Longtime Valley Barber Makes Final Cut

For 62 years, Joe Mayer cut the hair of movie stars, immigrants, politicians and working stiffs. The 80-year-old barber will retire today, after surviving the Northridge earthquake, the rise of the unisex chain salon and the shaggy-haired ‘60s.

After all those years behind the chair, Mayer has learned one important lesson: “In barbering, you should always finish your haircut.”

“Don’t throw a guy out when you’re not really done, just so you can put the next guy in the chair and make some money,” he said. “You’ll go out of business quick that way.”

Mayer started cutting hair in his native Santa Monica during the Great Depression.

He opened his own business--Joe’s Barber Shop--in 1962 in the San Fernando Valley.

He persevered through many threats to his small business, including numerous locale changes.

But the lowest point came shortly after he opened, when long hair became all the rage and business was so slow his wife, Mary, had to go back to work so they could pay their bills.

“When the rotten Beatles started those haircuts, everybody had to be a copycat,” said Mayer, who favors a smart sweep of bangs and a Clark Gable-as-Rhett Butler mustache.

“You build a barber shop on your two- and three-week regulars,” he said. “When the ‘60s came, that all dried up and I had to work 72 hours a week to keep things going.”

New owner Luis Gutierrez, 35, said that even in recent years, Mayer has put in 10-hour days, rarely taking a break and always ensuring his customers feel a little better leaving than when they walk in.

“I’ve never seen him in a bad mood; he’s always happy,” Gutierrez said. “Barbering isn’t just about cutting hair. It’s about the way you treat people, and he knows that.”

On Friday afternoon, Mayer had just finished clipping the snow-white mane of an elderly regular, sending him off with a gentle barbershop ribbing.

“You look like a pretty handsome kid now,” he said, as the customer protested mildly. “And, hey, look out for all those widows now, whatever you do.”

Mayer--who visits local barbershops when he’s on vacation--is concerned about the future of the traditional barber and amused by those men who have defected to the chain haircut outlets.

“I’m not putting down these ‘stylists,’ but they don’t know how to cut men’s hair,” Mayer said. “I can see these guys walking down the street, and they’ve got a woman’s haircut. Of course, they don’t know it, but they do.”

Mayer’s career offers a glimpse into recent California history. In Santa Monica during World War II, his regulars were the Southern transplants who came West for wartime job opportunities. He made big bucks on tips while barbering in San Bernardino in the 1940s and ‘50s, until its gambling industry was eclipsed by Nevada’s.

He spent 32 years cutting hair on Reseda Boulevard, starting out when Reseda was more of a town than a suburb, but the building was badly damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, forcing him into his current location at 19801-B Vanowen St.

Mayer said at least one of his customers has been a regular for 62 years, and many others have been with him for decades. For one family, he’s cut four generations of hair.

The secret to success, he said, has been realizing that every head is different.

“You just can’t cut ‘em the same,” he said, “or you’ll be out of work in a day.”