Guilaroff grew up in Winnipeg and Montreal and at the age of fourteen, left for New York, where he landed a job sweeping floors in a hair salon. He quickly learned the hairstyling trade and soon became "Mr. Sydney," at Antoine's, one of the Big Apple's finest salons. Not bad for a kid whose dad was hoping he'd grow up to be a shoe salesman.

Guilaroff's reputation with crimps and curls spread fast. Joan Crawford made him her pet stylist, and when he gave actress Claudette Colbert her first bangs, he gained national attention and was soon off to Hollywood, where he joined Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. At MGM he became known as "the man with the golden shears." As MGM's top stylist from 1934 until the late 1970s, he worked on more than twelve hundred motion picture sets and snuck into the lives of dozens of Hollywood starlets.

He dyed Lucille Ball's hair fiery red and handled the coiffures for Crawford and Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. On Grace Kelly's wedding day, Guilaroff was flown to Monaco with styling wand in hand, in case of emergency, according to a report in The Globe and Mail. He soon became the ultimate Hollywood insider. When Michael Todd, Elizabeth Taylor's third husband, died in a plane crash, Guilaroff was at the foot of her bed consoling the star he first primped in the movie National Velvet. He once proposed to Greta Garbo, after a lengthy affair, but was rebuffed and never spoke to her again.

Guilaroff, who never married, made headlines for more than his hairdressing skills. In 1938, he became the first single man in history to adopt a son, whom he named Jon, after Joan Crawford. The state of California had tried to stop the adoption but Guilaroff won out when he proved to a judge that he was both fit to be a parent and more moral than most other people. Eventually he adopted a second son, and years later he adopted a former employee named Jose.

Guilaroff, who was born in England in 1907, died of pneumonia on May 28, 1997 in Beverly Hills, Calif. at age eighty-nine.