For 45 years, hair and makeup artist Steve Romero has been transforming faces into monstrous creations.
Romero, a young 70, honed his skills working on movie sets, opera stages and in haunted houses. His passion for makeup art hasn’t faded and you’ll find him religiously every Sunday face painting at the Live Oak farmer’s market.
Especially during Halloween, ghoulish werewolves, fire-eyed femme fatales and zombies are included in the vast array of characters Steve Romero can adeptly airbrush into life.
“It’s so rewarding to put a smile on their face, or a smile on their parents’ face,” Romero says, sharing the joy he finds in the farmers market community.
Romero says he’s been “doing scary, evil, crazy makeup” for a long time, gaining much of his experience working in a reputable haunted house in San Diego called The Scream Zone, where he prepped actors for their acts for more than 14 years.
Romero followed in father Nando’s footsteps, who started doing hair and makeup in the late 1950s. A year after starting beauty school in 1980, Romero joined his father and older brother at the family salon, The Hair House. He continued working in salons throughout the 1980s and 1990s into the 2010s while also shooting photography at his father’s fashion shows.
It was during this same period in the 1980s that Romero began working with his father doing theatrical makeup at the San Diego Opera. “I loved what I saw. I saw creativity and expression and I was hooked from day one,” Romero enthuses. Early on, he worked with Luciano Pavarotti. He learned to create effects for the stage, using water-based theatrical makeup to draw exaggerated lines. “If you’re on stage without makeup, you look drab and plain,” he explains. One technique is to draw heavy lines under the eyes, highlighted by white to bring out the eyes.
A move to South Lake Tahoe in 1992 gave Romero the opportunity to work on Hollywood movies being shot on location. One time in particular, Romero reminisces, he worked with iconic movie actress Betty White on the movie The Retrievers (2001):“That was a blast. That was the highlight of my career.”
Steve Romero made a move to Santa Cruz several years ago, leaving once again his native San Diego shores to find a new community. He has been painting faces at the farmers market ever since.
He still has contacts in the film business and sometimes gets a call at 5 in the morning to work on makeup for a movie set or a Kodak commercial. A little over a year ago, a director called up Romero to ask him to show up the next day to work on a short film, “I Said I Will,” with musician and local celebrity James Durbin.
“I love it because I love working with a crew,” Romero says. Anyone can jump in and share their vision or understanding for a shot, he explains, be it someone from lighting, the director or producers.
Generally, hair and makeup artists are given an illustration to work from. Romero recalls being on set for a production based on Showgirls. In one scene, there was a volcano behind the dancers and the producers had the idea of creating a fire flame effect on the dancers’ eyes. “We used Austrian cut rhinestones to create an arc along the eyebrows, while glitter strips were placed on the edge of the eyelids to accentuate the flame effect, explains Romero.
Find Steve Romero on Sundays at Live Oak farmers market stand. Call 951-795-9086 for a face-painting appointment.
