Peter Lamas

Peter Lamas fled Havana with his family in 1961, a teenager who barely spoke English. Within a decade he was doing Jackie Kennedy's hair — and she was confiding in him things she told almost no one.

Trained at the Vidal Sassoon Academy and handpicked for Manhattan's prestigious Kenneth Salon, Lamas spent twelve years as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's personal stylist. His chair also held Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Diana Ross, and Liza Minnelli. He was on set when Mia Farrow got her pixie cut for Rosemary's Baby. He prepared Judy Garland for her final public appearance. Decades later, he was in Whitney Houston's hotel suite minutes after she died.

A stylist works in silence and intimacy, hands in your hair, close enough to whisper. Lamas understood early that his scissors were a kind of key.

He went on to build a beauty company that sells millions of dollars in products annually on QVC. Jackie Kennedy's Stylist, written with Jeff Nelson, is his first memoir.