RIP Jeffrey Sacino

Jeffrey Sacino, Hairstylist on 'The West Wing,' 'Tales of the City' and 'Pollock,' Dies at 72

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes
8/3/2020

An Emmy nominee, he worked often on projects featuring Laura Linney and Ed Harris.

Jeffrey Sacino, an Emmy-nominated hairstylist who had a long run on The West Wing and worked on films including Cobb, Pollock and The Kingdom, has died. He was 72.

Sacino died July 1 of a heart attack at his home in Heber, Arizona, longtime friend and former Paramount and Thinkwell Group exec Dave Cobb told The Hollywood Reporter.

Sacino worked with actress Laura Linney on projects including TV's Tales of the City/More Tales of the City, Primal Fear (1996), Kinsey (2004) and The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) and with actor Ed Harris on Milk Money (1994), the 1996 TNT telefilm Riders of the Purple Sage and Pollock (2000).

"Many times I would stop by his house in Los Feliz and Laura Linney would be getting a haircut between projects or Ed Harris would be sitting at his breakfast nook just hanging out," Cobb said.

According to IMDb, Sacino worked on Aaron Sorkin's West Wing for the first four seasons (1999-2003) of the acclaimed drama. He received his Emmy nomination for the 1991 CBS telefilm Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter.

He also served as resident hairdresser at the Mark Taper Forum for more than six years and styled L.A. stage productions of Green Card, Nicholas Nickleby, A Month in the Country, Sugar Babies, Natural Affection, The Traveler, Burn This and many more.

"I have many research books," he told the Los Angeles Times in 1987. "I've saved and collected magazines from the early '40s: all the Vogues, the Bazaars, Vanity Fairs. I have a lot of art books, hair books. They don't have to be beauty books; that's not the idea. You want to know what [ordinary] people wore."

Sacino had operated a posh salon on the outskirts of Chicago when he came to Los Angeles in the early 1980s with his partner, late makeup artist Richard Arias. He landed on such projects as Chris Columbus' Heartbreak Hotel (1988) and the 1990 telefilm Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean before joining Local 706, the makeup and hairstylists guild, in 1993.

His screen credits also included The Temp (1993), It's My Party (1996), Away We Go (2009), Piranha 3D (2010) and the Fox series Ally McBeal.

"Jeffrey was always there to give advice and help with the craft. He could take a rat's nest wig and turn into a work of art," Emmy-winning makeup artist John Damiani said in a post on the Local 706 website.

He retired to Heber, where he and his partner, Henry Soros, opened a hair salon. Soros survives him.

SACINO, Jeffrey

Born: 1944, U.S.A.

Died: 7/1/2020, Heber, Arizona, U.S.A.

Jeffrey Sacino’s westerns – hairstylist:

Tall Tales & Legends (TV) 1986     

Riders of the Purple Sage (1996) 1996