Long before she did cool salons, an 18-year-old Hershberger was training and then assisting at the Arthur Johns salon in Los Angeles; from there she was hired by the famous Armando, whose tiny eponymous salon tended to everyone from Linda Evans to Olivia Newton-John. When he found himself overbooked, Armando would often pass his celebrity clients to Hershberger—a fortuitous system, because these celebs began requesting her “on set.” In 1986 she became the hairstylist for Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, which garnered her an Emmy. Soon after, photographers Annie Leibovitz and Herb Ritts began hiring her for photo shoots.
Dorram-Krause started her career around the same time as Hershberger, but in the swanky New York salon world, beginning at the erstwhile David Cohen salon, followed by Frédéric Fekkai, then Peter Coppola. Though the two women had not yet crossed paths, Hershberger knew Dorram-Krause’s reputation and left the colorist an auspicious phone message one day in 1994.
“The message said, ‘Hi. It’s Sally Hershberger,’” recalls Dorram-Krause, an attractive blond whose all-black outfit of Dolce & Gabbana pants, Theory blouse and Derek Lam shoes exude a classic style. “‘You need to do Julia Roberts’s hair color. Here’s the number.’ Click. I called the number and yes, it was indeed her.”
Hershberger began working in New York about a year after that phone message, making guest appearances at Peter Coppola, where she finally got to meet the colorist she’d recommended to Roberts. Now it was Dorram-Krause’s turn to be benevolent.
“I had my Hollywood celebs, but I was just starting out in New York,” Hershberger says. “Sharon did Annie [Leibovitz]’s color, and she got me all these clients. Within a week, I was fully booked. She built me in five seconds. She built everybody.”
And of course, Hershberger continued to send her own celebrity clients to her new friend. “Before Sally sent me Julia, I had one celebrity: Barbra Streisand, which certainly isn’t anything to shake a stick at,” remembers Dorram-Krause. “But because of Sally, I got Meg and Nicole, and that spun Brad Pitt and Ed Norton.”
When Hershberger left Coppola to join John Frieda in 1997, Dorram-Krause followed. Three years later, Hershberger moved back to L.A. to open Sally Hershberger at John Frieda, and Dorram-Krause stayed behind to run Frieda’s 76th Street lair. While most women were trading their “Rachel” cuts for long, layered locks, Hershberger was honing her own signature look, snipping stars like Meg Ryan, whose mopsy shag-bob became a major sensation. By then, Dorram-Krause was practically bicoastal, flying to L.A. to care for the heads of Nicole Kidman and Zellweger, then hopping back to New York to tend to Upper East Side blonds.
