Secrets of the ‘Bardem bob’

The man responsible for the most talked-about haircut in Oscar history since Robert de Niro's 'mohawk' in Taxi Driver has broken cover: he's Paul LeBlanc (left in our composite picture), a Canadian hairdresser from New Brunswick who created Javier Bardem's 'killer bob' for his Oscar-winning role in No Country For Old Men. Accepting his award, Bardem called it "one of the most horrible haircuts in history" after host Jon Stewart had quipped that it combined "Hannibal Lecter's murderousness with Dorothy Hamill's wedge cut".

This was water off a duck's back chez LeBlanc. "It was wonderful," the hairdresser said on Monday. "I didn't get mentioned, but my work did, and that's all that counts."

Until now, the haircut was understood to have been based on a photograph of a brothel patron included in a book of period photos belonging to co-star Tommy Lee Jones. But LeBlanc tells The First Post that he went back to the Crusades for inspiration – "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. It worked." Either way, on the Coen brothers' set Bardem is supposed to have reacted to LeBlanc's cut with the words: "Oh, no, now I went get laid for the next two months!"

LeBlanc is now semi-retired from the film business, having styled hair on movies including Star Wars and Casino, and is now running a "hair and esthetician studio" in his home town of Dieppe, New Brunswick. High points of his film career include a 2002 lifetime achievement award from the Hollywood Makeup Hair Stylists' Guild, and, in 1984, an Oscar (shared with make-up artists Dick Smith) for his work on Amadeus.

He told The First Post he had always tried to make sure the hair was "not particularly noticed" in his films. "This one, of course, has been noticed all over the world. I am very happy about that." He said there had been no requests for the 'Bardem bob' at his Dieppe studio – "but it seems through the States young men are asking for it… Isn't that a hoot?"