LOS ANGELES – He was a revolutionary L.A. style icon, but today, the name Jay Sebring is not familiar to most. That might be changing thanks to Sebring’s nephew Anthony DiMaria. DiMaria’s documentary film Jay Sebring Cutting to the Truth hopes to illuminate his uncle's pioneering of what is now a $20 billion a year men's hairstyling industry.
“What Jay did is he implemented and created the methodology and his own technique of designing looks and styles for men that was up until that point was reserved for only women,” explained DiMaria from the Beverly Hills salon of Sebring protégé Joe Torreneuva.
Sebring built a hairstyling empire, catering to Hollywood elites who are willing to pay top dollar--Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen, Bruce Lee, Paul Newman…the list goes on.
But just as Sebring was riding a wave of success, his life was ended tragically in 1969 in one of Hollywood's most infamous murder cases.
“There were two Jay Sebrings, it appeared,” said DiMaria. “Jay Sebring, the man who lived, and Jay Sebring after he was killed. And the more I learned the more compelled I was.”
Sebring was murdered by the Manson Family while visiting his friend Sharon Tate. A media frenzy exploded around the murders, becoming a veritable cottage industry. In his documentary, DiMaria details how Charles Manson and his “family” became like serial-killing rock stars, while the victims became mostly faceless and forgotten.
“[It was] the perfect storm of tabloid gossip,” said DiMaria. “The murders have been experienced through those narratives exclusively. No one ever came to our family and said, ‘Do we have permission to use Jay’s image? Can we write this?’”
DiMaria was only 3 years old when his uncle was murdered, but his family did not tell him until two years later. Part of what drove him to make his film was his need to get at the truth and to give voice to someone who deserves better.
“That's why [the film] is relevant, because it's important to see things for how they were and are,” said DiMaria.
“This is something that we've lived with and it's culturally imperative that we set the record straight with regard to true crime, violent crime, victims, the people who committed these crimes, that a real human perspective and accuracy be known.”
When asked if the process of making his film gave him any sense of closure, DiMaria said, “Until Jay gets up out of his grave, and walks out the way he was, and we share all the times and what we should have shared and could have shared and all of that is restored, there will be no closure. I don't think there's any silver lining other than to know that Jay’s story will be told.”