Everyone's life has a story. In "Lives," we tell some of those stories about North Shore people who have died recently. "Lives" runs Mondays in The Salem News.
BEVERLY — He was christened Frederick Hashem at birth, but if you knew him or any of the several businesses he owned over the years, you knew him as Lucky. So Lucky he'll be.
The details behind the nickname are a little fuzzy, but there was a movie starring a character with that name when he was younger, and his friends thought it fit him.
As luck would have it, there were at least two other Luckys roaming Malden at the time, and his sister, Elizabeth, married one of them.
Lucky Hashem opened a sub shop in Malden — Lucky's Submarine Shop — after serving in the Navy at the close of the Second World War, and then he took up barbering.
This was back in 1951, when barbers cut men's hair and stylists and beauticians dealt with the ladies, but that didn't last long with Lucky.
He worked for a couple of other barbers in Malden, then got his big break.
George Page thought his clientele at the Hilton Colonial Inn in Wakefield would appreciate having a barber on the premises.
Lucky's Hair Studio opened there in 1957, and lucky it was, as he became the stylist to the stars.
Celebrities passing through town at that time often stayed at the Colonial, and Lucky's wife, Carole, has dozens of framed photographs of them getting their hair cut by her husband.
"To Lucky, Best Wishes, Buddy Rich," one is signed. Athletes Bobby Orr, Rico Petrocelli and Carl Yastrzemski; comedians Mort Sahl and Rodney "I get no respect" Dangerfield; even Debra Barnes, Miss America 1968, all had their locks shorn by Lucky.
And so did those who aspired to fame.
A local newspaper used to run a photo with a brief caption every week called Man of Distinction, and Carole says guys used to fight with each other for the honor.
Lucky was branching out, and that's how he and Carole hooked up. She was raising and showing Afghan hounds at the time, and one of the gals who worked for Lucky bought one. She told Carole her boss was opening a beauty salon at the Colonial and was looking for someone to run it.
"The Colonial Hilton — that sounded pretty good to me," Carole said.
The couple married on Jan. 21, 1978.
A little over a year later, tragedy. Lucky had a son, Steven, by a previous marriage. He was riding his motorcycle home on Memorial Day 1979 when he was hit head-on and killed instantly.
Lucky had to identify the body, and he had nightmares about it for years. He would see his son's hand, just the hand, reaching out of the ground while he called, "Dad, help me. Dad, help me."
He buried his son on June 2, his birthday.
Lucky's Hair Studio eventually became Lucky's Hair Studios, and he opened another shop in Tewksbury, as well.
In the early 1960s, Lucky had bought one of the first ranch-style homes on Cornell Road in the new Campanelli development in North Beverly. Now he and Carole bought a bigger place on Dartmouth Road, where he lived the rest of his life.
The couple opened a new shop — you guessed it, Lucky's — on Elliott Street in Beverly, and Lucky started sponsoring the Lucky's Hair Studios men's softball team.
"He became a manager as much as a sponsor," Carole said. "Those guys loved him. All the ballplayers came to the funeral with tears in their eyes."
In the glory of their youth, they were very, very good. Carole said the team finished seventh in the nation at a tournament held in North Carolina in the 1980s.
He also sponsored a snowball tournament on Hobart Street in Danvers for a while.
Lucky was known for his cigars. He was rarely without one, and when his doctor forbade smoking after a lung operation, he just chomped on them, flicking them up and down between his teeth.
Back when he was lighting up, he once dove into the family's backyard pool with a burning cigar in his mouth. When he popped up, the stogie was extinguished but still in place.
His luck turned sour when he fell ill in 1998, and though he had surgery, he was never completely well after it, losing 100 pounds during the course of his illness. Carole was caring for him right up to the end, which came Saturday, Oct. 31, in his home of complications from cancer.
She said she doesn't know what she's going to do without him. "My life is not going to be the same," she said.
Not to say there is ever a blessing in lengthy sickness, but daughter Caroline said for the family it was a bridge to his death. Little by little, he'd been slipping away for a while.
Lucky's youngest daughter, Leanne, was born when he was 58. She had only 23 years with her father, less than most kids expect, but she doesn't regret it.
"I'd rather have him for a short time than somebody else longer."
Staff writer Steve Landwehr can be reached at 978-338-2660 or by e-mail at slandwehr@salemnews.com.
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