World’s oldest working barber was still cutting hair 97 years after his first job
Anthony Mancinelli first started cutting hair in 1922, when Warren Harding was US president and barbers still offered customers wart removals and bloodletting with leeches. He was 11 at the time.
Apart from a brief interlude during World War II, he never stopped. He kept cutting through the Great Depression, the Civil Rights struggle, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Sixties revolution, Watergate. He kept cutting through the age of bobs, bangs and Buster Browns, shags and mohawks, buzz cuts and Elvis-style pompadours. He kept cutting until shortly before his death from cancer, aged 108, by which stage he had held the title of the world’s oldest working barber for a dozen years.
He never contemplated retirement, certainly not after the death of Carmella, the woman to whom he had been married for 69 years, in 2004. ‘‘If she was here we probably would retire, because you can go places and enjoy yourself,’’ Mancinelli told one of the many journalists who drove up to interview him in New Windsor, a small town on the Hudson River north of New York, where latterly he worked in a salon called Fantastic Cuts in a nondescript shopping mall.
‘‘But where am I going all alone? So I says, ‘Forget it. I’ll stay in the barber business.’ At least I see people here, I talk to people, they talk to me, so on and so forth. It keeps you going.’’
Anthony Mancinelli was born in Montemilone, in Italy, in 1911. He was one of eight children and retained an Italian accent throughout his life. The family emigrated to the US eight years later, arriving in New York after a 10-day voyage.
They settled in Newburgh, next to New Windsor, because one of Mancinelli’s aunts lived there. His father found employment as a felt worker, but he earned just $25 a week, so from the age of 11 Mancinelli had to help his family to make ends meet. ‘‘I’d deliver papers in the morning early, and then come home, have breakfast, go to school, deliver papers in the afternoon. Then I went into the barbershop to learn the barber business till eight o’clock at night. I’ve been at work ever since.’’
He left school early and at 19 opened his own shop, Anthony’s, which had two chairs. ‘‘Haircut and a shave was a quarter. That’s where they got that saying: Haircut and a shave two bits. Fifteen cents for a haircut, 10c for a shave.’’ By the end of his life he was charging $19 for a haircut alone.
‘‘I used to do cupping. People used to come in, they used to have pains. I would use these cups on their body and it would draw some of the pain out.’’ He also kept a bottle of leeches on his counter. ‘‘People used to say they had
Anthony Mancinelli barber b March 2, 1911 d September 19, 2019
high blood pressure, so I would put leeches on them. People said they felt better after that.’’
In 1935 he married a local girl, Carmella Vetrano, and they had two children, Robert and Anthony. He served in the army during the war, handing out uniforms and inspecting troops before they shipped out, then returned to his barbershop in 1945. He remained there until he sold it in 1987, then began working in other people’s salons.
‘‘I used to do cupping ... People used to say they had high blood pressure, so I would put leeches on them.’’ Mancinelli on his early days as a barber
Afew years ago he applied to Fantastic Cuts because another shop had reduced his hours. He was initially rejected because of his age, but the owner, Jane Dinezza, relented when she realised he was trim, spry and cutting hair as well as ever.
Until shortly before his death he lived alone and did his own shopping, cooking and laundry. He continued to work five days a week, from noon to 8pm, visiting his wife’s grave as he drove in each day.
His hands were steady. He did not wear glasses. He never took time off sick. He did not smoke, drank little and took no medications. He insisted on sweeping up his own hair clippings at the end of each day. ‘‘He can do more haircuts than a 20-year-old kid,’’ Dinezza told the New York Times last year. ‘‘They’re sitting there looking at their phones, texting or whatever, and he’s working.’’
‘‘He loves being a barber,’’ said son Robert, who had his hair cut by his father all 82 years of his life. ‘‘He meets a lot of people. He likes to talk to people.’’
As the decades passed, Mancinelli found himself cutting the hair of the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of his original customers. And the accolades grew.
In 2007, aged 96, he was recognised as the oldest working barber by Guinness World Records. His birthday was named Anthony Mancinelli Day by Orange County, which incorporates New Windsor. For 13 consecutive years he was appointed grand marshal of the New Windsor Memorial Day parade, and a week before his death he was inducted into the National Barber Museum’s Hall of Fame in Ohio.
By that time he had been cutting hair for three years short of a century. –