Chippewa the movie hairstylist

For stylist Clifton Chippewa, combs and scissors were the stuff of Hollywood dreams

By Julie HindsAs a teen, Clifton Chippewa spotted a photo in a magazine that made him dream of a career in Hollywood.

"I saw Vidal Sassoon cut Mia Farrow's hair for 'Rosemary's Baby' and I thought that I want to do that, so I can get into movies," he says.

Forty years later, Chippewa is busy with jobs on film sets. The 57-year-old Ann Arbor hairstylist worked over the past year on "Prayers for Bobby," "America," "Betty Anne Waters" and other movies drawn here by the state's tax incentives for filmmaking.

Now he's up for an Emmy for a prime-time cable movie filmed in metro Detroit.

He's part of the team nominated for outstanding hairstyling for a miniseries or a movie for "Gifted Hands," the TNT movie about acclaimed neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who was played by Cuba Gooding Jr.Comment:  Chippewa is a member of the Saginaw Chippewa tribe.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.