Meet the Einstein of Hair Extensions Who Gives Hollywood Stars Their Ideal—and Jewish—Weaves
I’ve never gotten so many compliments on my hair since I moved to Los Angeles. What in New York was just hair—thick and brown with a tendency to lighten in the sun, and probably, out of sheer laziness on my part, a little too long—in LA has become a totemic object. Co-workers constantly comment on its natural wave, asking if I’ve just been to the beach, or if I’m using that salt spray they sell at Kiehl’s; saleswomen at Nordstrom ask if they can touch it; and my own hairdresser, adjusting a foil or wielding the scissors for a precision angle trim, treats it as though he were handling a major artistic work of the 20th century. When his assistant was doing my roots the other day, I jokingly mentioned his perfectionism. “With a canvas like this, how could she resist?” she said reverently. “Your hair is amazing. You have the perfect L.A. hair.”
And apparently, it’s all due to the legendary influence of Piny Bezanken. Often cited as the inspiration for Adam Sandler’s character in the 2008 action-comedy Don’t Mess With the Zohan, Piny is the Beverly Hills-based Einstein of hair extensions, able to transform even the thinnest, lankest head of hair into a lush wonderland of metaphorical fecundity and sun-kissed highlights. He’s made wigs for everyone from Melanie Griffith and Shirley MacClaine, to Liberace, Dolly Parton and John Travolta (in Pulp Fiction; we can make whatever assumptions we wish about the rest of Travolta’s mysteriously disappearing/re-appearing locks). But Bezaken, who opened his studio in 1975, made his name with his very first client: Farrah Fawcett.