"IT SHOULDN'T HAPPEN TO A HAIRDRESSER
My Autobiography 'It shouldn't happen to a hairdresser "
"Exhibitionism is a drug…you get hooked!
I'm now taking doses that would kill a beginner"
Quentin Crisp The Naked Civil Servant
It is warm, humid evening in California and I am truly glad to escape to my room at the Holiday Inn in Santa Monica. Feeling a little worse for wear, I lie down on the bed intending to have a good, long sleep. Just as I close my eyes, the phone rings and it’s Helen Smith, the modeling agent. Helen always spoke ten to the dozen, as if she had been partying with Keith Richards, and mid-way through the stream of consciousness she suddenly blurted out: “Why is her hair in bunches?” She was referring to her star client, the model Jordan, aka Katie Price, who had just been put under contract to The Sun newspaper.
Along with fashion editor Sam Howard and the celebrity photographer Alan Strutt, we were in Hollywood shooting Jordan’s first calendar. Jordan was getting ready to go out on the town with a rugby team she’d met in reception, but still appeared to have had time to call her agent to complain about the way I’d done her hair on the beach that day. It was
just the latest in a lengthy series of battles between me and the teenage glamour girl.
Thinking back to my first meeting with Katie, it was unusual anyway for me to have been called in as hair stylist on a Page Three shoot. My normal role was to groom the hair of celebrities and models interviewed for Sun “exclusives” or shoots for the Sun Woman fashion section and makeovers on readers.
Stuart Higgins, the then editor of The Sun, had ordered a five day “Striptease” Page Three special, inspired by the Demi Moore movie. Each day, an item of clothing would be removed. As Demi was surprisingly unavailable, a Page Three girl had been brought in for the shoot instead.
The first day had already been shot and I knew something was up when I arrived at the Click studios at The Sun’s headquarters in Wapping. In a panic, Jan Wright, the self-appointed resident make-up artist, grabbed me and pulled me into the office. “This new girl is very difficult,” she hissed. “She didn’t like the way I did her hair yesterday, but Stuart Higgins loves her.”
Jan then made an extraordinary request – she asked me not to do the girl’s hair too well. It seems Jan had not had all the products she needed the day before, which is why the hair hadn’t come out too well, and she didn’t want to be shown up by me. Jan was in a state and it seemed the whole studio was in uproar over this demanding Page Three debutant.
In those days it was a cardinal rule that we never told anyone we worked on that Jan was in fact married to Sun photographer Steve Lewis, who owned the Click studio and did most of the fashion and celebrity shoots. Rumour had it that Jan only got into the make-up business so she could keep an eye on her husband while he photographed the world’s most beautiful – and scantily-clad – women.
I dragged my hairdressing bag through to the back changing rooms, followed by a frantic Jan. There, sitting on a stool and staring into the mirror, was the most stunning, fresh-faced beauty. She had curly hair and there was a bit of the tomboy about her but she really was a vision of loveliness. Until she opened her mouth, that is.
“You any fucking good?” she snapped, sounding as though she’d just come off a building site. “I’m alright,” I laughed. My laughter was more to cover my embarrassment – I just wasn’t used to women talking like that. Page Three girls I’d styled in the past, such as the ultra-professional Jilly Johnson or the charming Linda Lusardi, could burp and tell a dirty joke with the best of them, but would never have used such casual coarse language, particularly to someone they had just met. I have to admit I was a little shocked.
This might have been her first modeling job – she’d only just been taken on by the Samantha Bond agency – but there was nothing humble about Katie. Nor did she seem to suffer from any self-doubt. “ I am Jordan! Alright?” she said, winking. As I started to scrunch-dry her hair, she carried on bossing everyone about, but there was something endearing about her. She certainly was a naturally beautiful looking woman.
As I finished drying her thick, curly hair, she turned to Jan. “That’s how it’s supposed to look. You didn’t have the right stuff,” she snapped. Katie was only about 18 at the time but she almost had the forty-something make-up artist in tears. I have to say, though, that this was one of only two occasions that Katie actually liked the way I styled her hair.
Once I got to know the new Page Three sensation, I realized that she was in fact quite shy and a typical Gemini. The heavier the make-up and the bigger the hair, the more Jordan would come out and Katie would be pushed into the background. The more shocking and badly behaved she was, the more attention she received; the public seemed to love the naughty girl act from the start. It swiftly became clear to me that Jordan was hooked on the drug of Exhibitionism.
