As an actor, Jimmy Lydon played wholesome teen Henry Aldrich in a series of films; shared the screen with John Wayne (“Island in the Sky”), Liz Taylor (“Life With Father”) and Ingrid Bergman (“Joan of Arc”); and learned to value a sharp haircut.
NADIA BOROWSKI SCOTT / Union-Tribune
Cut! Freddie Orlando, actor and barber, has retired after 50 years. All that remains of Freddie's Barber Shop are souvenirs - this confection topped a retirement cake- and the fond memories of well-shorn cops, judges, actors and opera singers.
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During his 50 years in Hollywood, Lydon patronized one barber: “I started going to him when I was at RKO.”
But in 1998, Lydon retired to San Diego. Feeling shaggy, he followed a tip to Freddie's Barber Shop. The establishment sits near the downhill end of Laurel Street, so close to I-5 you could play license plate bingo while getting lathered up. The neighborhood is scruffy, in need of a trim, and Lydon almost fled, unshorn.
“My God, you'd need to have a police guard to go into the place,” he said. “It's not what you'd call the fanciest place in town.”
Freddie's was a two-chair shop, but one chair was always awash in a slush pile of newspapers, magazines and, Lydon noted, “God knows what.” The other chair usually held a cop or an actor – Freddie Orlando had loyal followings in the not-exactly-parallel worlds of law enforcement and theater. The place rang with chatter and the swish-bang of traffic barging through the front door.
Freddie's was like ...
“ ... a train station,” said Pat Russell, a retired investigator for the district attorney.
“ ... old home week,” said Lydon.
“ ... an institution,” said Grant Bening, father of Oscar-nominee Annette Bening and a customer for four decades.
This shop, where the owner always knew your name and your part, was like a remnant of a sunnier time. In fact, it seemed like a memory.
And now it is.
Comedy and drama
Freddie Orlando, 77, closed his shop in October, six months after being diagnosed with a debilitating lung disease. He opened to customers for a farewell party Nov. 4, then with his wife, Carol, began packing the signs, the snapshots, the yarns.
SNIPPETS FROM A DRAMATIC CAREER
PASSAGE
Freddie Orlando closed his barbershop Nov. 4, ending five decades of cuts, trims and close shaves.
INTERESTING FACT
A former fisherman, Orlando attended barber college while waiting to unload the American Lady. This was in 1956, when San Diego's canneries were so busy “you had to wait three months before you could unload your fish.”
QUOTE
After Orlando used his pistol to corner a robber in 1987, two police officers arrested the suspect – and one officer briefly pocketed Orlando's firearm. “The cop's partner said, 'Give him back his gun. He did all the work for you.'”
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An Army veteran and a former tuna fisherman, Freddie spent 50 years cutting other people's hair. He turned bewildered kids into Marine recruits at MCRD and into Naval recruits at NTC. He went into business for himself in 1965, opening the first Freddie's on the corner of Fifth and Laurel, where Laurel restaurant now stands. One of his neighbors was The Huntress, a bar for dedicated drinkers.
Robert, a steady patron of The Huntress, staggered into Freddie's one afternoon. “You got a good haircut,” he advised the customer in Orlando's chair.
Then Robert tripped; cracked his head against the shop's sink; caromed off the empty barber chair; and landed face-first on the floor.
“Boy,” he muttered, blearily staring at Orlando, “it's a good thing I'm drunk.”
John Sinor, the late San Diego Tribune columnist, maintained that visiting Freddie's was like “walking into the middle of a very funny television situation comedy.” Occasionally, though, comedy gave way to drama. In 1987, a gunman held up Alex's Brown Bag, a deli near Freddie's. While escaping, the robber shot and wounded Luis Guadagni, 23.
Benito Guadagni, Luis' father and the owner of the deli, ran into Freddie's and asked Orlando to call 911. Orlando did – and then grabbed his own gun and gave chase. Orlando cornered the robber in a nearby alley. For a minute, the pursuer and the pursued engaged in a standoff, pointing pistols at each other.
“Drop the gun,” Orlando said.
The robber refused.
“Drop it,” Orlando said, “or I'll blow your brains out.”
The robber did. Orlando held his .38 on Anthony Leon Horn until police arrived.
Most days at work offered less drama, but this frustrated actor craved the limelight. From 1960, when Orlando appeared as a page in an Old Globe production of “Becket,” he regularly took supporting roles at the Globe and the Starlight. For the San Diego Opera, the baritone was a supernumerary – “spear-carriers, waiters, people of that type” – and cast others in similar background parts.
His fellow actors followed him from stage to shop. He'd cut their hair to look like a Shakespearean duke, a tailor in a czarist shtetl, a naive student in Old Heidelberg. Craig Noel, the Globe's founder, was known to hand a trouper a sketch of his character. “Take this down to Freddie's,” Noel would say. “He'll know what to do.”
Neutral turf
When Pat Russell entered the Sheriff's Academy, he received similar orders: “Go down to Freddie's. He'll square you away.”
Thanks to his years shaving recruits' heads, Orlando understood the high-and-tight look favored by law enforcement in the '60s. But he also proved able to adjust; he could handle long hair, mustaches, the works. Best of all, this barber knew when to listen and when to talk.
Cops, investigators, lawyers and judges comprised a high percentage of Freddie's clientele. But some customers were more fastidious about their appearance than their legal obligations.
“I think Freddie knew all the crooks in town,” Russell said. “But it was neutral turf.”
In recent years, Orlando had been cutting back on his workload. The sign in Freddie's window promises haircuts on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, but that promise went unfulfilled on some days. Then some weeks. And now for good.
This fall, Jimmy Lydon went shopping for a new barber, only his third since boyhood. He found a veteran with a tidy shop in a tidy neighborhood. The haircut? Nice.
But when asked about the new barber, Lydon sighed.
“He's not anything like Freddie. But there's nobody like Freddie.”
