How Shreveport native Andrea Mona Bowman became hairstylist to the stars

Emmy and Screen Actors Guild nominated hairstylist Andrea Mona Bowman was on the crowded set of the new "The Color Purple" musical for the filming of the opening scene. It was high energy, and she was feeling it.

She got more excited toward the end, because the first take was nearly perfect. She cheered, jumped up and down and, in her excitement, grabbed the hand of the person next to her, who also was celebrating. That's when she realized it was Oprah Winfrey.

It was another moment in Bowman's life when she felt the need to pinch herself to see if she was awake. The girl who grew up in the Mooretown neighborhood of Shreveport knows that she beat the odds,

“It's surreal," she said. "Even telling people what I've experienced, sometimes sounds like a movie in itself.”

When she returns to Mooretown, she sees a "shell" of what it used to be. She no longer sees the family-oriented community that she remembers from her childhood in the 1970s. She was raised there by her mother, Mildred Bowman, an Oak Park Elementary School teacher. It was there she sat on her porch as a child and felt that God told her she was destined for Hollywood.

“God is the key to my life," she said. "It’s a beautiful thing to know God, and God to know you.”

She started dancing at the age of 3 and loved acting and modeling. But it was her talent with hair that got her where she is today. Her talent and patience, because it would be years before she realized the dream.

Bowman clearly remembers the first haircut she ever gave. It happened by accident when her cousin, Tarchiner Youngblood, came home “screaming and crying” after receiving a bad haircut.

“What’s wrong?,” Bowman asked her cousin. She asked to see a photo of what her cousin had hoped the haircut would have looked like.

“When she showed me the picture, I could see the angles and I knew I could fix it,” Bowman said.

“I nailed it,” she said of that haircut. She followed that by giving her sister, Volanda Whitaker, a haircut. That led to a stranger complementing her sister and offering Bowman $50 to cut her hair. Bowman eventually became the most sought after hairstylist throughout high school.

After graduating Fair Park High School with honors, she attended Wiley University (then called Wiley College) in Marshall, Texas. Although she was majoring in science, she still did hair. She learned new styling skills from a friend, and once again became sought after by fellow students.

After a few years, Bowman was faced with some tough choices. By this time, she was a mother, and college became less assessable financially. Her future was unclear.

Bowman knew she needed to support herself and her children, so when she learned that the top hairstylists could make about $100,000 a year, she decided to go for it and enrolled at Pat Goins Beauty School.

She rode a bus from Shreveport to Baton Rouge to test for her Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology license. Bowman was nervous about the test, but she easily passed each of the five 30-minute tasks. She completed one, the finger wave, so fast that she was told it was a world record.

Bowman spent the next decade building her business at local salons, where she became known for her extensions. Everything was going so well that when she was offered a chance to work on a TV show pilot in New Orleans, she was a bit hesitant.

She decided to go, but on the drive down, she called her pastor, the Rev. Joe R. Gant of Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, for advice. He reassured her that she would be OK and that it was only a two-day job. More importantly, it reminded him of her hopes.

By this time, Hollywood had come to Shreveport. Major movies were being filmed locally, including "Mr. Brooks," starring Kevin Costner, and "Dark Places," with Charlize Theron.

Gant hosted an Easter lunch, and legendary hairstylist Kenneth Walker, who was working on "Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins" at the time, was invited. Gant knew he needed to introduce Bowman to Walker.

Walker has an extensive film roster and has worked on the hair of many stars, including Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts, Viola Davis, Janet Jackson and Vivica A. Fox. When he was introduced to Bowman, it did not take long before he knew he could help her career.

“I’m about to give you the chance of a lifetime,” he said to her.

After successfully working with him on "Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins," she was given the opportunity for her first film credit, "The Great Debaters," directed by Denzel Washington.

It was a film about her former school, Wiley College, and the story of its 1935 debate team. Like in the years before, Wiley meant studying and learning for Bowman, however this time it was about the hair techniques and styles of 1930s Black hair from the south.

Historic Black hairstyles became her niche as she went from set to set. As the years passed, her list of credits grew to include "True Detective" season 3 (where she was nominated for an Emmy), "Watchmen," "Respect," "Emancipation" and recently "The Color Purple." She believes in hard work and consistency, “Let your work speak for you,” is Bowman’s motto.

Today she lives in Atlanta but returns to Shreveport regularly. She was recently honored by the Shreveport City Council, was the guest speaker at a screening of "The Color Purple" at The Robinson Film Center and at a community event by Jacqueline Scott.

“For me, it's knowing who I am, even though I'm from a small town, come from the ‘hood.’ I'm not ashamed of that, I'm really proud,” she said.

She listened when her grandmother and mother told her that sometimes things take time.

“People want to plant the seed and want it to come to a full-on tree, that’s not how it works," she said. "That's why I preach it as much as I can, especially to those that I mentor, that the work has to be done, you have to research, and you have to study.”

This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Shreveport's Andrea Mona Bowman becomes hairstylist to the stars