This is the story of how I became a blonde Italian Casanova without ever meaning to.
As a keen amateur actor I was eager to be a part of a local production of ‘Allo ‘Allo. I was to play Captain Alberto Bertorelli, the Italian lothario who never seemed to get his lady, and whose catchphrase was “Whata mistakea to makea”. In truth I was a bit old for the part and needed to do something with my grey hair. So off I went to Boots and had a look at wash in wash out hair dye. I wanted something close to black. I saw that there were different products depending on your natural hair colour. Now being very clever I didn’t ask for advice! I assumed my natural hair colour was the brown it used to be before I turned grey.
So an a Sunday evening I got in the shower and applied the dye. My hair turned purple. Oh well, I thought, that didn’t work so I’ll just wash it out. After about 7 goes at shampooing it out I was left with pale mauve hair and it wasn’t shifting. I was none too happy going to work the next day, although everyone else was happy to see the boss looking silly!
I rang the manufacturer of the hair dye to complain and was told that the dye is not meant for grey hair and in fact becomes permanent when applied to grey. As you can imagine I was none too pleased about going around with mauve hair and how could I appear on stage with it. Drastic action was called for. I visited the poshest hairdresser I could find and explained my dilemma. I have to give the staff credit because there was no hint of amusement, but i bet they had a good laugh afterwards.
I spent about 45 minutes in the chair while they applied various hair products including peroxide and blue rinse. I walked out of there with blond hair. At least it was reasonably normal looking but I don’t think a middle aged blonde Italian was what the writers of ‘Allo ‘Allo had envisaged. I was also in the Cornish Ordinalia produced in St Just and that started as soon as ‘Allo ‘Allo ended. In that I played Pontius Pilate, another Italian again with blonde hair.
I vowed never to go near hair dye again. Only later did I discover, when playing Dracula, that there are aerosol cans of hair colour that definitely do wash out completely, even from grey hair. Oh the trials of treading the boards!!
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