different people in the cast and then work with the director to put the looks together. The main thing to consider is how that character might change during the series or film."

Paul's first feature film experience, on the 1982 Best Picture Oscar winner Chariots of Fire, came before his BBC breakthrough. 

"A make-up artist just happened to come into the salon I was working in - this was before I had my own salon," he recalls. 

"They asked if anyone could do a 1920s-style short back and sides. I said 'Yeah, I can do that,' so I ended up doing a lot of the cast for that. It wasn't until the film came out that I realised I'd been part of something so iconic."

His encyclopaedic knowledge of hair history often came in useful. 

The House of Elliot was a drama series about a pair of sisters who open a fashion house following the death of their father: "They started off with long, 1910s hair, but when it got to the 20s, Stella Gonet, who played one of the sisters, had her hair in 'shingle' bob and Louise Lombard had a short, blunt bob."

Paul also used his historical expertise to create looks for the long-running TV series Downton Abbey.

"We had to match the hair to definite eras, and it was a case of making people not look glamorous, especially the below-stairs characters. It was a lot of 'drabbing down' and making them look real. I have worked with a great hair and make designer called Anne Oldham for years, who has taught me loads about film hair. They've just wrapped what is set to be the final Downton Abbey film so we've had Michelle Dockery, Paul Giamatti and a few other stars back in the salon recently."

In another example of 'drabbing down', for big-budget movie In the Heart of the Sea (2015), award-winning make-up designer Fae Hammond utilised our brilliant colourist Tracy Paterson to make actors including Cillian Murphy and Ben Whishaw look like they'd been sailing the high seas for months.

"They started off with quite dark, short hair and then it gradually got longer, more sun-bleached and wrecked," Paul explains. "It was going against what you normally do as a hairdresser, which is trying to make people look good."

Occasionally, he's been caught out by a miscommunication, as was the case when American actor Rami Malek came into the salon for a cut before and during the shooting of Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.

"After a few weeks, Rami told me he was going away for a few days and on his return would be in a long wig for two weeks. He wanted his hair to be shorter so I cut it shorter than usual," Paul says.

"Jan Sewell, the amazing make-up designer and, thankfully, my friend, rang me when Rami returned to the studio and said, 'We are doing the opening sequence for the film and his hair is really a bit too short,' so she'd had to add hair. I told her I thought he was going to be in a long wig. That taught me a big lesson: always check everything with the designer before changing anything."

A funny incident happened after Jon Hamm and Daniel Radcliffe had come to the salon to have their hair cut for their characters in the film A Young Doctor's Notebook. 

"The following evening I went out with a group of girlfriends to the Hamyard Hotel in Soho," Paul remembers.

"While I was there I said, 'I think Jon Hamm is staying here while he's filming and I've just cut his hair.' They were all suitably impressed and one said, 'So are you expecting him to walk into the bar and tell you you did a great haircut?' I said, 'No of course not.' At that moment Jon came into the bar and said to me, 'Paul, my partner thinks this is the best haircut ever and I will definitely be back.' My friends melted. That taught them!"

More than four decades after his first film, Paul says he's still learning. 

"Donald Mowat, an incredible make-up designer we had worked with on Dune 1 and 2 phoned me from Spain, where he had started filming last year's Guy Ritchie action thriller The Covenant. He tasked me with cutting leading man Jake Gyllenhaal's hair in the UK the evening before Jake was flying to Spain.

"The unusual thing was I had to do the cut while Donald talked to me and Jake on Zoom and explained how to create the perfect 'undone-done' haircut look."

Paul's role was reversed four weeks later when Gyllenhaal's hair had grown out and needed a trim.

"Donald said, 'We don't have time to fly you out so could you do a Zoom call and talk to the hairdresser who's doing Jake's hair here on set?' I had to talk her through doing the trim, something I'd never imagined doing before. I felt so sorry for her because she was trying to take my instructions while working and with Jake holding a camera! It did work out well, thankfully."

CHOPPING AND CHANGING

Paul has been responsible for some major makeovers throughout the years.

He first did Emma Thompson's hair when she was recommended by Alan Rickman, whose hair he'd been cutting since the 1990 romantic comedy Truly Madly Deeply. The actors were working together on the 1997 film The Winter Guest.

"Emma came in with long, blonde, very Californian-looking hair and said, 'For this part, I'm playing a woman that is just getting over her partner dying. I want it to look like I've cut my hair off and dyed it red,'" Paul remembers.

"It was one of those things where I thought, this can go one of two ways, she's either going to love me or hate me. Thankfully she loved me!"

He continued to work with Thompson as her career went from strength to strength: "When she did Love, Actually she wanted to look like a Sloaney mum, not too glamorous, then on Men in Black she had bleached, short hair, to look like she was strong and in control."

Having to change their hair so often, actors often came in with very damaged locks.

