Jamie Lee Curtis' Stunning Hair Transformation Through The Years

Jamie Lee Curtis has sustained a stunning transformation over the course of her decades-spanning career, which includes the "Halloween" franchise to "The Bear" to the long-awaited sequel to "Freaky Friday" and everything in between. She continues to take big swings with the roles she picks, and more often than not, those swings pay off; in 2023, she won her first Oscar for her work in the surreal, genre-bending indie flick "Everything Everywhere All at Once." While Hollywood isn't always kind to women as they age, Curtis has embraced this chapter of her career — and personal life — with both arms. "I have really let go of my vanity," she told AARP in 2025. "I am free, totally free." 

Though Curtis may have "let go" of her vanity, she sure hasn't let go of being a hair icon. Even the most casual fans of her work know that she's rocked a number of incredible 'dos over the years, and yet, she's still had some hair ups and downs. As she stated in Bill Adler's 2001 book "Funny Ladies: The Best Humor from America's Funniest Women," hair is one of the features many people — including herself — switch up again and again over time. "People get real comfortable with their features. Nobody gets comfortable with their hair," she said. "Hair trauma. It's the universal thing." From the heavily chemically processed tresses to the more delicate cuts, this is Jamie Lee Curtis' stunning hair transformation.

Born on November 22, 1958, Jamie Lee Curtis grew up in a famous household. Her parents were Hollywood superstars Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, and she and her sister, Kelly Curtis, sure led a life that was different than most. "I have been a professional actress since I was 19 years old so that makes me an OG Nepo Baby," she wrote on Instagram in 2022. "[T]here's not a day in my professional life that goes by without my being reminded that I am the daughter of movie stars."

Before she became a professional actor, Jamie Lee Curtis was often photographed with her incredibly famous parents, and her fashion sense was apparent even then. When she was a toddler, her parents kept her natural brown hair short, and kept the styling simple. This hair look certainly went well with the outfits her parents picked out for her, as white porcelain doll-like dresses seemed to be a fixture of her wardrobe. 

By the time she was in elementary school, she was ready to try new 'dos. In 1966, Jamie had a brief mid-length bob and bangs moment. This particular bob didn't last long, as she reverted to a much shorter hairstyle just a year later.

In the early '70s, Jamie Lee Curtis, who was a preteen at the time, grew out her shorter cuts and embraced lengthier hairdos. Per the trend of the era, she wore her tresses in layers that framed her face. She stuck with this length throughout her preteen years and even followed her well into high school. 

Curtis' hair wasn't the only thing that changed. The future silver screen star went to three different schools throughout high school, and the transition wasn't always easy. As she shared on Instagram in 2021, "A LONG time ago in a galaxy far far far away I went to boarding school for my senior year of high school. I was a California girl at a New England prep school, a cheerleader and I was lonely. I had such a little idea of who I was and even what I thought and felt." In the post, she included several photos taken during her high school years. In all of the pics, her hair is either feathered or pin-straight and goes to at least her shoulders.

By the late 1970s, Jamie Lee Curtis was on her way to following in her parents' footsteps. From her earlier gigs on game shows and her guest appearance in "Quincy, M.E.," Curtis landed a star-making role as final girl Laurie Strode in the 1978 horror film "Halloween." While it's impossible to imagine anyone else as Michael Myers' ultimate nemesis, initially, the young actor's hairstyle at the time apparently wasn't exactly right for the role. So, she made a change. 

As Curtis told Rotten Tomatoes in 2018, "I had a perm when I met John [Carpenter], but then they decided they wanted my hair straight, or, not straight, but not frizzy like a perm. And so then I remember putting hot rollers in my hair each day to get it to kind of straighten out." And with that, the less curly, shoulder-length do became the character's trademark style. So much so that in future films, wigmakers reimagined the look to accommodate the changes Curtis made to her actual hair.

After the massive success of "Halloween," Jamie Lee Curtis quickly became known for her horror movie roles. In the '80s, she appeared in a wide range of scary flicks, including "The Fog," "Prom Night," and "Terror Train." As her star continued to rise, Curtis switched up her look yet again. While she spent the '70s maintaining a classic shoulder-length layered hairstyle with a few tweaks here and there, she entered the '80s adopting a unique hairstyle made popular by Jane Fonda.

