In 1957, when Domenico Candelieri immigrated to America as a teenager from Calabria, Italy, he had one goal in mind: Making a living.
More than 50 years later, Candelieri has accomplished much more than that. He owns and runs the Michelangelo's Hair Salon in Braintree. He teaches Italian to continuing education students. He's president of the Italian American Cultural Organization of the South Shore, and a fund-raiser for several local charities. And at age 70, he said he's working harder today than he did half a century ago when he was struggling to make it in America.
"When you're in a new land, you want to make it because nobody gives it to you," said Candelieri, who goes by "Dominic," speaking with a still-rich Italian accent. "The hours you're working means nothing. It was a challenge, more than anything. That's how I live my life."
In addition to his many roles in the Braintree community, Candelieri found the time recently to write, edit, and photograph a cookbook with 220 of his favorite recipes from his homeland. Candelieri has been sharing his recipes with clients for years, but recently, a customer suggested that he write a cookbook. A year later, it was done.
"How to Master Italian Cuisine" sold more than 600 copies out of his salon in two months. In an hour and a half on a Tuesday afternoon earlier this month, Candelieri sold five copies - at $25 a pop - to a few excited clients, former students, and acquaintances.
Frank Burns of Holbrook was one. "My wife cooks," he said, "And I just came back from Italy, and I'm going back. I'll go to Rome."
"You better come south!" interrupted Candelieri. "You have to stop in Calabria."
Burns insisted that he'd been there before, but Candelieri wouldn't hear it. He opened the first page of his book and pointed to a picture of a modest one-story home.
"This is the house I was born. This is my town," Candelieri said.
He pointed to the trees in the valley below his house, his wrinkled fingers tracing fondly over the photograph in the spiral bound book.
"All what you see here is mine. You go there and you pick the olive tree. You go there and you pick the fig trees." He smiled. "Everything at your fingertips."
Candelieri's heritage has played a major role throughout his life, influencing how he cuts hair and cooks to the work ethic that has made him a popular local figure.
Born in Italy in 1938, Candelieri later spent five years learning hair styling in Italy through an apprenticeship with a master stylist - a process much different from the way stylists learn in America, he says.
"We don't go to school" for it, he said. "You work in the summer and learn the trade. They watch you carefully, what you're doing, and then one day they say, 'Dominic, here are the scissors. Cut the hair.' And he's confident that Dominic will cut the hair the way it's supposed to be done."
Candelieri immigrated to New York with his father at 19; his mother and siblings followed two years later.
Candelieri's first few years in the United States saw him jumping between cutting hair and owning restaurants. He first found work as a stylist under a family friend at a salon in New York City. It puzzled him that day after day, though Candelieri insists he was a more skilled stylist than his boss, his boss always had more clients than he.
One day, his boss told him "the secret."
"He said, 'You have to go tonight at home and learn a few words,' " Candelieri said. Leaning in as if he were sharing the secret ingredient of a family recipe, he recalled them: " 'Madame, how do you like to have your hair done?' he said," said Candelieri, with a triumphant grin.
"A month later," he continued, "I have three times more clients than he does because there was the secret. In Italy, we don't ask the client how you want your hair to be done. We are the masters. We look at you, we look in the mirror, we see what type of face you have, and we create a frame perfect for you. But in this country, the customers tell you what to do."
After working there for a few months, Candelieri decided to try his hand at something else. He moved to Boston and ran a sit-down restaurant in the North End with an old family friend, called Mario's Deli. It was successful because he made good food, said Candelieri. In an Italian neighborhood, he said, it had to be good.
"If you don't know how to cook, nobody comes to you," he said.
Although he loved to cook, Candelieri hated the long hours of owning a restaurant. "You get up at 4 o'clock in the morning you're still working until 6, 7, 8 p.m. You have no time," he said, shaking his head. "I said, this is not in my heart. I want to go back to hairdressing."
So Candelieri worked again as a stylist, for the Gilchrist department store in Boston. Once again, the long hours made him want to start setting his own.
He opened his own salons in Quincy, Braintree, Brockton, Dedham and Weymouth. In 1982, after operating all five salons for 10 years, he decided to shut them and use the money to build a new one on Pearl Street: Michelangelo's.
Candelieri says he's leading a full life, enjoying being a father and grandfather. His son Frank, 41, owns a landscaping company in Braintree, and he calls his four granddaughters - Gabriella, Isabella, Alessia, and Francesca - sources of "incredible joy."
Candelieri is 70, but he sees retirement as many years in the future. He has a few ideas, including hosting his own cooking show, or writing another cookbook. But for now, Michelangelo's is where Candelieri would like to stay.
Until his wife of 41 years, Antoinietta, forces him to lay down the scissors, he said.
"Hair is my passion and it's in my blood, and I will do hair until I die," he said. "My own clients say, 'When are you going to retire?' " he said.
"I say, if I retire, who's going to do your hair?"
Sara Jacobi can be reached at sjacobi@globe.com.
