Toronto’s famed hairstylist to the elite Robert Gage passed away suddenly at the age of 73 Thursday, leaving behind his loyal following of friends and glitterati.
He was a legend, larger than life, a gifted hairstylist, a lover of beauty and style, a bon vivant and above all a generous and caring person, his friends recalled.
But to the people who loved him and who had sat in his chair as he washed, cut and styled their locks, Gage, who semi-retired a few years ago, was so much more than an (expert) hairstylist.
“The haircut I’d say was 20 per cent of the reason you would go to Robert Gage,” recalled entertainment mogul Jeffrey Latimer. “My hair was always great, I loved my hair, it was easy. But 80 per cent was for the social experience of sitting in the chair and you never know who you’re going to meet.”
Latimer recalled meeting Linda Schuyler, one of the creators of the Degrassi television series, while at Gage’s salon.
“I’d known of her work forever, but I got to know her through Robert Gage. We’re in the same business and yet I never knew her and one day – 10 years ago – she was sitting in the chair and I was sitting in the next room.”
For decades, the philanthropist Catherine Nugent has been one of Gage’s clients and friends.
“He was one of Toronto’s originals,” she recalled fondly. “He really was an original. He did hair like nobody could do hair. He gave Toronto a lot of pizzazz and a lot of elegance and a lot of character.”
Nugent remembered attending charity events with Gage in the 1980s and his “fabulous” dancing.
“I loved dancing with him because he was absolutely fabulous. He had great elegance when he danced. We danced in many a place. He was my favourite partner at the time. He always made his partners look good.”
In the 10 years that Gage’s friend Mary Symons, a Toronto publicist, had been good friends with him, she recalled he never failed to attend one of her parties or events.
“If you are a friend of Robert, one of the things that was so spectacular was he elevated you as a person. He made you feel as glamorous as he made you look. He really, really made people feel good about themselves,” she said.
A client of his herself, she added, “He was able to bring out in his clients the best version that they could be because he loved beauty and glamour and style.”
But not all of Gage’s friendships began in his styling chair.
“We thought it was quite fun that he’d never touched my hair,” recalled his close friend Jeanne Beker, who knew him for decades.
Strong loyalty to her own hairstylist, kept Beker and Gage’s relationship strictly personal, something she said Gage loved.
“Happily, he said to me in all honestly that he highly approved of my hairstyle,” she recalled.
Beker moved just round the corner from Gage’s Warkworth, Ont. home last July and the pair became very close in a short amount of time.
“I cannot tell you how he’s embraced us, threw the most fabulous parties that we were always invited to,” she recalled.
“This guy was kind of from another era in a way. A kind of eccentric, the biggest heart you can imagine.”
And Gage was a fixture in the small town east of Peterborough, she said.
“Everybody just adored him. I don’t know if that village will ever be the same again. He was just the heart and soul of it. So much whimsy about him and the way he dressed and presented himself, I mean, he just had the most brilliant sense of style.”
Gage’s impeccable style extended from his wardrobe to the décor in his homes. He loved his house in Warkworth, an old converted church he bought almost 30 years ago and filled with antiques and art.
He adored hosting dinner parties, cooking up feasts for friends and entertaining with his beloved fox terriers, Titus and Tallulah at his side, said Beker.
“They don’t make them like that anymore,” she said, adding she felt lucky to have grown close to him in the time they had.
Said Latimer, “In the end he just cut hair but in my life he was a therapist, he was a storyteller, he was an idea creator. He just was full of life, so the hair cut was a bonus for me in the end.”
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