Down Under with Julia Roberts’ makeup magician

SYDNEY, Australia – Richard Dean has touched the faces of the most beautiful women in the world, from Nicole Kidman and Demi Moore to Amber Valletta and Madonna.

He’s worked as a Hollywood makeup artist for 20 years, creating unforgettable looks for blockbusters like Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal and Meet Joe Black.

He is under contract to Julia Roberts to be her exclusive makeup artist on all her films, and has helped create the characters she has become famous for – from the terrorized wife in Sleeping with the Enemy to the conniving best friend in My Best Friend’s Wedding to the sexy whistleblower Erin Brockovich.

Thanks to his stellar resumé, he’s known in the beauty biz as the Dean of Makeup, and was recruited by Max Factor after he did Mona Lisa Smile to join its stable of cinematic makeup designers.

Dean was recently in Sydney on a five-stop Australian tour to share his makeup tips and favorite products, and I was lucky enough to be assigned to meet him. However, due to bad weather overseas, both my flights to Australia were delayed and I arrived Down Under sans luggage, clothes or cosmetic bag.

So there I was, set to meet Julia Roberts’ makeup magician bare-faced, and wearing the same clothes I wore on the plane (thank God for irons in hotel rooms). But I needn’t have worried. Richard Dean (no, he’s not MacGyver – that was Richard Dean Anderson) is a gentleman of the old school. Visions of Hollywood prima donnas or diva-like behavior disappear as soon as he starts speaking. Soft-spoken and utterly humble despite his stature in the industry, Dean brings to mind the glory days of Old Hollywood, when men were men and women were goddesses.

First stop: Dean’s guest spot on Mornings with Kerri-Anne, the number-one morning show in Sydney. Host Kerri-Anne McKinley tells her audience to stay tuned for "tips from a Hollywood makeup artist," and has Dean make over half a model’s face in between takes.

Dean says the new look now is all about "heat at the center of the face, with soft eyes and soft lips. It’s gone from a nightclubby to an older look, where all the warmth is at the center."

To prove his point, the makeup artist brushes a peachy-pink blush on model Kathy’s T-zone – across her forehead, down the bridge of the nose, on her cheek apples and chin. The result is a natural, healthy glow. Kathy looks subtly enhanced, and lit from within.

When they’re back on the air, Kerri-Anne asks Dean, "When do older women have to stop using shimmer?"

"They can still wear shimmer," he replies, "as long as it’s away from the papery area, close to the lashline." He also advises mature women to apply blush away from the nasolabial fold, the groove that runs from the nose down to the corners of the mouth, "because it emphasizes that dark area. Apply it the way the sun kisses you, so it looks natural."

The TV makeover finished, it was off to Cadmus Restaurant in downtown Sydney so Dean could launch Max Factor’s Color Perfection lipstick.

Against a spectacular view of the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, Dean did another makeover on an eager volunteer from the beauty journalists present. But first, he talked a little bit about how Max Factor innovated lipstick as we know it today.

A makeup artist and wigmaker for the Royal Ballet, Factor emigrated from czarist Russia in 1904 to America. When Factor founded his cosmetic company in Los Angeles in 1909, women’s magazines were then devoted to pattern-making. They weren’t the meticulously researched bibles they are today, nor were they devoted to beauty care. For one thing, there weren’t many products around – perhaps a few tinted creams and pomades formulated by pharmacies.

"Max Factor created systems of color," Dean says. "It was the first time a woman could emulate film stars who were larger than life."

There were five key moments in the evolution of Hollywood lipstick style. First was Factor’s creation of the rosebud mouth, or bee-stung lips. Lip paint back then had a tendency to run, so makeup artists had to keep it away from the corners of the mouth to prevent it from bleeding.

In 1928, Factor developed pan-chromatic makeup, which didn’t bleed, and pioneered the Cupid’s-bow look on Hollywood "it" girl, flapper Clara Bow.

In the Thirties, Factor invented lip gloss, and hunter’s-bow lips for the inimitable Joan Crawford. (He also created the first false eyelashes for silent-film star Phyllis Haver.)

The Forties saw his invention of Tru-Colour lipstick, while the Fifties ushered in his new era of lighter lipsticks. The shade Roman Pink, in particular, became a sensation.

