[5] He counted Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and many of America's most high-profile socialites such as Brooke Astor and Happy Rockefeller among his clients.

[7] His father was a shoe salesman, who divorced his mother when Kenneth was 12, leaving their son to support his family through cooking and washing dishes, selling beer and working as an elevator operator.

[6][7] After seeing an advertisement for the Wanamaker Academy of Beauty in New York that promised graduates $100-a-week jobs, he studied there for 6 months, supporting himself by working for a restaurant and playing the piano in a local bar.

[6] Kenneth stepped in, and by suggesting his unknown-to-him client grow out her unflattering short, layered and curly "Italian cut" hairstyle, he and Kennedy embarked upon a successful client-and-stylist partnership.

[8] One of the leading milliners of New York, Daché had realised that hats were going out of fashion, and had added an extravagant pink-and-white salon to her building in order to attract a different type of customer.

[6] The next year, in 1958, the couturier Norman Norell sent Marilyn Monroe along to see Kenneth after she complained that excessive bleaching and perming was making her hair fall out.

[6] Kenneth softened, smoothed and straightened Monroe's hair,[4] and became her hairdresser of choice while she lived in New York, plus travelled with her to Chicago for the Some Like It Hot premiere in March 1959.

[6] His hairstyles were a key part of Jacqueline Kennedy's look, with judicious use of hairspray to ensure that her hair did not readily blow out of position, but just enough loose tendrils to avoid a wholly immobile look.

[9] In an interview with Vanity Fair in 2003, Kenneth stated that although he used to enjoy attending social events, a headline in a mid-1960s issue of the New York Journal-American reading "Pickle Queen goes to Yacht Party With Hairdresser" upset him and led to his decision to avoid going out with his clients again.

[6] Although on a much smaller scale than the original salon, the Waldorf-Astoria establishment retained many of the pampering touches such as finger sandwiches for clients and free bottles of nail polish to accompany manicures.

[6] In 2002 Kenneth chose Kevin Lee, employed as a stylist since 1987, to be his creative director and regenerate the salon to attract a younger clientele.