Vidal Sassoon, Famed Stylist, Dies at 84

Vidal Sassoon, the famed British hairstylist, has been found dead at his Bel-Air home of apparent natural causes. He was 84.

He admitted last year that he was diagnosed with leukemia in 2009 but had kept the news private. He was treated for the disease in Beverly Hills and the Cromwell Hospital in London. 

A documentary on Sassoon, Vidal Sassoon: The Movie, was released in 2011. The film prompted him to go on a speaking tour, which included meeting with hundreds of fans in movie theaters in New York and Los Angeles. It documented his rise in the London of the 1960s, inventing the famed "wedge" haircut and bringing architecture to hair for the first time.

He had a close friendship with fashion designer Mary Quant, and they often worked in tandem.

Later on, he became one of the first hairdressers with his name on a major product line, and there are now Vidal Sassoon salons all over the world. The Vidal Sassoon hair products empire is worth about $150 million.