Russell Mills

Barber strives to be a cut above the rest

Russell Mills stands outside his barber shop, Gentleman’s Choice, in downtown Conway. He received his barber’s license in 1961, and other than a brief stint in Crossett, he has been in Conway ever since.
Russell Mills stands outside his barber shop, Gentleman’s Choice, in downtown Conway. He received his barber’s license in 1961, and other than a brief stint in Crossett, he has been in Conway ever since.

Russell Mills picked up a pair of scissors more than 54 years ago, and he’s been going at a good clip ever since.

The 74-year-old Conway barber has cut the hair of movie stars, musicians, politicians and countless other clients through the years.

Mark Andrews, 61, a director and producer at the Arkansas Educational Television Network, said he has been taking a seat in Mills’ barber chair since about 1969 — when a haircut cost $2.50.

“I’ve been coming here since I was 16,” Andrews said, sitting in a chair at Gentleman’s Choice on Parkway Street in downtown Conway. “You get used to someone cutting your hair the right way, and you stick with them. He knows all the ins and outs of my relatives.”

Mills, one of nine children, said his mother was a homemaker, and his father was a schoolteacher. He got his barber’s license in September 1961 from Eaton Barber College in Little Rock. Mills said it was his brother William who suggested that Mills go to barber school.

Before he started his career, he spent six months on active duty with the Army National Guard and worked a year at Virco Manufacturing Corp. in Conway. When he was 17, he also spent a hot summer in Austin, Texas, doing odd jobs.

“I worked at every kind of job you can think of,” he said. “I’d pick up pasture rock and throw it on a big old truck. [The boss] said, ‘Kick that rock before you pick it up; watch for rattlesnakes,’” Mills said.

His first job cutting hair, immediately after he was licensed in 1961, was in Crossett with Travis White and Bill Utter — when men could pay a dollar for a haircut and get back change. The three men moved to Conway in December 1961 and opened a shop on Oak Street. Mills and White were later joined by another longtime Conway barber, Max Henry.

“We thought people would just flock in,” Mills said. He recalled that after they’d been open about a year, “one of the town fathers in the Catholic community came in,” looked around and approved of the place. “He said, ‘It looks like you’re going to make it. I’ll spread the word,’” Mills said. “You’d thought they turned out church at St. Joe. The Catholic community blessed us.”

Mills was called on to give haircuts to cast and crew members of the 1977 movie September 30, 1955, which was filmed partially in Conway and directed by James Bridges.

Mills, who moved to Front Street, said someone called from the University of Central Arkansas, where some of the scenes were being filmed, and said, “Russ, we need you on the set.” He got his tools, and a driver came and picked Mills up. He recalled that he put his tools in a cardboard box and set men on a stool to cut their hair.

Mills said that with Henry’s help, they cut 104 people’s hair. Mills said he cut actor Dennis Christopher’s hair, and he gave Dennis Quaid more than one haircut.

“I thought he was sort of a down-to-earth-type person,” Mills said of Quaid. He recalled that Quaid would sometimes “hang out” in the barber shop between scenes when the crew was filming in downtown Conway, eating “souse meat and crackers.”

Mills said he also gave haircuts to members of Merle Haggard’s band and Conway Twitty’s drummer, Tommy “Porkchop” Markham, and Twitty would stop in to visit with Mills. Politicians frequented his chair, too.

“In the days of [Win] Rockefeller and Jim Johnson, they would come late, and we’d lock the door, and the security people would hang their guns on the coat rack, and they’d all get their hair done,” he said.

To earn extra money in the 1960s, Mills said, he gave haircuts to residents of the Conway Human Development Center for “60 cents a head” and cut hair at a nursing home in Conway and a children’s home in Morrilton.

Mills said Henry worked for him for a few years, but Mills has been solo since 1975, when he moved into the building he owns on Parkway. He doesn’t take appointments, preferring to keep his schedule “flexible,” he said.

Mills said he’s changed with the times. Long hair was the rage when he started, he said, and he also developed what he called a “cowboy cut,” when a customer came in and said his hair was “getting in his face.” Mills decided to give the guy and his friends a “bi-level” haircut like he gave women — shorter in the front, long in the back, which sounds a lot like a mullet. Mills said another barber in town called him and asked, “What’s a cowboy cut?”

He said his way of thinking about barbering changed when he picked up a magazine on the profession. The headline on the cover was “Don’t Just Sit There — Do Something.” Mills went to a table in his waiting area and got the 1970 magazine from the stack. “You’ve got to market yourself, market the shop.”

Mills started going to style shows in Little Rock, and he learned to give the Dorothy Hamill haircut to women, based on the popular American ice skater of the time. Today, his wife, Pat, is his only female customer.

“This journey was all possible with a partner of 52 years,” he said of his wife.

Mills said a barber shop is no-nonsense. It’s about communicating with the customer to find out what he wants and deciding whether that’s best achieved with a razor or a pair of scissors.

“Part of cutting hair is being a psychologist. A fellow comes in, it’s you and him. He’ll talk, because you’re in close contact with him,” Mills said. “That’s the secret, is have that rapport with your client.”

Mills prides himself in giving the customer what he wants.

“A man called from the other side of Searcy the other day; he wanted a flat top,” Mills said. “He told his wife, ‘Now watch this — this man knows what he’s doing.’”

Mills gives shaves, too, but not with a straight razor anymore.

“I spent hours working on my strap, working on my razor,” he said. “Some people want it for nostalgia.”

He has an old red, white and blue barber pole outside his business. Barbers and surgeons worked together until 1896, he said.

“The red was for blood, the white for bandages and the blue for veins,” he said. “Barbers got the pole.” He has a photograph of an 1888 barber chair, which he has in his home.

Mills picked up an antique book, copyright 1911, his Moler professional manual.

“His methods are either used or an off-shoot of [them] today. That’s the basic method,” he said.

The basics are still important, he said, but the industry has changed.

“Sometimes I feel that the professionalism has gone out of it,” he said. “I think the younger people who get in it are misled to the point of thinking maybe they can make money rather than become professionals.”

Mills, who will be 75 on July 19, said he doesn’t talk much about retiring.

“I always say barbers never die — they just cut out,” he said, smiling.

Sam Revis, 16, came in while Mills was talking about his career.

“This is my second time,” the teenager said. “My brother came here, and he said he liked it. I think I’ll start coming here regularly.”

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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