Going Head to Head : The mentor: Maurice Azoulay has returned after fleeing the hairdresser heydays. He says customers’ present attitudes are more realistic.

Maurice Azoulay’s life has finally come full circle. The Moroccan-born, Paris-bred hairdresser who shampooed his way to the top of the coif business in the 1970s and cut out of it in the 1980s, has resurfaced on his old stomping ground.

But this is a new Maurice Azoulay. The former co-owner of Maurice Jose, the Beverly Hills hair salon named for Azoulay and business partner Jose Eber, has put his wild, “live for parties” lifestyle behind him, reacquainted himself with his 12-year-old son and cemented his 13-year marriage to artist Carla Cambiaghi.

Likewise, the shy Azoulay is taking an “out in front” approach to life these days by putting his full name on the marquis of his new 5,000-square-foot Wilshire Boulevard hair salon.

And while he is enjoying the benefits of the spotlight he once avoided, he is most content being able to once again run his fingers through the famous locks of onetime clients Jacqueline Bisset, Anjelica Huston and Kelly Le Brock, as well as long-term, real-world, devoted followers.

With the celebrity hairdresser phenomenon of the 1970s (personified best by Warren Beatty in the 1970s film, “Shampoo”) transferred to fashion and interior designers in the 1980s, Azoulay says the present attitude about hair care agrees with him.

“Today people aren’t willing to accept all the celebrity hairdresser bull,” he says. “Everyone works, people have money. But they don’t have time to be kept waiting by a self-important hairdresser.”

Although he shunned the celebrity spotlight many years ago, Azoulay knows how far a name and a face can take you. It was he who hired an unknown hairdresser named Jose Eber in the late 1970s when Azoulay owned a hair salon on Little Santa Monica Boulevard called Maurice Andre (named after himself and former partner, Andre Espreux).

Espreux sold his interest in the business, Azoulay and Eber became partners and the two renamed the salon. Azoulay remained the silent partner, Eber became the company spokesman and celebrity.

Both men prospered, but says Azoulay, “I got burned out on the business. I wanted more than a few weeks vacation a year. I wanted to travel and enjoy life a little more. So I sold my interest in Maurice Jose to one of my employees, Laurant Dufourg, and advised them to change the name of the salon to Jose Eber. The rest is history.”

For his part, Azoulay traveled the world, spending much of his time in Ibissa, touring Bali and vacationing at the Charles Lindbergh house in the Hawaiian islands.

Today the 47-year-old Azoulay is lean, tan and fit. And he doesn’t resent any of his time away from Beverly Hills.

“What brought me back was my son,” he says. “It was very hard taking him out of school so much. So we came back to Los Angeles.”

Azoulay and interior designer Vincent Jacquard designed the new salon, located in Beverly Hills between Spaulding and Linden Drive, together. Azoulay’s scissors work the front chair.

As for the business of hairdressing, Azoulay says there is an entirely new dimension to it today. Like hairstyles in general, he says the business is more “down to earth.”

“There was a time when everyone wanted the front page,” he says. “Today people care about more than themselves. Everyone is healthier and they want healthy looking hair. Everyone is anti-drugs and pro-ecology. So hair products have become more organic. People want to look natural. I’ve been stressing natural for many years. Finally, everything is on my side.”