The method haircut that won an Oscar

The killer bob modelled by Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men was so repulsive, so overwhelming, it seemed to me that it was the haircut that won the Oscar for best supporting actor. Certainly it was method hair: the power behind the performance. It was the single thing that changed the normally brooding, come-to-bed-with-me Bardem into run-from-me psychopath.

Academy Awards presenter Jon Stewart said it combined Hannibal Lecter's murderousness with 70s Olympic ice skater Dorothy Hamill, famous for her wedge cut. It is wedgy, greasy, somehow old womany, and that, combined with Bardem's machismo, makes it unsettling. The actor himself is supposed to have reacted, "Oh no, now I won't get laid for the next two months," when he saw it.

Now the man behind the cut has emerged. He is a Canadian hairdresser from New Brunswick called Paul LeBlanc who has previously styled hair on movies such as Star Wars and Casino, and who shared an Oscar with make-up artist Dick Smith for his work on Amadeus.

Le Blanc says that his inspiration was from the crusades, "when knights and Muslims were murdering each other, and this was a typical haircut. It was a dangerous time and we wanted to make Javier timeless and dangerous at first sight."

I'm not sure about the timeless bit - although it possibly draws on Joan of Arc's martyrdom cut, it seems more 1970s Purdey to me.

Hairdresser Mark Smith, from the John Frieda salon in London, observes, "It's basically a barber's short back and sides which has been allowed to grow and left unwashed till you can't put a comb through the grease. You do see people with that haircut very occasionally. The thing that makes it creepy is that the wearer seems unaware of what it's grown into." Unlike Bardem, who was well aware of what was on top of his head, and went as far as crediting it in his acceptance speech.

LeBlanc hasn't had many customers popping into his salon for the bob but he quips, "It seems as though in the States young men are asking for it."

Really? I consulted Jayson Stacy, who works from a salon in Los Angeles, and is a stylist for American Idol. Can this be true? "Oh hell no," he says. "This is an old school Sassoon bowl cut and no country wants a bowl."