While Fonda has gone through a hair evolution of her own, she was once the face of the "Klute cut," a shag haircut she wore in the 1971 film "Klute." This usually featured full bangs and feathery layers that framed the face, creating a tousled and chic look. The Klute cut was Curtis' go-to hairstyle for a bit. In 2022, she took to Instagram to share snaps from a 1978 photoshoot for "Road Games." "A klute, pun intended, throwback Thursday to when I thought I could play pool/snooker and thought I could rock the Jane Fonda 'Klute' haircut, and pull off the linen does wrinkle outfit," she wrote. "Remember, there were no stylists or glam teams back then. Funny to see it. I think this was from the movie 'Road Games' that I made with Richard Franklin in Australia with Stacy Keach." 

While many of Jamie Lee Curtis' hairstyles over the years looked effortless and cool, many of the 'dos actually required a lot of work and even some chemicals. Alas, some of these processes did more harm than good. As she shared in a 2022 Instagram post, she ended up chopping off all of her hair in the early '80s after damaging her tresses. "The late, great Steve Shapiro took this in 1983 after I had a bad perm on top of bleached hair, and all my hair broke off, and I was taken to José Eber, who gave me my first great short haircut," she wrote. This ultimately unlocked Curtis' signature style: the pixie cut. 

In May 2025, Curtis took to Instagram to look back on a photoshoot she did with Paul Jasmin after she chopped off all of her hair. In the caption, she shared that after Jasmin showed her a portrait of another film star with a similar hairstyle, she felt confident that her own haircut was the right move. "It was this portrait of Berry Berenson that I first saw and realized that there would be a chance for someone like me to have a different look and feel than what I was seeing everywhere else, and it gave me confidence to be myself," she said.

After dazzling audiences in the 1983 comedy "Trading Places," Jamie Lee Curtis proved that she has the range. She went on to star in features like "Perfect" and "A Fish Called Wanda," and her pixie cut went along for the ride. By the time she starred opposite the late Richard Lewis in the sitcom "Anything But Love," she had notably grown out her hair, opting for softly tousled bangs instead of a teased pixie cut.

Curtis tended to mix things up for special occasions. For red carpet events, she frequently pinned the longer portions of her hair up and left her bangs down in the front. At the 1989 Emmys, for example, her short hairstyle with full bangs looked elegant and so very her. Wouldn't you know it, she'd recreate the look at the Golden Globes in 1990, where she won best actress in a TV series for her work on "Anything but Love." (Hey, if it isn't broken, why fix it?) Wearing a shimmering black gown and gold hoops, her soft bangs were noticeably styled to show off a little more of her forehead than her hairstyle at the 1989 Emmys.

After getting her start in Hollywood as a "scream queen" who transitioned into comedy, Jamie Lee Curtis spent the '90s securing high-profile gigs. The '90s also happened to be another decade where Curtis experimented with her signature hairstyle, both on and off the screen. In the 1994 Arnold Schwarzenegger flick "True Lies," for example, Curtis took on the role of Helen Tasker, who in one particularly memorable scene, slicks back her pixie cut with vase water. 

For the premiere of "True Lies", Curtis skipped the vase water look. Rather, she went with a shorter bob styled with soft waves that framed her face. At the 1995 Golden Globes, she wore a similar style with some more length. And while portraying the no-nonsense Willa Weston in the 1997 film, "Fierce Creatures," she gave the shorter layered hairstyle a professional, low-maintenance touch to mirror her fictional counterpart. Whether it be a meticulously styled bob or a simplified layered waves, Curtis seemed to be having a little fun with her locks during this time.

In a decade filled with frosted tips, emo fringes, curtain bangs, and "skunk" highlights, Jamie Lee Curtis accidentally found herself at the forefront of an iconic Y2K hairstyle. Similar to Halle Berry, whose own hair evolution saw her rock an iconic pixie cut, Curtis sported the edgy version of the notable 'do in the early 2000s. The look was on full display in the 2003 remake of "Freaky Friday." Starring opposite Lindsay Lohan, Curtis played Tess Coleman, who, through a series of supernatural events, swapped bodies with her angsty teenage daughter.

Before the characters switched bodies, Curtis maintained a classic, dark red pixie cut. But after the changeup happened, Curtis went with a shorter, spiky pixie cut that was red with blond accents. As the story goes, Sean James — who's been Curtis' go-to hairstylist for years — helped Curtis go red on a moment's notice. In a 2025 interview with The New York Times, Curtis shared that she landed the role at the last minute after another actor dropped out of the project. "I read the script on Friday, flew home on Saturday, had my hair dyed red Sunday, and was working Monday — with a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old at home, playing a 15-year-old," she said.

Although Curtis eventually moved on from the red hair and blond highlights after the movie's release, she continued to stick with the pixie cut. As she said on Instagram in 2025, "[W]hen I have my hair cut the way I love it and the way it suits me, it gives me the freedom to exist with no make up and very little fuss."

