Vidal Sassoon, the man who turned hairdressing into an art form in London in the Swinging Sixties, died on Wednesday, aged 84.
Before he transformed himself into a stylish Bond Street coiffeur and global brand, Sassoon had a very different life.
Born into a poor Jewish family in the East End, he fought fascists on the streets of post-war London and saw action in Israel in 1948.
Last May, I talked to him about his early years, in conjunction with the release of the celebratory documentary, Vidal Sassoon: The Movie.
Looking back, do you feel that you have accomplished everything you set out to do in hairdressing?
"Well, I think I got rather lucky. I was here in the 60s with Mary Quant and [David] Bailey and [Terrence] Donovan and all those wild characters, and the singing groups, and there was an atmosphere that was enlightening. It encouraged you to be creative. I think that whole decade helped us all, because we were helping one another."
Why was there this explosion of creativity in London at that particular time, do you think?
"Because we made it so. I think, as Spinoza said, 'Will and morality are but one.' And boy was he right. If you have the will and you don't go back on your word to yourself, and you keep a moral attitude, you eventually get there if you have the talent. And often people don't know they've got the talent because they don't work hard enough or try hard enough to bring it out."
Speaking of keeping a moral attitude, you fought fascists with the 43 Group in the East End of London. You were only young at the time. What made you join?
"After the Holocaust, once you'd seen films of that, when the 43 Group started there was no question, you had to join. Although you weren't really one of the shtarkers [Yiddish for stout fellow], like [war hero] Gerry Flamberg. He was 250 pounds of muscle. They - I say 'they', because I was just one of the young guys that tried to help - smashed the fascist party in the streets. Without the help of the police, unfortunately."
The police, you seem to note in your autobiography, were often just as anti-Semitic as the fascists.
"If the police captain in a certain area was anti-fascist, you were okay. But in the Kilburn area, we chased some fascists into a pub and then the police chased us, arrested us, took us to the police station, and on the way there they took us on a long circuit rather than a direct route, and Big Mo, as we called him, was held down and a Sergeant by the name of Jacobs, if you can believe it, beat the hell out of him."
It could be tough for Jews.
"Well in those days Jews stood out. Not because they were special, but features and everything else. Now, because we're multi-cultural, multi-racial, and there's every different colour under the sun, we don't stand out anymore, and that's great."
In 1948 you joined the Palmach, the elite fighting force of the Haganah, in the fledgling Israel. Were you determined to see action?
"That's what I wanted. I wasn't going over there to sit in an office. I got lucky; I was A1, and 21, and they accepted me in the Palmach."
What were you looking for?
"It all goes back to the Holocaust. If we didn't fight for a piece of land and make it work, make it beautiful, then the whole Holocaust thing was a terrible waste of time. It was anyway. But this way, at least, we got a country out of it."
It was after Israel that you decided to become a stylist. Before that you'd had a love/hate relationship with hairdressing. What changed?
"I always loved the fact that there was lots of pretty girls coming in and out, but I didn't love hair. But when I came back I decided I would give it my all. Israel gave me an enormous confidence. I really felt as if I belonged. And, funny enough, it gave me a feeling of belonging in London, too. Or belonging anywhere. So, I guess, it wasn't an arrogance; it was that the sense of what we'd done in Israel had given me this confidence."
The rest, as they say, is history.