Tucson's barber for six decades dies

For more than a half-century, he took a little or a lot off the top in his downtown shop at 53 N. Sixth Ave. - a shop redolent of hair tonic and festooned with everything from buffalo and javelina heads to grainy photographs of men flexing their muscles.

Though he sold the shop in 2001 to his friend Tom Curley, Gibson still cut hair at the shop every Tuesday until about three years ago.

Besides his wizardry with a pair of clippers, Gibson was a decorated veteran of World War II.

Volunteering as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne, he jumped as a medic in the Normandy invasion in June of 1944, was taken prisoner and worked in a makeshift German evacuation hospital.

Liberated in August 1944, he rejoined his old outfit, where he jumped into Holland and fought for 72 days straight.

Serving in blizzard conditions during the Battle of the Bulge, he suffered frozen feet and continuous shelling. On Jan. 9, 1945, shrapnel penetrated his lung and liver, and he was hospitalized for 11 months.

His awards include the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star Medal with oak leaf cluster.

Back home in Tucson by late December of '45, Gibson, who stood 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 140 pounds, organized weightlifting competitions. He won the title of Mr. Arizona in 1950 and Mr. Tucson in 1951.

He continued the weight training for much of his life, winning medals in several Senior Olympics competitions. Until it closed in 2003, he also operated a gym-equipment store for decades on Sixth Avenue downtown, not far from his barbershop.

Born Aug. 27, 1921, in Humboldt, S.D., Gibson moved as a 14-year-old to Tucson with his mother so she could nurse a brother ailing with tuberculosis back to health.

The family settled into a rented house on a chicken ranch that would one day become Quail Canyon Golf Course, on North Oracle Road near West Rudasill Road.

During his junior year at Tucson High School, Gibson's mother came down with TB. To help make ends meet, Gibson signed up with the Civilian Conservation Corps and was sent to a camp on the Mogollon Rim. "I made $30 a month and sent $22 home," he would later tell the Star.

There is where he taught himself to cut the hair of his camp-mates - with a $3.50 set of barber tools ordered from Sears Roebuck.

About the same time his two-year stint with the CCC was ending, his mother died. So he took his savings from all those haircuts and enrolled in barber college in Los Angeles.

After graduating in May 1942, he took his state exams in Phoenix, paying a transient $5 to be his shave-and-a-haircut demonstration model.

Back in Tucson, Gibson landed his first barbering job at the old Santa Rita Hotel, making $28 a week. And that's where he returned as soon as his wartime recuperation was done.

Swell times, as cowboys and cattlemen mingled with the winter visitors, all eager to shell out 65 cents for a haircut, 35 cents for a shave.

In 1947, he married the former Pearle Klamm, and together they would raise four children.

But Gibson hankered for his own barbershop. He found it in 1949 at the old Palace Barber Shop, on North Sixth Avenue. Price tag: $3,000 - including the sinks, the tortoise-shell mirror and the mop bucket that the shop would still boast 40 years later.

But one change did occur quickly. Not long after acquiring the shop, he renamed it Johnny Gibson Barber Shop.

Times were good for barbers back in the '40s and '50s, when Gibson was building his business as well as his body. Men and boys wore their hair short, and everyone found occasion to come downtown.

And then came the '60s, when downtown businesses fled to the suburbs and hairstyles started creeping over ears and past collars.

Gibson cut his five-chair operation back to two chairs. Eventually, short hair bristled back into favor, and high school and college boys rediscovered the charms of Gibson's hole-in-the-wall shop.

"There was one group of guys from the U of A who held their graduation party at the shop about 10 years ago," said Gibson's son, Steve Gibson. "They liked their hair 'high and tight.' "

Curley, who bought the shop from Gibson, said customers today range from "the barrio kids to Social Security people."

Gibson, of course, also got his ears lowered at his own shop, courtesy of Floyd Leporino, who has worked there 19 years.

"He always had the same style except when he had cancer," said Leporino. "Before he lost his hair, he said, 'Give me a crew cut.' That was his first crew cut other than in the Army."

During the past year, Leporino went to Gibson's house to give him his haircuts.

"He was not only my boss but my friend over the years," Leporino says. "To me, he was always a prince of a man."

Lymphatic cancer first came calling for Gibson in 1996. "I had 10 weeks of chemo and 24 radiation treatments," he told the Star in 2001. "They burned me up, but the cancer went away."

In 2007, it returned. Gibson also suffered a recent series of mini-strokes and two falls, said his son, Steve, who is maintaining a collection of his father's memorabilia. Among the choice items: two barber chairs and, of course, that woolly buffalo head.

Johnny Gibson is survived by Pearle, his wife of 63 years; a son, Steve Gibson; daughters Shari Gibson and Marsha Gibson; six grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Another son, Jim Gibson, died in 1995.

A life celebration will be held at 4 p.m. June 18 at the Armory Park Center, 220 S. Fifth Ave.

Contact Bonnie Henry at 573-4179 or at bhenry@azstarnet.com