As she left the studio after that first shoot, we all looked at each other. Unlike most models, she had not removed the thick make-up before leaving and I was worried about her going out like that, particularly as it was the middle of the day and she was so young. But there was no telling Katie; she loved any attention.
After that first shoot, Jordan became an overnight hit, not just with the powers that be at The Sun but with the papers millions of readers, who could not get enough of her.
Katie began to be booked not just for Page Three but also for fashion and editorial features. She always looked stunning – but I wonder what the readers would have thought if they could have heard her too. Not to put too fine a point on it, she had a mouth like a sewer. One of her favourite lines, after she’d had her lip make-up applied, was “What do you think of my cock-sucking lips?” This she’d screech to the assembled crowd in the studio after blowing them a demure, lip-glossed kiss. “How big’s your packet love?” was another of her raunchy conversation-stoppers. She once told me she saw no problem in looking at men’s bulges, as men had stared at her boobs for years. “It’s all right though, Steve,” she said, giggling, “I don’t look at yours out of respect.”
She may have talked dirty, but in my time with her at least, Jordan was more ladylike than most when it came to sex and was certainly no slapper. She had a strict one-month rule before doing anything with a boyfriend; she enjoyed the flirtation and the attention she got during the chase.
It was a disastrous date with football star Teddy Sheringham that really helped Jordan secure her celebrity status. Sheringham agreed to go out with her after reading that he was her “ideal man”. But word of the date leaked out and the story made it onto the front page of The Sun. The evening went horribly wrong anyway – in the flesh, Jordan was too much for the footballer, who told her to back off. But the front page scoop was great news for Jordan’s blossoming celebrity status and Sun readers lapped it up.
Keen to look her best for the evening, Katie had booked a private appointment with the fabulous make-up artist Sue Moxley, who worked at The Sun occasionally and now has her own column in the paper. At the studios a few days later, Katie confronted Sue, asking if she had leaked the story. In fact Sue, who is now married to former Dollar singer David Van Day, would have been the last person in the world to leak a story, and it didn’t take Jordan long to realize that too. But the make-up artist is still waiting for her fee for doing Katie’s make-up that evening.
In those days I wished The Sun would take more of a shine to the lovely Kelly Brooks. She did not do Page Three but had real star quality. I remember walking down Kings Road with Kelly after styling her hair for a shoot with Formula 1 ace David Coulthard. She was everything that Jordan was not – charming and funny and sweet and I told her that one day she would be a huge star. But it was Jordan who was put under contract to The Sun.
It was a constant battle with Katie over her hair. The Sun liked a clean, fresh look, while Jordan went for a more high glamour image. The brilliant photographer Jeany Savage did the pictures at The Daily Star. She had a great eye and was wonderfully skilled at bringing out the beauty in a woman. However, that did not suit The Sun’s preferred girl next door look. When Melinda Messenger was put under contract to The Sun, Jeany did the first pictures, but Features Editor Sue Carroll ordered an immediate re-shoot, as the hair and make-up were far too heavy.
On one job, Jordan arrived at Marylebone station with full make-up and her hair thickly greased down. “This will do for the shoot,” she informed me. My friend Sam Howard, The Sun’s fashion editor, found Jordan amusing – I think she regarded the model as a naughty schoolgirl and, having been to an all girls school herself, admired Jordan’s cheek.
We were doing corset fashion and taking off to one of Henry VIII’s old haunts to give the shoot a regal Tudor feel. But with Jordan looking the way she did, it threatened to turn into more of a Great Plague shoot!
I had to wash Katie’s hair but only had expensive conditioning shampoo with me. That would have taken hours to get rid of the thick grease so I opted instead to use the detergent-based shampoo at the hotel. Katie took instant offense at this, thinking I was taking the piss out of her and she barely spoke to me as I styled her hair.
She went on to do a great shoot, proving that as well as the topless work, she could also do fashion photography. If only she could have managed to turn up with freshly-washed hair, like most other models, then everyone’s day would have been easier.
On the train back to London, Jordan was holding forth and her language became cruder and cruder. I was really embarrassed as people around us stared and whispered, so I reverted to sarcasm; being a Gemini myself I can understand dual personalities. This only made things worse. “You have a bleeding strange sense of humour, you have,” she snapped, sinking back into her seat and quietening down for a brief moment.
