Pioneer beauty salon operator, wigmaker JoAnne dies

Tuesday, Feb. 23, 1999 | 11:08 a.m.

Although stricken with leukemia and lung cancer and battling a bout with pneumonia, JoAnne Christopher left her sick bed in January to return to her in-home wig business because she had customers who needed their orders filled.

"She asked me to come to the convalescent home to pick her up because she had special customers she just had to take care of," longtime customer and friend Ruth Fisher said.

"That's how dedicated JoAnne was to her work. She just couldn't leave it unfinished."

JoAnne Christopher, who as JoAnne Imprescia operated with her late husband the Joseph and JoAnne Hair Styling salon for three decades, catering to Las Vegas showgirls, socialites and entertainers, died Feb. 14 at Valley Hospital Medical Center. She was 71.

Services for Christopher, who lived in Las Vegas 57 years, will be noon Friday at American Burial and Cremation Service, 310 Foremaster Lane.

In addition to Joseph and JoAnne Hair Styling, which operated from 1956 to the mid-1970s at 1147 Las Vegas Blvd. South, the couple also owned the Circle C and Beauty Box salons downtown from 1951 to 1955.

After Joseph Imprescia died, JoAnne operated other shops also called Joseph and JoAnne Hair Styling at two locations on Sahara Avenue through the early 1980s.

From the 1980s until her death, she ran a licensed wig shop out of her home.

While JoAnne was an expert in hair coloring, weaving and wig making, Italian-born Joseph was an accomplished hair stylist who was credited with giving longtime Las Vegas entertainer Keely Smith her trademark bobbed hairdo.

"Joseph and JoAnne's was the in-place for showgirls to get their hair done because the shop was close to the Strip hotels and they did all the top hair styles," said Donna Holladay, a Sands and Flamingo showgirl of the 1950s and '60s.

"It was always so busy and a real nice place to go."

At its peak, more than a dozen beauticians were on staff at the salon, whose interior was decorated in black and white with gold and wrought-iron accents.

"They really kept up with the trends in design and style," said longtime friend Ann McKinley, widow of big band musician and local television and radio personality Cal McKinley.

"JoAnne always wore fashionable clothes and jewelry and was dedicated to making all women who went into her shop come out looking good."

Fisher agreed: "You always came out of the salon feeling special."

Born Jahala Coe on Oct. 10, 1927, in Keokuk, Iowa, Christopher was the eldest of five children of typewriter factory worker Howard Coe Sr. and the former Lillian Bishop. At a young age, Jahala started calling herself JoAnne and the new name stuck.

Raised in Syracuse, N.Y., Christopher dropped out of high school at 14 and began working in beauty salons. At one shop, she met fellow beautician Joseph Imprescia, who was about a quarter-century her senior.

Joseph had started working as a barber's assistant in Italy at 6 and came to the United States with his family when he was 11. He was said to be the first male beauty shop operator in Syracuse.

In the late 1940s JoAnne began making wigs, a practice at which Joseph also was adept.

The couple married in upstate New York and in 1951 came to Las Vegas, where they opened their first salon on Fourth Street.

They long boasted that their entire stock of hair attachments and full wigs were custom-made from European human hair.

In the mid-1960s JoAnne opened a shop in Reno with another business partner.

After Joseph died in 1976, JoAnne met Peter Christopher. They married in 1977. He survives her.

In her later years, JoAnne enjoyed tending to the needs of her loyal hair-piece customers and playing weekly canasta games with Fisher and other friends.

JoAnne was diagnosed with leukemia about three years ago and later she was diagnosed with lung cancer but continued working until about a week before her death.

In addition to her husband, Christopher is survived by two brothers, Howard Coe Jr. and Wilbur "Wib" Coe, both of Las Vegas; and two sisters, Rehna Fiumano of Albany, N.Y., and Kietha Andrews of Roseville, Calif.