Once Bald Hair Club Head Now Rides Wave of Success : * Promotion: The man who brought hair replacement off back pages of dubious magazines to late night TV presides over a spreading empire.

At age 26, he was 30 pounds overweight, painfully shy, recently divorced, living with his sister. Worst of all, he was bald; hair-anoia kept this guy home Saturday nights, fearful he’d be in over his head on the singles scene.

But life got better: He got a hair replacement. And he started a business: a hair replacement business. And business got better when he delivered this simple message: “I’m not only the Hair Club president. I’m also a client.”

He’s 50 now, and life couldn’t be better for Sy Sperling. The man who brought hair replacement off of the back pages of dubious magazines and onto late night television presides over an empire that’s spreading like a new head of hair.

“I can’t go anywhere without everybody coming up to me. I’m one of the most recognized men in America right now--probably more recognized than Lee Iacocca,” Sperling said recently, as hirsute in his Manhattan office at 3 p.m. as he looks on ESPN at 3 a.m.

“I think if they did a survey, I may come up more recognizable than even Iacocca. He’s certainly more successful than I am, but just in terms of visibility.”

Iacocca’s a favorite in the board room; Sperling’s the darling of stand-up comedians and men affected by the (hairline) recession. Go ahead and laugh, Sy says. He’s not thin-skinned, and the jokes are good for business.

He’s also taking his business all across America. New branches opened last year in Phoenix, Denver, Kansas City, Indianapolis and St. Louis, bringing the total to 40 cities; two more are poised to start business in California, another two in Florida.

Sperling’s system of hair replacement involves attaching human hair to the existing, healthy hair on a man’s scalp. The whole process takes eight to 12 weeks and costs $2,000 to $3,500.

It’s a dream come true for the plumber’s son from the South Bronx, an underachiever turned entrepreneur.

It was 1968 when Sy stopped selling swimming pools and started selling hair, opening a cramped office around the corner from the current Hair Club headquarters--four floors on Madison Avenue.

Slowly but surely, business expanded. In 1982, it exploded when Sy personalized his message to masses.

“When we went on the air with my commercial, we got the best response ever,” Sperling says. “The phones were off the hook. We got 10,000 calls the first month we went on the air with it--unbelievable response!”

Sperling never doubted that he would make it big: “I knew there were 30 million bald men. I looked at the other alternatives: transplants, toupees.” Both those choices bothered Sy, especially the latter.

“The younger man would be very reluctant to wear a toupee because if he’s intimate with a woman, how does he explain taking it off at night and putting it on a head block? ‘Excuse me, I wanna get my hair’?” Sperling says. “It didn’t take too much to convince me not to go with a toupee.”

So he went with weaving, and the rest is hair-story. But who is Sy Sperling? These little-known facts may help:

* He is a vegetarian who gave up smoking and caffeine.

* He begins every day with an aerobic workout and recently appeared on the cover of the Spotlight Health & Fitness Guide.

* He says there is one offense that will get Hair Club workers fired: peddling hair to guys who already have enough fuzz. “There are certain things that would be criminal at the Hair Club for Men,” he warns.

Sy is also not shy about his hairdo. He freely admits updating his look about every six months or so.