Beauty professionals mourn the passing of Sig Frends, the president of Mercury Supply Co., who died July 24,1996, at the age of 94. Frends was one of the pioneers in the Southern California beauty business who supplied hair and makeup products to many television and motion-picture stylists. He also gave people such as Jack Sperling, president of Alpha 9, his start. “I wouldn’t be in this business if it wasn’t for Sig,” says Sperling, who started his career at one of Frend’s beauty supply businesses back in 1959.

Frends opened Mercury Beauty Supply in Los Angeles in 1940, after becoming involved in the beauty business during World War II supplying beauty equipment to the Far East. Over the years, Frends developed a goog reputation serving the studio’s beauty professionals, and worked on such movies as “Gone With the Wind,” “Singin’ in the Rain,” and “Cleopatra.” He opened Frends Beauty Supply in 1963, and it became a place where beauty artists from around the world would gather to talk shop.

Frends is survived by his wife, Ethel, and son, Leslie, from a previous marriage.

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