As previously noted, Jamie Lee Curtis has had some bittersweet experiences regarding chemically processing her hair. While one could argue that if she never damaged her hair, she might've never found the hairstyle that complemented her personal style, on the flip side, her bleaching mishap in the '80 was not exactly ideal. So much so, she began shying away from coloring her tresses. And then, after "Freaky Friday," fans noticed that Curtis apparently pivoted away from hair dye altogether. While her signature spiky pixie cut stuck around, there were noticeable accents of gray that Curtis likely kept colored in the years prior. Though this look proved to suit her well, Curtis told Marie Claire in 2007 that she did catch some heat when she went all in on embracing her natural color. "I had people who were emphatic in their disapproval, insisting it would age me," she said. "Now they're all eating crow and saying how right I was to do it."

Given Curtis' strong opinions about plastic surgery and the concept of "anti-aging," it's clear that her decision to welcome the grays represented her acceptance of the inevitable change in her appearance. While describing her own hair journey on "Lorraine," Curtis made it clear that she doesn't miss spending a ton of time in the salon chair. "I tried to do everything you can do to your hair," she said. "Personally, I found it humiliating. I would go into a hair salon, the smell of the chemicals. The feeling of that color on my hair. The wearing the thing. Sitting under the hairdryer. And I was like, 'For what?'"

Once Jamie Lee Curtis all but gave up hair dye in the 2000s, she dove headfirst into being a silver fox in Hollywood. As far as the styling went, Curtis didn't stray too far away from her signature pixie, even if it meant adding just a little more length. The edgy cut was usually swept to the left side of her face, adding some movement. From 2003 onward, this became her go-to 'do, with the only difference being her grays becoming more prominent. But by the late 2010s, Curtis was ready to play with color again, and her hair shifted from a darker gray to a vibrant white. At the 2019 Golden Globes, her locks were icy as can be — and yes, they looked fab.

At the event where she got frustrated with Fiji Water for their "blatant promotion" on the red carpet, Curtis wore her pixie cut swept back, which gave the hairstyle an elegant and fun twist. Her hair color coordinated perfectly with the bright white color of her dress, and that was not a happy accident. As her longtime hairstylist Sean James told Spa and Beauty Today, "Jamie's white gown was the inspiration behind her radical change of hair color, and we discussed a month prior to the Globes the idea of matching her hair color to her gown. That's what led to the creation of her platinum white 'Ice Queen' color."

In January 2025, Jamie Lee Curtis went to the Palm Springs International Film Awards where she presented Nicole Kidman with the International Star Award. Curtis' pixie was a little longer than it had been in the past, and though it still looked chic as can be, she clearly was not keen on the length. "I'm making do with a growing out haircut for some work I did last year that we are doing some added shots for, I was so happy to suit up and show up for Nic," she wrote on Instagram. 

Ultimately, Curtis didn't wear her grown-out pixie cut for long. In April 2025, she returned to the shorter version of her signature hairstyle, snapped a selfie, and shared the update with her fans online. In an Instagram post, Curtis expressed her deep appreciation of the more cropped hairstyle, noting that this was a hairstyle that made her feel the most like herself. "I have been working for the last year and a half and needed to grow out my hair for one of my jobs," she wrote. "I am grateful that Sean James has been in charge of this haircut for a long time, and returned me to it yesterday, and I woke up this morning and thought, 'Okay, now I look like me.'" 

Given Jamie Lee Curtis' commitment to maintaining her natural hairstyle, wigs have become a staple of on-screen career. Whether it be Laurie Strode's signature long hairstyle in the 2018 reboot of "Halloween," Deidre Beaubeirdra's blond bob in "Everything Everywhere All At Once," or Donna Berzatto's messy shoulder-length hairdo in "The Bear," we've seen Curtis sport hairstyles in roles she likely wouldn't wear in real life. The same can be said about the wigs she wore for the "Freaky Friday" sequel, "Freakier Friday." 

Photos of her wearing longer gray hair circulated online in 2024, garnering mixed reactions from fans on social media.  The wig was so seamless, some fans thought Curtis actually grew out her hair for the role. She'd even go as far as to wear a wig while promoting the movie in August, only this time, Curtis opted for a shaggy cut that called to mind the "Klute" cut of yore. This, of course, was the hairstyle Curtis wore for the movie, as she thought this specific version of Tess Coleman would embrace a classic, throwback look. Within the same month, she took to Instagram to share that her main inspiration for this hairstyle was Pat Benatar, who also wears a shaggy cut with vibrant accents of grays. "Well, I guess the secret is out," she wrote. "I think Tess is really, really into Pat Benatar and may have stolen her look for 'Freakier Friday.'" Rock on.