"Back then it was critical that a goddess be separated from everyone else," he says. "People aspired to that. That evolved and now the audience wants to sense vulnerability, to see the real person behind the performance."

Today, Color Perfection, which comes in bullet form and 24 flattering shades, is the first gel-based moisturizing lipstick. Its soft micro-layers maintain moisture in the lips and allow the lipstick to glide on smoothly and wear off evenly, not in unsightly patches. It even smoothes out the appearance of fine lines and won’t bleed or sink into cracks. I tried the nude-pink Chenille and it looks and feels so great on the lips I slick it on like lip balm. In both Australia and the Philippines, Color Perfection will be available at Max Factor counters in October.

Max Factor the company has, if not reinvented, then reclaimed its status as the makeup that makeup artists use. The five makeup artists who are now the faces and voices of the brand have worked on practically every Hollywood hit in the last two decades. Dean, who began in theater and television, worked as makeup designer for Desperately Seeking Susan in 1985. That was followed by Fatal Attraction, Dick Tracy, and the pivotal Sleeping with the Enemy, where he met Julia Roberts.

"We didn’t have the best meeting of all time," he recalls. The movie’s location was moved from Hollywood to the East Coast, so the New York-based Dean was called in to replace the previous makeup artist, whom Julia knew. "The day we did the makeup test was the first time I met Julia, and just before the release of Pretty Woman, so that whole sensation hadn’t happened yet."

Roberts had to spend almost two hours getting her naturally curly hair blown straight for the role, so when she entered the makeup trailer, she wasn’t in the best of moods to meet an unfamiliar makeup artist. "By the time she got to me, she looked kind of dark, not very friendly at all," recalls Dean. "She looked at her watch and said, ‘You know, we don’t really have much time.’ So the pressure was on. I reacted in a very practical way. I had a counter full of stuff, and I split it right down the middle and left three colors. I told her, ‘This is going to be the most natural-looking makeup you’ve ever seen.’ Seven and a half minutes later I told her she could get dressed in the wardrobe trailer. She was so stunned that it was so fast, and when she went to a costume designer she had worked with before, he looked at her and said, ‘That’s the most beautiful makeup I’ve ever seen on you.’

"After that we totally hit it off. We share the same birthday, so she always says we’re psychic twins."

In between Roberts’ projects, Dean has worked on other films like Far and Away, The Firm, Pleasantville, Ocean’s Eleven, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Hitch. He’s currently working on The Sentinel with Michael Douglas.

Dean’s role as chief makeup designer is to define elements of the movie characters – their social and economic status, level of vanity, and to deal with technical problems. A film requires two to three months of continuity, which means characters have to look the same over that period of time as scenes are shot out of sequence, "so we need to have a level of control over what we’re doing."

Makeup for the movies is a completely different animal than makeup for fashion shoots, where flawlessness and flamboyance are key. "I always hope that my makeup disappears," he says.

For Erin Brockovich, for example, there were no beauty looks. "We just figured out what she had in her purse, investigated the local beauty magazines and saw what was popular. We figured she had a crushed piece of blue eyeshadow in her purse, then got a better-quality blue eyeshadow and black pencil as she got more successful."

For Closer, when Dean was doing makeup tests, director Mike Nichols said, "Forget reality; go to high glamour," so that’s what Dean did. "When Julia entered the room there was a visceral reaction," he remembers. "Hormones were flying, people were stealing glances."

It blew everyone away, but when Nichols saw the statuesque Roberts beside petite Natalie Portman, he changed his mind and told Dean to go for an unfussy look instead. "Natalie is this little porcelain doll with a pale complexion. It looked like Julia was going to kill her!" laughs Dean. "Even Jude Law was dwarfed by that big hair, large eyes, and red lips."

Asked to dish about which stars are the most difficult, he says, "People will ask who’s really temperamental. Oddly, it’s always the makeup and hair department because that’s the most labor-intensive. There’s more drama in the trailer than on the set," he laughs. "But I try to avoid divas and uncooperative people."

After years of working with genetically-blessed stars, it’s a bit of a surprise that Dean finds perfect symmetry boring, like a mannequin. "You have the power to do any correction, but don’t conceal everything," he advises.

"Beauty is always in the might-have-been."