"I've Been to Vidal Sassoon"

One of my favorite movies is Rosemary's Baby. Mia Farrow plays a woman who gets pregnant, to her joy, only to wonder if she's being hounded by witches who want to get her baby and eat it or something. Her husband, Guy, is played by the amazing avant-garde filmmaker John Cassavetes. Guy is such a narcissistic creep that it's no surprise he's a New York actor. As Rosemary keeps reminding people, "He was in Luther and Nobody Loves an Albatross, and he's done a lot of television and commercials." (By the way, Nobody Loves an Albatross was a real play! The 1960s had a way with Broadway shows that sported flashy, lousy titles, like, I don't know, Stop the World, I Want to Get Off.)

Anyway, until the last quarter of the movie you're never quite sure whether Rosemary is really onto a plot to take her baby or is simply going crazy because she's pregnant. At one point she eats raw liver. Another thing she does is walk into the apartment one afternoon sporting a brand-new, very short, very mod haircut. "I've been to Vidal Sassoon," she says. "It's very in." At which point Guy, ever the gentleman, says, "Well, it looks terrible." Vidal Sassoon was possibly the most influential hairdresser of the pre-hippie 1960s. Rosemary might have been trying to copy the fashion icon Twiggy (whom you might know in her craggly, botoxed form from America's Next Top Model a few years ago). Rosemary's awesome haircut is in the photo above. She is so not crazy for getting that haircut, right? Yet her husband is so vehement, and she's so spacey, it makes you wonder.

I recently got a haircut inspired by Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby. I paid $55 for it, which I think is a deal. (I also tried to find out from the internet how much that haircut would have cost in 1966, when the movie takes place, but no dice.) I don't have the mod clothes to match Rosemary, but I still think I look pretty cute. The stylist had never heard of Rosemary's Baby, so it was a good thing I brought in a picture. I hope it was a learning experience for her, and I hope she watches Rosemary's Baby!