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Lock Of John Lennon’s Hair Sold For $35,000 On Auction In Dallas

By Anne Sewell
Published on: 21:12 PST, Feb 20, 2016

A four-inch lock of former Beatles member, John Lennon’s hair just went under the hammer for a startling $35,000 at an auction in Dallas, Texas.

The Inquisitr recently reported on the fact that a clipping from John Lennon’s hair was going up for auction and speculated on just how much it would fetch. While the piece of Lennon memorabilia was expected to reach $10,000, the lock of hair has been sold on Saturday to a U.K.-based entertainment memorabilia collector named Paul Fraser for a hefty $35,000.

Heritage Auctions, a Texas-based company, has announced that the 50-year-old, four-inch lock of hair was sold to Fraser, who is an active buyer of entertainment memorabilia based in the U.K.

According to Garry Shrum, a spokesman for Heritage Auctions and director of music memorabilia, “this is the largest lock of John Lennon’s hair ever offered at auction and this world-record price is a lasting testament to the world’s more than 50-year love affair and fascination with Lennon and the Beatles.”

It turns out Fraser didn’t just get the $35,000 lock of John Lennon’s hair, however, as included in the deal were two vintage newspapers reporting on the reason for Lennon’s haircut, along with a signed call sheet.

As reported by Global News, the reason for having four inches of hair cut off his famous Beatle locks was Lennon’s appearance in the role of Private Gripweed in the dark comedy film, How I Won the War, about a fictional British army troop and their World War II misadventures while led by an inept commander.

It was reportedly hairdresser Klaus Baruck who got the privilege of cutting John Lennon’s long air back in 1966 in preparation for his role in the movie.

CNN quoted Eric Bradley, a spokesman for Heritage Auctions, as saying, “Baruck was so excited about the opportunity to transform Lennon’s famous Beatles mop top that he called the local newspaper to record the event.”

It was that and another local newspaper, together with a signed call sheet that Baruck had preserved, that went to the lucky bidder for the lock of John Lennon’s hair.

Bradley went on to explain that Baruck took such pride in his “15 minutes of fame” he became a guest on the CBS show I’ve Got a Secret back in late 1966.

“The contestants had to guess who he was: the man who cut John Lennon’s hair.”

Besides the expensive lock of hair, there is also an interesting side story behind John Lennon’s role in the film How I Won the War, which was filmed primarily in Almeria in southern Spain.

As reported by the New York Times back in 2014, a teacher of English in the Almeria region by the name of Juan Carrión, who used the Beatles’ lyrics to teach his students, met Lennon during his time there.

He reportedly drove to the film set and finally managed to persuade the Beatles star and film actor to correct various transcriptions of lyrics from various Beatles albums he was using in his classes. Carrión complained to Lennon at the time about the fact that the British band didn’t print their lyrics on the jackets of their albums.

Carrión, who is now in his 80s and still a great Beatles fan, reportedly still has those notebooks to this day and – possibly by mere coincidence – from that moment on Beatles albums did come with lyric sheets. It was reportedly also while Lennon was in southern Spain that he wrote the hit Beatles song “Strawberry Fields Forever.”

A Spanish language film was made of Carrión’s famous meeting with John Lennon, titled Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed, a play on the lyrics of the song.

For interest, the trailer for the movie is included below with a teacher by the name of Antonio actually playing the role of Juan Carrión.

[Photo by Keystone Features/Getty Images]

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