A Highbury hairdresser to the stars has revealed how as a young woman she struggled to wash the locks of actor Marlon Brando while he, in jokey mood, pretended to be asleep.Vera Mitchell, 72, who worked in the film industry for 40 years, will write about her extraordinary friendship with Brando, who died in 2004, in a book which she is completing about her life. After travelling around the world many times, living variously on a Greek island and later in Los Angeles, she finally retired to her flat close to Highbury Fields three years ago. The book, which will include personal photos of her with the stars, is expected to be snapped up by a publisher.In it she writes about working with Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman, Marlene Dietrich and Russell Crowe.Born and brought up in Stoke Newington, Vera, who has a son, believes that people in showbusiness felt safe to open up to her because she was always strictly professional and never fazed by fame.

• Keywords
  HAIRDRESSING, ACTORS, FILM INDUSTRY
• Geographical keyword
  HIGHBURY
• Persons keyword
  Vera Mitchell, Marlon Brando