By Mitch Fryer
LEADER TIMES
Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Making movie actor Robert DeNiro look the part of a tough New York City detective was easy work for Jerry Popolis.

"He had to have a severe look to him," said Manhattan hair stylist Popolis, 44, formerly of Ford City and a 1981 Ford City High School graduate. "It's Robert DeNiro."

Popolis has been the hair stylist on the sets of many Hollywood big-time movies and is DeNiro's personal hair stylist.

He recently worked with DeNiro on the set of the soon-to-be-released movie "Righteous Kill." In it, DeNiro and Al Pacino play veteran detectives investigating the connection between a recent murder and a case they thought they had solved years before.

"His hair was cut close and straight back on top," Popolis said of DeNiro's "Righteous Kill" character. "When he was in a fight, his hair could never move."

Popolis said DeNiro likes to let his hair grow long until he does a film and then has it cut according to the role he is playing.

In the 2006 movie "The Good Shepherd," a 1950s through 1970s period piece about life in the CIA starring Matt Damon, DeNiro directed and had a supporting role. Popolis styled DeNiro's hair and was the hair co-department head for the movie as well.

"For the '50s, his hair was cut with a close buzz in the back, longer on top, parted on the side and slicked back with ('50s 'a little dab will do ya' hair cream product) Brylcreem," Popolis said.

Popolis didn't start out to become a hair stylist to the stars.

Although he grew up around his mother Rose's beauty shop in Ford City, where he developed an early appreciation for well-styled hair, he enrolled in the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and graduated in 1983 with a degree in interior design. For 10 years he was an interior designer working in New York and other major cities.

In the early 1990s, Popolis enrolled in beauty school.

"I had a career change," Popolis said.

Popolis soon broke into the movie business as the key hair stylist and makeup artist in 1995's "Lie Down with Dogs." In the Kevin Bacon and Mary Stewart Masterson 1960s period film "Digging to China," Popolis found his niche while styling both actors' hair and working on the set as assistant hair stylist.

It was in "Digging to China" that Popolis developed a speciality for period-piece movie hair styling.

"It takes lots of research," Popolis said. "I buy old yearbooks on eBay to find the normal look of a period."

Period pieces can be hard work for a hair stylist.

"It's not as exciting and glamorous as you think," Popolis said. "They're challenging and rewarding with incredibly long hours. You're up at 4 a.m. with the actors. You're the first one there and the last to leave. You're with them all day, before each take, touching them up."

In "The Good Shepherd," Popolis had to age the actors from their 20s through their 40s.

"That involved a lot of shaved hairlines, receding hairlines, thinning, balding and wigs," Popolis said. "There are always continuity issues."

In the 2004 "The Stepford Wives," Popolis was the main hair stylist and worked with actors such as Bette Midler, Nicole Kidman, Faith Hill and Matthew Broderick.

"The characters in the movie were robots," Popolis said. "The women had to look like Barbie dolls. No hairs out of place. They had to be perfect."

Before he was the personal hair stylist for DeNiro, Popolis held the same job with Julianne Moore. He was her stylist in the 2004 thriller "The Forgotten" and the 2007 crime drama set in 1972, "Savage Grace."

Some of his other movie credits include "Michael Clayton," "The Producers," "Annapolis" and "Spider Man 2."

Popolis did some work on the Martin Scorsese-directed film "Ashcliffe," a drama about the investigation of a hospital for the criminally insane set on an island, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Michelle Williams. He is in the process of doing some reshooting work on it and on "Righteous Kill" and will be taking some time off before joining DeNiro in September for the start of his next film.

"I'm happy with my career," Popolis said. "Being the personal hair stylist for one actor is great. Being the hair stylist for Bob DeNiro is great."

"In real life, Bob is a shy, quiet and generous person," he said. "When someone asks him to repeat his line 'Are you talking to me?' he does and everyone chuckles."