The 11th Hollywood Beauty Awards recognized Robert Louis Stevenson with the Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling honor.
In a night full of star power, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs and Terrence Howard stepped up to honor the legend behind the chair.
The evening honored the architects of beauty across hair, makeup, styling, and photography in film, TV, music, and editorial, while supporting longtime charity partner Helen Woodward Animal Center.
In 1970, Robert stepped onto the Universal lot as an apprentice, entering the industry through a federal initiative designed to open doors for minority artists, doors he would go on to widen himself, becoming a pioneer and the first African American to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Motion Picture Makeup and Hairstylists Guild.
Starting with Car Wash in 1976, Robert began a formative collaboration with Richard Pryor on Greased Lightnin’, Which Way Is Up?, Blue Collar, The Toy, and Superman III. Across more than forty years and over 120 film and TV credits, from The Color Purple to Murder, She Wrote, Robert became a master of hairlace wig design and character realism, contributing to landmark titles including Harlem Nights, Coming to America, Sister Act, Waiting to Exhale, The Butler, and more.
For fourteen years, Robert served as Samuel L. Jackson’s personal hairstylist for more than twenty films, including Jackie Brown, A Time to Kill, Shaft, Unbreakable, and Coach Carter, helping establish some of Jackson’s most iconic roles.
Earning a Primetime Emmy for The Jesse Owens Story and nominations for The Atlanta Child Murders and The Jacksons: An American Dream, he is the sole entertainment hairstylist in The HistoryMakers national archives. Even in retirement, Robert L. Stevenson remains active as a wig designer and consultant, continuing to shape the craft he helped to define.
