Hollywood Hairstylist

For 30 years Dorothy Andre was a stuntwoman in Hollywood, where she doubled for Olivia de Havilland in Robin Hood and appeared in epics such as The Ten Commandments and Samson and Delilah. Now a freelance hairstylist, Sister Andre took home an Emmy award—her second—last September for her work on a television musical, Mrs. Santa Claus. The movie first aired in December 1996.

“The material was a period piece, so everything had to be like it was in 1910,” she explains. “We used a lot of hats and haircuts of the time.” She shared the Emmy, awarded for best hairstyling for a movie of the week and/or special, with two other hairstylists. All three stylists worked on the principal actors in the movie and then, in the time left over, worked on the extras. Sister Andre was responsible for some of the dancers’ and the extras’ wigs.

Sister Andre has been involved with show business all her life. Her parents were in vaudeville, and her mother occasionally doubled in movies.

A member of the Church since 1972, Sister Andre’s Church membership makes her something of an anomaly in her line of work. “I end up eventually telling almost everybody I talk to that I’m LDS,” she says. “When they offer me coffee, tea, or alcohol, I say, ‘No thank you, I’m a Mormon.’ I’m not afraid to talk to people about my church.”

She is a member of the Mint Canyon Ward, Santa Clarita California Stake.