I’m not sure where Katie gets it from but it’s certainly not her mother. I met Amy Price when she came to the studio one day and she is charming and well mannered. I blow-dried her hair and, after I finished, she grabbed my hand, saying: “Look after my little girl. She will be alright, won’t she?” So it clearly isn’t a hereditary infliction.
It became a puzzle as to what Jordan actually wanted done to her hair, which is naturally beautiful. She would talk about it being bigger, and adding pieces, so one day I decided to give her exactly what she wanted. After an hour of coiffuring, we had it – the Rue Paul/Cleo Rocos love-child look! But at last Jordan was happy with something I had done.
Katie actually enjoys looking like a drag queen. I recently saw Gary Cockerill, who is a very talented make-up artist, getting her ready and he must have put five hair pieces in, not to mention the false eye lashes. Later, on Channel Five live, Katie took her make-up off – and looked ten times better. People on the make-up circuit joke that Gary only does the “tranny” look and I think that’s an unfortunate legacy of his experience with Katie. I’ve worked with him many times and the man is under-rated.
The picture of Jordan’s tranny look appeared in The Sun on a Saturday and on Monday I had a call from a livid Helen Smith, Katie’s agent. She blamed me and was on the phone for an hour, laying down the law on how Katie’s hair was to look in the future. I barely got a chance to get a word in. But Jordan had only been holding bingo cards in the picture, for heaven’s sake, and I honestly believed the photographer would send her back to be re-styled once he saw what a fright she looked. Alas, he did not, and I took a lot of stick as a result.
Despite all that, I was asked to go to Los Angeles to do the hair for the first ever Jordan calendar. My invite owed more than a little to the fact that I managed to get Virgin airlines to sponsor the calendar. But a few months earlier I had worked with the Baywatch public relations machine when it rolled into town, styling hair for Traci Bingham and the legendary David Hasselhoff among others.
Liam Hamilton from LWT, which aired the show, was a good friend and I suggested that we took Jordan on the Baywatch set. He liked the idea, as did senior executives at The Sun and so after another long phone call from Helen Smith, I was packed and ready to go to LA.
Katie and I arranged that she would come to my flat in South Kensington and we would travel to Heathrow together for a lunchtime flight. She arrived on time and seemed very excited about the trip. As we waited for our car to arrive, I made her a cup of tea and she played with my dog Costa. She was really nice to me - this was the sweet Katie that you got a glimpse of on rare occasions, rather than the demanding Jordan who had all but taken over.
Alas, it didn’t last long. Suddenly Jordan was back. “I need my nails done before I get on the plane,” she snapped. But there was no time for a fresh set of acrylic nails to be applied and Jordan seemed confused as to why we could not just jump on a later plane while she had her nails attended to. I promised she could get them done as soon as we got to LA, soothing her by saying they were better at doing them over there anyway. She calmed down and got in the car and it was a relief when we arrived at Heathrow and met Sam Howard. Jordan was still obsessing about her nails though.
Sam and I were hoping we would all be upgraded to Upper Class but back then airlines were still fussy about how people looked. Jordan had her baps on show for all to see so we suggested that, just for check-in, she covered up. Boy, was that a mistake! You’d think we had asked her to cut her own leg off the fuss she made. Eventually, though, she grudgingly agreed and we were duly upgraded. It didn’t stop her throwing us a look that could have killed a man at a hundred paces.
Relaxing in the Upper Class in the lounge was bliss – we were enjoying a drink and Jordan was at the other end of the room, playing some games. I heard some loud giggling and looked up, noticing that there was not a single straight man to be seen in the immediate vicinity. The giggling got louder and I went to see what was going on. I was greeted by quite a sight – Jordan on the ski machine in a tiny top and with her boobs bouncing up and down at a quite alarming rate. You’ve got to hand it to her, she knows how to please a crowd and she was, of course, surrounded by men.
On the plane Sam and I sat together with Jordan behind us. It was all quiet as we took off but the peace was shattered by Jordan’s dulcet tones: “OI! WHEN CAN YOU TAKE A PISS AROUND HERE?”
The trip had only just begun.
After clearing customs and getting our luggage, we were met by Alan Strutt, who was already working out there. He and Sam went to get our hire car and Jordan and I sat chatting. As we talked, she turned back into Katie and, as she did, revealed a vulnerable side that had me really worried for her. “Steve,” she said, “how much am I getting paid a week from my contract with The Sun?”
