The personal touch keeps the customers coming back

By Joe Mordini
Daily Record
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Michael Turallo is good with a thread and needle, but he is doing what he loves: styling hair and talking with family.

"Working with a piece of material is like working with the dead," says Turallo, a one-time tailor who today is the owner of Michael’s Hairstyles on Broadway. "I like to work with people. If I don’t see people, I’m dead."

Turallo, 62, a father of three and grandfather of two, emigrated from Rome, Italy, on Feb. 6, 1960, at 19 years old. He considers his customers family. Pictures of customers adorn the walls alongside pictures of his family.

The Denville resident is proud that he has cut the hair of many generations of families.

"My friends, I treat like family," he says with a thick accent as he perms Jule Gimbel’s hair. "I call all my customers my babies."

Other hair stylists and barbers on Broadway, a main artery in downtown, have either moved or passed away, he says. But Turallo, who was born in Muco Lucano, Italy, has been in town for 40 years. A large photo of his birth city hangs on his wall.

His salon was on Orchard Street for six years before he moved it to Broadway 34 years ago.

"You do it for 40 years; how can you quit?" he says with a shrug. "I am the oldest left on Broadway.

When he came to America, he stayed with family in Albany.

"I didn’t like Albany, too cold," he says. He then moved to New York where he met people from his home town who lived in Denville.

It was tough, at first, because he didn’t speak English and he missed his parents in Italy.

"In the beginning, you suffer a bit," he says.

Nothing but love

Turallo met his wife, Josie, in Denville and fell in love with the town. A photo of the two are in a frame on the counter with a smaller photo of a young Turallo.

"I love the people in Denville," says Turallo, who owned his own beauty parlor in Rome, where he learned to sew and style hair .

"As long as I am in control, I’ll keep working," he says. "I don’t feel like I work."

Turallo’s oldest daughter, Cathy, 38, has worked as a stylist with him for 20 years.

"He is the best loving and generous father," she says. "It’s nice to spend time with your father. I never worked with anybody else."

She gives Dan Diaz a high fade.

"I wish I was you. You get the whole summer off," she says to Diaz.

Diaz, 14, of Denville, has finals and got home from school around 12:30.

"I just rode my bike here to a haircut and some food."

Gimbel, a Denville resident, gets a perm every three to four months.

"He does what is best for you," she says.

It’s a family atmosphere in Turallo’s shop, which has blue and brown walls. He jokes with his customers. They trade stories, philosophize about life, talk about the rules of soccer and their grandchildren.

"I enjoy the atmosphere," said Harriet Weyant, of Mount Tabor. Weyant, who is getting her hair styled and colored, said she used to bring her twin grandsons for haircuts. "My grandson came home for the weekend," Weyant tells Turallo.

The sound of a dryer drowns out the conversation between Weyant and Turallo. He sips coffee and orders hair products from a saleswoman.

Weyant, an avid golfer, tells a story of how she met her husband on a golf course.

"He lost a ball in the woods and found me," she says. "In retrospect, he wonders if he should have left me and taken the ball."

Darran A. Simon can be reached at (973) 428-6630 or dsimon@gannett.com.