If It’s a Great ‘Do, It’s Likely She Did It

Discretion is a prized commodity in show biz, where things such as actors’ ages and movie producers’ box-office bombs are seldom discussed in public. So it’s a tribute to Carol Doran’s artistry that many of her Hollywood clients are both willing and eager to answer those eternal entertainment-world mysteries: Does she or doesn’t she? Is that her natural hair she’s combing or someone else’s?

If the ‘do in question was created by Doran, it’s not always easy to tell. Small wonder, then, that the Los Angeles-based wig and hair designer has a list of credits in theater, opera, film and TV that’s growing as long as Rapunzel’s golden tresses.

A partial roster of Doran’s star customers would include Candice Bergen, Lauren Bacall and Robert Duvall. She fashioned Johnny Depp’s facially hirsute look for “Don Juan de Marco,” gave Ian McKellen a startling bleach job for “Gods and Monsters” and has been working with Lynn Redgrave for 10 years.

“Those are my favorite clients, the ones that keep coming back, because you know what they like and don’t like and what looks good on them and the shape of their head,” Doran says.

If you saw the current feature film “Monster’s Ball,” you may have spotted Doran’s handiwork perched atop Billy Bob Thornton’s scalp. “I asked him ahead of time, and he said that I could mention his name,” Doran says. “I have some clients that are very guarded. Especially the men. The women don’t care so much.”

This month, L.A. audiences have been getting an especially good look at Doran’s skill in “The Moliere Comedies,” the double bill of one-acts by the 17th century French master dramatist playing through April 7 at the Mark Taper Forum. Staged by and starring actor Brian Bedford, the production parades an assortment of beribboned dandies in head-turning perukes and bowed damsels in glossy curls.

In Moliere’s time, the showy and splendiferous age of King Louis XIV, wigs and frills were just coming into vogue, Doran says. A big head of sculpted fake hair was “a very high fashion statement at that point,” as well as a mark of class distinction for Versailles courtesans. The plot of “The School for Husbands,” the first of the Taper’s one-acts, partly turns on issues of misleading appearances fostered by 17th century shifts in fashion and culture.

For Doran, an additional demand of the production was that several ensemble members appeared in both plays, in different roles, so their hair had to look notably distinct in each. It was a challenging job, though by no means Doran’s biggest: Last year’s Mark Taper production of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical “Flower Drum Song” called for 60 different wigs.

Center Theatre Group, which consists of the Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson theaters, maintains a large wig and hair inventory, some 1,500 pieces in all. Many wigs can be taken apart and “recycled,” Doran says. In some ways, she adds, the art has changed little since Moliere’s day.

Doran says that wig-making “was not something I had any desire to do” initially. But she’d always liked working with her hands ever since her mother taught her to sew. After landing a job with San Francisco Opera doing hair and makeup, she found that her skills in embroidering and cross-stitching were exactly suited to the painstaking task of weaving wigs.

“It’s a really hard skill to learn, and I ended up really, really liking it and also realizing it’s a very lucrative skill to have,” she says. Besides working in Los Angeles and for regional theaters across the country, Doran lived in London for several years, building wigs for the English National Opera and several West End productions.

Her favorite historical period, tonsorially speaking? The 1930s, “just because I love finger waves and I’m really attracted to Art Deco furnishings,” she says. The finger wave is a type of hairstyle popularized by such actresses as Myrna Loy. So does Doran like to experiment herself with an interesting dye job or eye-catching perm? “Very infrequently,” she says. “I have never been one for doing trendy hair fashions on myself. I do it on the wigs.”