If you’re looking to be primped and pampered like a movie star or even a president — George H. W. Bush once personally called down for a massage — Ettore Spa in the Marriott Hotel is the place to go. The spa is run by Gary and Ettore Mastroddi, one of the city’s most famous sets of gay twins. I stopped by to speak to Ettore (aka Eddie) about life as a twin and what’s new in the beauty biz.
PGN: You have such a great name. Where did it come from? EM: I almost didn’t have the name. When we were born, it was at the start of the space race and John Glen had just become the first man to orbit Earth. The news media wanted my mother to name one of us John and the other Glen, but my mother wanted us to be named after family members. My brother Anthony was named after one grandfather and I was named after my father. My twin Gary should have been named after my other grandmother’s husband, but she remarried five times, so instead of picking one over the other, my mother named him after her favorite movie star, Gary Cooper. The salon is named after my father and me, but no one knew it at first. People usually call me Eddie, so when we opened up, everyone was saying, “Who is Ettore?” Especially when they saw pictures of me and Gary in all the media for the salon. We were originally going to open up a second location named after my mother, Eve, but that might have really confused people; pictures of me and Gary under the banner of Ettore & Eve.
PGN: How long have you been in the business? EM: I started out as a hairdresser 30 years ago.
PGN: Tell me about you as a kid. EM: I got into a lot of trouble!
PGN: What’s the worst thing you did? EM: [Laughs.] Oh my God, don’t make me tell you. OK … when I was little, I didn’t want to dress like my twin anymore, so I set fire to all my clothes in the yard. I got a beating for that! My mother also tried to send me to school on the SEPTA bus in my underwear with nothing but a lunch pail to teach me a lesson about burning my clothes. I cried and refused to leave the porch, so she finally let me get dressed in some of my brother’s clothes. The next day she gave me all his old stuff and bought him all new clothing.
PGN: She sounds like a no-nonsense kind of person. EM: She was. She knew we were a handful, so she had to stay on top of it. We were little devils, times two.
PGN: Tough love? EM: [Laughs.] I’d walk into the house and she’d smack me in the back of my head and say, “That’s just in case you did something at school that I don’t know about yet!”
PGN: Preventive punishment! EM: That or pre-cognition. She knew when we were up to something. Gary always used to say, “Hey, you got me in trouble!”
PGN: So, three boys in the house … EM: And a girl. I have an older sister, Yvonne. She’s married with kids, actually with grandkids now. She’s eight years older than me and Anthony is 10 years older. And I’m 20 minutes older than Gary. When we were first born, Yvonne cried for about a week because she wanted a baby sister. We’re all best friends now, but we used to terrorize her when we were little.
PGN: How so? EM: She used to have to babysit for us and she’d invite friends over. We’d sneak up on them after we were supposed to be asleep in bed, smack them in the ass and run up the stairs. Anthony used to work at the Drake Hotel and I have fond memories of going to work with him. He used to do all the set-ups in the ballroom for parties and functions and I used to help him. He had a good eye for setting up all the décor and stuff.
PGN: Does he still do that? EM: No, now he works with alcohol and abuse centers in Philly: He runs a few houses for them and does a great job. We’re really proud of him. My sister was a typical New Jersey housewife. Her kids are all grown now, so she works at this sandwich place in Jersey that everyone flocks to from miles around. She’s been there for about 13 years and really enjoys it.
PGN: Where did you get your creative side? EM: I think I got it from my grandmother. She was in the theater in Rome, Italy. I have some pictures of her on the stage when she was about 30 years old and she was beautiful. She looked like she was about 19. So I got my theatrical side from her and my fashion sense from my mom.
PGN: What was your earliest memory of doing hair? EM: Ken and Barbie! I used to steal my sister’s dolls and make new hairstyles for them. Later, I started dating a guy who was going to hair school and I decided to go along with him just to keep him company. I graduated and he didn’t! That was the end of our relationship.
PGN: What was your worst hairstyle? EM: I did the whole ’80s thing. I rocked a mullet for a while, I had the Duran Duran highlights and the David Cassidy feathered hair from “The Partridge Family” days. I did them all.
PGN: Favorite class at school? EM: I took dance classes at the High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, which I really loved. I got a degree in drama from Temple and I was planning on being a dancer or an actor. I also took a lot of math classes because I was thinking about being a physicist. I don’t know where that came from. I liked dealing with chemistry and stuff but it took a back burner to the theater work.
PGN: Gary was a math major, wasn’t he? EM: Yes, he graduated from Wharton School of Business at University of Penn.
PGN: What was your worst theater experience? EM: I did dinner theater. I was in “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and I fell off the stage — twice — doing the same routine. Other than that, I made a pretty good cowboy!
PGN: What type of dance did you do? EM: I did jazz, modern dance and ballet.
PGN: Are you still involved at all? EM: In a way. I’ve done some hair work for the Pennsylvania Ballet Company. I’ve designed wigs for some of their new shows.
