ANN JILLIAN

Jennifer Aniston was not the first actress to create a sensation with her hairdo. Long before "The Rachel" had women of all ages razoring their bangs, there was Ann Jillian. I know this because I loved Ann Jillian. I used to sneak episodes of "It's a Living," even though (and precisely because) my folks had deemed it slightly too risque for a girl of my tender age. Jillian's character, Cassie, was kind of a smart ass, which explains why I admired her so much.

Ann's hair was white-blonde with blunt bangs. Sometimes she combed it forward, other times she wore it totally straight. I loved all the incarnations of this hairstyle. At the time, I was a towhead and thought for sure I'd grow up to look just like her. No such luck, but I did recently go back to my once-natural-now-obviously-not-real blonde. Every once in a while, my lovely stylist, Tamara, will flat iron my hair and make me feel like the second coming of Ann Jillian. She also serves me wine, which may enhance my hallucination. Either way, it's a happy hallucination.

 

 

Now I would be remiss if I didn't talk about Ann's style. That poor woman is probably tired of people talking about her hair anyway. After all, Ann is much more than a good haircut. She's a great actress, she sings, she's a cancer survivor, she's a humanitarian - and she's adorable. She had her heydey in the 80s, and she managed to choose wisely from the post-Annie Hall/post-disco styles that emerged in the early part of that decade.

 In 1982, Jillian was nominated for an Emmy for her turn as Mae West. She nailed the sass and the voice, and she managed to look just as ravishing when her signature haircut was replaced by period-perfect pincurls. And she got to co-star with one of my imaginary boyfriends, James Brolin.

While looking for photos of Ann, I came across all kinds of videos of her singing. That girl has pipes! There was even a duet with one of my childhood heartthrobs, Andy Gibb. Be prepared to swoon!