As if New York didn’t have enough...
As if New York didn’t have enough top-notch hair stylists to last everyone a lifetime, Madeline Kahn now flies to Los Angeles once a month to be coiffed by that stylist to the stars, Allen Edwards. He tells Listen that another of his regular clients, Lesley Ann Warren, gave Kahn his number. And he’s been handling the upkeep of her short, beveled, 1930s-type bob for the past six months or so. Not that Kahn and Warren are going to start looking as if they’ve come from the same salon chair, so to speak. Edwards says: “Lesley wears her hair long and wild now.”
More tidbits from Allen Edwards’ notebook: Actress Deborah Foreman, co-star of the new movie “My Chauffeur,” appears on screen as “smooth and blown dry,” he says. But in real life, he adds: “She likes her hair to stand up straight on top, get scrunched all over, go layered, long and wild. And it’s a deep purple color.” Edwards should know. He says he’s the guy who cut it.
Only emerald would suffice when Marilyn McCoo presented a trophy to Kool and the Gang at the American Music Awards the other night. Jerry Skeels and Randy McLaughlin (they design under the Jeran label) say the singer walked in for a fitting of her Las Vegas gowns and walked out with a jewel--a green, crystal-beaded cocktail dress known as “the emerald.” Then she topped the treasure with emerald earrings and a bracelet. For her upcoming Las Vegas appearance, Skeels says, McCoo requested not jewels but six “youthful, with-it” gowns, to give her enough costume changes for two shows a night. And speaking of on-stage switches, Listen didn’t count, but Mimi Bergere of ABC-TV did. She tells us that during the three-hour televised Music Awards show, Diana Ross made no less than 17 costume changes.
Never one to be overdressed, Olympic swimmer Steve Lundquist will wear shorts and not much more during an upcoming swimwear TV special called “Splash ’86.” He and fellow ’84 Olympic swimming gold medalist Rowdy Gaines will co-host the cable show, which airs on ESPN next month. Lundquist, who has not entered a pool for so much as a lap since ‘84, admits he and chum Gaines required 30 takes to tape some of their repartee. “We didn’t have cue cards,” says the 24-year-old, who is now pursuing an acting career in Los Angeles. “And we’re such good friends that we started cutting jokes.” Lundquist tells Listen that he got the easier end of the hosting duties. The script called for Gaines to swim through icy waves off Venice Beach, while Lundquist merely watched through binoculars.
One of the country’s leading T-shirt makers was so impressed with the Chicago Bears’ performance last Sunday that its T-shirt presses started rolling at the end of the third quarter of the Super Bowl. At Indianapolis-based Logo 7, which had about half a million shirt orders to fill before the game even began, presses began moving between 8 and 8:30 p.m. EST. First shirts off the presses featured the words “Chicago Bears, Super Bowl Champs, Super Bowl XX” plus a picture of an official Chicago Bear helmet. According to Mike Kistler, the firm’s chief operating officer, the shirts were selling in Chicago by 8 a.m. Monday morning--and throughout the country shortly after that. The firm will provide nine designs celebrating the Bear victory on T-shirts, sweat shirts and jerseys. In addition, it will offer five embroidered versions for sweaters, golf shirts and jackets. Not all the orders have been filled as yet, though. “We’re running 5,000 to 6,000 dozen a day,” Kistler says. “It will take us all of this week and into the next to finish.” The Bear merchandise will be available at department stores and T-shirt shops throughout the country.
The new Kenneth Jay Lane boutique on Rodeo Drive is scheduled to open April Fools’ Day. And that’s no joke. The shop, which will replace the Fendi store at 441 N. Rodeo Drive, will initially carry costume jewelry (starting at $25 for a pair of earrings and going up to about $200) and belts. Handbags will be added eventually, Lane told Listen, adding that he’s “just started opening boutiques in America and, naturally, Rodeo was a place I wanted one.” There are three Kenneth Jay Lane boutiques in London, two in Paris and two in New York City, with a third scheduled to open on Madison Avenue later this year. “The nice thing about my shops,” Lane says, “is that most of them are one quick leap from the best hotels.”
We can’t pinpoint the source of the rumor, but a quick call to Diane Carter at the L.A. press office of the play “Tamara” confirms that there may soon be a fragrance named after the long-running production. This would probably be the first time a play has spawned a perfume. Carter says Barrie Wexler, one of the show’s producers, mentioned the fragrant development during a recent visit here from his base in Toronto, Canada. There may be a men’s scent as well as a women’s scent, she adds. But such questions as who will produce it, where it will be produced, even what the products will really be named are questions Carter says she cannot answer at this point.
