Shampoo meets You'll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again in a rollicking and riveting memoir from the woman who for decades styled Hollywood's most celebrated players.
I was living a hairdresser's dream. I was making my mark in this all-male field. My appointment book was filled with more and more celebrities. And I was becoming competition for my heroes...
Behind the scenes of every Hollywood photo shoot, TV appearance, and party in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, there was Carrie White. As the "First Lady of Hairdressing," Carrie collaborated with Richard Avedon on shoots for Vogue, partied with Jim Morrison, gave Sharon Tate her California signature style, and got high with Jimi Hendrix. She has counted Jennifer Jones, Betsy Bloomingdale, Elizabeth Taylor, Goldie Hawn, and Camille Cosby among her favorite clients.
But behind the glamorous facade, Carrie's world was in perpetual disarray and always had been. After her father abandoned the family when she was still a child, she was sexually abused by her domineering stepfather, and her alcoholic mother was unstable and unreliable. Carrie was sipping cocktails before her tenth birthday, and had had five children and three husbands before her twenty-eighth. She fueled the frenetic pace of her professional life with a steady diet of champagne and vodka, diet pills, cocaine, and heroin, until she eventually lost her home, her car, her career-and nearly her children. But she battled her way back, getting sober, rebuilding her relationships and her reputation as a hairdresser, and the name Carrie White was back on the door of one of Beverly Hills's most respected salons. An unflinching portrayal of addiction and recovery, Upper Cut proves that even in Hollywood, sometimes you have to fight for a happy ending.
Industry Reviews
"As one of Hollywood's most sought after hairstylists, White tells a rollercoaster of hair, celebrities and surviving life in the fast lane...White's voice is captivating...and her story is an inspiring one, spiked with Hollywood gossip." --"Publishers Weekly" "White writes insightfully...an engaging, celebrity-filled life story." --"Library Journal" "A riveting tale." --Jackie Collins As one of Hollywood's most sought after hairstylists, White tells a rollercoaster of hair, celebrities and surviving life in the fast lane White's voice is captivating...and her story is an inspiring one, spiked with Hollywood gossip. --"Publishers Weekly" White writes insightfully an engaging, celebrity-filled life story. "Library Journal" "A riveting tale." Jackie Collins "White offers a mesmerizing lens into the lives of the bold-facers that called Hollywood home in the sixties and seventies as only a hairstylist could; everyone knows that the salon floor is where all the best gossip happens." --"style.com" "Carrie White reveals a life as dramatic as any Hollywood movie...[her] autobiography is as inspirational as it is cautionary, an often larger-than-life story about chasing your dreams, while also offering a graphic depiction of substance abuse. Carrie's story is poignant, sometimes devastating, and ultimately universal. It captures the turning of decades, the humanity behind the celebrities we elevate to Gods, and the heartbreak of the circle of life."" --"TCM.com "Hair! Drugs! Rock 'n' roll! Redemption! You MUST buy this book, and also give a copy to your stylist."
"--xojane.com
" Hair! Drugs! Rock 'n' roll! Redemption! You MUST buy this book, and also give a copy to your stylist.
" xojane.com
" White offers a mesmerizing lens into the lives of the bold-facers that called Hollywood home in the sixties and seventies as only a hairstylist could; everyone knows that the salon floor is where all the best gossip happens." "style.com"
