Jeffrey Sacino, Emmy-nominated hair stylist, passed away on July 1st from a heart attack at the age of 72, per The Hollywood Reporter. Sacino served as key hair stylist on 86 episodes of The West Wing (created by Aaron Sorkin). He also worked on films such as Cobb (directed by Ron Shelton), Pollock (directed by Ed Harris), and The Kingdom (directed by Peter Berg).
Sacino worked with Laura Linney (Ozark, The Big C) on many television shows throughout his career, including the two PBS miniseries Tales of the City (directed by Alastair Reid) and More Tales of the City (directed by Pierre Gang). He also worked with Harris (The Truman Show, Appaloosa) again on the TNT television film Riders of the Purple Sage (directed by Charles Haid). Dave Cobb, Sacino’s longtime friend and former executive of Paramount and Thinkwell Group, remembered, “Many times I would stop by his house in Los Feliz and Laura Linney would be getting a haircut between projects or Ed Harris would be sitting at his breakfast nook just hanging out” (The Hollywood Reporter).
Sacino received his Emmy nomination for his work on the 1991 CBS television film Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter (director Charles Jarrott). The movie “tells the story of Lucille Ball (France Fisher, Titanic) and Desi Arnaz (Maurice Benard, General Hospital). It begins in the 1930’s when they met as actors under contract at RKO and ends with their divorce in 1960. In between we see how their careers developed, their often rocky marriage, and how they came to develop the groundbreaking and iconic I Love Lucy show” (IMDB). The movie is rich with vintage hairstyles reminiscent of the I Love Lucy era.
In a 1987 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Sacino stressed his commitment to accurate hair styles, saying, “I’ve saved and collected magazines from the early ’40s: all the Vogues, the Bazaars, Vanity Fairs. I have a lot of art books, hair books. They don’t have to be beauty books; that’s not the idea. You want to know what [ordinary] people wore” (Los Angeles Times).
After retirement, Sacino opened a hair salon with his partner, Henry Soros, who lives in Heber City, Utah.