Stylist to Canada’s politicos dies at 82

OTTAWA — An Ottawa hair stylist whose scissors tended to the tresses of some of the country’s biggest political players has died.

Rinaldo Canonico died after undergoing heart surgery.

So gregarious and charismatic that he was known in political circles simply by his first name, Rinaldo was 82, although he often tried to keep his true age as secret as he did the stories that were shared by his famous clients.

“Anybody who’d ever met him wouldn’t forget him,” said Peter Clark, an international trade expert and close friend of Rinaldo and his wife, Pat. “He didn’t operate in half measures.”

Over more than four decades working in downtown Ottawa, he cut the hair of MPs, senators, judges and celebrities. Prime ministers including Stephen Harper, Brian Mulroney and Pierre Trudeau all reportedly sat in his chair, as did many of their wives.

But it was his friendship with Mila Mulroney that brought him the most fame.

In 1993, he described how he kept her trademark brunette bob looking good, telling the Ottawa Citizen, “I add special effects highlights with cellophane so her hair always look shiny.”

He was appointed by the Mulroney government to the board of the Federal Development Bank of Canada, sparking charges that the prime minister was so enamoured of patronage, he extended it as far as his wife’s hairstylist.

But the appointment was well deserved, said Clark: “He understood business.”

Rinaldo’s salon was once voted best in Canada. His clients included Sophia Loren; Sarah, the Duchess of York; Queen Noor of Jordan; and former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, whose signature bouffant was softened by his touch.

Rinaldo arrived in Canada from Italy in 1956 at 21, having already apprenticed in one of Italy’s best salons. He spent more than a decade cutting hair at the Ritz Hotel in Montreal before returning to Ottawa in 1968.

Beyond hair salons he also owned several restaurants in Ottawa.