"Margot Robbie had been very, very blonde for The Wolf of Wall Street and her hair was in a very bad state when she came over here to film Tarzan, which she needed red hair for," Paul says.

"Fae Hammond, the hair designer on the film, entrusted us to get it right. We had the very rare occurrence of being given three months to get her hair back into good condition and get it to a natural redhead shade. Our great creative colour director Tracey Patterson sorted out the colour and condition, then I did the trim. Margot then became a regular at the salon when she was living in London."

For fantasy series Good Omens in 2023, the team worked with make-up designer Anne Oldham to transform a pair of much-loved Brit actors. 

"Michael Sheen had his hair bleached to play an angel," Paul explains. "He had it done in a really bright yellow, while David Tennant had quite shockingly red hair. You might think on a day-to-day level that isn't going to be the best look, but it actually worked really well for the two roles."

RECURRING ROLES

Because so many British stars head across the pond to pursue their dream of Hollywood stardom, sometimes it can be years, or even decades, before they return to the salon.

"I did Catherine Zeta-Jones for The Darling Buds of May TV show when it first came out in the early 80s," Paul recalls.

"Tara McDonald brought her back in when she came back for the Dad's Army film [in 2016]. She'd been living in Los Angeles and married to Michael Douglas, which is why I next saw her on a Zoom call with her husband when was having his hair done for Antman and the Wasp. Actors might disappear off to America or wherever they are working and you may not see them for years, and then they come back, which is really lovely."

Other stars have become close friends of Paul's. He was asked to work with then up-and-coming singer Sam Smith around 10 years ago.

"I went to see them sing and he made me cry," Paul says. "I thought 'Oh my god, this guy's got the voice of an angel, I have to work with him. We became friends and now it feels like I've known them forever."

Paul jetted to Los Angeles to get Smith ready for his performance at the 2016 Oscars. The singer won the award for Best Song for Writing's on the Wall from the James Bond Spectre soundtrack.

"I've travelled with Sam a lot to America and different places doing their hair and that's been amazing. Sometimes I wonder if I'll gradually do less behind-the-scenes work but I'm still doing it!"

PASSING ON THE BATON

Nowadays, if a hairdresser is needed on set, Paul will usually dispatch one of his trusted team members.

"We have key members on the colour and styling team who work with actors," he says.

"Zoe Rodgers has done work on many films, as have Steven Kamara, Charlotte Lewis, and Tracey Patterson. Without them doing the colour, extensions or perms it wouldn't be a complete look."

What does it take to succeed on set? "You need people who you trust, and also people that can cope with stuff being thrown at them at the last second." Case in point: the first two films in sci-fi series Dune.

"With the first Dune film, Rebecca Ferguson's hair had been coloured by someone else and it wasn't looking right on camera, so Donald Mowat, the make-up and hair designer, phoned and asked if we could help," Paul explains.

"She came into the salon to get her colour sorted out with Charlotte Lewis and I cut it. When it came to the second film, Rebecca had short blonde bobbed hair from her last job and it needed to go back to the long rich brown hair she had before, so it was arranged that she would have extensions put in and her hair coloured. It looked amazing, so our colourist Charlotte ended up flying out to Budapest and doing the colour not only for Rebecca but also Zendaya and Lea Seydoux during filming."

BECOMING A BAFTA MEMBER

In 2018, Paul became a member of BAFTA (the British Academy of Film and Television Arts) in recognition of his work on hundreds of movies and series, meaning he gets to vote in the hair and make-up categories of the annual Film Awards.

"It's a bit of a double-edged sword because you have to watch about two films a night from August onwards, before the voting begins," he says.

"But I love being able to see all the nominated films and performances. Having worked on so many films I can appreciate how much effort it takes to get a film made. I also know how long and painstaking the creative journey can be to get that story to the screen and the sweat that goes into making that couple of hours of entertainment."

For several years, Paul Edmonds London was one of the official sponsors of the awards, working closely with the BAFTA hair and make-up team to get the stars ready for the red carpet.

Although the brand no longer sponsors the awards, Paul continues to attend the glitzy ceremonies: "It's great because I get to catch up with actors and celebs whose hair I do or have done in the past, and sometimes I may not have seen them for years. I love it. I also love how BAFTA works as a charity helping young and emerging talent in front of and behind the camera to find success."

40 years of showbiz success

It's not easy to succeed in the fickle world of film and TV, but thanks to his incredible work ethic and dedication to his craft, Paul has remained a trusted industry expert over the span of more than four decades.

Next time, we'll be looking at how Paul has contributed to hairdressing education, his role in the government's apprenticeship scheme, and what the future holds for the Paul Edmonds London brand.

Want to experience Paul or Paul's teams exceptional skills in  hair colour and styling? Book an appointment with the man himself  or his team at Paul Edmonds London.