This Michigan Barber Won Gold Then Tried to Cut Paul McCartney’s Hair

The U.S. only won a single gold medal at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, and it was won by a barber from Michigan who became one of the most iconic Olympic champions ever.

Terry McDermott was a 23-year-old speed skater from Essexville who cut hair at a barber shop in neighboring Bay City. In February 1964, he pulled off one of the greatest upsets in Winter Olympics history by winning the gold medal in the 500-meter speed-skating event, upsetting the heavily favored Soviet skater who had won the previous two golds in the event, a scowling brute named Yevgeny Grishin.

McDermott’s gold medal was the only one the U.S. won that year, and it provided a much-needed morale boost to a country that had just seen its young president, John F. Kennedy, assassinated a few months earlier.

McDermott was an unlikely national hero, but the country—and especially the people back in his home state—embraced him. He was an everyman in every way: a shy barber from a small town in Michigan with a new wife who trained for the Olympics whenever he could find the time.

He took to the ice in Innsbruck and beat a big, bad Russian in the middle of the Cold War, scoring an Olympic victory that no one could have predicted. It was the stuff of Hollywood legend. Everyone in America loved him.

“Fleet Terry McDermott, lithe and strong as a young lion, smashed an Olympic record and brought the United States a treasured gold medal here today. He beat the Russian champion to do it,” reported the Associated Press.

That was on Feb. 4. Five days later, the most famous barber in America was back, and he was about to become even more famous.

Ed Sullivan invited Terry to be on his show on February 9, and it ended up being the most-watched episode of “The Ed Sullivan Show” in history. That’s because four lads from Liverpool were also on the show that night.

That’s right: The gold medalist from Michigan was on Ed Sullivan’s show the same night the Beatles made their debut. A whopping 73 million people tuned in to see it. The Beatles opened the show with a medley of songs, and then Ed Sullivan introduced Terry McDermott in the audience, and then the Beatles performed again.

Oh, and right before the show, President Lyndon B. Johnson called Terry to congratulate him, too.

None of that could match what happened earlier that afternoon, though. Just as the Beatles were wrapping up their rehearsal, Ed Sullivan had an idea for a wacky photo. He had Terry the barber pretend to cut Paul McCartney’s trademark hair while the rest of the Beatles (and Ed) looked on in mock horror.

It was a brilliantly staged piece of PR, and that photo ran the next day in every newspaper in the country. It’s still one of the best-known photos the Beatles ever took.

Two days later, he was back in Michigan, where he was greeted by a crowd of 50,000 people at a parade that wound its way through Bay City and Essexville.

Gov. George Romney was among the 4,000 well-wishers who met Terry and his wife when they landed at the Tri-Cities Airport. Romney was up for re-election that year, and he told the crowd he was grateful that McDermott wasn’t running against him.

“All he’d have to do to run for governor and win is give the Beatles a haircut,” Romney quipped. “All of Michigan owes a debt to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph McDermott for having such a wonderful son.”

Indeed, and disregarding all the hoopla that happened in February 1964, it should be remembered that Mr. and Mrs. Joseph McDermott’s son wasn’t just a one-hit wonder—he was one of the greatest speed skaters in American history.

He first made the U.S. Olympic team in 1960 as a 19-year-old Michigan Tech student, where he finished seventh in the 500 meters. He left school and became a barber after that, working at Bunny’s Barber Shop, his Uncle Harvey’s place in Bay City.

McDermott got married and decided to try for the Olympics again in 1964, and he made the U.S. team easily. He was expected to be in contention for a medal, but nobody gave him any chance of beating Grishin, the Russian legend who had won gold in the event in both 1956 and 1960.

The skaters went two at a time and Grishin was one of the first to go. He recorded a time of 40.6 seconds, tying him for first place with a Norwegian and another Soviet skater.

McDermott was one of the last to go, and it was like he was shot out of a cannon. He roared around the track and when he hit the finish line, the timer read 40.1 seconds. Gold medal, and a new Olympic record.

Then came Ed Sullivan, and the Beatles, and a parade, and then … back to work at Chair No. 3 in Bunny’s Barber Shop, charging $1.75 for each haircut. He’d sign autographs and pose for photographs from time to time, but he still needed to make a living.

McDermott spent the next year-and-a-half cutting hair, and then he left the barber business and took a job as a sales rep in Metro Detroit. He and Virginia moved to Birmingham, and he decided to give the Olympics one more shot.

He made the Olympic team again in 1968, and the entire U.S. team honored Terry by voting him the flag-bearer for the opening ceremonies. The only gold medalist from 1964 certainly deserved it.

McDermott had taken two years off from the sport, so nobody was expecting him to do much on the track. They underestimated him again. The ice in Grenoble, France, was slow and slushy, but McDermott blasted his way through it to finish in 40.5 seconds, good for the silver medal—just two-tenths of a second away from another gold.

“I didn’t come back to the Olympics just to skate,” he said afterward. “I wanted to win a medal. I really didn’t know if I could do it. I was coming along slowly but surely and knew I had to put everything into one race.”

That ended McDermott’s skating career, but he stayed close to the sport for decades after that, serving as a TV commentator and judge, and as a mentor for the next generations of U.S. speed skaters.

Terry and Virginia raised five children, and in 1980, he started a company in Auburn Hills called Champion Plastics, which is run today by his son, Matt.

McDermott passed away in 2023 at age 82. Until the very end, whether he was cutting hair or judging a skating competition or meeting with a customer at his plastics company, people always asked him about winning a gold medal. And meeting the Beatles.

“I really wasn’t familiar with them,” McDermott said in a 2014 interview that marked the 50th anniversary of their appearance on Ed Sullivan. “I was told they were a famous rock band from England, and this was their first appearance in our country. I guess that was huge. People were going wild.”

Yep. Just like they did back in Bay City and Essexville.