John J. Lanzendorf, hairstylist to stars, renowned dinosaur art collector, dead at 76

John Lanzendorf knew about magnificence and likewise the beasts.

A Chicago hairdresser to society ladies and film stars, he amassed one of many world’s best personal collections of dinosaur artwork, with items so scientifically correct they had been displayed in museums. He solid friendships with paleontologists, visited their digs and as soon as mentioned he may title 700 dinosaurs.

A few of his works had been created by the artists and magic makers who helped convey dinosaurs to life in “Jurassic Park” and different motion pictures.

His ardour for the prehistoric wound up filling each desk and wall of his 1,250-square-foot condominium within the 200 block of East Pearson Avenue.

One show case held the origin of the species: little, inexperienced plastic dinosaurs he began amassing as slightly boy.

“I bought a dinosaur in a cereal field,” he as soon as advised the Chicago Solar-Occasions, “and I’ve been hooked ever since.”

“Lanzy” collected associates and dependable purchasers the identical manner he collected “paleo artwork.”

He labored as a hairdresser at Gold Coast salons, the place his prospects included Jane Fonda, Rita Hayworth, Angela Lansbury, Bette Midler and Rudolf Nureyev.

And he did hair for picture shoots by Victor Skrebneski, based on his pal Richard Wilson, an architect with Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Structure.

He styled stars showing on the Chicago Worldwide Movie Pageant like Leslie Caron, Claudia Cardinale, Catherine Deneuve, Deborah Kerr and Marcello Mastroianni.

“I’d ship them over to John, they usually all liked him,” mentioned movie fest founder Michael Kutza, who owns a life-size, fiberglass head of a T. rex that Mr. Lanzendorf gave him as a present.

Mr. Lanzendorf, who’d been recognized with pancreatic most cancers, died Might 27 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital after issues from surgical procedure, based on associates. He was 76.

Tons of of his items are on the Youngsters’s Museum of Indianapolis, which referred to as them “the world’s largest assortment of paleo artwork” after shopping for them in 2002. Some are featured in a brand new “Dinosphere” exhibit that opened there in March.

Chicagoans noticed a few of his acquisitions in 2000. When the exhibition for Sue, the Tyrannosaurus, debuted on the Subject Museum, his T. rex artwork additionally went on show.

“His assortment is the ultimate and positively a very powerful within the nation, if not the world,” then-Subject Museum CEO John W. McCarter Jr. mentioned in a 2000 e-book about Mr. Lanzendorf’s assortment, “Dinosaur Imagery: The Science of Lost Worlds and Jurassic Art.”

The writer, Tutorial Press, mentioned of Mr. Lanzendorf: “His assortment and admittedly obsessive curiosity in dinosaurs are the ultimate.”

He even had a Velociraptor tattoo on his higher arm, based on his pal Peter Makovicky, a paleontologist and professor on the College of Minnesota who previously labored on the Subject Museum.

“John’s personal phrases could be, ‘, I’m slightly loopy,’ ” Makovicky mentioned. “He would go all-in if he fell in love with a subject or passion.”

“John had a contagious persona, a welcoming method and a style and humanities aspect to him that was interesting to the numerous in Chicago whose lives he touched,” College of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno mentioned. “Chicago misplaced a pricey pal however benefited from his many connections and the artwork he so dearly liked, collected after which moved to a everlasting museum residence.”

Younger John grew up in Spooner, Wisconsin.

“On his 18th birthday, he bought a bus to Chicago, the place he would go on to have a 56-year profession as a hair stylist to the ‘who’s who,’ ” Wilson mentioned.

After cosmetology college, he labored at Bonwit Teller, Jon L. Goodman’s salon, the Lanzendorf Blankenship salon and most just lately Elizabeth Adam at Water Tower Place.

“You needed to be invited to have him reduce your hair,” his pal Janet Murphy mentioned. “He solely wished folks he favored.”

“All people talks about writing the John Lanzendorf jokebook as a result of he would hear these naughty jokes from wealthy ladies in Chicago,” mentioned his pal Douglas Van Tress, co-owner of Golden Triangle imports. “The sweetest, most subtle folks had been telling him these outrageous jokes with a Nineteen Seventies air about them.”

Van Tress mentioned he grew to become associates with him after Mr. Lanzendorf purchased a dinosaur egg from his artwork and design boutique.

“He collected all types of issues,” he mentioned. “However I notice his actual genius was placing folks collectively.”

“I’ve by no means recognized anybody with extra associates and such a pleasure to attach one to the opposite,” Wilson mentioned. “He had tons of of associates of all ages bracket and career.”

He’d host birthday events at Sayat Nova or Pelago Ristorante.

“He would begin to toast everybody who was there and inform a narrative about how he met all of them, and he would wind up weeping,” his pal Tom Murphy mentioned. “He’d get overwhelmed.”

Mr. Lanzendorf may introduce associates to the one who would promote them their dream houses. Or he may make one other type of match, pairing associates with the proper pet.

Makovicky and his spouse Sushma Reddy stopped in on the Anti-Cruelty Society with Mr. Lanzendorf as soon as, on the lookout for a canine to undertake. “Lanzy” zeroed in on a pleasant, calm canine. The couple walked out with him.

“Odin was our canine for the subsequent 14 years, a yellow Lab-pit combine, the gentlest canine,” Makovicky mentioned. “John noticed that in him in like a minute.”

He was an everyday at conferences of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, which manages an award he helped create: the Lanzendorf-National Geographic PaleoArt Prize.

It’s “the one​ award within the self-discipline given to artists,” mentioned Jessica Theodor, the president of the society, “and has stimulated quite a lot of fantastic work.”

“He supported these of us artists that had a want to convey dinosaurs again to life throughout a time when paleo artwork was not accepted as a reputable artwork type by the artwork neighborhood,” mentioned Mike Trcic, who helped create T. rex results for “Jurassic Park.”

“John made many people all really feel like rock stars,” mentioned David Krentz, who labored on the 2000 Disney film “Dinosaur” and on storyboards for 14 Marvel tasks. “He was one-of-a-kind, eccentric, loving, humorous, beneficiant and totally embraced himself and others.”

Buddies mentioned he funded scholarships for dozens of younger college students in China, which he’d visited on a museum fossil expedition.

After the Youngsters’s Museum of Indianapolis purchased his assortment, Mr. Lanzendorf pivoted to amassing Asian artwork.

He additionally saved uncommon parrots, cockatoos and macaws and two Grand Basset Griffon Vendéen canines. One was named Louis as a result of the breed was French. Mr. Lanzendorf, a tennis fan, named the opposite Rafa for tennis star Rafael Nadal.

Van Tress mentioned a celebration of Mr. Lanzendorf’s life will probably be held in July at Golden Triangle.

“I’m at all times requested what’s so nice about dinosaurs since they didn’t survive,” Mr. Lanzendorf as soon as mentioned in an interview with the Indianapolis Star. “Dinosaurs dominated the earth for 160 million years, they usually’ve been gone 65 million years. Man has been right here three to 5 million years, and within the final 100 years we’ve destroyed half the planet. We ought to be so blissful to be as profitable because the dinosaurs.”