PGN: What do you do when you’re not doing beauty stuff? EM: I do a lot of charity work — it’s kind of my hobby. I like to give back. I just accepted my first chair position for the Delaware HIV Consortium. I also started getting into baking recently and I really enjoy it. It relieves a lot of stress.
PGN: What’s the nicest thing you’ve done for someone or that someone’s done for you? EM: Oh gosh, I don’t know … I have a friend, Sue, who was turning 50, so I wanted to do something really special for her. She loves the beach so we took a whole bunch of her and her friends to Miami to celebrate. As for me, whenever someone goes out of their way to do something for me, for no special reason, I find it touching and flattering. I don’t expect anything from anyone, so even if it’s something small, I appreciate it. Especially if they don’t tell me and I hear about what they did later, I get all ferklempt! I’m blessed to have good friends around me. I guess what you give away in your heart comes back to you.
PGN: What was your biggest style mishap? EM: Those ’80s Robin Williams overalls with the suspenders! I was cleaning out my closet last year and I found them and just cracked up. I was like, “What am I still doing with these hideous things?” Do you remember them? And you know how gay men are: The guys used to wear them without anything underneath, which was tacky, not to mention uncomfortable!
PGN: What’s a family tradition you enjoy? EM: Gary and I both love to travel so, every year, we go someplace new for New Year’s Eve. We go to another state or another country to celebrate our blessings and honor the fact that we’ve worked so hard throughout the year. It’s a fresh start for the next year ahead. This year we almost didn’t go. The economy has been down and everybody is cutting back, but I said we need to do something, so we celebrated New Year’s Eve here with our friends and then hopped on a plane at 4 a.m. to go to Palm Springs for New Year’s Day.
PGN: So speaking of twin stuff, do you have any twin powers? EM: [Laughs.] We do have a deep connection and I think we know each other very well. I think if you’re with anyone long enough, you start to finish their sentences and are able to tell what they’re thinking. You can read their mind from a distance, for instance if they’re in a room and want to leave, you can feel it. That sort of thing. One weird thing that happens to us a lot is that Gary will be in a room talking to someone and I’ll be in another room and the person will come over to chat with me. I’ll say something out of the blue and the person will say, “Oh my God, your brother just said the exact thing to me, word for word, two minutes ago.” That freaks me out a little.
PGN: What’s the worst thing people ask? EM: Oh God. “Do you guys have sex together?” That’s the first thing that pops into most guys’ heads. I guess boys will be boys and they think it’s some kind of fantasy to have two guys at once, especially twins. But the answer is no. I guess it’s universal: Look at all the straight guys wanting to be with female twins. I mean I’ve looked at twins and thought, “Hmmn. That might be interesting.”
PGN: That’s too funny, someone approaches you and Gary and you’re like, “Oh my God, that’s sick!” and then your head turns when a different pair of twins walk by. [We both giggle.] EM: I know, double standard! Don’t print that!
PGN: Too bad, it’s too funny to leave out. EM: [Wiping his eyes.] OK, go ahead. It is what it is. This is fun.
PGN: What’s the biggest twin prank you ever pulled? EM: One year we switched classes. I took his English class and he took my math class so that we could get out of school early. Since he was good at math and I was good at English, our grades suddenly jumped when we switched, so you’d think someone would have noticed, but it went on for close to a year before we got caught. I think one of us screwed up and answered to the wrong name. When they finally caught us we almost get expelled from the school. My parents were ready to kill us!
PGN: Who was the bigger disciplinarian? EM: My mother for sure, she ruled the house and we were part of her domain. My father never raised a hand to us ever … ever. They did the good-cop, bad-cop thing. He took care of the business and she took care of us.
PGN: Speaking of business, I’m here drinking water with cucumbers in it and it’s really refreshing. You have such wonderful little touches at Ettore; who comes up with them? EM: I do most of the things directly related to the salon and Gary is more the business end. I like to read a lot and I’m always looking for things to enhance the salon. I also travel a lot and steal ideas from some of the best hotels! I think I got the cucumber idea from the Ritz-Carlton.
PGN: What’s fun about running the salon? EM: I think it’s doing bridal parties. I love to see people enjoying themselves and we try to make it over the top. We do little giveaways and pour champagne, and make it a memorable event for them. We are prepping them for the pictures that they are going to be looking at for the rest of their lives. I feel it’s an honor to be given that responsibility. We’ve been blessed to do quite a lot and I think it’s because people really know that this is one of the best spots in the city to have your hair and makeup done for your wedding or special occasion. It’s a joy to do and I personally oversee each one.
PGN: What’s new here? EM: We just opened up our first MedSpa. I always want to keep on the cutting edge of things and this is where we need to go. You have a lot of baby boomers, including myself, who are getting older and want to look young. I discovered a company that did photofacials and laser facials and a battery of innovative treatments. I tried some of them and I began to look and feel younger, so I wanted to offer them to my customers as well. I brought them here and now we have a whole range of services, from botox for your skin to whitening treatments for your smile, Latisse to grow your eyelashes, as well as the usual salon and spa services. Whatever you need!
Ettoré Spa 1201 Market St. (215) 928-9010 www.ettorespa.com
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