Oscar winning stylist, Paul LeBlanc has passed away at the age of 73. LeBlanc worked on Return of the Jedi in 1983, before winning an Oscar in 1984 for Amadeus.
Prior to “Amadeus,” LeBlanc worked on the hair of one of the most iconic characters in film history: Princess Leia. The 1983 “Star Wars” film “Return of the Jedi” was one of LeBlanc’s first major jobs in cinematic hairstyling, fashioning the braids that Leia wore as Jabba the Hutt’s slave and as a guest of the Ewoks on Endor.
In the 1990s, LeBlanc became the hairstylist for Sharon Stone on multiple films, including for her performance as Catherine Tramell in “Basic Instinct” and as Ace Rothstein’s doomed wife Ginger in “Casino.” In the 2000s, he worked with filmmakers like Darren Aronofsky (“Requiem For A Dream,” “Black Swan”) and the Coen Brothers (“O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, “The Ladykillers”).
But perhaps his most famous hairstyle of the 2000s was the one he gave Javier Bardem in the Best Picture winner “No Country For Old Men,” where Bardem played the amoral killer Anton Chigurh. In a 2008 Guardian interview, LeBlanc said that Chigurh’s bowl cut was inspired by the medieval Crusades, “when knights and Muslims were murdering each other, and this was a typical haircut. It was a dangerous time and we wanted to make Javier timeless and dangerous at first sight.”
LeBlanc is survived by his wife, Louise, and his brothers Georges, Marc and Allison. Our thoughts go out to them at this time.
