Sig Frends; Supplied Beauty Products for Movies, TV

Sig Frends, who supplied hair and makeup products to many of the major motion pictures and television series in Hollywood history, has died. He was 94. He died Wednesday at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys.

Known as the “daddy of the entertainment beauty supply business,” Frends provided the beauty secrets that glamorized celebrities from Elizabeth Taylor to Heather Locklear.

With just a high school education, Frends transformed his love for the industry and his savvy as an entrepreneur into a multimillion-dollar business over the course of 50 years. He worked with the studios’ top beauty professionals on such films as “Gone With the Wind,” “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Cleopatra,” all the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films and the Star Trek motion pictures. His television work included many series.

“If it had not been for Sig Frends, we would not have had the creative array of makeup and hairstyling supplies that has enabled the motion picture industry to do such a fabulous job in this area,” said Howard Smit, who served as business representative for the Makeup Artists and Hairstylists Union, Local 706, for over 21 years.

Frends was born in Austria in 1902. His mother moved with him to the United States in 1903. He got his start in the beauty business after World War II when he received a contract from the U.S. government to provide beauty equipment to the Far East for educational purposes.

In 1940, he opened Mercury Beauty Supply in Los Angeles, where he began to develop contacts with the film industry. In 1963, he opened Frends Beauty Supply in North Hollywood, where hairstylists and makeup artists from around the world would gather to talk shop and trade secrets.

Frends is survived by his wife, Ethel, and son, Leslie, by a previous marriage.