Brad Johns Dies at 70: A Friend Remembers the Celebrated Celebrity Colorist
Known for his buttery blondes and a technique for highlighting hair with more precision that he called chunking, Brad Johns died on August 27. His friend and fellow colorist, David Stanko, shares thoughts on his talented colleague and close friend.
Anne Moratto・Director of Brand Content Strategy, MODERN SALON and NAILS
Brad Johns, the legendary New York hair colorist known for his buttery blondes, celebrity clientele and groundbreaking “chunking” technique, died August 27. He was 70.
3 min to read
Brad Johns, a renowned colorist, passed away at the age of 70.
He was famous for his signature buttery blonde hair color technique.
Johns introduced a precise highlighting technique known as chunking.
*Summarized by AI
Brad Johns, a celebrated colorist, died on August 27, following a period of declining health due to prostate cancer.
Johns, said by those who knew him, lived a life defined by beauty, creativity, humor, generosity, and an unmistakable point of view.
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He was Color Director for Oribe at Elizabeth Arden and created signature looks for Christy Turlington, Carolyn Bessette, Kate Moss, Johnny Depp, Natasha Richardson, Cindy Sherman and Matthew Modine. After opening his namesake Fifth Avenue salon in 1996 and earning repeated recognition from Allure, he retired in 2019 to pursue painting, metalwork and glass art. His acclaimed memoir, “Dye: A Memoir of Art, Music, Faith, Family, and Hair Color,” which he cowrote with longtime friend Marianne Dougherty, recounts his journey from a Pittsburgh housing project through depression, addiction and, ultimately, spiritual healing.
Brad Johns in LA
David Stanko, an award-winning educator, colorist, and product developer,was a close friend of Johns. He shared his thoughts on the Brad he knew during their shared time in Los Angeles.
Brunching on the rooftop, David Stanko takes the picture with hairdresser Ron Purnell (left) and Brad Johns to his right.
Credit:
David Stanko
There will be plenty written about Brad’s remarkable career—he worked alongside Oribe, colored some of the world’s most recognizable people, and was repeatedly named among New York’s best colorists by Allure.
But I knew a different Brad, too.
Brad retired from hair in 2019 and moved to Los Angeles, where life became considerably more chill. But he never retired his eye. A good dye job got his attention. A bad one definitely did.
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Brad often repeated something his mentor Don Mathers, who had worked at Clairol, taught him: “The simpler the formula, the better the color.” I learned that lesson from Brad and also the way I talk about hair color: women need to be able to see color.
Brad didn’t just describe a shade as “medium brown with warmth.” He made it delicious. A milk-chocolatey brunette with cinnamon tones was something you could actually see and want. Candy and spice gave color a visual vocabulary as beautiful as the result itself.
Nearly every weekend, for years, I’d pick Brad up—you did not want Brad driving in Los Angeles—and we’d go. From the beaches and Venice to Goodwill and shopping on Rodeo.
There wasn’t much of an agenda. Drive. Talk. Find somewhere for lunch. And if there was a crystal store along the way, Brad was going in. Chances were good another Buddha or crystal was coming home with him. That was the Los Angeles Brad I loved.
His client list was extraordinary, but Brad had just as much affection for his regular clients. Celebrity or not, when Brad cared about you, he cared about you. He was generous to a fault.
Tattoo artist Tolen McGregor remembers: “Brad changed my life. I was an apprentice—he saw something in me. I had no clients, no money, and he would book tattoos and give me advice. Told me how to dress, how to act and how to handle girlfriends.” Brad knew the power of someone seeing something in you and later gave that gift to others.
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In Los Angeles, Brad studied glass fusing at The Makery and eventually created Brad Johns Glass.
He also launched Dye: A Memoir of Art, Music, Faith, Family, and Hair Color, his story of beauty, darkness, humor, art and hard-earned perspective.
Celebrity stylist Johnny Stuntz, who cut Brad’s hair in LA and first met him at Oribe in the ’90s, remembers:
“He was extremely strict but saw potential in me. He was tough on the outside but an incredibly loving and genuine person. We were on the same wavelength.”
Brad Johns had plenty of sass and absolutely no shortage of opinions. He was an artist. He was a teacher. He was a character. And he was my friend. We will miss him.
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