I was truly shocked - despite the canny businesswoman that she presents herself as today, the poor love didn’t have a clue. Her agent Helen Smith – who later went bust owing Katie a fortune – had not even told her what she was earning. Feeling for her, I gave Katie Sue Carroll’s direct line at The Sun and told her to ask Sue. She might drive me mad with her behaviour and demands, but it was terrible to think that at the age of just 19 she was being taken advantage of. I remembered too how her mum Amy had asked me to look after her.
The next day, Alan Strutt took the car to do another shoot and was nowhere to be found. We spent most of the time getting Jordan’s nails done, but she was not happy, and nor was Sam. Jordan expected The Sun to pay for her nails and Sam was in charge of the money. Even though Jordan did not like the way her nails had been done, she insisted on having acrylic put on her toes too and Sam picked the bill up.
After three days of Alan doing other shoots, taking the car and disappearing, Sam put her foot down, even though he insisted that he could shoot three fashion spreads and an entire calendar in just two days. I was forced to lie to my good friend Sue Carroll, whom I’ve known for 15 years, when she rang me to see how it was all going. “Oh, great,” I said, reckoning there was no point in worrying her.
But then there was bad news from Liam Hamilton, who called me to say it was doubtful that LWT were taking Baywatch again and that David Hasselhoff had no time to see Jordan for at least two weeks.
I broke the news to Jordan and she was less then impressed. “There’s a surprise,” she said sarcastically, and turned her back. The implication was that I had made the whole thing up just to come on the trip.
There were more problems – despite California being such a liberal State, you cannot shoot topless on most of the beaches in LA. All shoots require a license and we did not have one. This did not stop Alan Strutt though; he really can achieve in days what it would take other photographers months to do. He took us all to the naturist beach near Malibu and Jordan wore tiny little sparkly bikini bottoms. I put her hair in bunches, with matching hair band.
“You have to be bleeding joking,” she squealed. But Sam was happy and Alan thought she looked great and Jordan soon forgot about her hair as she clocked the action on the beach.
“OI! YOU GET YOUR TAKLE IN,” she howled at the top of her voice to one unfortunate sunbather.
“PERVERT! WHAT YOU LOOKING AT?” she screamed at another.
Her favourite way of addressing Alan Strutt was to yell: “HEY YOU PERVERT, WHEN YOU TAKING MY PICTURE?” Needless to say, most of the topless pictures were taken in the desert or a secluded area of the beach.
Back to the beginning though: I am lying on my bed as Jordan gets ready for her date with the rugby team, listening to her agent going on and on about the bunches. She’d wanted her hair straight, she said – but what with the wind and the humidity, Jordan’s hair would have curled up again no matter how many times I straightened it. I still have the bunches pictures and, to my eye, she’s never looked lovelier.
Sam Howard agreed to chaperone Jordan with the boys and asked me to come too, at which point I start looking for a window to jump out of. Luckily, I get a reprieve and am allowed to give it a miss. The evening was a bit of a washout though - you have to be 21 to get into a bar and Katie was only 19 so that was a non-starter. That didn’t stop Katie flirting so outrageously with the boys they thought they were onto a sure thing. Katie had to spend the night in Sam’s room, as the boys kept calling her.
On the flight home, Jordan chatted with the cabin crew and after a bit she came giggling up to me. “OI! THE CREW THINK YOU AND I WERE MAKING A PORN FILM IN LA,” she shrieked at the top of her voice.
After that I did her hair a few times - though she always made it clear it was under protest - and saw her at the odd party or charity ball, where she would always be the focus of attention. I remember one evening at the “Born Free” charity ball, when Jordan was dating the gladiator Hunter. I was there with Denise Welch and Denise was crying as they showed a sick lion suffering from distemper on the big screen. Denise nudged me to look over at Jordan, who was pouting and posing and oblivious everything apart from herself.
I did not see Jordan again for a few years but bumped into her again shortly after she had finished I Am A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. I was with Sue Carroll and we were about to join Billy Murray, a great actor from The Bill, for dinner at Hell’s Kitchen. Jordan was reporting on the show for ITV2 and as I walked down the red carpet she jumped out to greet me. She seemed so pleased to see me and I apologised for ever doubting that she would be a star. I don’t think she heard me - she was just being Katie for a minute and was very nervous about her first reporting job.
When I recently watched What Katie Did Next, she seemed so sad and alone. I do hope that, deep inside, there’s still a bit of Katie left, and that Jordan has not entirely taken over.
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